Over the last few weeks, we at 500 Women Scientists have been closely monitoring news and developments around the COVID-19 pandemic. We recognize that many of our members and their communities have been growing concerned and anxious and are looking for positive ways to channel their energy. We’ve put together a list of things you can do in the coming weeks to follow expert guidance, share expertise of your own, and serve your communities.
Practice and adhere to guidelines to slow the spread and impacts of COVID-19
The days of denial are over, now we must all focus on flattening the curve. This means focusing on lowering the peak of transmission and buying time for healthcare professionals to deal with increasing demand, while allowing researchers to continue developing drugs that target COVID-19. The simplest and most important action we can take is to stay home if remote work is an option and eliminate all non-essential travel. If we can take this action collectively, it will be most effective and powerful. Anyone can be a vector to spread the virus, even without obvious symptoms, so social distancing should be in full effect.
Remote work and paid sick leave are privileges that not everyone has, so flex your privilege where you have it. If you are in a position to grant sick leave or telework to those you manage, please do so. If you are paying someone regularly for work—from research technicians to cleaning staff to administrators—please consider continuing to pay them for as long as possible.
If you’re an educator who is now teaching virtually, you can take steps to ensure your virtual teaching is accessible to those with disabilities. This guide is a helpful place to start.
If you’re an organizer, you can join this call with fellow organizers on Monday, March 16th to discuss how to organize virtually.
Transformative Spaces has also crafted a list of demands to advocate for in your local communities to ensure adequate and evidence-based action is taken to address the pandemic.
If you were planning on attending a conference that has now been cancelled, consider sharing your talk or poster in a repository like the Open Science Framework, Figshare, or Zenodo.
Sharing through one of these platforms allows you to still share your work with the community and get a DOI so you can cite and get credit for your work.
For more on preventing spread, visit the CDC’s website and check out this guide from the Atlantic with “The Dos and Don’ts of ‘Social Distancing’”.
Share Your Expertise
Our partners at Skype a Scientist are seeking experts in virology, epidemiology, public health, and medicine to share their expertise. To sign up visit SkypeAScientist.com.
Join the Request a Woman in STEMM database.
The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) has designed a chatbot called “Jennifer” as a pilot to share reputable scientific information with the public. “Jennifer” has received an overwhelming number of questions about COVID-19, so NASEM is seeking volunteers to help design questions to train the chatbot and write answers to questions using reliable sources. Sign up here.
Edit Wikipedia entries related to COVID-19 to ensure information on the encyclopedia is accurate and up-to-date. For a tutorial on editing, visit here.
If you’re bi- or multilingual, translate resources—this includes Wikipedia pages—around COVID-19 into new languages for those in other countries.
Spread information, not xenophobia. Panic around the pandemic has led to an ugly and unacceptable rise in anti-Asian discrimination. Avoid perpetuating and help in de-bunking xenophobic and anti-scientific myths in your communications around COVID-19.
Be Generous, where you can
Acknowledge that this is a very anxious time for everyone—a very normal response in times of great uncertainty—and take an extra few seconds to be kind to people.
Check in on neighbors, for example, by leaving notes in mailboxes with contact info, especially for older neighbors. Social cohesion degrades during isolation and is especially dangerous for those who are already isolated in their community putting them at a much higher risk of untreated illness, emotional and mental anguish, and loneliness.
If your university has shut down or you are in an area where a university has shut down, take in a student who cannot afford to travel back home or must remain because of travel restrictions.
If you have the means, consider donating to the organizations and institutions that will be hardest hit during this pandemic. The most vulnerable populations include the homeless, people without reliable access to healthcare, and people who cannot work remotely or from home, including healthcare workers and other essential personnel.