Some outlandish rumors about COVID-19, the disease caused by the new virus SARS-CoV-2, still persist, and continue to percolate on the internet: To some, it’s a dastardly bioweapon designed to wreak economic armageddon on the West; a left-wing conspiracy to damage the reelection prospects of President Trump; a virus that leaked from a Wuhan laboratory, and the outlandish rumors about COVID-19 persist Health professionals say such paranoid speculation is at the very least unhelpful and only politicizes a global public health emergency and diverts attention from measures that can save lives to contain and/or slow the spread of the coronavirus. After jumping from animals to humans at the food market in Wuhan, China in early December or earlier. At a time when the world is struggling to come to terms with the prospect of COVID-19 changing the way we communicate with society and work, As the coronavirus spread rapidly, the number of these rumors increased more and more with each passing day, Where people began to wonder if the new virus could spread in the air.
Can the coronavirus 'COVID-19' disease spread through air?
In a WHO report, she clearly and explicitly explained how the virus was transmitted.
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WHAT IS CORONAVIRUS 'COVID-19' ?
In December 2019, a new coronavirus appeared in Wuhan, China. It has since infected thousands across the globe, and the World Health Organization declared it a pandemic, which refers to how far it’s spread. The new coronavirus causes a disease called COVID-19, with symptoms such as fever, cough, and difficulty breathing. It can be deadly, particularly in people over the age of 60 or with underlying health conditions. In response, US tech companies have canceled events and ramped up efforts to avoid spreading misinformation. Scientists have tried to figure out exactly how the virus works, in the hopes that we can eventually develop medicine. And many people are staying at home to try to slow down the pace at which the disease goes through the population.
FACTS ABOUT CORONAVIRUS 'COVID-19' :
As the coronavirus pandemic continues to evolve, there’s plenty of new information to pay attention to each day. While the number of confirmed cases continues to rise in the U.S., what doctors and scientists know about how COVID-19 behaves becomes both clearer and murkier, and tips on staying busy, working from home, and caring for our mental health abound. But what’s also swirling are truths, half truths, and untruths about the coronavirus crisis. That’s why we went straight to the experts to find out what you need to know to keep yourself and your loved ones healthy and safe. Here are the expert-verified facts about the coronavirus that you need to know.
1- There is no vaccine for the new right now. Scientists have already begun working on one, but developing a vaccine that is safe and effective in human beings will take many months.
2- You can't protect yourself from COVID-19 by swallowing or gargling with bleach, taking acetic acid or steroids, or using essential oils, salt water, ethanol or other substances.
You can protect yourself and help prevent spreading the virus to others if you:
Do
Wash your hands regularly for 20 seconds, with soap and water or alcohol-based hand rub Cover your nose and mouth with a disposable tissue or flexed elbow when you cough or sneeze Avoid close contact (1 meter or 3 feet) with people who are unwell Stay home and self-isolate from others in the household if you feel unwell
Don't
Touch your eyes, nose, or mouth if your hands are not clean
3- Viruses can change over time. Occasionally, a disease outbreak happens when a virus that is common in an animal such as a pig, bat or bird undergoes changes and passes to humans. This is likely how the new coronavirus came to be, but not created or released by people.
4- The coronavirus pandemic won’t end once warmer weather arrives.
Not to be Debbie Downers, but here’s the reality: Rising temperatures won’t bring the coronavirus spread to a halt. “The idea that this is just going to blow over once spring and summer arrives is incorrect — warmer temps won’t kill off the virus,” says Dr. Vasan. “The spread may slow slightly simply because there tends to be less coughing and sneezing during the warm months, but it’s so easily transmissible that it will continue to circulate if we don’t get a handle on it now. That’s why social distancing is so important.”
5- Over-the-counter meds won’t make COVID-19 symptoms worse.
“That rumor just adds to the panic — there’s no scientific evidence to back it up,” says Dr. Dasgupta.
6-Even if you don’t have symptoms, you can still be contagious.
“It’s possible that 70% to 80% of people may have mild to no symptoms, but I would still be very cautious because you may still be infectious,” says Peter Gulick, infectious disease expert at Michigan State University.
7- people of any age can get coronavirus, including children.
The New York Times recently reported that nearly 40% of hospitalized coronavirus patients in the U.S. are under the age of 54.
8- coronavirus is comparable to SARS or to the seasonal flu.
