Epidemics as Dialogue: How Language Models Teach Epidemiologists to Listen to Human Behavior
In March 2020, France emptied out: people stopped going to work, school, and cafés, and the streets filled with silence. Epidemiologists stared at the graphs and understood that the virus was not spreading on its own, but through handshakes, conversations, and metro rides. But how could they predict how many contacts a person would keep if the government announced new restrictions?