What do viral marketing campaigns, mathematical epidemiology and virtual reality all have in common with the COVID-19 Coronavirus? Well, they are all directly or indirectly affecting you right now and each one of them can help you understand and fight this global pandemic.

This is an unprecedented time in human history. While we have faced and survived the spread of devastating global diseases in the past, such as the Bubonic Plague, Ebola and SARS, we have never before fought with the tools now at our disposal. This is both a good and a bad thing.

Before we continue, though, it is important to me, both ethically and professionally, that I disclose to readers of this long-form essay that I am not a mathematical epidemiologist nor am I a physician. I am simply the CEO of a spatial computing company in Seattle, Washington with a penchant for connecting the obvious and the obscure in rational ways that are rooted in empirical evidence and thoughtful analysis. This particular skill set and experience has also provided me the unique opportunity to actively serve on a think tank solving important problems around human performance and advising the U.S. Government on immersive solutions that impact the execution of current task orders and forward-looking capabilities in this arena.

On a more personal note, my friends, family, employees, customers and partners have been affected in myriad ways by this new global pandemic, providing me with particularly intimate motivations to draft this essay.

Allow me to offer a cogent analysis of our current global state and promote the use of evidence-based science to temper the transmission of irrational fears and weave together the links between viral marketing campaigns, mathematics and virtual reality to show how we can use each of these tools to not only fight the COVID-19 Coronavirus, but aspire to eradicate it entirely.

The emergence of social media has given rise to the social influencer, promulgating their views to people around the world. The major problem with this is that, just like the rapid spread of a virus, the personal opinions of these so-called influencers infect people who are both trusted confidants and complete strangers. Thus, creating an echo chamber of half-truths, outright fabrications and even rock-solid facts, but also making the identification of each nearly impossible.

Examples of this are the viral marketing schemes and memes of Apple’s Think Different, What Color Is This Dress, and Grumpy Cat. These range from professional, multi-million-dollar marketing campaigns to completely free posts on Reddit. However, they all share one thing in common: advertising through a self-replicating process that behaves a lot like a viral disease.

These campaigns achieved exponential growth as one person shared the advertisement or meme with another person, thereby infecting them with its message. Then the newly infected person shared the same advertisement or meme, infecting yet another and on it went until exponential growth was organically achieved.

These marketing campaigns, professional or not, spread between people through social networks, self-replicating and sometimes mutating to something else entirely. Regardless of their spread or mutation, they all eventually achieved a propagation threshold through their contact networks and eventually died out, sometimes literally as in the case of our beloved Grumpy Cat.

But there are other, more sinister examples of such exponentially growing schemes that have yet to reach a growth threshold, as is the case with the anti-vaccination movement.

This movement started with a single paper published by now-discredited British ex-physician Andrew Wakefield in 1998, where he suggested that autism spectrum disorders were linked to the application of the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine. Now, I don’t know if it was a particularly slow news day or some other machination, but the media pounced on Wakefield’s paper and began stoking the fears of millions, leaning on the one-time credibility of Wakefield, simply to sell a few more papers.

It worked.

Unfortunately for the rest of the world, people stopped exposing their children to MMR vaccines and the cases of measles alone escalated by a dramatic 2,200% increase in ten years! As scientists studied Wakefield’s supposed findings, they found no link between MMR vaccinations and increased rates of autism. Shortly after, it was found that Wakefiled received almost half-a-million dollars from law firms seeking cases against pharmaceutical companies manufacturing vaccines. As though that was not enough of a conflict of interest, Wakefield also applied for a competing MMR vaccine he hoped to one day sell.

It seems that Wakefield’s motivations were primarily driven by ego and money. His ruinous efforts have since resulted in fear mongering against vaccination, with such fears being defined as “vaccine hesitancy.” In fact, the World Health Organization lists “vaccine hesitancy” as a top 10 global health threat.

Let’s not let this happen again.

Instead of indulging in fear, we need to proceed with an evidence-based approach to medicine and use our science and studies to sample from large and meaningful cohorts that enable us to draw appropriate conclusions on the spread of disease and the development of a vaccination to our current global health threat of the COVID-19 Coronavirus.

When a vaccination is developed, take it!

Simply, we need to trust in evidence-based science and utilize the incredible tools at our disposal to track and eradicate this disease. The propagation of truthful evidence through our social networks that challenge our choices, rather than confirming our fears, is a powerful weapon in the fight against COVID-19.

