Coronavirus Technology Solutions
May 8, 2020
Slovakia is Another Example of the Benefit of
Masks
StartX Creates a Task Force to Accelerate
Development of Coronavirus Mitigation Products
Ava Breathe has Unique Mask Design
Mexico Space Agency Develops a New Respirator
Masks and Technology Solutions Very Important
for Nursing Home Patients Kastus Anti-Microbial Coating Effective Against Coronavirus
High Fashion Mask is Available from Lumen
Couture
Website Dedicated to Analyzing Mask
Decontamination Options N95 Masks Much Safer than Medical Masks for Wearers
European Meatpackers have Avoided the High
Infection Rates
Sanderson Farms has Slowed Lines to Minimize
Infection
Cooks Venture says PPE May Have Prevented COVID
Cases
Three Months of Social Distancing Needed for
Meaningful Infection Reduction
____________________________________________________________________________ Slovakia is Another Example
of the Benefit of Masks
McIlvaine has repeatedly speculated that the
very low death rate in China from the
coronavirus is due to the widespread use of
relatively efficient masks. Slovakia has the
lowest Covid-19 death rate in Europe, according
to
Johns Hopkins data
(0.46 per 100,000 people)—a wild success,
compared to countries like Belgium (73.01,
Europe’s highest). Credit can’t go to
geographical luck, as neighboring Czech
Republic, Hungary, and Poland have seen death
rates four to eight times as high.
Slovakia benefited in part due to
a large emphasis on masks. “A pivotal
moment came on March 13, when the anchor of the
country’s most popular television program,
Zlatica Puskarova, hosted incoming Prime
Minister Igor Matovic and his health
minister,“Puskarova began by asking the
government officials why they didn’t lead by
example, handing them two face masks. They
complied immediately, and from the next day the
whole country started wearing face protection.
Since then, no Slovak politician, news reporter,
or celebrity would be seen in public without a
mask.”
StartX Creates a Task Force to Accelerate
Development of Coronavirus Mitigation Products
StartX is a non-profit community of serial
entrepreneurs, industry experts, tenured
Stanford professors, and well-funded
growth-stage startups. “We believe that
entrepreneurs can achieve more as a group, than
we can as individuals. We help our companies
hire elite talent, secure funding, and tap into
one of the most powerful and innovative networks
in the world: the Stanford University Alumni
Network.”
Start X is now
harnessing its
network of scientists and technology to create
the StartX Med COVID-19 Task Force
“Our role at StartX is to
make sure that if someone does have a cure for
something, that it doesn’t just become another
paper that’s published in another journal,” said
Joseph Huang, CEO of StartX. “If I want to take
that all the way to impact real patients, I’ll
have mentors and a community and infrastructure
and support all the way through all the steps
along the way.” StartX also has startups that
are developing devices for both medical
professionals and everyday people.
Among the many leading-edge biotech, medical
device and digital health companies solving
critical needs during the COVID-19 pandemic are
physicians working with positive cases,
companies with FDA cleared solutions and those
that are on the fast-track with the CDC. The
following are a few ways the StartX Med COVID-19
Task Force is working to provide hope, flatten
the curve, and combat the novel coronavirus:
·
Rapid tests suitable for drive through testing,
nursing homes, and ER rooms with results in 10
minutes
·
Applications and hardware to assess respiratory
issues
·
Rapid solutions to fight developing sepsis and
correlating antibiotic resistance resulting from
COVID-19 severe complications
·
COVID-19 related applications for remotely
monitoring quarantined patients and healthcare
workers who have been exposed
·
Rapid RNA testing technologies
·
Testing that provides information on the
presence, type and severity of infections
·
Solutions for optimizing hospital operations and
supply chain tracking
·
Solutions for automated quarantine management
and remote virtual triage
·
A centrifuge system which is readily deployable
for remote sample collection and prep
·
A handheld device measuring temperature, lung
sounds, airway pressure, pulmonary function,
ECG, and SPO2
·
Remote monitoring for respiratory diseases, and
other StartX Med technologies already deployed
in Wuhan, China
·
Free access to the Bioz research platform for
biopharma companies
·
Free virtual COVID-19 evaluation, screening and
escalation tool for any hospital in the U.S. to
help preserve clinical resources for patients
who warrant in-person care
·
StartX Med therapeutics companies with new
antiviral drugs to treat COVID-19 and the most
common lung disease caused by it, Acute
Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS), are
accelerating their efforts to take their
treatments into clinical settings.
