Good morning! Today: we need more data to make Bluetooth contact tracing work, and California aims to quintuple its coronavirus testing. Get your friends to sign up here to get The Download every day.
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Bluetooth contact tracing needs bigger, better data
In the spotlight: You might know Bluetooth best for helping you pair your headphones and smartphone, but the 21-year-old wireless technology is getting a new wave of attention now that it’s at the heart of contact-tracing apps designed to show whether you might have been exposed to coronavirus. It’s at the core of Google and Apple’s system, for example. The idea is simple: since Bluetooth is constantly scanning for other devices, your phone can use wireless signals to see who you’ve been near. Somebody who gets a positive diagnosis can tell the app, which will alert everyone else who has been in proximity.
A major challenge: In reality, though, getting the right information is going to be difficult. Even getting accurate measurements from Bluetooth signals is a very hard problem. Many things can mess it up and make the data incorrect—for example, whether your phone is horizontal or vertical.
How to overcome it: Engineers will need to take more data into account, for example from other phone sensors, and learn more about how to properly interpret signals. Read the full story.
—Patrick Howell O’Neill
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California aims to quintuple its coronavirus testing
The news: California plans to significantly ramp up its coronavirus testing and tracing efforts, as it strives to reach a point where it could relax stay-at-home rules implemented to contain the outbreak. Yesterday, Governor Gavin Newsom said the state intends to increase testing capacity from about 16,000 per day to 25,000 by April 30, and reach between 60,000 and 80,000 in the weeks after. As part of that effort, California will open 86 new testing sites around the state.
What else: The state plans to build up “an army of tracers,” starting with some 10,000 people dedicated to interviewing infected patients and contacting those they may have exposed. It will be made up of existing public health workers, volunteers, and reassigned state workers, who will rely upon online tools for training and tracing.
Wider context: California took early and aggressive steps to contain the outbreak, which helped to keep cases and fatalities relatively low. But last week, Newsom laid out six key goals the state still needs to achieve to begin significantly modifying restrictions, which included greater testing and tracing capacity. Depending on the level of progress, he said he may be able to provide firmer details on when some rules could be eased at the beginning of next month.
—James Temple
Would you volunteer to get the coronavirus?
In the latest episode of Radio Corona at 4pm ET today, Gideon Lichfield, editor in chief of MIT Technology Review, will discuss volunteer initiatives that might accelerate the development of a coronavirus vaccine. He’s chatting to Josh Morrison, the Executive Director at Waitlist Zero and part of the team at 1 Day Sooner, and Arthur Caplan, a professor of bioethics at New York University Langone Medical Center, who will discuss the ethical questions surrounding the trials. Tune in and submit your questions here.
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We can still have nice things
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The top ten must-reads
I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology.
1 Blood clots complications are killing coronavirus patients
Worryingly, doctors don’t know why. ( WP $)
2 How we can test everyone for coronavirus
Drastically ramping up testing capacity is a herculean task for governments everywhere. ( The Economist $)
3 Courts are moving online due to covid-19
This feels like another shift that might outlast the pandemic. ( The Verge)
4 At least seven people got coronavirus during the Wisconsin primary
Predictable and totally avoidable. ( Reuters)
+ America might survive the pandemic. But will the election? ( TR)
5 Zoom calls are making people feel inadequate 🤳
It’s hard not to get self-conscious when you spend all day having to look at your own face. ( The Information $)
+ People are having to come up with creative new excuses to get off video calls. ( The Atlantic)
+ Deepfake yourself, live on Zoom. ( New Scientist $)
6 Instagram is speeding up plans for a new memorialization feature
The pandemic has added urgency to the need to better manage the accounts of people who have died. ( Buzzfeed)
+ Funeral homes and morgues are struggling as the death toll rises. ( New Yorker $)
7 Air quality in nine major cities is way better post-lockdown 🏙️
If only we could go outside to, y’know, breathe a bit more of it. ( The Verge)
8 How the Chinese government is trying to control the narrative on coronavirus
But people in Wuhan aren’t going to forget what happened. ( FT)
9 The scientific discoveries made during the 1656 plague in Italy
Athanasius Kircher is believed to be the first to study infected blood through a microscope. ( Public Domain Review)
10 “Name and shame” groups are thriving on Facebook
In case you were under the illusion we’d progressed from villagers with pitchforks and torches. ( Wired UK)
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“The coronavirus has been anything but a great equalizer. It’s been the great revealer, pulling the curtain back on the class divide and exposing how deeply unequal this country is.”
—Asha Jaffar, a volunteer in Nairobi, Kenya, tells the New York Times about the impact of the pandemic.
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