Math is another one.

Math may be our most important weapon in this fight.

There is no denying that math has directly impacted all of us in one way or another. Perhaps your love of math has helped you explore the world in ways that have brought you quantitative success or perhaps, like me, math is something you struggle with, but know is important so you work hard to understand it. Whatever your relationship with math, there is no denying that it is at the heart of everything: art, science, music, nature, the cosmos, literally everything. Especially now, math is the primary weapon we are already using in the fight to map the progression of the COVID-19 Coronavirus, understand its behavior and develop interventions to stop its spread.

Math has empowered us with an elegant model to represent the spread of disease: the S-I-R model. Originally developed by Scottish physician-turned-mathematician, Anderson McKendrick, and biochemist William Kermack, during the third Bubonic Plague outbreak in the early 1900s, their S-I-R model became one of the most important tools to track disease spread and is still in use today.

The S-I-R model is a shorthand that classifies a population into three distinct groups: Susceptible-Infective-Removed. Susceptible are those people who have not yet contracted a disease; Infective are people who have contracted a disease and are at risk of infecting others; and Removed are the people who have successfully recovered from the disease or who have died as a result of it. As I will explain here, the S-I-R model is still a pragmatic tool for disease modeling and prevention. The S-I-R model helps predict that outbreaks such as the COVID-19 Coronavirus die because of a lack of infective people, not a lack of susceptibles. Let me explain… using very simple math, of course.

The COVID-19 Coronavirus does not behave like a self-sustaining virus, because some people actually die after contracting it. As a result, one underlying assumption we can make is that the S-I-R model presents an accurate mathematical model to predict the spread of COVID-19. However, because it seems that people can carry the COVID-19 Coronavirus without showing symptoms, making them asymptomatic, they are considered a new class we will call Carriers. Therefore, we need to slightly update the S-I-R model to S-C-I-R for Susceptible-Carrier-Infective-Removed.

As a result of my professional and personal dispositions mentioned at the beginning of this essay, we as a company have made the obvious and easy decision to offer our virtual reality platform named rumii entirely for free. We’ve also constructed virtual spaces so that people distributed around the world can continue to work and learn. This is our clear moral imperative.

As a continued effort to help in the fight against this disease, we’ve also constructed virtual spaces for medical professionals to interact with 3-D models of the COVID-19 Coronavirus, work the math using our math modeling tool and work together in distributed virtual environments, but feel as though they are all working in the same room at the same time to solve this crisis. So, let’s continue.

COVID-19 appears to be a so-called “zoonotic” disease, meaning it is transmitted between animals and people, and it also has a relatively long incubation period of up to 14 days after exposure, with symptoms including fever, cough and shortness of breath. This data helps us model the virus’ spread using the clearly defined S-C-I-R model.

Much like the viral marketing schemes mentioned above, COVID-19 is spreading exponentially through multiple channels independent of one another. People who have never been in contact with known infectives are still spreading the disease. All of this helps us calculate the probability of whether or not the virus will continue to spread or die out entirely though a number known as the basic reproduction number, noted as R₀.

Considering COVID-19, if its R₀ value was less than 1, then it should have already died out. However, this is known not to be the case. The World Health Organization (WHO) has estimated that the R₀ value of the COVID-19 Coronavirus is somewhere between 1.4 to 2.5, while other well respected medical journals estimate it to be higher, somewhere between 3.28 and 2.79. Regardless, the R₀ value of COVID-19 is most definitely larger than 1, meaning that the virus will continue to spread exponentially.

There is good news.

The exponential growth of COVID-19 predicted by its basic reproduction number means that, just like the popularity of Grumpy Cat — and Grumpy Cat herself — the virus should reach its peak relatively soon and begin to decline simply because of the decrease in infected susceptibles.

There is another number to consider in this model, however, and that is the value of Rₑ. Essentially, this represents the virus’ effective reproduction number, meaning the average number of secondary infections. If Rₑ can be brought below 1, then the virus will simply die out.

So, where do we go from here?

Though scientists at the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and other research institutions are working around the clock to solve this disease, there is, as of yet, no vaccination. Therefore, quarantine and isolation are our best bets at reducing disease spread and bringing the effective reproduction number below 1. Before I enter into an analysis of virtual reality as a spatial computing solution for the negative effects of quarantine and isolation on the human body and mind, let’s explore the mathematical model that determines the effective reproduction number.