The novel coronavirus detected in China is genetically closely related to the SARS-CoV-1 virus. SARS emerged at the end of 2002 in China, and it caused more than 8 000 cases in 33 countries over a period of eight months. Around one in ten of the people who developed SARS died. Preliminary findings indicate that the mortality rate for COVID-19 is 20-30 per thousand people diagnosed. This is significantly less than the 2003 SARS outbreak. However, it is much higher than the mortality rate for seasonal influenza.
9- No home remedies will kill the COVID-19 virus.
If you’ve read that gargling with hot tea or vinegar will kill the virus, know that that’s not true. “These home remedies might ease your symptoms to help you feel better, but they do nothing to fight the virus itself,” says Dr. Dasgupta. Another coronavirus combat tip to avoid: Spraying yourself with household disinfectants. “This is dangerous and should never be done,” Dr. Dasgupta says. “You should never ingest these products or apply them to your skin.”
10-It’s not a “Chinese virus.”
This term has been thrown around a lot lately, but it’s absolutely incorrect — and just plain wrong — to do so. “Characterizing a virus based on a specific ethnicity or nation is racist,” says Dr. Vasan. “COVID-19 is part of an existing family of viruses called coronaviruses and has nothing to do with geography. In theory, the first case could have started anywhere.”
SYMTOMS OF CORONAVIRUS 'COVID-19' :
People may be sick with the virus for 1 to 14 days before developing symptoms. The most common symptoms of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) are fever, tiredness, and dry cough. Most people (about 80%) recover from the disease without needing special treatment.
More rarely, the disease can be serious and even fatal. Older people, and people with other medical conditions (such as asthma, diabetes, or heart disease), may be more vulnerable to becoming severely ill.
People may experience:
cough
fever
tiredness
difficulty breathing (severe cases)
What should I do if I have symptoms?
WHO advice is now that anyone with symptoms should stay at home for at least 7 days. If you live with other people, they should stay at home for at least 14 days, to avoid spreading the infection outside the home. This applies to everyone, regardless of whether they have travelled abroad. You should look on the dedicated coronavirus WHO website for information. If you get worse or your symptoms last longer than seven days, you should call the emergency. People will no longer be tested for the virus unless they are in hospital.
Many countries have imposed travel bans and lockdown conditions in order to try and halt the spread of the virus. You should check with your local authorities for the latest advice on seeking medical assistance.
FOR MORE ABOUT CORONAVIRUS 'COVID-19' :
As more information about the coronavirus pandemic develops, some of the information in this article may have changed since it was last updated. For the most up-to-date information on COVID-19, please visit online resources provided the CDC, WHO, and your local public health department. You can work to better protect yourself from COVID-19 by washing your hands, avoiding contact with sick individuals, and sanitizing your home, among other actions.
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Apple is donating 10 million face masks to combat the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, CEO Tim Cook said.
Apple CEO Tim Cook tweeted Saturday that the company was donating “millions of masks for health professionals in the US and Europe,” to help combat the spread of the novel coronavirus. Cook's comments come after US Vice President Mike Pence said Apple would donate 9 million masks on Tuesday.
Cook is one of several tech CEOs that has pledged to donate face masks, along with Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Tesla CEO Elon Musk.
Along with the announcement about Apple's contribution, Cook also urged the general public to follow the advice from health experts and stay home as much as possible. The Apple chief executive also said he's currently working from home.
“The president and I literally heard directly from Apple that they’re donating 2 million industrial masks to this effort around the country and working with our administration to distribute those,” Pence said at a White House press briefing. A later briefing from Pence on March 24th would expand that number to 9 million donated masks, which Apple CEO Tim Cook would further clarify in a tweet to “"Proud to share we’ve been able to source 10M masks for the US and millions more for the hardest hit regions in Europe,"
Cook's remarks come after Vice President Mike Pence said during a press briefing on Tuesday that the tech giant would donate 9 million N95 face maks to US relief efforts.
"And I spoke today, and the president spoke last week, with Tim Cook of Apple," Pence said. "And at this moment in time Apple went to their store houses and is donating 9 million N95 masks to healthcare facilities all across the country and to the national stockpile. "
Apple is one of several technology giants donating masks as the US grapples with supply shortages as the coronavirus spreads.
Doctors in at least two hospitals in New York City, which has been a hotspot for COVID-19 infections, have been told to reuse their masks to preserve their supply, Business Insider's Jacob Shamsian reported earlier in March. In Los Angeles, some doctors are turning to seamstresses in the city's garment district for new masks.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg also recently said the company will be donating the 720,000 masks it had purchased as a protective measure against the California wildfires and plans to source millions more.
