El hijo mayor de la pareja formada por Bertín Osborne y Fabiola Martínez, Kike, ha dado positivo en coronavirus. Ha sido la madre del joven de 13 años la que ha querido hacer pública esta información a través de sus redes sociales. Concretamente, en su perfil de Instagram. Es allí donde la venezolana ha encontrado un espacio perfecto para compartir sus momentos en familia.
La mujer de Bertín Osborne, de 47 años, ha sorprendido con la publicación de una imagen donde Kike y ella son absolutamente protagonistas. Los dos aparecen con mascarilla, pero no es eso lo que ha sorprendido sino el texto que acompaña a la publicación. Algo que, desde luego, absolutamente nadie imaginaba.
“Llegó el #corona a nuestra vida”, comenzó diciendo Fabiola en este mensaje en su perfil de Instagram. “Kike ha dado positivo en una prueba PCR, así que nos toca cuarentena hasta dar negativo. Él se encuentra bien, está asintomático. Dios quiera que siga así hasta que todo pase. Os iré contando. Besos a todos”.
Por lo tanto, como hemos podido apreciar, por el momento Kike es completamente asintomático… ¡Por lo que son buenas noticias! Eso sí, ahora toda la familia tiene que confinarse hasta que el resultado de las pruebas de negativo. La venezolana ha explicado que, a pesar de haber hecho todo lo posible para mantener a sus hijos alejados del virus, Kike lo ha contraído.
En varios stories de Instagram, Fabiola explicó cómo ocurrió todo: “Aquí estamos, después de tanto protegernos, cuidarnos, aislarnos y hacer todo lo que nos indicaban hacer… Lo hemos pillado”. Además, la exmodelo añadió: “Con este virus hemos de aprender a convivir como nos ha pasado con muchas otras enfermedades a lo largo de la historia y esta va a ser una más de la que habremos aprendido”.
Fabiola de Osborne, como se hace llamar en Instagram, continuó sincerándose: “Y con respecto a nosotros os cuento que, increíblemente, quien lo ha pillado en casa ha sido Kike. He aquí el foco de la cuestión. Pero ahí está el campeón, fuerte como un toro. Y bueno pues, esperando que pasen los días indicados de la cuarentena y ver cómo va evolucionando. Estamos bien, y ya os iré contando”. ¡Seguro que todo quedará en un susto! Estamos convencidos.
Sensoria Health, makers of wearable technology designed to improve healthcare, has a new Smart Band that tracks key vitals and could help detect potential COVID-19 symptoms.
Redmond, Wash.-based Sensoria Health is a spinoff from Sensoria, the smart sports apparel startup whose garments track movements and measure how well users are running or walking. Sensoria was founded in 2011 by CEO Davide Vigano and his former Microsoft colleagues, and the health company launched three years ago in partnership with Genesis Healthcare.
The new $69 Smart Band measures body temperature, heart rate and blood oxygenation while also monitoring sleep quality and steps. It will be available later this month in the U.S. and Europe.
In a post on LinkedIn, Vigano writes about the importance of blood oxygenation specifically, and why some physicians believe measuring the oxygen level in blood is a critical step in preventing a serious progression of COVID-19 pneumonia.
Vigano references the findings of Dr. Richard Levitan, an emergency room doctor from New Hampshire who wrote about treating COVID pneumonia in the early days of the pandemic. Levitan is the brother of Seattle venture capitalist Dan Levitan and the two teamed on a project to help COVID patients breathe easier.
(Sensoria Health Images)
“Oxygen saturation in healthy individuals (SpO2) should range from 95-100%, so a healthy person could use the Sensoria Smart Band to regularly monitor trends on his or her own measurements conveniently at home and contact a health provider immediately should they notice a visible drop in oxygen saturation trends,” Vigano wrote.
Most traditional pulse oximeter devices work on the tip of the finger, but Sensoria wanted to use a different solution so that users’ would not have their daily routine interrupted. Vigano said Sensoria reached out to its research, sensor and manufacturing partners in the United States and Asia and worked with them to “create a minimalistic and comfortable form factor.”
He said the technology is not exclusive to Sensoria, “but we are going to be among the first to market, that’s for sure.”
The Smart Band can be paired via Bluetooth to a companion app that provides detailed analytics based on measurements collected over time. A cloud-based remote monitoring system can also feed information to an optional employer dashboard, so businesses or healthcare professionals can react quickly to updated information, while privacy is protected.
Last week Amazon released its own health band called Halo that measures body fat, voice tone, sleep quality, and activity.
Adam Lacy-Hulbert studies the mechanisms of immunity at the Benaroya Research Institute at Virginia Mason. (BRI / Virginia Mason Photo)
A team including researchers from Seattle’s Benaroya Research Institute at Virginia Mason has identified a new pathway for protecting cells from deadly viruses — including the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 as well as the Ebola virus.
The technique, described in this week’s issue of the journal Science, takes advantage of a screening technique for seeking out new genes that can prevent infection.
In the newly published study, the research team pinpoints two genes that have already been the subject of biomedical studies. One gene is called the MHC class II transactivator, or CIITA. The second gene is known as CD74 — specifically, a variant known as p41.
Those genes have previously been thought to be involved in conventional immune responses involving T cells and B cells. The new findings, resulting from a screening technique called transposon-mediated gene activation, shed light on a different way in which the genes block infection.
The researchers found that CIITA can induce resistance in human cell lines by activating CD74 p41, which in turn disrupts the processing of proteins on the coat of the Ebola virus protein. That stops the virus from being able to infect its target cell. The same process blocks the entry pathway for an assortment of coronaviruses — including the SARS-CoV-2 virus that’s behind the current pandemic.
“Uncovering these new cellular protection pathways is incredibly important for understanding how we disrupt or change the virus infection cycle to elicit better protection against viruses like Ebola or SARS-CoV-2.” senior study author Adam Lacy-Hulbert, principal investigator at the Benaroya Research Institute, said in a news release. “And our new strategy helps us find mechanisms that have eluded conventional genetic screens.”
The strategy could lead to new therapies that work by blocking the activity of cathepsin proteases. “Many viruses, including coronaviruses, use cathepsin proteases to help them infect cells. … Thus, this antiviral mechanism has evolved to work against many different viruses,” said Case Western Reserve University’s Anna Bruchez, the study’s lead author.
