Tag: Coronavirus

Categories
GeekWire

UW ramps up for ‘fantastic’ COVID-19 antibody test

Blood test in lab
Greg Pepper, manager of the UW Medicine Virology Lab, works on a diagnostic blood test designed to detect COVID-19 antibodies. (UW Medicine Photo)

The University of Washington School of Medicine’s Virology Lab is reporting encouraging results from trial runs of a new test from Abbott Laboratories that detects the antibodies created by people who have had COVID-19, whether they knew they had it or not.

“This is a really fantastic test,” Keith Jerome, who leads UW Medicine’s virology program, told reporters today. He said UW’s lab could process 4,000 samples per day starting next week, and conceivably ramp up to 14,000 samples per day within a couple of weeks.

The test will be made available through health care providers, in medical clinics or perhaps through workplaces. It analyzes blood that’s drawn from patients, and looks for the telltale antibodies that a body’s immune system creates to defend against the coronavirus known as SARS-CoV-2.

Epidemiologists say knowing who has had the virus will be key to tracking the true spread of COVID-19, and giving assurances to people who are returning to school and work — particularly in front-line jobs ranging from first responders and health care workers to grocery store clerks.

Get the full story on GeekWire.

Categories
GeekWire

Space station trio returns to a pandemic planet

Two NASA astronauts and a Russian cosmonaut ended a months-long tour of duty on the International Space Station and returned to Earth to face a viral outbreak that didn’t exist when they launched.

Get the news brief on GeekWire.

Categories
GeekWire

Boeing gets set to ramp up jet production

Boeing 767s in factory
Boeing 767 jets take shape at the company’s factory in Everett, Wash.  (Boeing Photo)

Boeing says it’s planning to resume all commercial airplane production in the Seattle region starting next week, more than three weeks after operations were shut down due to the coronavirus outbreak.

About 27,000 employees will be brought back to work sites ranging from Boeing’s wide-body airplane factory in Everett to its 737 production facility in Renton, using a phased approach, the company said in a news release.

Boeing said it’s taking extra precautions to keep its workers safe.

Get the full story on GeekWire.

Categories
GeekWire

How testing and tracing put down a pandemic

An artist’s conception shows microscopic coronavirus particles. (CDC Illustration)

Checking back to see who’s been in contact with newly identified patients with an infectious disease is a standard technique for containing an epidemic, but experts argue that it’s particularly important for the coronavirus pandemic.

Trevor Bedford, an epidemiologist at Seattle’s Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, explains why — and lays out a relatively straightforward system for doing contact tracing in combination with testing — in a Twitter thread spun out today.

“We need a huge push to increase the speed and scale of contact tracing, but this doesn’t necessarily require ‘digital’ solutions,” Bedford writes.

The solution suggested by Bedford and his colleagues in the NextTrace effort makes use of mobile device data, but as a supplement to the traditional phone-based and in-phone interviews used in contact tracing.

Get the full story on GeekWire.

Categories
GeekWire

Gates Foundation CEO addresses pandemic politics

Mark Suzman
Gates Foundation CEO Mark Suzman speaks at a World Economic Forum session. (WEF via YouTube)

Seattle’s Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is in the public health spotlight, thanks to its efforts to head off just the sort of global pandemic we’re now experiencing — but not all the exposure it’s getting is healthy.

In some corners of the online world, the Gates Foundation is painted as a villain, stoking fears and pushing a global vaccination agenda for the sake of “Big Pharma.” Anti-vaccine activists link Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates with the World Health Organization and infectious-disease expert Anthony Fauci — and not in a good way.

The conspiracy theories have always been there, but Gates Foundation CEO Mark Suzman acknowledges that they’re getting added traction now, thanks in part to the COVID-19 crisis.

“We’re aware that there’s allegations made in social media and other [channels] about nefarious schemes the foundation is alleged to be part of,” Suzman told GeekWire today, in connection with an announcement that the foundation is allocating $150 million more to fighting the pandemic.

“All I can say is, one, we’re completely transparent about who we are and what we do,” he said. “We are able to talk about any and every investment and grant we make. We’re very transparent about our mission, our values, and we really have nothing to hide.”

Get the full story on GeekWire.

