[oger]

A massive thanks for the work you put in - I am sure it will pay off manifold. Assuming your models are robust over time this will clearly help the development pipeline of BioNTech / Pfizer to come up with adjusted vaccines should the need arise (i.e. an especially nasty mutant showing up). Shortening the detection from weeks (months?) to days is an order of magnitude gain in lead time. From a commercial point of view this agility will give BioNTech / Pfizer a lead over its competitors (assuming this is not public / shared information?)

[orintorynchus]

What we hope for is rather informing the public policy. Now, any time a scary looking variant is sequenced, there is some public commotion, uncertainty about the future repercussions. We want to be able to gauge the appropriate level of concern in these situations. It is not an all-knowing oracle, but rather a way to distill the insights from prior observations and simulations, the same way a human expert would do. This being said, we believe that the insights provided by EWS can be of use in designing new vaccines, as well as deploying the existing ones most effectively.