Study co-author Lynda Stuart, deputy director for vaccines and human immunobiology at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, said the new screening technique could fill gaps in scientists’ knowledge about the cellular mechanisms that block viral infections.
“We really need therapies that can block all viruses, including unknown future pathogens,” Stuart said. “To do that, we need to find common pathways that viruses target, and then develop approaches to block those vulnerabilities. Our work demonstrates one way in which cells can be modified to do this.”
In addition to Bruchez, Stuart and Lacy-Hulbert, the authors of the Science study, “MHC Class II Transactivator CIITA Induces Cell Resistance to Ebola Virus and SARS-like Coronaviruses,” include Ky Sha, Joshua Johnson, Li Chen, Caroline Stefani, Hannah McConnell, Lea Gaucherand, Rachel Prins, Kenneth Matreyek, Adam Hume, Elke Mühlberger, Emmett Schmidt and Gene Olinger.
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COVID-19 doesn’t prevent a chem lab camper from getting a little messy. (Pacific Science Center Photo)
Seattle’s Pacific Science Center took its own messages about innovation and ingenuity to heart this summer and created a slate of camps for kids in the time of COVID-19, conducted not just remotely but also in-person.
The nonprofit just wrapped up 10 weeks of camps, with nearly 1,500 kids participating at the spacious Seattle campus and three partner locations, and another 1,500 kids enrolled in the Science Center’s virtual camps, including students from out of state. In a year when the pandemic dashed many cherished summer plans, the camps were a welcome reprieve.
“We heard very clearly from the adults that this was not only needed, but a lifesaver for some,” said Diana Johns, vice president of exhibits, science engagement and outreach for the center.
The in-person camps followed state safety guidelines, which meant creating pods of nine kids maximum and one counselor, staying 6 feet apart and wearing masks. The kids came and went from camp through multiple entrances at the center to limit contact, and pods had designated bathrooms.
A dissection lab camper. (Pacific Science Center Photo)
There were no reported incidents of novel coronavirus spread among camp educators or kids, who attended the week-long camps for up to seven hours a day.
There has been significant concern and debate about the whether and how to bring kids safely together for school and camps, with most students in Washington returning to entirely or partially remote classes this fall. While the Science Center program has some unique features, it demonstrated that in-person instruction for kindergarten to eighth-grade kids can work, but there are challenges to manage.
“The hard thing is you’re asking kids not to be so ‘kiddie’ — you’re asking them not to touch each other and keep this thing on your face, which is hard for young kids in particular,” Johns said. But at the same time, she added, “what was clear was how much it meant for those kids to be with other kids.”
El grupo turístico alemán TUI tuvo una pérdida neta atribuida de 2.316,6 millones de euros en los tres primeros trimestres de su ejercicio 2019/2020, lo que representa una caída siete veces mayor que un año antes, debido a las restricciones de viajes por el impacto de la pandemia del covid-19.
TUI informó este jueves de que la facturación ha bajado con fuerza en los nueve primeros meses de su actual ejercicio, que comenzó en octubre, hasta 6.710 millones de euros (-41,2 %). No obstante, TUI, que tiene liquidez por valor 2.400 millones de euros gracias a los créditos estatales de 3.000 millones de euros, dijo que los primeros viajes desde mediados de junio han generado facturación de nuevo.
TUI ha cifrado el impacto negativo de la pandemia de covid-19 en su resultado operativo de 1.900 millones de euros. El consejero delegado de TUI, Fritz Joussen, dijo al presentar las cifras que «nuestro modelo de negocio integrado de vuelos, transferencias, hoteles y cruceros muestra que merece la pena, incluso, en la crisis».
«Con la segunda línea de créditos gubernamentales, estamos preparados por si la pandemia tiene de nuevo un impacto significativo en el turismo», añadió Joussen. TUI tuvo una pérdida bruta de 1.244 millones de euros en los tres primeros trimestres, frente al beneficio de 275,3 millones de euros un año antes.
Reservas prometedoras
Ya ha reiniciado sus viajes en todos los mercados europeos y a mediados de junio fue la primera compañía en llevar turistas alemanes a Mallorca en un proyecto piloto. Después de que concluyeran oficialmente las advertencias de viaje en la mayor parte de los destinos europeos, TUI también retomó las vacaciones en otros mercados a comienzos de julio.
Además de las Islas Baleares, Grecia y las islas griegas son importantes destinos vacacionales para TUI. En julio, más de medio millón de clientes de Europa realizaron con TUI sus vacaciones de verano. TUI insiste en que la demanda de vacaciones sigue siendo «muy elevada» y que han recibido 1,7 millones nuevas reservas desde que se reanudaron los viajes.
Las reservas para el verano de 2021 también son «muy prometedoras» y ya superan en un 145 % las reservas del año pasado para este verano, según TUI. Joussen explicó que han conducido las vacaciones de verano de forma responsable con los mayores estándares de higiene en todos los mercados y en cooperación con los gobiernos de los destinos.
Omeros stock shot up more than 60% after the Seattle-based biotech company reported promising results from its COVID-19 drug treatment.
The company said six COVID-19 patients in Italy with acute respiratory distress syndrome, or ARDS, recovered and were discharged from the hospital after being treated with Omeros’ drug narsoplimab. The patients initially required mechanical ventilation. Omeros is now in talks with U.S. government agencies to expand the availability of narsoplimab.
“The patients that we treated with narsoplimab were critically ill, and the uniformly successful outcomes were truly impressive,” Professor Rambaldi, a doctor at the Papa Giovanni XXIII Hospital, said in a statement. “Also of importance in this terribly sick population studied, the drug was well tolerated, showing no adverse effects.”
Founded in 1994, Omeros is one of Seattle’s largest biotech companies and went public in 2009. Revenue was down and losses grew in the second quarter due to postponements of cataract procedures. The company’s stock was down slightly Tuesday morning, trading at around $19/share.
“The work at Papa Giovanni, for the first time, puts many of the COVID-19 pieces together – endothelial injury and the pathophysiology of COVID-19, complement activation and clinical evidence of the potential therapeutic role of the lectin pathway inhibitor narsoplimab in treating this disease,” Gregory Demopulos, chairman and CEO of Omeros, said in a statement. “We look forward to being able to make narsoplimab broadly available to hospitalized COVID-19 patients.”