“One of our first goals would be for existing
StartX genetics companies to be able to ramp-up
their current solutions for molecular testing of
COVID-19 diagnostics and work with local and
state officials and government agencies on
deployment,” stated Dr. Michael Niaki, StartX
Med COVID-19 Task Force Lead for the Diagnostics
Subgroup.
Current StartX Med COVID-19 Task Force
Participants include:
Prevention: DawnLight
Technologies - Luma
Health - Mon
Ami - Theranova - Tueo - Qventus
Diagnostics: Avails
Medical - Eko - Enable
Biosciences - Inflammatix - Lucira
Health - Magnetic
Insight Mendo - Nirmidas
Biotech, Inc. - ProbiusDx - Sandstone
Diagnostics - Sensio
Air - Sentinel
Healthcare - Spire
Health - Subtle
Medical - Quantumcyte
Treatment: Augmedix - Bioz - Bright.md - Chimera
Bio - GEn1E - Globavir
BioSciences - Guided
Clarity - InfiniGene - KangarooHealth - OMNY - Orcabio - Parzival - Potrero - Qventus - Spot
Biosystems - Line
Up Health - Wellsheet
“As the number of positive cases continue to
soar in the outbreak of COVID-19, there is an
imminent need for reducing barriers companies
are experiencing with therapeutic medical
breakthroughs needing to be deployed,” stated
Joseph Huang, CEO of StartX. “We’ve always said
that our community of industry leaders can
achieve more as a group than as individuals and
this is a prime example of how quickly StartX
companies and the Stanford entrepreneurship
ecosystem can mobilize and come together in
times of crisis.”
Ava Breathe has Unique Mask Design
One Start X Med company, AVA Breathe, has taken
a look at the various masks and face coverings
out there and determined there’s plenty of room
for improvement.
“So most people have paper masks or cloth masks
and things that are poorly fit and don’t
actually maybe properly protect people from this
current COVID crisis,” said Eric Sokol,
Co-Founder of AVA Breathe. “So we developed a
small personal air purifier that you can wear
underneath it. So this is really the world’s
smallest N90 filter. When coupled with a
surgical or cloth mask, it provides a lot of
protection, along with sophisticated health
monitoring.” That includes the ability to
monitor a user’s respiratory rate, respiratory
pressure and body temperature.
Sokol is a Stanford professor and physician, who
teamed up with two other Stanford professors, to
found AVA Breathe and enter StartX. The product
also addresses the leak problem.
“We can make this as a little stick on filter,
clip on filter or it could be embedded into any
high-end mask,” said Sokol. “So you can adjust
then your mask so that it’s properly fit and
working for you to protect you.”
Sokol says while their products provide
immediate protection and detection, it may
ultimately be the data collected that someday
helps predict how your body reacts to the air
you breathe. The startup AVA Breathe spun out of
a Stanford Biodesign program and later joined up
with StartX.
Mexico Space Agency Develops a New Respirator
Mexico’s National Space Agency has developed a
LINX respirator, an accessible and portable
breathing device.
“It had to be a unit which was easy to operate,
which was portable, and could be taken to remote
and more marginalized regions, which would
require little maintenance and, fundamentally,
whose components could be attained within the
country or easily imported,” says Gustavo
Medina, director of the agency’s Space
Instrument Laboratory.
The LINX respirator is currently undergoing
medical testing by the country’s health
authorities, and Gustavo hopes it will be given
the green light for mass production within two
months.
Masks and Technology Solutions Very Important
for Nursing Home Patients
If nursing home patients are practicing social
distancing, they will not be safe due to the
ability of the coronavirus to travel long
distances through the air. Furthermore this
distancing leads to immobility. If patients do
not receive some form of exercise, they are much
more likely to deteriorate. High efficiency
masks and HEPA filtered areas will address this
problem. COVID-19 has killed more than 10,000
nursing home residents in the United States.
Dr. David Greene works at a care facility in
Sonoma County, California. It has had no cases
of coronavirus, but staff are taking extreme
precautions to keep patients safe.
