To control the COVID-19 pandemic through random testing would require about 6.5 million test a day. Using group testing and machine learning could get that number down to fewer than 40,000 day.
Despite disappointing download numbers and almost zero success in tracing COVID-19 infections, Australia is persisting with the COVIDSafe app, while the rest of the world embraces the ‘Gapple’ model.
Smartphone apps and wearable devices can tell when workers have been within six feet of each other, promising to help curb the coronavirus. But they’re not all the same when it comes to privacy.
New Zealand has “eliminated” COVID-19 “for now”, Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern has declared. Two key epidemiologists who worked on NZ’s elimination strategy explain the news, and the challenges ahead.
Michael Plank, University of Canterbury; Alex James, University of Canterbury; Audrey Lustig, Manaaki Whenua - Landcare Research; Nicholas Steyn, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau; Rachelle Binny, Manaaki Whenua - Landcare Research, and Shaun Hendy, University of Auckland, Waipapa Taumata Rau
There’s now a 95% chance COVID-19 has been eliminated in NZ, according to our modelling. But as NZ prepares to remove limits on large gatherings, it increases the risk of a very large new outbreak.
Since the state’s first coronavirus case surfaced, trained case investigators have traced the contacts of every person who tested positive. Here’s what else South Carolina got right.
COVIDSafe uses Bluetooth radio waves. These can only measure how physically close two people are, but not if those people are in the same room, or even in different cars passing each other.