You are here

Ideas

Analysis: The Pandemic Uncovered Ways to Speed Up Science

The pandemic highlighted broad problems in research: that many studies were hyped, error-ridden, or even fraudulent, and that misinformation could spread rapidly. But it also demonstrated what was possible.

Country / Region Tags: 
Problem, Solution, SitRep, or ?: 

Mobile bus clinics are being used to provide vaccines to those who cannot easily travel

From the East Coast to the West, health officials are taking the Covid-19 vaccines on the road.

Across the country, nurses, technicians, emergency medical workers and community partners are rolling up to the doorsteps, streets and churches of people who are homeless, who live in areas without reliable transportation or who have no internet access.

Country / Region Tags: 
Problem, Solution, SitRep, or ?: 

COvid detection and prevention device developments

A decade ago, when the firefighter John Burke earned his master’s degree in health care emergency management, he wrote his thesis on pandemic planning. So when the coronavirus hit last spring, Mr. Burke, now the fire chief in Sandwich, Mass., was ready.

“I had my playbook ready to go,” Mr. Burke said.

Testing for the virus was a top priority, so he connected with a private laboratory to ensure that his firefighters, who were transporting coronavirus patients to hospitals, could be regularly tested.

And then he heard that Thermo Fisher Scientific, a Massachusetts company that makes laboratory equipment and materials, was beta testing an air sampler that could help him detect airborne coronavirus particles.

By December, he had installed one in a fire station hallway. The device, about the size of a toaster oven, sucked in ambient air and trapped airborne virus particles — if there were any to be found — in a specialized cartridge. Each afternoon, an employee would remove the cartridge and walk it to the UPS drop box across the street, sending it off for laboratory analysis.

Problem, Solution, SitRep, or ?: 

Pages

Subscribe to Ideas
howdy folks