Signal Containment Time (SCT)
How quickly a safety liability is brought back under control. The longer a signal lives, the likelier it breaks into public view.
Formula
Thresholds & Bands
| Band | Range | State |
|---|---|---|
| Fast | < 24 | ok |
| Slow | 24-72 | warn |
| Breaking | > 72 | crit |
Why This Metric Matters
Signal Containment Time measures the Directorate's ability to neutralize adverse-event signals before they breach the controlled information perimeter. Every hour a signal remains uncontained increases the probability of external discovery, regulatory inquiry, or media exposure by a compounding factor modeled by PANACEA at approximately 3% per hour. Rapid containment preserves the integrity of the public-facing safety narrative and protects ongoing Emergency-Use Authorization coverage. This metric is the single most audited figure during post-incident reviews conducted by the Office of the Director.
Threshold Justification
The 24-hour fast-band ceiling reflects the operational window within which PANACEA models indicate a signal can be re-coded, reclassified, or suppressed before it triggers automated regulatory reporting thresholds. The 72-hour critical boundary corresponds to the historical point at which uncontained signals have, in documented cases, crossed into external media monitoring systems and become unrecoverable through standard containment protocols.
Historical Context
At program inception, median containment time exceeded 60 hours, driven by manual triage processes and fragmented reporting chains. The deployment of PANACEA's automated signal classification engine in Q2 2025 reduced median SCT to approximately 18 hours. However, containment times remain highly variable: routine pharmacovigilance signals resolve in under 8 hours, while novel or high-severity events involving BCL-3 or higher compounds can exceed the 72-hour critical window despite accelerated protocols.
Collection Method
Signal Containment Time is calculated from the moment an adverse-event data point crosses PANACEA's configurable threshold to the timestamp at which R&D Safety marks the signal as contained, re-coded, or escalated to a sealed disposition. All signal events are logged in the Synaptic Data Fabric with immutable timestamps. The reported figure is the rolling 30-day median, computed daily by PANACEA and cross-validated against the Adverse Events Suppressed ledger.
Known Failure Modes
Containment timestamps can be prematurely logged when signals are administratively re-coded before substantive containment action is complete, producing artificially low SCT readings that do not reflect actual exposure risk. PANACEA's threshold-detection sensitivity is calibrated to known signal patterns; novel adverse-event profiles may evade initial detection entirely, resulting in signals that are not captured until they are already partially exposed. During periods of high signal volume, triage prioritization can cause lower-severity signals to age past the critical window unattended, a failure mode not visible in the median statistic.