Dr. David said, “Nursing homes are not like
hospitals. A big part of using any of the
protective equipment is knowing how to get it on
and off so that you don’t infect yourself or
anybody else. And they’re just not trained, not
used to that. Nursing home care workers in the
United States are amongst the lowest paid.”
He also said that the patients in the nursing
homes are getting a lot less exercise and the
very elderly if they don’t use it, they lose it.
“So we’re at risk of having quite a number of
people get weak and debilitated and I anticipate
that there’s going to be increased falls and
that we’ll probably lose some people, not from
the virus itself but from the result of our
caution,” he added.
Kastus Anti-Microbial Coating Effective Against
Coronavirus
Kastus has previously been proven to block up to
99.99 per cent of surface bacteria and fungi
including antibiotic-resistant superbugs such as
MRSA and E. coli. Now new independent testing
conducted by a leading Global test laboratory
has confirmed that the Kastus technology is
effective against human coronavirus on coated
surfaces.
The Kastus coating is applied and baked into the
top layer of the glass or ceramics surface
during the manufacturing process. Once it's
locked in, the Kastus coating is constantly
working to help protect the underlying
touchscreen device, glass, or ceramic surface,
while its antimicrobial power is always on
through the lifetime of the product.
"With this new validation and testing, we're
giving brands and commercial partners across the
globe a solution that they can build into their
products to get industry back on its feet
again," said company chief executive John
Browne. "Our unique technology is particularly
relevant to those businesses who use shared
touchscreens and devices, helping to mitigate
the spread of the virus, while addressing
consumer concerns and reluctancy to use public
touchscreens."
While the Kastus
coating is
primarily designed for use on new products,
companies can retrospectively add screen
protectors with the coating applied to help
provide enhanced protection, meaning it could
soon be widely available across products such as
touchscreen kiosks in restaurants, shopping
centres and airports. www.kastus.com
High Fashion Mask is Available from Lumen
Couture
A $95
LED Matrix Face Mask
allows
wearers to write their own text: draw designs or
use a phone’s
microphone or music tracks for equalizer
effects. The construction is a Dual-layer cotton
and mesh material with LED Flex Panel. It is
washable. Electronics are removable for cleaning
and sanitation. This is a novelty/fashion mask
and not tested for medical efficiency nor does
it make claims for medical protection. The tech
components can be removed for normal wear and
better air circulation. Battery and charge cord
included.
This mask is not efficient enough to provide
maximum protection.
However, it does show the potential for
fashionable masks.
Website Dedicated to Analyzing Mask
Decontamination Options
A team of 60 scientists and engineers, students
and clinicians, drawn from universities and the
private sector, are unveiling N95decon.org,
a website that synthesizes the scientific
literature about mask decontamination to create
a set of best practices to decontaminate and
reuse this protective face covering during the
current emergency.
“While there is no perfect method for
decontamination of N95 masks, it is crucial that
decision-makers and users have as much
information as possible about the strengths and
weaknesses of various approaches,” said Manu
Prakash, an associate professor of
bioengineering at Stanford
who helped coordinate
this ad hoc, volunteer undertaking. “We aim to
provide information and evidence in this
critical time to help those on the front lines
of this crisis make risk management decisions
given the specific conditions and limitations
they face.”
The team members who came together over the last
few weeks scoured hundreds of peer-reviewed
publications and held continuous online meetings
to review studies of decontamination methods
that have been used on previous viral and
bacterial pathogens and then to assess the
potential to use these methods on the novel
SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19.
Their goal was to provide overwhelmed health
officials with reliable, pre-digested scientific
information about the pros and cons of three
decontamination methods should local shortages
force a choice between decontamination and reuse
or going unmasked.
The three methods involve either heat and
humidity; a specific wavelength of light called
ultraviolet C (UVC); or treatment with hydrogen
peroxide vapors (HPV).
The scientists did not endorse any one method
but instead sought to describe the circumstances
under which each might be effective against the
virus provided rigorous procedures were
followed. They concluded, for instance, that
devices that rely on heat are effective under
specific temperature, humidity and time
parameters. With UVC devices, the group advised
making sure masks are properly oriented to the
light so the entire surface is bathed in
sufficient energy. They also found that the HPV
method could potentially be used to
decontaminate masks in volume – a recommendation
that is backed by the U.S. Food and Drug
Administration, which has already certified
certain vendors to offer hydrogen peroxide vapor
treatments on a large scale.