Tesla and SpaceX CEO Elon Musk also recently said in an email to CleanTechnica that he'll be donating at least 250,000 N95 masks.
N95 respirators are different than surgical face masks in that they're able to form a tight enough seal to filter out at least 95% of particles in the air, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Surgical masks, comparatively, are loose-fitting and protects the wearer from large droplets and splashes.
Jeff Bezos says Amazon is having trouble getting masks for its workers
Globally, masks are in high demand, but supplies are running low. Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos said in a note to employees Saturday that “masks remain in short supply globally.” The company has “placed purchase orders for millions of face masks we want to give to our employees and contractors who cannot work from home, but very few of those orders have been filled,” Bezos wrote.
Engadget/Daniel Cooper
Some 2,000 emergency medical workers in San Francisco are tracking their temperature and other vitals with Oura's smart rings in an attempt to limit the spread of COVID-19, SF Chronicle reports. Oura and researchers from the University of California San Francisco (UCSF) hope to use that data to develop an algorithm that will predict the onset of COVID-19 and help contain the virus. Workers at UCSF Medical Center and Zuckerberg San Francisco General Hospital are wearing the devices, and Oura has asked another 150,000 users to share their data. The rings aren't exactly comprehensive trackers, but they do record body temperature, heart rate and other vitals. In the near term, they could alert medical workers if they have a fever or impending illness, not just COVID-19. By the fall, when some expect the coronavirus to resurge, UCSF and Oura hope to have an algorithm that will detect early symptoms of the virus, so that people can more effectively self-quarantine. One of the strategies at the epicenter of the coronavirus outbreak in Wuhan, China, was to have residents report their temperatures daily and isolate at the first sign of fever. The ring could allow users to do the same. But it would require that they hand over medical data, which opens up data privacy concerns. There is some indication that this could work, though. Thanks to the Oura Ring, a Finnish business executive noticed that his temperature was higher than normal (about 100.4 Fahrenheit) and his heart and breathing rates were slightly increased. While he reportedly felt normal otherwise, he had just been traveling in a coronavirus hotspot, so he was tested. The results were positive for COVID-19. Without the ring, he wrote on Facebook, he would not have noticed those changes. via Engadget
David Paul Morris/Bloomberg
The company says it will switch to a broader approach for its experimental drug, remdesivir. But it was overwhelmed by demand for a potential treatment promoted by President Trump. Overwhelmed by demand for an experimental treatment for coronavirus, the drug maker Gilead abruptly shut down its emergency access program, leaving doctors and families scrambling for answers. The company said it was setting up a broader access program that could try to help more people, but some said the transition is delaying remedies for very ill patients who have few options. “We have heard zero. We know nothing,” said Genny Allard, the mother of Jack Allard, a 25-year-old New Jersey resident who is in a medically induced coma and on a ventilator at Hackensack Meridian Health JFK Medical Center in Edison, N.J. “I’m just, like, apoplectic at this point. I have a kid who is sick and the doctor wants to give him the next medicine that is supposed to help.” The drug, remdesivir, is being studied in several large-scale clinical trials around the world, including a huge trial announced last week by the World Health Organization. But the results have not been reported yet, and it is still unclear whether the drug works against the coronavirus. It was studied to treat Ebola, but did not work well enough against that virus. There is no known treatment against the coronavirus. Over the last week, President Trump has repeatedly referred to remdesivir and other drugs, like two long-used malaria drugs, as potential game-changers, despite pushback by top health officials like Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Dr. Fauci has corrected Mr. Trump in blunt ways during the daily White House briefings, saying that there is not enough scientific evidence to prove the drugs will work against the virus. Critics of the president have complained that he is instilling false hope in a desperate public, as the disease spreads rapidly around the United States and elsewhere. Highly publicized talk of prospective cures has fueled demand for these potential treatments — threatening the longstanding supply of some of these drugs that are relied on regularly by people with lupus and other conditions. As the virus spread to Europe and the United States, Gilead said emergency requests had “flooded an emergency treatment access system that was set up for very limited access to investigational medicines and never intended for use in response to a pandemic.” Remdesivir has been given on a case-by-case basis to patients in China, Japan, Europe and the United States — where it was administered to the first coronavirus patient in the country, who was treated in Washington State in late January. Six clinical trials of remdesivir are underway around the world, and early results from trials in China could be announced by the end of next month. “By the time we get to the end of April, we should have a preliminary idea of the safety and efficacy of this medicine against coronavirus,” said Daniel O’Day, Gilead’s chief executive, in a news conference earlier this month. Gilead said it was switching to a broader program because it could not handle individual requests. “Due to overwhelming demand over the last several days, during this transition period we are unable to accept new individual compassionate use requests,” the company said on Sunday, with the exception of pregnant women and children under 18. “This approach will both accelerate access to remdesivir for severely ill patients and enable the collection of data from all participating patients,” the company said. Gilead said it was processing “previously approved” requests but did not say what the status was of requests — like Mr. Allard’s — that had been submitted but not approved.
