Technology

New Covid and flu tests give results in 90 minutes The rapid tests for hospitals and care homes will distinguish between Covid-19 and seasonal illness. BBC News

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U.K. to start distributing 90 minute coronavirus and flu tests.

Mon, 2020-08-03 11:36 — mike kraft

New 90-minute tests that can detect coronavirus and flu will be rolled out in hospitals and care homes from next week.

The "on-the-spot" swab and DNA tests will help distinguish between Covid-19 and other seasonal illnesses, the government said.

The health secretary said this would be "hugely beneficial" over the winter.

Currently, a third of tests take longer than 24 hours to process.

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Why Contact Tracing Is Failing in Many States.

Sat, 2020-08-01 08:31 — mike kraft

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Contact tracing, a cornerstone of the public health arsenal to tamp down the coronavirus across the world, has largely failed in the United States; the virus’s pervasiveness and major lags in testing have rendered the system almost pointless. In some regions, large swaths of the population have refused to participate or cannot even be located, further hampering health care workers.

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What the US can learn from other countries using phones to track Covid-19

Sat, 2020-04-18 14:27 — Kathy Gilbeaux

A person in China scans a QR code with a smartphone to register their real name before getting off a bus in Wuhan, China. Zhang Chang/China News Service via Getty Images

The US is rolling out digital contact tracing. How has it been working in other countries?

vox.com - by Shirin Ghaffary - April 18, 2020

If and when lockdown restrictions are lifted in the US, would you agree to let the government anonymously track your interactions with people within a 6-foot radius to control the spread of Covid-19?

That’s an increasingly urgent question as President Trump and state governors debate how and when to safely reopen the US economy — and as technology is being touted as a solution that would help people reenter public life.

And tech giants are stepping up. Last week, Apple and Google announced a plan to turn phones into opt-in Covid-19 tracking machines that would, if all goes as planned, make it easier for health officials to identify and alert people if they’ve been exposed to the virus.

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Researchers Use GPS Data to Speed Up Tsunami Warnings

Sun, 2012-05-06 20:48 — Kathy Gilbeaux

In this Jan. 2, 2005 file photo, a wide area of destruction is shown from an aerial view taken over Meulaboh, 250 kilometers (156 Miles) west of Banda Aceh, Indonesia. Researchers in the United States are hoping to use GPS data to speed up current warnings. (AP Photo/Dita Alangkara, File)

U.S. seismologists currently testing new warning system

by Andrew Pinsent - CBC News - May 5, 2012

Scientists in the United States have been testing an advanced tsunami warning system using GPS data, combined with traditional seismology networks, to attempt to detect the magnitude of an earthquake faster so warnings of potential tsunamis can get out to potentially affected areas sooner.

The prototype is called California Integrated Seismic Network (CISN), and is a collaboration between the United States Geological Survey (USGS) and The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, whose focus is on environmental conservation.

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California Struggling to Prepare Quake Early Warning System

Sat, 2012-03-24 13:05 — Kathy Gilbeaux

submitted by Samuel Bendett

Workers fix subway lines that were damaged after an earthquake was felt in Mexico City on Tuesday, March 20. (Associated Press / March 19, 2012)

By Hector Becerra and Sam Allen, Times Staff Writers - latimes.com - March 22, 2012

The state spends a fraction of what countries like Mexico and Japan spend on their systems. One reason for the lack of interest, experts say, is that California has not experienced a catastrophic quake in more than a century.

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