The Seattle Seahawks are turning to technology to help keep players and personnel safe as a season unlike any other kicks off next month.
The team is now using CLEAR’s Health Pass software to screen players, coaches, and support staff at its training facility near Seattle and at CenturyLink Field. It’s the first NFL franchise to use the service, which launched in May and is already implemented in the NHL and at restaurants.
Before arriving at the Virginia Mason Athletic Center each day, Seahawks personnel are required to log into the Health Pass app, verify their identity with a selfie photo, and answer health screening questions. When they arrive, the app is scanned at the entrance and a user gets a green or red check — green means all is good, while red requires more questions to be answered.
Health Pass is being used alongside the NFL’s other COVID-19 screening protocols including routine testing, daily temperature checks, mask wearing, and more.
With air travel down due to the pandemic, CLEAR is finding other use cases for its security software. The New York-based company is best known for its identity verification technology at more than 50 airports and venues across the U.S. It previously worked with the Seahawks in 2018 to offer “fast lanes” at the CenturyLink Field entrance and for food and drink purchasing.
Recode reported that some privacy advocates are raising concerns about Health Pass given the type of private data collected, and one expert said it could become part of “security theater.” Some U.S. senators also sent privacy-related questions to the company.
CLEAR says it could potentially integrate data such as a vaccine status into Health Pass. Here’s Clear CEO Caryn Seidman-Becker talking about Health Pass in May:
After nearly two weeks of testing, receiver John Ursua on Sunday became the first Seahawks player listed on the league’s COVID-19 list, which tracks players who either tested positive or came into close contact with someone who did.
Players began reporting to training camp late last month and padded practices begin this week. The season is scheduled to begin Sept. 10; there are no preseason games this year.
More than 60 players have already opted out of playing. The NFL is not using a “bubble” strategy like the NBA and NHL. The upcoming season for college football is up in the air; the Big Ten reportedly will cancel games this fall.
The latest data from the NFLPA shows 107 positive cases for players during the offseason, and 56 since training camp began.
Friday work at #SeahawksCamp ?? pic.twitter.com/ho1Ef6y5MX
— Seattle Seahawks (@Seahawks) August 8, 2020
There are a number of companies selling COVID-related screening tools, including various health tech firms. Fitbit recently debuted a “Ready for Work” symptom tracker. Microsoft and UnitedHealth Group rolled out a free app in May called ProtectWell that surveys workers about their health. Companies such as Amazon are conducting temperature checks and setting up COVID-19 tests across its operations network.
The first spinout from a new Seattle innovation studio run by Pioneer Square Labs (PSL) and Fortive is TeamSense, which helps employers track COVID-19 symptoms at the workplace.
About 80% of people infected with the novel coronavirus don’t spread the infection to anyone else, leaving the so-called super spreaders as the drivers of the global pandemic that has infected more than 5 million Americans alone, killing 162,000 people.
Preliminary research from the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center suggests that infected people are most contagious for a short window, perhaps only two days, when their virus load is high. Unfortunately, that period also appears to strike before they’re symptomatic for COVID-19.
“The ethical thing to do as an individual is to walk around with the assumption that you’re infectious and contagious, and that it’s your responsibility to protect the public. That doesn’t change at all,” said Dr. Joshua T. Schiffer, an infectious diseases physician and author of the research, in a statement.
Impinj missed analyst expectations for its second quarter earnings report as its stock dipped more than 14% on Thursday.
The Seattle-based RFID company reported a loss of $0.25 per share and revenue of $26.5 million. That compares to a profit of $0.03 per share on revenue of $38.2 million in the year-ago quarter.
“Covid-19 negatively impacted our second-quarter results, and the continuing uncertainty tempers our third-quarter outlook,” Chris Diorio, Impinj co-founder and CEO, said in a statement.
But Diorio expressed long-term optimism for the 20-year-old company, whose technology is heavily used by retailers to track inventory.
“With our strong balance sheet and staying power we will not only weather the impacts of COVID-19, but we will invest in these opportunities and exit the other side of COVID-19 stronger,” he said on an earnings call. “Looking to the long-term, we believe COVID-19 will accelerate our vision of connecting and giving digital life to everything.”
Impinj stock fell sharply in March but had rebounded back to near pre-COVID levels before Thursday’s drop.
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Alrededor de un tercio de los pacientes que han sido diagnosticado con coronavirus o Covid-19 tienen síntomas que no desaparecen, según ha alertado un nuevo informe de los Centros para el Control y la Prevención de Enfermedades.
Los pacientes con covid-19 mantienen los síntomas
El informe, que ha estado centrado en pacientes que no fueron hospitalizados por el Covid-19, encontró que los pacientes experimentaron síntomas semanas y meses después de que dieran positivo por primera vez.
De hecho, los pacientes con COVID-19 analizados, no volvieron a su nivel normal de salud hasta que pasaron dos o tres semanas después del diagnóstico. Y en un subconjunto de pacientes con coronavirus en el rango de edad de 18 a 34 años, el estudio encontró que uno de cada cinco no pudo regresar a su estado de salud habitual, suponiendo que no tenían condiciones médicas crónicas previas.
Los síntomas persistentes de los pacientes con Covid-19 incluyeron fatiga, tos, congestión, disnea, pérdida del gusto y el olfato, dolor en el pecho y confusión. Otros síntomas, como vómitos, náuseas, fiebre y escalofríos, no duraron tanto.
«COVID-19 puede provocar enfermedades prolongadas, incluso entre adultos jóvenes sin afecciones médicas crónicas subyacentes. Los mensajes de salud pública efectivos dirigidos a estos grupos están garantizados«, dijeron los CDC .
El reconocimiento es una buena noticia para los pacientes que se hacen llamar «transportistas de larga distancia» , que sufren síntomas debilitantes semanas e incluso meses después de su infección inicial.
Otros informes anteriores
Además, el informe de los CDC parece corroborar un informe anterior en el que varios pacientes con coronavirus en un hospital en Israel informaron una variedad de dolores y síntomas a veces meses después de su diagnóstico inicial. Esos pacientes informaron específicamente una variedad de dolores misteriosos, algunos problemas psicológicos y problemas con la capacidad pulmonar.