Allard family photo
Drug makers have long run so-called “compassionate use” programs that allow patients to take unapproved, experimental drugs if they have no other options. The switch to what’s known as an “expanded access program” would allow the approvals to apply to larger groups instead of one individual at a time. These programs are often run as loose clinical trials, in which patients who did not qualify for the more stringent requirements of the trial can enroll. In addition to giving more patients access to the drug, it also allows the companies to collect data, including what dose was used, how sick the patient was and the extent that it worked. In compassionate-use programs, this type of information is usually not shared. “You are trying to save somebody, rescue somebody. It’s a last-ditch throwing the kitchen sink at them, and you rarely get information back,” said Dr. Art Caplan, head of the division of medical ethics at the New York University Grossman School of Medicine. He said that he was giving unpaid advice to some companies pursuing treatments for coronavirus. The shift to a broader program will allow Gilead to learn about the drug. Without it, “you don’t learn what’s going on, so you’re sort of stuck.” A Gilead spokeswoman said the company did not expect the transition to a new program would result in delays in treatment compared with how long patients were already waiting for the drug under the company’s now-ended compassionate-use program. Gilead would not provide details about the average turnaround time, but the spokeswoman said the company has been inundated with requests over the past week. The company has said that it has a limited supply of remdesivir, but that it is increasing production. It is also drawing on a stockpile Gilead created for use in future pandemics after Ebola outbreaks in West Africa. Mr. Allard, who lives in Metuchen, N.J. and works as an equity analyst for Bank of America in Manhattan, was admitted to the hospital on the night of March 16 after he had a high fever, back pain and was throwing up, his mother said. She described Mr. Allard, a former All-American lacrosse player at Bates College, as healthy and with no underlying conditions. In New Jersey, officials announced 935 new positive cases on Monday, bringing the total to 2,844, including 27 deaths. Mr. Allard was tested Tuesday for the coronavirus, but the sample was sent to Quest Diagnostics, and his mother said the hospital never received the results. As the week went on, Mr. Allard’s condition rapidly declined, Ms. Allard said. He was placed in a medically induced coma and put on a ventilator. Ms. Allard said his doctors wanted to try remdesivir, but they needed to have a confirmed positive test showing he had the illness caused by the virus before they could seek the drug from Gilead. Finally, after the family made a flurry of calls to elected officials and others, the hospital tested him again on Saturday and received the results from another laboratory in less than six hours. His results came back positive and that night — around 10:30 — the doctor submitted her request to Gilead. By the next morning, Ms. Allard said, she was hearing that Gilead was shifting to a new system, and news stories later on Sunday confirmed her fears. His doctor has submitted another request under the new system, but Ms. Allard now fears his treatment will be delayed. Ms. Allard said the doctor had previously treated another patient with remdesivir and the turnaround time for approval had been 48 hours. “I feel as if we are in regulatory limbo,” Ms. Allard said. “We were good, we were following the rules, he was queued up for what the rules were as of Saturday night and we woke up Sunday and everything changed.” Via NEWYORKTIMES
Space X
Another SpaceX test ended in failure this past weekend. A prototype of the company's Starship rocket, SN1, imploded in a pressure test late Friday night. Elon Musk acknowledged the incident on Twitter, sharing a video and writing, "It's fine, we'll just buff it out."
The prototype caved in on itself after being filled with super-cold, liquid nitrogen propellant, The Vergereports. In a tweet, Musk said it had to do with a "puck" at the base of the vehicle. "Don't shuck the puck!" he joked.
Musk said the company plans to strip the next Starship rocket prototype, SN2, to the bare minimum and test its puck under pressure, first with water, and then with the cryo propellant. It could be ready to test in just a few days.
