Good morning! Today: why Manzanita in Oregon was well-prepared for the pandemic, and four prominent researchers explain the US already has the tech it needs to test millions of people daily. Get your friends to sign up here to get The Download every day.
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They were waiting for the Big One. Then coronavirus arrived.
Linda Kozlowski’s neighbor wanted to know if she needed anything from Walmart. It wasn’t a quick trip into town; the drive from the Oregon coast to Portland took two hours. But because of her age, Kozlowski, a 77-year-old retiree, might be at risk from covid-19. Perhaps there would be hard-to-find goods, like hand sanitizer. She thought for a moment and asked for bread, pasta, and toilet paper.
Helping senior citizens is a neighborly thing to do, especially in the middle of a pandemic. But in Manzanita, where Kozlowski lives, joint grocery runs are part of a detailed disaster preparedness plan that Kozlowski herself introduced to the town 13 years ago. Back then, it wasn’t a disease they were concerned about, but a storm that helped locals realize exactly how vulnerable they were to power outages, floods, and landslides.
The Oregon coast is a harsh, unforgiving place where mundane outings can quickly turn deadly. Until recently, though, the main thing most residents were preparing for was a combined earthquake and tsunami they nicknamed The Big One. The Cascadia Subduction Zone fault line stretches from Vancouver Island in Canada to Cape Mendocino, California. The last Cascadia earthquake occurred in 1700, and scientists have predicted that one will occur every 300 to 600 years. When it hits, the region will be devastated.
So Kozlowski had helped the neighborhood get prepared. She’d followed advice, called a meeting, and identified who had first aid skills, who had generators, who had a chainsaw. She’d organized a spot for everyone to rendezvous if things went bad. Sure, she’d created the disaster plan in case there was a tsunami. But it meant that when the coronavirus pandemic hit, Kozlowski and her neighbors already knew exactly how to lean on one another. Read the full story.
—Britta Lokting
This story is part of the latest issue of MIT Technology Review, dedicated entirely to covid-19 and how the pandemic is reshaping our world. Read the full magazine and subscribe to receive future ones.
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The US already has the tech to test millions of people a day, say four experts
Four prominent researchers believe the US can test millions of people a day with a little innovation, enabling it to reopen its economy safely.
There is widespread agreement that the only way to safely reopen the economy is through a massive increase in testing. The US needs to test millions of people per day to effectively track and then contain the covid-19 pandemic. This is a tall order.
However, with a bit of innovation, we believe that the US can meet the need without inventing entirely new technologies. The necessary scale can be achieved by deploying the fruits of the last decade of innovation in biology, including the dizzying advances in DNA sequencing, genetic engineering, industrial automation, and advanced computation.
We speak from experience. We have worked with and helped engender many of these technologies across academia and industry. Scaling them for widespread testing will require investment, infrastructure, and determination, but nothing technologically or logistically infeasible.
Tests for mass screening may have different requirements and characteristics from the tests run in clinical labs today that are approved by the Food and Drug Administration. So what might a solution look like? Read the full story.
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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 Why don’t some covid-19 patients sense their alarmingly low oxygen levels?
It’s a mystery that seems to defy basic biology. ( Science)
+ And why are smokers who catch coronavirus hospitalized less often? ( Vice)
2 The authorities in China are installing CCTV outside people’s front doors
A particularly creepy way to ensure people adhere to their two-week quarantine. ( CNN)
+ Companies in the US are using AI cameras to enforce social distancing. ( Reuters)
3 Inside the insane, cut-throat market for face masks 😷
Efficiency matters, but in a pandemic, distribution wins. ( The Guardian)
+ Salesforce CEO Marc Benioff spent $25 million to buy protective equipment for US medical facilities from China. ( NYT $)
4 Uber is planning to lay off about 20% of its staff
There just isn’t much demand for ride-sharing during a pandemic. ( The Information $)
5 Has Sweden’s laissez-faire approach to covid-19 worked?
It has a higher death rate than many other European countries, especially among the elderly. ( NYT $)
6 Virtual nature provides some of the same benefits as the real thing
Good news for gamers during lockdown. ( WP $)
7 We’re all experiencing “skin hunger”
It’s painful to be deprived of even the slightest physical contact. ( Wired UK)
8 Tech is both problem and solution for abuse victims
Domestic violence is on the increase during the coronavirus crisis, and there’s little help to hand. ( Wired $)
9 The CEO of surveillance company Banjo was a neo-Nazi and shot up a synagogue
Yes, you read that correctly. ( OneZero)
10 Amazon’s algorithms have led to some wild price fluctuations
$60 for a bag of rice, anyone? ( The Markup)
+ The DOJ is being lobbied to launch a criminal antitrust probe of Amazon. ( Ars Technica)
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“I need to teach other children.”
—Laura Landgreen, a teacher in Denver, is just about done with homeschooling her two sons, she tells the New York Times.
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