Correction: At 5 mins 33 seconds, it should be "around 3100 counties" (not 1300). An interview with astrophysicist Niayesh Afshordi from Perimeter Institute about his new pandemic model. Among other things, we talk about herd immunity and the reception of his model by epidemiologists. You find more information about Niayesh's model here: http://nafshordi.com/covid/ and the paper is here: https://arxiv.org/abs/2007.00159 Support me on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/Sabine #science #epidemology #covid 0:00 Intro 0:38 How did you get into pandemic modeling? 2:24 How does the model work? What data does it use? 5:48 What Niayesh's group did that no one has done 6:48 Paper and Website 9:08 What have they found? 12:21 What's the difference to compartmental SIR models? 16:20 How has the reaction to the model been? 16:44 What the model says about herd immunity 19:55 Are physicists of any use for pandemic modeling?