I wonder if someone should not be trying to set up a dedicated econ-epidemiology research centre. Compared to the money splashed [rightly] on actual drug research you would need peanuts. 5-10 million for 4 years say.
The Imperial model and those like it have lots of empirical detail about contact rates, but no economics. The main macro models, at NIESR, HMT, BoE and the private sector, have economics [of varying quality] but no epidemiology.
In this new era of super off-site working it should be easy to do what are normally the difficult things, find premises, get people together, etc.
The lack of coherent epidemiological thinking in the Treasury announcements is pathetic, presuming that there is none behind them, and even somewhat chilling. This can be fixed cheaply!!
This is not really an academic job; as academic as central bank economist research jobs, probably. So academics fundraising for their time won't do it. You need dedicated resarchers committed to detailed and policy relevant updates. With research on the side.
You can't get a publication out of 'should we reopen swimming pools?' But you also need people with the analytical heft to do the modelling, so to get them you will have to let them write papers on the effect of heterogeneous contact rates on the macro cost of a pandemic.
If you get adequate funding, perhaps staff members could teach a course here and there at affiliated universities, and give public lectures.
I sense from the modelling and off model research I encounter on here and elsewhere in my daytimes, that scientists don't want to delve into the economics, and economists don't want to tread into the epidemiology. Both need to do both to put our policy on a proper footing.
Might need regular access to serious computing facility, which means affiliating to and paying a uni.
You need good access to and relations with government. That's where the outputs [what will happen if we do x or y?] are targeted. But need to be independent of it and the outputs need to be transparent, from code to, minutes, to papers, slide shows.
Some of the outputs would be a quick turnaround. If you got wind of or advance notice of pubs opening, you need to figure out a way to model it and simulate it in a few days. Some would be much lower frequency: harder thinking about how the virus affects behaviour.
You'd need expertise in writing, archiving and managing code properly; knowledge of hardware and ways of maximising efficiency of computation... through the science of epidemics.. through macroeconomics.... monetary econ... finance...