It is important to note that the reproduction number depends on the size of the susceptible population in our S-C-I-R model. You don’t need to be a mathematician or a lab-coated scientist working at the NIH or WHO to work through the math. So, let’s do that.

Imagine that 1 person is infected with the COVID-19 Coronavirus and that same 1 person attends a conference with 40 other people who are not vaccinated against the virus since no vaccine yet exists. Let’s imagine that while at that conference, 8 of those 40 people in attendance become infected. The basic reproductive number (R₀) is 8, and because none of the 40 people have been vaccinated, the effective reproduction number (Rₑ) is also 8, so:

R₀ = 8 and Rₑ = 8

Now, let’s imagine that the good people working tirelessly to solve this virus develop a vaccine. They distribute that vaccine and successfully vaccinate half of the people at that same conference. If our 1 infected person then attends that same conference, but half of the people have been vaccinated, meaning 20 of the 40, then the effective reproduction number has been reduced from 8 to 4, while the basic reproduction number remains the same.

R₀ = 8 and Rₑ = 4

Continuing with this example, let’s imagine that our brave scientists are able to vaccinate 30 of the 40 people at that conference. If our 1 infected person then attends that same conference, but 30 of the 40 people have been vaccinated, then the effective reproduction number has been reduced from 4 to 2, while the basic reproduction number remains the same.

R₀ = 8 and Rₑ = 2

And on it goes. As the population receives vaccinations, we begin to approach a critical vaccination threshold while reducing the effective reproduction number until it reaches something below 1 where the transmission string is broken and the virus is interrupted until it is eventually stopped.

This is a simplistic representation of the S-C-I-R math model. It does not take into account the vital dynamics of an epidemic expressed in ordinary differential equations, nor does it take into account the force of infection to model the transmission rate from the subdivision of susceptible individuals to infectious individuals. However, it does offer us a succinct representation of the virus’ spread and how it might be stopped.

When we develop a vaccination, take the damn vaccination!

While elementary in its representation, this model does highlight the one requirement to stop the spread of this virulent disease. We must develop and actually take a vaccine. Any vaccine hesitancy will only continue to put the population at risk. In the meantime, as mentioned earlier, quarantine and isolation are our best bets. But this is already having detrimental effects on our global economy, not to mention our mental health. We still need to not only attend school and remain employed, but we also need to remain connected with each other in order to stay healthy, even in this new age of physical distancing.

I believe virtual reality can be our solution.

Isolation is bad for us. We need each other.

As human beings, we are social animals that crave interaction. The new guidelines of so-called “social distancing” are already having negative effects on our ability to form and maintain important professional, personal and familial relationships. While these measures are necessary to help prevent the propagation of the COVID-19 Coronavirus, they are not helping the propagation of our human species.

In order to live happy, healthy lives we need deep, emotional connections with other human beings with whom we can create meaningful relationships. But creating these relationships in a life subject to the new complexities of “social distancing” is not easy, but it is quite achievable. It is my sincere belief that we can improve upon our human experience and deepen our interactions through virtual reality.

While I am by no means an expert in neuroscience, nor dedicated my life to the pursuit of researching how to increase dopamine in our brain’s reward centers, I am human. I’ve made lifelong friends, fallen in love, cheated death, finished off an entire pepperoni pizza and have done many other things that flooded my brain’s reward centers with so much dopamine that I wanted to do them over and over again. Yes, I have been the proverbial rat slamming down the lever for just one more pellet of food. Just like all of you reading this essay, I know what it means to crave interaction and make deep connections… not only with pizza, but with other human beings.

To initiate these connections, I suggest we eliminate the phrase “social distancing” from the lexicon of our current age and replace it with a temporary term of “physical distancing.” Given the rise of spatial computing technologies like augmented reality, mixed reality and virtual reality, there is no need to maintain social distance from one another. In fact, these technologies enable us to cultivate deeply empathetic relationships that will blossom into even deeper physical bonds once this pandemic passes us by.

Over the years as CEO of a spatial computing company, I’ve witnessed the power of VR to enable us with healthy interactions between other people. I believe this is due in large part to the multi-sensory stimulation obtained from VR. We simply don’t receive this valuable stimulation from other technology platforms, such as most other types of social media. As human beings, we have our best interactions when we are face-to-face. This is because we can experience such interactions through at least some multiple of seeing, hearing and touching each other. We are designed for these natural, social, multi-sensory interactions. In fact, we crave them. But they are difficult to achieve when separated by extreme distance and especially so when subject to the new realities of “physical distancing.”