A comienzos del mes de julio, los CDC ya alertaron que los pacientes con COVID-19 a menudo tenían uno de los tres síntomas principales: fiebre, tos y falta de aliento. Los CDC publicaron los resultados de ese informe la semana pasada, encontrando que el 96% de los pacientes tenían fiebre, tos o dificultad para respirar por el coronavirus. Alrededor de la mitad de eso, el 45%, experimentó los tres síntomas a la vez.
También vale la pena señalar que un informe de la Organización Mundial de la Salud (OMS) en mayo indicó que algunos pacientes con coronavirus podrían experimentar una «recaída» después de una recuperación aparentemente completa.
«Ciertamente, ha habido algunos casos reportados de recaída putativa, por lo que las personas se han enfermado nuevamente», explicó el director ejecutivo de la OMS, Dr. Mike Ryan. «Se está trabajando mucho ahora para ver si las personas han sido reinfectadas o si es solo una parte crónica de la afección».
El informe de la OMS también indicó que muchos pacientes recuperados experimentan «problemas a largo plazo con la energía«, una declaración que se alinea con el mencionado informe de los CDC y los problemas actuales de fatiga persistente en pacientes recuperados.
Los médicos en este punto todavía no han podido entender exactamente por qué algunos pacientes experimentan síntomas duraderos durante semanas después. Y dado que todavía estamos a unos pocos meses de la pandemia de coronavirus, queda por ver si estos síntomas persistentes quedarán como secuelas presentes en los pacientes recuperados o si finalmente desaparecerán con el tiempo.
The COVID-19 pandemic is forcing hospital systems to adopt digital tools at record pace. They are getting help from startups such as Xealth, a Seattle-based company that just announced a key partnership with Cerner and an investment from the publicly-traded healthcare giant.
Xealth will team up with Cerner, a leading electronic health record (EHR) tech company, to help hospitals incorporate digital health programs. Cerner also made a $6 million investment in the startup, along with LRVHealth, a health-focused VC firm based in Boston.
Founded in 2017 by two Seattle startup veterans and spun out of Providence Health & Services, Xealth uses patient data to recommend services from a variety of vendors for possible prescription. The company lets doctors and nurses issue digital prescriptions such as apps and digital media. It also routes the flow of data from services back into the hospital’s EHR.
“Clinicians easily find and order the right digital tools and programs from within their current EHR workflows, send these digital health orders to the patient’s smartphone or computer, and then monitor patient engagement, analyzing the effects of the tools on patient care,” said Xealth CEO Mike McSherry.
Xealth is already integrated with Epic, and the deal with Cerner means Xealth is now working with the two largest hospital EHR vendors in the U.S.
“Cerner’s investment is a realization and commitment that digital health, telehealth/remote monitoring is now part of care delivery going forward,” McSherry said.
McSherry said the pandemic has “really turned digital tools into must-haves” as hospitals aim to treat patients safely without risking exposure to COVID-19.
“We worked practically around the clock to help our customers, including Providence, stand up COVID-19 specific workflows and automation in just days around telehealth visits, remote patient monitoring, behavioral health and supporting in-patient visits,” he said.
Xealth customers include Providence, Duke Health, UPMC, Atrium Health, Partners and The Froedtert & the Medical College of Wisconsin health network.
The startup makes money by licensing its platform to healthcare providers. Competitors include Redox and Sansoro Health, both of which integrate third-party applications into EHRs.
(Xealth Image)
Xealth is one of many digital health startups that have seen demand rise this year. Venture funding for the U.S. digital health sector is expected to break a new record in 2020; companies already raised $5.4 billion through June, according to RockHealth.
“While the pandemic appears to have stoked investors’ appetite for digital health companies in particular, their focus could shift in a longer term economic downturn,” RockHealth said in a recent report. “On the other hand, there’s never been a greater need — or demand — for technology-enabled healthcare, a viewpoint the digital health investor community has so far this year resoundingly affirmed.”
Tech giants including Apple, Amazon, Google and Microsoft are also investing heavily in digital health products and services.
McSherry started Xealth with co-founder Aaron Sheedy. The pair have been working together for more than two decades, tracing their roots back to a shared office at Microsoft in the 90s. They worked together at Swype, the popular texting keyboard maker that raised investment from Nokia and Samsung and sold to Nuance Communications in 2011. McSherry was CEO at Swype and became Nuance’s VP of advertising and content and Sheedy its VP of mobile product.
They took the plunge into healthcare after McSherry was invited by Providence CEO Rod Hochman to be an entrepreneur-in-residence at Providence Ventures in 2015.
The company received a $1-to-$2 million loan from the federal government’s Paycheck Protection Program. It had a small number of layoffs to help manage costs, given that its customers have lost billions of dollars in revenue due to the pandemic with cancelled or delayed procedures, surgeries, and doctor visits, McSherry said.
Xealth now employs 58 people. Total funding to date is $28.5 million. Other backers include Atrium Health, Cleveland Clinic, Froedtert and the Medical College of Wisconsin, MemorialCare Innovation Fund, Providence Ventures, and UPMC, as well as McKesson, Novartis, Philips, and ResMed.
Impinj missed analyst expectations for its second quarter earnings report as its stock dipped more than 14% on Thursday.
The Seattle-based RFID company reported a loss of $0.25 per share and revenue of $26.5 million. That compares to a profit of $0.03 per share on revenue of $38.2 million in the year-ago quarter.
“Covid-19 negatively impacted our second-quarter results, and the continuing uncertainty tempers our third-quarter outlook,” Chris Diorio, Impinj co-founder and CEO, said in a statement.
But Diorio expressed long-term optimism for the 20-year-old company, whose technology is heavily used by retailers to track inventory.
“With our strong balance sheet and staying power we will not only weather the impacts of COVID-19, but we will invest in these opportunities and exit the other side of COVID-19 stronger,” he said on an earnings call. “Looking to the long-term, we believe COVID-19 will accelerate our vision of connecting and giving digital life to everything.”
Impinj stock fell sharply in March but had rebounded back to near pre-COVID levels before Thursday’s drop.
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It’s certainly been a unique inaugural cohort for the 5G Open Innovation Lab (5G OI Lab), a new startup program funded by T-Mobile, Intel, and NASA. But participating entrepreneurs are making the most of their time, particularly as the demand for some 5G-enabled technologies accelerates amid the COVID-19 crisis.
