The CDC’s $1.75 billion sequencing boom may be throwing money at the wrong problem

How the pandemic is fueling the tech industry's union push 

Sponsored by Morgan StanleyMorgan Stanley The Download Your daily dose of what's up in emerging technology The US sequencing mess 04.06.21 Good morning! Today: the big problem with the US's $1.75 billion sequencing boom, and how the pandemic is pushing tech workers to unionize. Get your friends to sign up here to get The Download every day. The CDC’s $1.75 billion sequencing boom may be throwing money at the wrong problem   The big idea: When Joe Biden took over the White House, his coronavirus task force decided the US should massively ramp up the use of powerful genomic sequencing technology to learn more about covid, particularly the rise of variants. The CDC got an astonishing $1.75 billion to spin up these efforts, and the US is well on its way to meeting its target of decoding the genomes of 5% of all positive tests. Not what it seems: This sequencing boom means that experts now have a lot more information about where variants might be popping up. The trouble is, they can’t really do a lot with it. Important data are anonymized, held in private healthcare silos, or simply never collected in the first place. And without more, better data, these sequencing efforts are likely to be wasted. For example: The CDC sequencing program won’t tell scientists whether new variants are making people more sick, because sequences are not connected to a patient record. It also won’t help them to understand whether vaccines work against new variants, because there’s no way to know if the patient has been vaccinated. And this isn’t easily fixed. Many of these issues are a direct result of the design of the American healthcare system. Read the full story. —Cat Ferguson How the pandemic is fueling the tech industry’s union push Results from the vote among almost 6,000 workers at an Amazon fulfillment center in Bessemer, Alabama, on whether to join the Retail Warehouse and Department Store Union, are due to be announced shortly.   The facility in Alabama is only a year old, opened as part of Amazon's pandemic hiring spree which saw it add 400,000 new hires globally in 2020 alone. But the workers behind the unionization drive say such growth has come at a cost of worker dignity. Over the years, Amazon has become known for its dehumanizing working conditions, including constant surveillance, grueling workplaces that have made some employees (though not at Bessemer) resort to peeing in bottles. Collective Action in Tech is a site that documents unionization and labor actions in the technology sector. We asked three of its organizers what they thought the Bessemer vote means—and how it fits into the broader story of labor movements in the tech industry. Read the full story. —Eileen Guo We can still have nice things A place for comfort, fun and distraction in these weird times. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or tweet 'em at me.)   + This Russian adaptation of Lord of the Rings is quite something.   + Have a virtual snoop around some Scottish castles. (WSJ $)   + It is genuinely staggering that these are ballpoint pen drawings, not photographs.    + Rasputin by Boney M, played on some Tesla coils.    + Try making this famous egg salad sandwich at home. (NYT $)   + An angry octopus… or is it just playful?! (NYT $)   + A special chair for needy pets. Sponsor Message Exceptional Leaders / Exceptional Ideas: The Future of Remote Work In the first episode of Morgan Stanley’s new series Exceptional Leaders / Exceptional Ideas, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella sits down with Morgan Stanley’s Rob Rooney and Keith Weiss to discuss workplace digital transformation, the office of the future and building a culture of resiliency. Post-pandemic, will the workplace ever be the same?   Learn more. The must-reads I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology. 1 US vaccinations are now averaging over 3 million a day Three-quarters of the over-65s have now received at least one vaccine dose. (CNBC)   + What we've learned from one long, terrifying year. (NYT $)   + Americans are relaxing at just the point when they need to be especially vigilant. (The Atlantic $)   + The EU thinks it will have vaccinated most citizens by the end of June. (Bloomberg $)   + Israel offers a glimpse of the post-pandemic future. (NYT $)   + India recorded 100,000 cases in a single day. (NPR)  2 Facebook leaked 533 million people's data and didn't tell anyone Bad. Really bad. (Vice)   + Once again, someone tampered with an area's water supply online. (Vice)  3 Google has won its decade-old copyright fight against Oracle The US Supreme Court ruled that its copying of APIs from Oracle's Java SE was an example of fair use. (CNN)   4 Asian Americans in tech are speaking out about the racism they experience The "model minority" myth causes a huge amount of harm. (Protocol)   5 The co-inventor of NFTs does not like the way things are going They were meant to help artists. Instead, they've become another get-rich-quick scheme. (The Atlantic $)   + Some artists found a lifeline selling NFTs. Others worry it’s a trap. (TR)   + The latest wheeze? Buying shares of video games. (Wired $)  6 Clubhouse gives Arabs a space where they can speak freely For now. (The Economist $)   + Clubhouse has launched a payments feature. (TechCrunch)  7 How QAnon turned a custody fight deadly These are not happy or healthy people. (WSJ $)   8 Yahoo Answers is shutting down Probably for the best, given it's become overrun with far-right conspiracies. (The Next Web)   9 "Witchtok" is flourishing 🧙‍♀️ Witches are racking up more views on TikTok than #Biden. (FT $)    + The rise and fall of an infamous TikTok commune. (Input)  10 Think you could design a better face mask? Now's your chance to find out—you could win half a million bucks. (The Verge) Re-envision the "future of work." MIT Technology Review and Harvard Business Review have joined forces to bring you EmTech Next. Explore the leadership strategies and the new technologies that will power a forever changed workforce. Register now. Quote of the Day "There’s going to be a whole lot of organizing going on if this is successful – even if it isn’t, the fuse has been lit." —Tevita Uhatafe, 35, a member of Transport Workers Union of America Local who helped support the union organizing drive in Bessemer, tells The Guardian he thinks a profound shift is underway.  Top image credit: MS TECH | GETTY, ENVATO Please send egg sandwiches to hi@technologyreview.com. Follow me on Twitter at @charlottejee. Thanks for reading! —Charlotte Was this newsletter forwarded to you, and you'd like to see more? Sign up today Don't settle for half the story. Subscribe to MIT Technology Review for paywall-free access to our journalism. Subscribe now   Follow us: MIT Technology Review One Main Street Cambridge, MA 02142   Want to change how you receive these emails? 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