Social media is proof of this. There are now more mobile devices on planet earth than there are people… and it’s been that way since 2014! These devices enable us to connect through some type of social media, yet the experience is entirely flat and let’s face it… probably fake! Not every day is a sunny day, though our social media feeds will have our network believe so. I postulate that such deception is due in large part to the entirely one-dimensional interaction experience that most social media provides. It allows for only one dimension of sensual interaction… sight. Now, of course there are videos with sight, sound and some touch sensations in the form of click bait. Yet the majority of our social media interactions are through our eyes via images and video.

Such social media interactions are not at all social. At best, they are not social interactions, but are slow, anti-social interactions. We post, we like, we wait for in-kind responses and then we repeat. The face-to-face experience is lost as-is our natural desire for multi-sensory interaction and, as a result, we are losing ourselves. A life spent clicking away with our thumbs in front of flat screens results in a brain wired for a manufactured and artificial social experience and not the natural face-to-face socializing we’re actually designed for, leaving us inadequately prepared for real life.

Spatial computing is already improving this.

I have experienced first-hand how spatial computing technologies are enabling people in geographically distributed locations around the world to leverage our natural, human desires for socialization, self-expression and achievement. In fact, we hired our entire team of people at Doghead Simulations around the world by using our own virtual reality platform named rumii and didn’t actually meet any of them face-to-face until 3 months later at our first in-person company event in Orlando, Florida. When we finally met face-to-face, it was like shaking hands with old friends.

It was through our use of VR that we were able to create meaningful relationships and share deep emotional states directly because of our ability to immersively interact from multiple points around the world, yet feel as though we were all in the same physical space at the same time. We saw each other’s avatars which were, and continue to be, accurate representations of our true selves. We felt the clash of a high-five with haptics and heard each other via 360-degree spatial audio. This was all a direct result of VR’s ability to improve limbic resonance when separated by geography. These remote, social interactions directly improved our face-to-face interactions. Something current online social media has been unable to augment, replicate or replace.

Limbic resonance is the understanding that our ability to share deep human connections emanates from the limbic system of the brain. When two or more people share an exchange in a multi-sensory environment, dopamine floods the brain and we meaningfully connect. This is a simple interpretation of the neuroscience of attachment, but one that is important to consider when understanding the usefulness of VR in human connections.

While social VR environments and platforms like rumii augment needful human attachment, they do not replace the face-to-face experience. However, unlike other online social media technologies, VR enables us to create deep connections with others through multi-sensory inputs and improve upon our in-person interactions in ways never before possible. We are now able to virtually interact with people and objects while not only being separated by geography, but also by language and certain regional-specific social norms. It is through VR that we can create a first connection that deepens significantly once we are finally able to have that face-to-face interaction.

Simply, VR allows us to follow our natural human design.

We are all capable of improving upon the human experience. Let us use the tools available to us to propagate the free sharing of useful information and cultivate cooperation that moves our species forward in positive ways. Let us use our social networks as knowledge networks that help us understand the risks and consequences of vaccine hesitancy in order to spread a viral message of hope that is well positioned in evidence-based science. Let us use math as one of our most powerful weapons to fight this disease, and take us below the threshold value of the effective reproduction number, Re. Let us use virtual reality to continue being productive, social and deepen our interactions, while enabling us to create and maintain meaningful connections with each other.

Instead of promoting the idea of “social distancing” let’s instead embrace tools like social media, math and virtual reality to help us fight the unprecedented, though temporary, realities of the COVID-19 Coronavirus. Each of these tools will enable us to ameliorate our situation and enrich our lives with meaningful relationships that will continue long after we win this battle.

While some susceptibles will always remain, we can make logical choices that decrease our likelihood of carrying and transmitting this disease, like simply washing our hands. Our social networks, science and VR can be used as powerful allies to improve the neuroscience of attachment and win our fight against the COVID-19 Coronavirus.

If there is one certainty that this new pandemic is enlightening us with, it is a simple and undeniable truth… we are all connected.

For more thoughts, essays and other posts, you can find and directly message me on Twitter @TheVRCEO

Virtual Reality, Viral Marketing and Weaponizing Math To Help Fight The COVID-19 Coronavirus was originally published in AR/VR Journey: Augmented & Virtual Reality Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.