SN1 was the first of a series of test articles that SpaceX is building and testing in order to refine the systems needed for a fully functional Starship, according to Space.com. "Each SN will have at least minor improvements, at least through SN20 or so of Starship V1.0," Musk tweeted in December.
SpaceX revealed the first full Starship prototype, Starship Mk1, last fall. A couple months later, its bulkhead blew off during a pressure test. The company has already moved on to the second- and third-generations, Mk2 and Mk3. But with these test failures, it's hard to say if it's still on track to meet the ambitious timeline Musk once promised.
A new, preliminary study asks whether blood type might help predict COVID-19 risk.
March 20, 2020 -- A person's blood type may affect their risk for COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus, researchers report. A new, preliminary study has found correlations between blood type and the likelihood of being hospitalized with COVID-19. According to the authors, people with type A blood might be more at risk than those with other blood types, while those with O blood types had a significantly lower risk, Newsweek reported. Researchers from the Southern University of Science and Technology, in Shenzhen, China — in collaboration with colleagues from other Chinese institutions — have recently conducted a study assessing the potential relationship between blood type and hospitalization due to SARS-CoV-2 infection. Their study is preliminary and has yet to be published in a peer-reviewed journal, which means that other experts have not yet had a chance to assess the researchers’ methodology and findings. However, they have made their study paper available online in preprint form. The findings appear on the website medRxiv, where health researchers publish studies before they undergo the peer review process required by journals. The researchers said blood type-related differences in COVID-19 risk may be due to certain antibodies in the blood, but further studies are needed to confirm this, Newsweek reported. The finding that blood type may affect COVID-19 risk could be important for healthcare workers treating COVID-19 patients, because those with A blood types" "might need particularly strengthened personal protection to reduce the chance of infection." Also, people with A blood types might require "more vigilant surveillance and aggressive treatment," and identifying a person's blood type as a routine part of treating COVID-19 and other coronavirus infections might be helpful, according to the researchers, Newsweek reported. The study was limited because of its small size and it didn't offer an explanation for its findings, Gao Yingdai, a researcher from the State Key Laboratory of Experimental Hematology in Tianjin, told the South China Morning Post. The study "may be helpful to medical professionals, but ordinary citizens should not take the statistics too seriously," said Gao,who did not work on the study, Newsweek reported. "If you are type A, there is no need to panic. It does not mean you will be infected 100 percent," she said, addingm "If you are type O, it does not mean you are absolutely safe, either. You still need to wash your hands and follow the guidelines issued by authorities."
More Details:
Is blood group A hit the hardest?
The researchers looked at blood group distribution among 2,173 individuals admitted to hospitals with COVID-19, the disease caused by the new coronavirus. The people each received care at one of three hospitals in Wuhan, China, or Shenzhen.
The team then compared the patients’ blood group distribution to that of a group representative of the general population — totaling 3,694 people — in Wuhan.
The researchers found that the proportion of people with blood type A was significantly higher among the group hospitalized with COVID-19 than among the general population.
They also found that the proportion of people with blood type O was significantly lower among the group with COVID-19 than among the general population.
Based on these findings, co-first study author Jiao Zhao and colleagues report that “People with blood group A have a significantly higher risk for acquiring COVID-19, compared with non-A blood groups, whereas blood group O has a significantly lower risk for the infection, compared with non-O blood groups.”
It is important to stress, however, that the researchers refer to the risk of needing hospitalization because of COVID-19, rather than the risk of contracting the virus that can lead to the disease.
This is because the team only looked at data from individuals whose symptoms were severe enough to require hospitalization, not those with mild symptoms that responded to home care.