Categories
GeekWire

Tech CEOs advise White House on virus impact

Jeff Bezos and Satya Nadella
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. (Space Foundation / Microsoft Photos)

Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos and President Donald Trump aren’t exactly the best of friends, but that didn’t stop the White House from including the world’s richest individual on a list of industry leaders working with Trump to bring about a “Great American Economic Revival.”

Bezos, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and Starbucks CEO Kevin Johnson are among the members of industry groups that were created this week to address the economic impacts of the coronavirus outbreak, the White House said in an April 14 statement.

Nadella and Bezos are on the tech group, alongside the CEOs of Apple, Facebook, Google, IBM, Intel, Oracle, Salesforce and other leading companies. Johnson is listed with a different group, focusing on the food and beverage industry.

There are more than 200 representatives in all on sector-specific teams, ranging from health care industry executives to sports executives and “thought leaders” including trickle-down economist Art Laffer.

“These bipartisan groups of American leaders will work together with the White House to chart the path forward toward a future of unparalleled American prosperity,” the White House said.

Get the full story on GeekWire.

Categories
GeekWire

Alaska Air signs on for payroll support program

Alaska Airlines crew
Alaska Airlines is among 10 passenger air carriers that plan to participate in the Treasury Department’s coronavirus payroll aid program. (Alaska Airlines Photo)

Seattle-based Alaska Airlines and nine other air carriers plan to participate in a $25 billion payroll assistance program that’s part of the coronavirus relief package signed into law last month, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said today.

“Conversations continue with other airlines regarding their potential participation,” Mnuchin said in a statement.

Today’s announcement comes after days of negotiations over the terms of the assistance program, with the Treasury Department seeking ownership stakes in at least some of the airlines that participate.

Get the full story on GeekWire.

Categories
GeekWire

We’re ‘on the cusp’ in coronavirus outbreak

Downtown Seattle
A plaza in front of one of Amazon’s newest towers in downtown Seattle is empty, due to restrictions on mobility that have been put in place to counter the COVID-19 epidemic. (GeekWire Photo / Kurt Schlosser)

An updated analysis of COVID-19 case data and Facebook mobility data suggests that Seattle and King County are “on the cusp” between wider spread of the epidemic and a gradual fade-out of new cases.

Researchers from the Bellevue, Wash.-based Institute for Disease Modeling said the decline in the rate of growth in new cases is a testament to the efficacy of Washington state’s “Stay Home, Stay Healthy” restrictions. But they also said it’s still too early to relax those restrictions.

“If distancing measures are relaxed without other mitigation strategies in place, we can expect a quick rebound in the case count and the burden on the hospitals, and the deaths,” Mike Famulare, principal research scientist at the institute, said today during a teleconference with journalists.

Get the full story on GeekWire.

Categories
GeekWire

Scientists hint at two years of social distancing

Coronavirus particles
A transmission electron microscope image shows the SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, emerging from the surface of cells cultured in the lab. (National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases-Rocky Mountain Laboratories, NIH)

Based on simulations of the coronavirus outbreak’s future course, Harvard scientists say prolonged or intermittent social distancing may be necessary into 2022 — but they stress that research into how long immunity to the virus lasts will be urgently needed to refine their projections.

Get the news brief on GeekWire.

Categories
GeekWire

Agencies set aside billions for virus research

Coronavirus structure
3-D printed models show a SARS-CoV-2 virus particle (at left, background) and the “spike” protein (at right, foreground) that makes it possible for the virus to enter and infect human cells. On the color-coded virus model, the blue surface of the virus is covered with red spike proteins. (NIH Photo)

The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy is playing a leading role in focusing the power of artificial intelligence, high-performance computing and other high-tech tools on the fight against coronavirus. Now it’s laying out an array of funding opportunities worth billions of dollars to researchers and innovators.

“America’s vibrant innovation ecosystem has always brought outside-the-box ideas and technologies to the forefront to address great challenges. This time of crisis is no different,” Michael Kratsios, the White House’s chief technology officer, said in a statement. “Through a range of funding, grant and award opportunities, the Trump administration is committed to leveraging our country’s brilliant startups, entrepreneurs and technologists in the fight against COVID-19.”

Check out the highlights on GeekWire.