The Bellevue, Wash.-based lab debuted in early May and will wrapped up its first program — held virtually due to the pandemic — this week.
The 14 companies are working in tandem with a variety of partners from the public and private spheres, with the goal of growing their business in the midst of an economic and health crisis.
We caught up with six of the startups to learn more about how they’ve adjusted over the past several months and how they are using 5G to their advantage. They also provided advice to other entrepreneurs. The lab is accepting applications for its fall and spring 2021 cohorts.
Taqtile founders Dirck Schou, CEO, and John Tomizuka, CTO.
Founders: Dirck Schou, CEO, and John Tomizuka, CTO.
Headquarters: Seattle, Wash.
What does your company do? Taqtile builds enterprise AR software that makes everyone an expert by arming frontline workers with an intuitive tool to easily capture knowledge, perform complex tasks, and collaborate with remote experts in previously impossible ways.
What makes you different from the competition? What’s your secret sauce? Usability. Our Manifest platform is the most complete, end-to-end AR work-instruction platform for enterprises on the market. It’s designed to be effortless for experts to capture and author their knowledge, and for frontline users to accurately, efficiently, and safely put that knowledge to use in the field.
How has your business been affected by COVID-19 and how are you adapting? While COVID-19 has delayed several companies from deploying enterprise solutions, we’ve seen significant new interest in Manifest by demonstrating how feasible and beneficial remote work processes and distance-enabling technologies can be.
How are you using 5G technology? How does it make a difference for your company? Our Manifest AR platform works amazingly well on today’s commonly used networks, and it will be even more powerful on 5G. Most noticeably, the edge-computing design of 5G is going to dramatically improve throughput, resolve latency issues, and increase security for enterprise customers.
What’s one piece of advice you’d give other entrepreneurs who are just starting out? Prepare for a marathon, not a sprint. Establish your cheering section of believers and cultivate your connectors because you never know where you’ll encounter that one connection that is going to change your business’ trajectory. And refine your ability to write and articulate what makes you unique. Your customers, employees, and investors buy the story, not the technology.
Numurus founders Jason Seawall, CEO, and Ian McKissick, COO.
Founders: Jason Seawall, CEO, and Ian McKissick, COO.
Headquarters: Seattle, Wash.
What does your company do? Numurus offers B2B connectivity solutions between edge devices and cloud services focused on industrial and defense applications. Numurus’ flagship product NEPI is a smart IoT subscription platform that combines a secure IoT backbone, edge-device management, and cloud-portal management, with integrated AI services. With NEPI, product developers can rapidly transform their sensors and robotic technologies into smart IoT enabled solutions making them both more capable and more valuable to the end customer.
What makes you different from the competition? What’s your secret sauce? NEPI provides device manufacturers with a turnkey, affordable solution to meet the growing demands for Industry 4.0 capabilities. Instead of expensive and time-consuming in-house development, NEPI delivers the smart link that can bring an IoT application to the market in a competitive time frame. For a sensor or robot company, NEPI is the secret sauce that gets its commercial application to market and more profitable!
How has your business been affected by COVID-19 and how are you adapting? Today’s current situation related to COVID-19 has further motivated many asset operators to increase the adoption of smart device deployments that can reduce on-site personnel and ensure operational continuity. NEPI is working with companies to develop smart IoT applications that can support remote device management, remote facility maintenance, and inspection.
How are you using 5G technology? How does it make a difference for your company? Numurus’ NEPI platform provides integrated communications gateways for our IoT customers. Adding the 5G support, with its high bandwidth and low-latency characteristics, opens up new NEPI use-cases related to augmented reality, robotic teleoperations, and distributed artificial intelligence.
What’s one piece of advice you’d give other entrepreneurs who are just starting out? First, clearly define what your company does, not the underlying technology, and use that statement consistently, both internally for road-mapping and externally with potential customers. Second, build an MVP product and start bringing in revenue as fast as possible. Third, don’t give up!
Kristopher Francisco, Founder/CEO of Evolute.
Founders: Kristopher Francisco, CEO.
Headquarters: San Francisco, Calif.
What does your company do? Evolute enables Fortune 500 IT Managers to run software at the edge without a human operator. Unlike VMware, we can transform software to its most modular form, scale it up and down as a service, and manage without human intervention.
What makes you different from the competition? What’s your secret sauce? Evolute has Infrastructure AI, which allows us to seamlessly understand and transform software into its most modular and transportable form. With this deep level of insight, unlike other competitors, we can manage and operate the software at the edge without a human operator.
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Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates speaks at the University of Washington in Seattle. (GeekWire Photo / Kevin Lisota)
Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates addressed various coronavirus-related topics in a 30-minute interview with CBS News’ Norah O’Donnell that aired Wednesday.
Gates, a global health expert, has been commenting on the pandemic’s progress almost weekly from his Seattle-area home base via video links with media outlets ranging from TED to CNN to Comedy Central’s “The Daily Show.”
Here are the key takeaways from his interview with CBS News (comments edited for brevity and clarity):
On if we’re witnessing a “disaster” he alluded to previously if certain steps weren’t taken:
Bill Gates: “There’s a lot of things we can go back and say, why wasn’t there a federal testing plan, why didn’t we get the turnaround on the testing down, why aren’t we getting tests out to low-income minority communities? Serious mistakes were made, some of which were because we didn’t understand the virus very well. The understanding about the importance of masks came later than we wish it had. And then the U.S. had the lowest compliance with mask use of any country. We didn’t have the leadership message there. We have a lot of regrets, but we do have innovations in the pipeline that should reduce the death rate, and eventually by the end of next year get us out of this terrible situation.”
RACE TO A CURE: The @gatesfoundation has committed more than $350 million to the development of diagnostics, therapeutics and vaccines in the fight against COVID-19.
@NorahODonnell spoke with @BillGates about potential treatments and what’s next in the fight against the virus. pic.twitter.com/xWbEfEXis3
— CBS Evening News (@CBSEveningNews) July 22, 2020
On what needs to be done immediately:
Gates: “Some of the policies were a mistake. Opening up bars — the economic benefit versus the infection risk of a lot of activities like that made it a mistake. Now, in most of the U.S., we need to absolutely avoid those things. We need to distance, we need to use maks. We’ve seen that in Europe they had the dramatic fall-off. It didn’t spread into the other communities and that’s because their leadership communicated with a clear voice and their scientists were encouraged to go on TV instead of banned. So the population benefitted and the death rate in those countries has gone down very dramatically.”