One week ago, President Donald Trump held a press conference wherein he claimed Google would be building a screening website for the coronavirus that would direct people to testing sites. As we learned in the following days, that wasn’t true. Google’s sister company Verily did launch such a site, but only for the Bay Area and reportedly it only offered tests to a very small number of people. Google, however, did say it would launch some sort of website and after a small delay, it’s here. Alongside the website and potentially more importantly, Google will start providing more enhanced information cards for people who search for terms related to the coronavirus. There will be information tabs for symptoms, prevention, global statics, and locally relevant information. It will look a bit like this:
Google
The website is at google.com/covid19. It does have useful resources, including a card that mimics what you see above. Google’s post announcing the site says that you will be able to find “state-based information, safety and prevention tips, search trends related to COVID-19, and further resources for individuals, educators and businesses.” Google emphasizes that it’s pulling information from “authoritative” sources like the WHO and the CDC. It’s only available in English right now, but a Google spokesperson tells The Verge that Spanish language support is soon to follow. The site was also designed with accessibility in mind, including with the larger fonts that Google usually uses. The website has videos in ASL, a global map showing confirmed cases by country, and plenty of information about Google’s other relief efforts — plus some feel-good YouTube videos. Reading through that description, however, you’ll notice that it doesn’t include what Trump originally claimed it would. The nearest thing to finding a test is a drop-down menu that provides links to local websites — for example, choosing California provides a link to the California Department of Public Health. Right now, the CDC has a “self-checker” chatbot that Microsoft helped build, but the WSJ quoted an executive from a healthcare provider who put in a realistic context: “It’s just something consumers need now to help with anxiety.” In other words, lots of big tech companies are making efforts to provide coronavirus-related support, but none of them are able to solve some of the biggest problems in the pandemic: access to testing and the impending crisis in our healthcare infrastructure. At some point in the future, Google may actually provide a questionnaire and information about local drive-thru testing locations. But a spokesperson says that the company won’t do so until there’s authoritative and trustworthy information on those sites. That could be a long time coming, unfortunately. via theverge
If not the most deadly, the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) is one of the most contagious diseases to have hit our green planet in the past decades. In little over three months since the virus was first spotted in mainland China, it has spread to more than 90 countries, infected more than 185,000 people, and taken more than 3,500 lives. As governments and health organizations scramble to contain the spread of coronavirus, they need all the help they can get, including from artificial intelligence. Though current AI technologies are far from replicating human intelligence, they are proving to be very helpful in tracking the outbreak, diagnosing patients, disinfecting areas, and speeding up the process of finding a cure for COVID-19. Data science and machine learning might be two of the most effective weapons we have in the fight against the coronavirus outbreak.
Tracking the coronavirus outbreak with machine learning
Just before the turn of the year, BlueDot, an artificial intelligence platform that tracks infectious diseases around the world, flagged a cluster of “unusual pneumonia” cases happening around a market in Wuhan, China. Nine days later, the World Health Organization (WHO) released a statement declaring the discovery of a “novel coronavirus” in a hospitalized person with pneumonia in Wuhan. BlueDot uses natural language processing and machine learning algorithms to peruse information from hundreds of sources for early signs of infectious epidemics. The AI looks at statements from health organizations, commercial flights, livestock health reports, climate data from satellites, and news reports. With so much data being generated on coronavirus every day, the AI algorithms can help home in on the bits that can provide pertinent information on the spread of the virus. It can also find important correlations between data points, such as the movement patterns of the people who are living in the areas most affected by the virus. The company also employs dozens of experts who specialize in a range of disciplines including geographic information systems, spatial analytics, data visualization, computer sciences, as well as medical experts in clinical infectious diseases, travel and tropical medicine, and public health. The experts review the information that has been flagged by the AI and send out reports on their findings. Combined with the assistance of human experts, BlueDot’s AI can not only predict the start of an epidemic, but also forecast how it will spread. In the case of COVID-19, the AI successfully identified the cities where the virus would be transferred to after it surfaced in Wuhan. Machine learning algorithms studying travel patterns were able to predict where the people who had contracted coronavirus were likely to travel.
Using computer vision to detect coronavirus infection
Coronavirus (COVID-19) (Image source: NIAID )
You have probably seen the COVID-19 screenings at border crossings and airports. Health officers use thermometer guns and visually check travelers for signs of fever, coughing, and breathing difficulties.
Now, computer vision algorithms can perform the same at large scale. An AI system developed by Chinese tech giant Baidu uses cameras equipped with computer vision and infrared sensors to predict people’s temperatures in public areas. The system can screen up to 200 people per minute and detect their temperature within a range of 0.5 degrees Celsius. The AI flags anyone who has a temperature above 37.3 degrees. The technology is now in use in Beijing’s Qinghe Railway Station.
Alibaba, another Chinese tech giant, has developed an AI system that can detect coronavirus in chest CT scans. According to the researchers who developed the system, the AI has a 96-percent accuracy. The AI was trained on data from 5,000 coronavirus cases and can perform the test in 20 seconds as opposed to the 15 minutes it takes a human expert to diagnose patients. It can also tell the difference between coronavirus and ordinary viral pneumonia. The algorithm can give a boost to the medical centers that are already under a lot of pressure to screen patients for COVID-19 infection. The system is reportedly being adopted in 100 hospitals in China.
