Time - USA (2020-03-30)

42 Time March 30, 2020

VIRUS

ANTIBODIES

AN

NU

CL

EUS

Match

Recognition

VIRUS

Spike

proteins

Respiratory
tract
treating patients in another state. “This
pandemic is almost like us crossing the
Rubicon,” says Wiesen of MediOrbis.
“It’s a clarion call for America and for the
world on how important telemedicine is.”
Parodi agrees. “I think this pandemic will
bring in a fundamental change in the way
we practice medicine and in the way the
health care system functions in the U.S.,”
he says. “We’re going to come out of this
and realize a lot of health care visits don’t
have to be in person.”

Other tech innOvatiOns that haven’t
fully made their way to the public-health
sector could also play a critical role in
controlling this pandemic—and future
outbreaks. Taking a closer look at health-
related data, such as electronic health re-
cords or sales of over-the-counter medi-
cations, can provide valuable clues about
how an infectious disease like COVID-19
is moving through a population. Retail
drugstores track inventory and sales of
nonprescription fever reducers, for ex-
ample, and any trends in those data might
serve as an early, albeit crude, harbinger
of growing spread of disease in a com-
munity. And given the proliferation of
health- tracking apps on smartphones,
analyzing data trends like a rise in average
body temperature in a given geographi-
cal area could provide clues to emerging
clusters of cases.
Geotracking on phones, while con-
troversial because of privacy issues, can
also streamline the tedious task of contact
tracing, in which scientists try to manu-
ally trace infected patients’ whereabouts
to find as many people with whom they
had direct contact and who could have
been infected. In South Korea, this strat-
egy helped identify many of the contacts
of members of a Seoul church that formed
the first major cluster of infections in the
country. In countries with a less robust
health care infrastructure, smartphones
can be critical for gathering information
about emerging infections on the ground.
In Bangladesh, says Labrique, programs
created to canvass for noncommunica-
ble diseases like hyper tension and dia-
betes are now being modified to include
questions about COVID-19 symptoms.
These types of real-time data can rap-
idly provide a snapshot of where and
how fast the disease might be spread-
ing, to distribute health care workers and

CORONAVIRUS

WEAPONS IN

THE FIGHT

The new coronavirus, like most

viruses, uses human cells to copy

itself. Here’s how it invades the

body and two possible antidotes

to combat it:

After entering the

body, the virus lodges

in the respiratory

tract. It contains

genetic material, RNA,

in a shell decorated

with protein spikes.

NEW VACCINES

One vaccine, now in human

trials, injects a portion of the

virus’ genetic material into

the body. Cells then produce

these viral fragments, and

antibodies learn to recognize

them for when an actual

virus attacks.

TECHNOLOGY

SOLUTIONS

Fighting a pandemic

requires both tried-

and-true methods like

quarantines and more

modern digitally based

strategies.

TELEHEALTH

Doctors can diagnose

and evaluate patients

remotely so possibly

contagious people

don’t spread infections

in hospitals or office

waiting rooms.

SMARTPHONES

In low-resource

countries, health

workers can rely on

smartphones to collect

data that provide

real-time tracking of

new cases.

These spikes are like

tiny molecular keys that

allow the virus to bind to

receptors on human cells.

Once the molecular door is

unlocked, it introduces its

genome into the host cell.

1

2

THE ATTACK