UVA analyzing COVID-19 federal funding

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (WVIR) - Research done by the University of Virginia School of Medicine is shedding light on how federal funding helped scientists better understand the COVID-19 virus.

UVA used researchers used advanced “machine learning” to analyze about 25,000 different publications that came from the $4 billion of funding.

Researchers say a significant amount of money was put into prevention, understanding epidemiology, and figuring out what tests to use and how to use them.

“A lot of the $4 billion of funding that we studied, actually went to forward thinking research, what can we do to prevent things like this from happening in the future?” UVA School of Medicine Graduate Ani Chandrabhatla said. “Why did this happen in the first place? What infrastructure and what do we have to develop to make sure that if this something similar does happen in the future. We’re ready to kind of nip it in the bud.”

UVA says the research took about 2 years, but it was an eye opener for things that we can do ahead of another epidemic.

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