A separate AI developed by researchers from Renmin Hospital of Wuhan University, Wuhan EndoAngel Medical Technology Company, and the China University of Geosciences purportedly shows 95-percent accuracy on detecting COVID-19 in chest CT scans. The system is a deep learning algorithm trained on 45,000 anonymized CT scans. According to a preprint paper published on medRxiv, the AI’s performance is comparable to expert radiologists.
Robots at the frontlines of the fight against COVID-19
One of the main ways to prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus is to reduce contact between infected patients and people who have not contracted the virus. To this end, several companies and organizations have engaged in efforts to automate some of the procedures that previously required health workers and medical staff to interact with patients.
Chinese firms are using drones and robots to perform contactless delivery and to spray disinfectants in public areas to minimize the risk of cross-infection. Other robots are checking people for fever and other COVID-19 symptoms and dispensing free hand sanitizer foam and gel.
Inside hospitals, robots are delivering food and medicine to patients and disinfecting their rooms to obviate the need for the presence of nurses. Other robots are busy cooking rice without human supervision, reducing the number of staff required to run the facility.
In Seattle, doctors used a robot to communicate with and treat patients remotely to minimize exposure of medical staff to infected people.
AI is speeding up drug research
At the end of the day, the war on the novel coronavirus is not over until we develop a vaccine that can immunize everyone against the virus. But developing new drugs and medicine is a very lengthy and costly process. It can cost more than a billion dollars and take up to 12 years. That’s the kind of timeframe we don’t have as the virus continues to spread at an accelerating pace.
Fortunately, AI can help speed up the process. DeepMind, the AI research lab acquired by Google in 2014, recently declared that it has used deep learning to find new information about the structure of proteins associated with COVID-19. This is a process that could have taken many more months.
Understanding protein structures can provide important clues to the coronavirus vaccine formula. DeepMind is one of several organizations who are engaged in the race to unlock the coronavirus vaccine. It has leveraged the result of decades of machine learning progress as well as research on protein folding.
“It’s important to note that our structure prediction system is still in development and we can’t be certain of the accuracy of the structures we are providing, although we are confident that the system is more accurate than our earlier CASP13 system,” DeepMind’s researchers wrote on the AI lab’s website. “We confirmed that our system provided an accurate prediction for the experimentally determined SARS-CoV-2 spike protein structure shared in the Protein Data Bank, and this gave us confidence that our model predictions on other proteins may be useful.”
Although it’s too early to tell whether we’re headed in the right direction, the efforts are commendable. Every day saved in finding the coronavirus vaccine can save hundreds—or thousands—of lives.
This story is republished from TechTalks, the blog that explores how technology is solving problems… and creating new ones. Like them on Facebook here and follow them down here:
Italy now has more Covid-19 deaths than China, with 427 deaths in 24 hours and 3,405 in total. In China, 3,245 people died, 1,284 in Iran and 767 in Spain. Europe remains the most affected continent, with at least 100,470 cases, of which 4,752 deaths, ahead of Asia (94,253 cases, including 3,417 deaths). However, this number of diagnosed cases reflects only a fraction of the actual number of infections, with many countries now testing only the most serious cases. Several still-reluctant countries have taken drastic measures in the past 24 hours: more than half a billion people are expected to stay at home and many countries are closing their borders.
Italy now has more deaths than China
It was inevitable: Italy is officially, since Thursday, the country in the world with the most deaths of Covid-19, with 3,405 victims. At present, China only recognizes 3,100. In detail, there are now 427 additional deaths on the Peninsula, which is slightly less than in recent days but still represents a growth slope of almost 15%.
30 00090 000
CHINA
EUROPE
Mardi 18 février 2020 ● Chine : 74 211 cas cumulés ● Europe : 45 cas cumulés
The official number of infected people is rising by just over 5,000, a growth of 15%, but in the North, at least, that does not mean anything. Mathematical models predicted this kind of scenario, but it could be even worse as the number of victims has increased over the past four days by about 15-20%, up from 25- to 30% last week. This is a small consolation, but it underlines one thing: the containment that has been in place for ten days, and which is only beginning to bear fruit, really slows the spread of the virus.