On the state of COVID-19 testing:
Gates: “The lag times that we have today are completely unacceptable. It’s making most of our tests pretty much worthless.”
On whether President’s Trump’s claim that the U.S. has the “best mortality rate” in the world is factually correct:
Gates: “Not at all, not even close. By almost every measure, the U.S. is one of the worst. I think we can change that, but it’s an ugly picture.”
“By almost every measure, the U.S. is one of the worst”: Bill Gates criticizes the politicization of face masks and the country’s reopening strategy https://t.co/Layv872iZy pic.twitter.com/FelZNZ8xLq
— CBS News (@CBSNews) July 22, 2020
On children returning to school:
Gates: “Fortunately, the actual number of young people who get sick is pretty modest. The big challenge is how to get the teachers and staff in and to avoid those kids being a source of infection as they go back into their households. … By 2021, which is a long time, I think we’ll have things under control enough.
“It’s extremely important [that kids return to school]. And so no one should think that this a totally political thing where it’s black and white. … We’re kind of stuck on the ‘open them up completely’ vs. ‘hey, if there’s any risk, I don’t want to go work there.’ Those are two extreme positions. It’s time for a discussion where it’s not this black and white, go in everyday versus not going in at all.”
On if he’d send his children to public school during the pandemic:
Gates: “If a school is being careful, then yes. Now, if they live in a multigenerational household where you have old people that they are exposed to, you have to look at how hard it would be to reduce the grandparents’ exposure to those kids. If you live in a single generational household and have a school that is being careful, then I do think it’s reasonable to say that my kid can get that educational opportunity, particularly as the kids are younger. People have freedom to make choices here, but we do need to remember it’s mostly transmission into the older people that drives these really horrific deaths per day.”
Bill Gates tells @NorahODonnell that he believes coronavirus will be “under control enough” for children to return to school “by fall 2021” https://t.co/Layv872iZy pic.twitter.com/KQdKB5M9RR
— CBS News (@CBSNews) July 22, 2020
On who gets the COVID-19 vaccine first:
Gates: “That’s in discussion. Clearly the U.S., by funding factories in the U.S., will get priority. But if we can have other factories … and this is where the U.S. government’s traditional generosity in global health will be needed, our foundation will be needed, and other countries. We want to make sure we don’t have people dying just because they can’t afford to have access to the vaccine.”
On how many doses of a COVID-19 vaccine people will need:
Gates: “None of the vaccines at this point appear like they’ll work with a single dose. That was the hope at the very beginning. …We hope just two [doses], although in the elderly, sometimes it takes more. Making sure we have lots of elderly people in the trial will give us that data.”
On concerns with a growing anti-vaccination disinformation campaign on social media:
Gates: “It’s always a concern because vaccines are so key to keeping measles deaths down, helping us eradicate polio. Vaccines are so important. They’ve played the primary role in cutting childhood death in half over the last 20 years. So explaining how careful we are about vaccine safety is super important. During a pandemic I can understand people’s anxiety levels going up. But explaining what the testing is doing … we will need a lot of people to be willing to take the vaccine to stop the transmission.”
On conspiracy theories that accuse Gates of wanting a COVID-19 vaccine to plant microchips into people:
Gates: “There is no connection between any of these vaccines and any tracking type thing — at all. I don’t know where that came from.”
On a YouGov poll showing that 44% of Republicans surveyed believe Gates is plotting the microchip vaccination campaign:
Gates: “Some of these are deeply ironic. Our foundation is about reducing death and bringing equity to health. Yet the idea that we get accused of creating chips or the virus … I think we just need to get the truth out there. We need to explain our values so people understand why we’re involved in this work and why we’re willing to put hundreds or billions to accelerate progress. It’s a little unclear to me but I hope it will die down as people get the facts.”
.@NorahODonnell: “The posts on social media about you and coronavirus are considered the most widespread coronavirus falsehoods that exist … To be clear, do you want a vaccine so that you can implant microchips into people?”
Gates: “No… I don’t know where that came from.” pic.twitter.com/f4MOP19BY6
The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Washington state rose 71% over the past week, reaching a new weekly high of more than 6,800 reported cases, according to GeekWire’s calculations from state Department of Health data.
The increase coincides with continued expansion of COVID-19 testing in the state. Deaths and hospitalizations remain below their prior peaks.
In a new situation report, scientists and Washington state public health officials call the growth in cases an “explosive situation” and “a matter of utmost urgency.”
“Transmission continues to increase or accelerate across most of Washington state and will continue to do so unless concrete steps are taken to stop the spread,” says the report from researchers and scientists from the Institute for Disease Modeling, University of Washington, Microsoft and Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center.
It adds, “Washington State is in the early stages of an exponential statewide outbreak that has zero chance of being reversed without changes to our collective behavior and policies to support that change. If current trends continue, we expect that schools will not be able to reopen safely in the fall. Further transmission control will require enhanced compliance with masking and distancing policies and further restricting gatherings that likely fuel virus spread.”
The latest weekly COVID-19 case count is more than twice the earlier weekly peak of about 3,300 confirmed cases in early April.
Total daily tests now routinely approach or exceed 15,000 per day, about three times the number of tests that were conducted at the time of that prior peak.
Washington state Department of Health
The latest weekly numbers show the state’s death toll rising by 20 people, a new weekly low that resulted in part from health officials reducing the cumulative count to adjust for 39 earlier fatalities where further review determined that COVID-19 did not cause or contribute to the deaths.
A total of 348 people were in the hospital this weekend due to COVID-19 or related symptoms, compared to the state’s peak of more than 650 people in the hospital at one point early April.
“Hospitalization rates are just starting to increase in western WA and continue to grow across all age groups in eastern WA,” the state’s situation report says. “As transmission moves from younger adults into older more vulnerable populations, we expect new hospitalizations and eventually deaths to trend up across the state.”
The report included this heat map showing the spread of the disease among people in their 20s, and comparing the trends to those seen in Florida.
From Situation Report 9: COVID-19 transmission across Washington State, July 17, 2020.