N95decon.org will
help facilitate the rapid deployment of these
emergency measures by pointing decision makers
to sources of reliable and detailed how-to
information provided by other organizations,
institutions and commercial services. For
example, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control on
Tuesday released a data-driven
fact sheet and a detailed overview for
implementing the same three decontamination
methods.
Prakash and his collaborators stressed that
decontamination does not solve the N95 shortage
and expressed hope that new masks will be made
available to health care workers and first
responders in large numbers as soon as possible.
N95 Masks Much Safer than Medical Masks for
Wearers
European Meatpackers have Avoided the High
Infection Rates
The cold,
damp conditions and crowded workstations
in meatpacking plants make infectious diseases
particularly hard to control. But not
impossible. In Europe, where labor protections
are stronger and most plants are smaller and
more automated than in the U.S., the industry
has avoided disabling outbreaks. Danish
Crown A/S, a huge pork producer, has had
employees contract Covid-19 but has prevented
plantwide spikes by employing strict hygiene
practices, a spokesman says. Goikoa,
of Spain, the nation with the most coronavirus
cases after the U.S., says its plants have
operated at full capacity throughout the
pandemic. Britain, with the world’s fourth-most
infections and second-most deaths, has minimized
plant shutdowns through rigid social distancing,
says Nick Allen, CEO of the British
Meat Processors Association. Police
showed up outside plants to lecture workers on
keeping their distance, he says.
Sanderson Farms has Slowed Lines to Minimize
Infection
Sanderson Farms Inc.,
America’s third-largest poultry producer, has
had about 100 workers test positive for Covid-19
out of 17,000 employees in its 13 plants across
the South. In late March, Sanderson became aware
of a coronavirus outbreak in Dougherty County,
GA, near its 1,400-worker plant in the city of
Moultrie. It sent more than 400 workers home,
with pay, to quarantine for two weeks whether or
not they were showing symptoms. The plant had to
slow its line speed by 15%, but it averted a
spike in infection, a closure, and possibly
worse. None of the Dougherty County workers
tested positive, and there have been no reports
of deaths among Sanderson workers.
Mike Cockrell, the company’s chief financial
officer, says Sanderson expects its chicken
production will be 4% less this fiscal year than
it estimated before the pandemic. But “no one
even asks how much it costs to protect workers,”
he says. “We’ll add it up when this is all
over.”
Cooks Venture says PPE May Have Prevented COVID
Cases
The health and well-being of meatpacking workers
has always been a socioeconomic problem at root,
says Matthew Wadiak, founder and CEO of Cooks
Venture, a small Arkansas-based producer that
sells pasture-raised chickens directly to
consumers. The company hasn’t had a Covid-19
case among the 200 employees at its processing
plant in Oklahoma. One reason is that from the
start of the pandemic, Cooks Venture provided
lots of protective gear and reconfigured the
plant to spread out workers. But the bigger
reason, Wadiak argues, is that the company pays
better. His entry-level employees earn 20% more
than other poultry workers in Oklahoma, enough
for them to afford housing that’s not
overcrowded. When you’re jammed into a group
house, as so many meat workers are, social
distancing is almost impossible.
Three Months of Social Distancing Needed for
Meaningful Infection Reduction
Social distancing didn’t meaningfully reduce the
number of deaths from the Spanish flu a century
ago because it didn’t last long enough, says a
new research paper that has implications for the
response to Covid-19.
Harvard University economist Robert Barro writes
that “the likely reason” school closings,
prohibitions on public gatherings, and
quarantines and isolation in various U.S.
cities didn’t save many lives is that they “had
an average duration of only one month.”
“The lesson for the ongoing coronavirus pandemic
in 2020 is that, to curtail overall deaths, the
NPIs [non-pharmaceutical interventions] used
have to be maintained for substantially longer
than a few weeks. Most likely, 12 weeks work
much better than 4-6 weeks,” Barro writes in the
National Bureau of Economic Research working
paper. |