Why shouldn't you try to help by pivoting your research to COVID-19? Because your pivot has current costs which almost certainly outweigh its future benefits. A brief thread with some perspective (my own perspective as a scientist) on @Y_Gilad's important request. 1/ https://twitter.com/Y_Gilad/status/1249855564466749442

This is not about dissuading selfish opportunists. This is for the folks who are not trained experts (e.g. on treatment for coronavirus infection or vaccine production), but are highly trained scientists and genuinely think they might be able to help. 2/

The illusion is that every little bit helps, that this is the moment where turning our collective brainpower to fighting COVID-19, even if we're not experts, might lead to the breakthrough we need to save lives. Isn't this our moment? 3/

The reason "I can help" is an illusion is that there are significant costs to non-experts attempting to help *while the COVID-19 outbreak is happening*. In brief, your attempts to help sap important resources--not just supplies, but cognitive and public-health resources. 4/

For example, we all know how much time/energy actual experts ( @mlipsitch, @trvrb) spend addressing surface-plausible (to some) ideas/strategies which are wrong, unworkable, or even dangerous. ("I already had COVID-19/it was engineered/here's how to get herd immunity"). 5/

Behind the scenes, I know that many of my colleagues, desperate to help, are requesting accommodations for their students to go to lab to work on new COVID-19 projects. Overburdened evaluators must then divert time to trying to assess whether the benefit outweighs the costs. 6/

People seem to be mistaking "potential benefit" (the best outcome, the argument for grants) for "expected benefit" (the likely outcome). Folks are proposing fundamental biology projects! The expected benefit of these are almost always low, regardless of their potential. 7/

The more plausible the idea, and the more enthusiastic/persistent the researcher, the more energy it takes for leadership and experts to evaluate what is almost certainly an unworkable approach and then talk the researcher down. 8/

If you've felt this deep urge to help, I'm with you. I've felt it powerfully. I have non-scientist friends whose lives have been upended by COVID-19 saying "Can't you just solve this?" and asking why I'm not working on the problem. 9/

But the answer is that best thing I (and in all likelihood you) can do, given my scientific training, is *stay out of the way until the pandemic has passed*. 10/

For perspective, I sat on @trvrb's Ph.D. committee at Harvard. The likelihood that someone with my scientific training can help with COVID-19 right now is effectively zero. 11/

In the meantime, the guiding principle if you want still want to help should be: how can I work on this problem while imposing zero cost? No lab -- #StayAtHome . No friendly requests to experts who happen to be friends. No applications requiring evaluation. No noise. 12/

As a scientist who feels like many of you feel: it's more than okay to not help with COVID-19, it's better. The firefighters are at work, and non-firefighters rushing to help creates more problems than it solves. 13/

Stay at home, and stay out of the way. Be ready to leap into action when asked by an expert. When the COVID-19 fire's out, and the experts no longer need to focus exclusively on it, the rest of us will have our chance. (14/14)