“The pattern in Washington mirrors that seen in Florida at a roughly 3 week delay,” the report says. “This is evidence that it is not possible to contain COVID-19 to a single stratum of society when prevalence is growing exponentially.”
With its recent increase, Florida has risen to third among U.S. states with more than 350,000 COVID-19 cases. Washington state, which was believed to be the original epicenter of the COVID-19 outbreak in the United States, is now 21st among states with about 48,601 COVID-19 cases, according to the New York Times.
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A satellite image of Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport reveals an unusually high number of parked airplanes (identified in yellow boxes) and an unusually low number of parked cars. That’s consistent with what would be expected during the COVID-19 pandemic. (BlackSky Photo)
BlackSky, a satellite data venture with offices in Seattle, says it’s won a U.S. Air Force contract to track the effects of the coronavirus pandemic on military interests worldwide. The contract calls for BlackSky to monitor U.S. military bases overseas and assess the status of supply chains, using its AI-enabled Spectra geospatial data analysis platform.
Spectra can analyze satellite data as well as news feeds and social media postings to identify anomalies worth following up on with additional imagery or investigation. The data inputs include imagery from BlackSky’s own satellite constellation as well as from other sources.
BlackSky has benefited from Pentagon contracts for years, but this latest project focuses on impacts related to the COVID-19 outbreak.
The approach was demonstrated for GeekWire back in May, when BlackSky executives showed how satellite images could be compared to detect an unusual rise or fall in, say, the number of cars parked in a lot outside a given installation. That could point to places where social distancing is decreasing or increasing.
Spectra can also analyze activity at airports, loading docks, maintenance facilities, fuel storage depots and other key installations to assess how supply chains might be affected by pandemic-related bottlenecks.
Such analyses can be compared with reported infection numbers coming from local governments, and integrated into computer models to predict the risk to deployed Air Force personnel and the surrounding communities.
“BlackSky is giving decision makers the crucial information they need to protect U.S. interests at home and overseas amid today’s rapidly shifting threat landscape,” BlackSky CEO Brian O’Toole said today in a news release.
“By combining global geospatial data sources with satellite remote sensing data, Spectra provides a near-real time look at the evolving pandemic and provides critical insights to inform national security,” he said.
The contract was awarded through AFWERX, the Air Force’s small-business innovation program, and the Air Force Research Laboratory.
Although the financial terms of the contract were not announced, AFWERX’s solicitation called for providing Direct to Phase 2 grants worth as much as $1 million over the course of 27 months. AFWERX added the emphasis on responses to the COVID-19 pandemic in the course of the solicitation.
O’Toole said Spectra will help the Air Force “maintain a watchful eye over its supply chain” amid the pandemic.
“Spectra will provide the Air Force an easy-to-use outbreak monitoring and decision support tool,” he said. “The platform will help us combat the spread of COVID-19, manage risk and ensure the protection of personnel around the globe.”
BlackSky, a subsidiary of Seattle-based Spaceflight Industries, has offices in Seattle as well as Herndon, Va.
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Inside the UW Medicine Virology Lab. (University of Washington Photo)
The University of Washington will test a random sample of 7,000 people across Washington state for COVID-19 and related antibodies multiple times over eight months in a new effort to better understand the spread of the disease.
The approach is intended to provide a more statistically accurate picture of COVID-19 than existing testing, which includes a disproportionate number of people who believe they may have been exposed to the disease, potentially skewing the results due to self-selection. The study, announced this morning by the Washington state Department of Health and UW Medicine, will be funded by a $3.4 million grant from the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation.
Researchers will find participants from communities across the state, including people from rural and urban areas, with an emphasis on ensuring full representation across diverse socioeconomic and racial groups. Participants will first receive a COVID-19 diagnostic test, to determine if they currently have COVID-19, followed by three serologic tests to detect antibodies indicating a past infection.
While some other states are conducting or planning similar studies, Washington’s study will be one of the most comprehensive, if not the most comprehensive, studies of its kind, in terms of the number of samples collected, as well as the geographic, racial and ethnic diversity, said Dr. Keith Jerome, head of the Virology Division at UW Medicine, in a briefing with reporters.
The level of funding enables a “very, very robust study,” he said.
Officials expect the first results this fall. State officials say the study will help to inform future decisions on safety guidelines and other initiatives to slow and stop the disease.
Another goal is to determine the extent to which antibodies protect people from contracting the disease a second time.
“We know the antibodies tell you in a very reliable way whether you’ve had the infection,” Jerome said. “But one thing we all hope is that the antibodies also mean that you have at least some protection from the virus and from future infections. And we’re optimistic that this study may help provide data that tells us whether that’s true.”
The announcement comes amid a surge in cases in the state, coinciding with an increase in testing, six months since the state launched its COVID-19 response.
The number of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Washington state rose 71% over the past week, reaching a new weekly high of more than 6,800 reported cases. In their latest situation report, scientists and Washington state public health officials call the growth in cases an “explosive situation” and “a matter of utmost urgency.”
Deaths and hospitalizations are significantly lower than they were during the prior peak of the disease. That difference is “really encouraging,” but the increase in cases is still cause for concern, said Dr. Kathy Lofy, the state health officer and chief science officer for Washington state, during the briefing with reporters this morning.
“We’re seeing less severe disease than we saw earlier on, so I think that we have been pretty successful in protecting those in our populations that are at highest risk for severe disease,” Lofy said. “What we’re seeing now is more disease around younger individuals. We’re very concerned that this disease that’s mostly focused in younger individuals is going to spread out to all of the age groups. And we’re very concerned that that will lead to more hospitalizations and deaths.”
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Thanks to presenting sponsor Wave Business for supporting us as we’ve transitioned to a virtual event.
Deborah Fuller, left, and Jesse Erasmus are pursuing next-generation vaccines at the University of Washington. (GeekWire Photo / Todd Bishop)
University of Washington School of Medicine researchers using a cutting-edge approach to vaccinations report that their COVID-19 vaccine is performing well in mouse and non-human primate studies.
The vaccine checks many of the most important boxes for preventing the deadly disease:
With just a single dose, the vaccine triggers a robust immune response in mice and primates called pigtail macaques. It performed well in young and old mice, suggesting it could be effective in a broad range of ages in people.The vaccine is stable at room temperature, allowing for its use in areas of the world lacking reliable refrigeration.It should be possible to quickly manufacture billions of doses.UW researchers said the vaccine should be cost effective to produce.