Spain prepares for the toughest of the pandemic
Spain was preparing to face the "hardest days" of the pandemic by incorporating thousands of health workers and opening a hotel to accommodate sick people, while the death toll rose by nearly 30% in 24 hours. The Covid-19 killed 767 people in Spain, up from 598 on Wednesday, and the number of cases detected exceeds 17,000, according to statistics released Thursday by the health ministry. To date, 1,107 patients have been declared cured, according to the ministry. The number of cases has increased by 25% since Wednesday to 17,147, but could increase significantly as testing is conducted. Spain is the fourth most affected country in the world and the second most affected in Europe after Italy. "The hardest days are coming . . . We will continue to see an increase in cases and this will be the case until we approach the peak of the curve," warned Health Minister Salvador Illa. To cope with this explosion, the Spanish Ministry of Health has incorporated thousands of medical students, medical students or graduate nurses who have not secured a place in the health system into the public health system. Public. UK finally aligns its response with Europe The UK, where the 100-death threshold has been crossed, has ordered the closure of schools as of Friday. But containment measures are still not mandatory, while the number of deaths has increased by 30% in a single day. Earlier in the day, Scotland and Wales had already announced the closure of their schools and nurseries by Friday. In Northern Ireland, the authorities were increasingly divided, while the Republic of Ireland had taken this decision as early as Monday, as were many other European countries.
More than 10,000 cases in Germany
The 10,000 cases of patients with the new coronavirus have been surpassed in Germany, with 10,999 people infected and 20 deaths in total, the Robert Koch Institute announced on Thursday. Some 2,801 new cases have been recorded in the last 24 hours by this Institute, which is responsible for epidemiological monitoring. The region of North Rhine-Westphalia is the most affected, with 3,033 cases. Baden-Wuerttemberg (2,155 cases) and Bavaria (1,692) are also severely affected, with around 500 new cases in each of these regions in 24 hours. Chancellor Angela Merkel said in an unprecedented address to the Germans on Wednesday evening that the pandemic was "the biggest challenge for Germany since the Second World War."
Trump announces $100 billion aid plan
Donald Trump has signed into law a $100 billion (92 billion euro) welfare plan for workers affected by the impact of the epidemic. A hospital ship, the USNS Comfort, with some 1,000 rooms, is to be sent to New York Harbor, said Andrew Cuomo, the state's governor, one of the hardest hit. Meanwhile, an outbreak of Covid-19 at a nursing home near Seattle, fatal to at least 35 people, was likely fuelled by staff who came to work while they were exhibiting symptoms of the disease, according to a report U.S. health authorities released Wednesday.
No new cases of local origin in China
China on Thursday reported no new local contamination, the first since the outbreak began. But health authorities reported an additional 34 imported cases. Most often they are Chinese returning from countries particularly affected by the Covid-19. New imported cases were reported in Beijing (21), the southern province of Guangdong (9), Shanghai (2) and Heilongjiang provinces (northeast, 1 case) and Zhejiang (east, 1 case). In total, the number is 189 in the country most affected by coronavirus in the world. To prevent these people from ending up in the wild and reviving a largely contained epidemic in China, the authorities are now imposing the quarantine of anyone arriving on Chinese soil. In Beijing, most of them are located in hotels. Those living alone, the over 70s, minors and pregnant women can, however, stay at home. Compared to mid-February, when new contaminations numbered in the thousands every day, the contagion was virtually stopped in the country where it began. China has recorded a total of 80,928 cases, of which 70,420 are cured (87%).
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Mercredi 18 mars 2020 ● Corée du Sud : 8 413 cas ● Italie : 35 713 cas ● Iran : 17 361 cas ● France : 9 134 cas ● Allemagne : 12 327 cas ● Espagne : 13 910 cas ● Etats-Unis : 7 783 cas
The European Central Bank (ECB) has announced an impressive bailout in an attempt to calm markets. Unveiling its decision just before midnight, after a long emergency meeting of its Board of Governors, it decided to proceed with share buybacks for 750 billion euros. That's six times more than the announcement on Thursday, March 12, which was poorly received by investors. Christine Lagarde, the president of the ECB, was most explicit: "These extraordinary times require extraordinary action. There are no limits to our support for the euro. »
At the announcement, the U.S. and Asian markets rebounded after an even dark day. In detail, the ECB intends to achieve these 750 billion buybacks of securities by the end of 2020. It will buy government bonds as well as corporate bonds. This programme is in addition to the 120 billion euros announced last week and the 20 billion euros per month launched in the autumn, for a total of 1,050 billion euros for the next nine months. Never before, even at the height of the single currency crisis, had the European Central Bank injected so much money so quickly.
