WCVB-TV spotlights how MIT has opened a new treatment facility that will provide care for Covid-19 patients who are members of the MIT community and individuals from the broader Cambridge community. “The Sean Collier Care Center will be funded by MIT and staffed by MIT Medical. The facility is designed to alleviate the anticipated hospital bed shortage in Massachusetts as COVID-19 cases begin to approach peak levels.”
During a virtual conference, MIT researchers brought together experts from around the world to discuss efforts to develop digital contact tracing efforts to track the spread of Covid-19, reports Hiawatha Bray for The Boston Globe.
TechCrunch reporter Darrell Etherington writes that MIT researchers have developed a machine learning model that can help predict the spread of Covid-19. The researchers found “any immediate or near-term relaxation or reversal of quarantine measures currently in place would lead to an ‘exponential explosion’ in the number of infections.”
Prof. Parag Pathak speaks with Stephen Dubner of Freakonomics about allocating medical devices, like ventilators, during a pandemic. “Our proposal here is to think about an enhanced priority system where you take the ventilators and you split them into categories, or what we call reserves, where a fraction of reserves can have one priority order,” says Pathak. “The remaining ventilators can use another priority order.”
Writing for The Wall Street Journal, Senior Lecturer Robert Pozen argues that Congress “should approve substantial appropriations for local governments in the next stimulus package rather than hidden subsidies through the Fed. Legislative appropriations would be in plain view of American voters, who could then hold cities and states accountable for how they use federal funds.”
Writing for The Washington Post, Prof. Charles Stewart III examines voter turnout in the Wisconsin primaries. “The surprisingly high turnout,” writes Stewart, “is a sign that we should not underestimate the commitment of those who voted — or of the poll workers who served them.”
MIT Press and Candlewick Press are launching two new imprints as part of an effort to provide engaging STEAM books for children and young adults, reports Katherine Ouelette for WBUR.MIT Press and Candlewick Press are launching two new imprints as part of an effort to provide engaging STEAM books for children and young adults, reports Katherine Ouelette for WBUR.
A Mighty Girl spotlights how the Afghan Dreamers robotics team is working on a low-cost ventilator design adapted from one created by MIT researchers. “The only thing that we all want to do is help our people and our community,” tech entrepreneur Roya Mahboob, founder of the team, tells A Mighty Girl.
Prof. Erik Brynjolfsson and Principal Research Scientist Andrew McAfee speak with Bloomberg reporter Roy Bahat about the challenges companies face during the Covid-19 pandemic and the importance of human capital. “This pandemic and the accompanying economic shock will change the way a lot of industries operate,” says McAfee. “We're going to learn very quickly which aspects of in-person service are necessary, and which can be automated.”
CSAIL researchers have developed a new device that could help doctors monitor Covid-19 patients remotely using wireless signals, reports Brian Heater for TechCrunch. The device “utilizes wireless signals to detect a wide range of different activities, including patient movements, sleep patterns and even — most crucially — breathing,” Heater explains.
A team of MIT researchers is using supercomputers to develop a potential treatment for Covid-19 that uses a decoy receptor to thwart the novel coronavirus, reports Sara Castellanos for The Wall Street Journal. “Supercomputing resources accelerate this project tremendously,” explains Prof. Kevin Esvelt.
Wall Street Journal reporter Anne Marie Chaker writes that a new study by MIT researchers demonstrates how isolation can trigger a craving for social contact similar to how a hungry person yearns for food. “Right now the normal way to fulfill that need for connection is not available, so we are all getting creative about new ways to connect,” explains Prof. Rebecca Saxe.
Principal Research Scientist Daniel Weitzner speaks with NPR’s Shannon Bond about how a Bluetooth contact tracing developed by MIT researchers could help augment traditional manual contact tracing systems. "We don't need to know where you were close to someone, just that you were close to someone," says Weitzner of how the Bluetooth system would work.
Prof. Martin Culpepper speaks with NBC News reporter Cynthia McFadden about his team’s work designing a new face shield that can be rapidly manufactured. “It’s the kind on ingenuity that MIT is known for,” says McFadden, noting that MIT “has long been on the front lines of solving America’s problems.”
Every morning, a local toddler is greeted with a new adventure and the next page in an new story being penned by Deborah Douglas, director of collections for the MIT Museum, reports Heather Mayer Irvine for The Boston Globe. “I started thinking that I can’t go down and see them even though we’re only separated by 8 inches of floor, so what’s a clever way to communicate?” Douglas said.