The Seattle-based researchers are developing a nucleic acid vaccine, and more specifically a replicating RNA vaccine. While this sort of next-generation vaccine has never been cleared for use in humans, it has multiple advantages to traditional vaccines, including being developed quickly and triggering a strong immune reaction (check out this GeekWire podcast for more on vaccine science).
“We realized that we may be on to a rapid response vaccine to the COVID-19, so we quickly accelerated that program forward,” said Deborah Fuller, a professor of microbiology and a vaccinologist. The other lead scientist on the project is Jesse Erasmus, a molecular virologist and postdoctoral fellow in Fuller’s lab.
The vaccine from UW researchers additionally contains the novel Lipid InOrganic Nanoparticle, or LION, a component designed to improve vaccine stability, delivery and immune response. LION was developed by the Seattle biotechnology company HDT Bio; Amit P. Kandhar is the lead formulation developer of LION.
The scientists reported their findings Monday in a rapid-release paper in Science Translational Medicine.
There are still some hurdles to clear, and then researchers hope to being clinical trials of the vaccine in human volunteers in the U.S., India and Brazil, said Darrick Carter, chief scientific officer at HDT Bio.
The tests in the U.S. should begin by October, if not sooner. They would be performed in Seattle with Dr. Lisa Jackson, who is also the clinical investigator for Moderna’s COVID-19 vaccine.
The Greatest Setting in College Football: Husky Stadium in Seattle. (GeekWire Photo / Taylor Soper)
The future of sports, just like many industries across the world, is up in the air as COVID-19 continues spreading across the country and world.
For now, professional leagues are playing condensed seasons inside “bubbles,” while some colleges are slashing sports programs altogether to cut costs. Countless questions about the temporary and permanent changes coming to the field and front office remain unanswered.
There was certainly much to discuss at a special GeekWire Virtual Roundtable on Thursday as Pat Chun, Washington State University director of athletics, Jennifer Cohen, University of Washington director of athletics, and Adrian Hanauer, majority owner of Seattle Sounders FC, joined us for an hour-long conversation about the state of sports in 2020 and beyond.
Watch the session above and read on for quick takeaways from the discussion. Thanks to sponsors Pure Storage and Davis Wright Tremaine for helping to make this session available to the GeekWire community. Comments edited for brevity and clarity.
On how sports look in a post-COVID-19 world:
Adrian Hanauer (6:47): “For sure, there will be change from this. People love sports, and they will come back to sports. But there’s a long list, whether it’s new technologies in broadcast, the way we interact with athletes — both how organizations interact with athletes and with our fans — or something as simple as these video calls … it’s certainly changing the way we look at our business and the way we do certain activities.
We’re four months into this. There’s a balance to be struck between blowing up existing stadiums and building them completely differently because of COVID, versus, how do we do the right things to get through the next six months and year after that, and see where we’re at. But there are lots of things as simple as physical meetings across country that can be accomplished on a video call, or contactless stadium experiences where you’re not dealing with tickets and scanning and hitting keypads — those will be affected in a big way.”
On positive changes coming from the crisis:
Jen Cohen (12:30): “What an amazing time to grow as a human being and as a leader. We’ve seen it with our coaches. Our industry is so noisy, complicated, competitive, fast-paced — it’s really hard for coaches in particular to have a holistic perspective. For our coaches, this time has really challenged them in ways they have never imagined. I’ve watched them grow as human beings in how they collaborate and how they view students. I really think it will have an impact on the way they coach and teach and develop students moving forward.”
Seattle Sounders FC players, coaches and family members celebrate at CenturyLink Field in Seattle in November won its second MLS Cup title in three years. (GeekWire Photo / Kevin Liosta)
On football this fall:
Cohen (21:00): “One of the things that gets forgotten a lot in the dialogue around fall and football is that we have other students in other sports here. It’s a lot more complicated than one team. At this point we’re still looking for shortened fall seasons in our Olympic sports and a delayed start of a conference-only season for football. How we would then take all those fall sports and move them into the spring, I don’t know if that’s feasible. If we’re able to do that for football, I would be an advocate for that. But I also recognize that there are a lot of health and safety issues we would have to explore with the Pac-12 medical advisory committee because of the back-to-back seasons. It would likely have an impact on the season for the following year. It’s not as easy as people think and it’s very complex. But for Pat and I, to support all the Olympic sports for our business, it does not work if we don’t have football revenues.”
Sensoria Smart Band. (Sensoria Health Image)
(Sensoria Health Images)
Adam Lacy-Hulbert studies the mechanisms of immunity at the Benaroya Research Institute at Virginia Mason. (BRI / Virginia Mason Photo)
COVID-19 doesn’t prevent a chem lab camper from getting a little messy. (Pacific Science Center Photo)
A dissection lab camper. (Pacific Science Center Photo)
(Seahawks Photos)
(BigStock Image)
Xealth CEO Mike McSherry. (Xealth Photo)
(Xealth Image)
It’s certainly been a unique inaugural cohort for the 5G Open Innovation Lab (5G OI Lab), a new startup program funded by T-Mobile, Intel, and NASA. But participating entrepreneurs are making the most of their time, particularly as the demand for some 5G-enabled technologies accelerates amid the COVID-19 crisis.
Taqtile founders Dirck Schou, CEO, and John Tomizuka, CTO.
Numurus founders Jason Seawall, CEO, and Ian McKissick, COO.
Kristopher Francisco, Founder/CEO of Evolute.
Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates speaks at the University of Washington in Seattle. (GeekWire Photo / Kevin Lisota)
Washington state Department of Health
From Situation Report 9: COVID-19 transmission across Washington State, July 17, 2020.
A satellite image of Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport reveals an unusually high number of parked airplanes (identified in yellow boxes) and an unusually low number of parked cars. That’s consistent with what would be expected during the COVID-19 pandemic. (BlackSky Photo)
Inside the UW Medicine Virology Lab. (University of Washington Photo)
Deborah Fuller, left, and Jesse Erasmus are pursuing next-generation vaccines at the University of Washington. (GeekWire Photo / Todd Bishop)
The Greatest Setting in College Football: Husky Stadium in Seattle. (GeekWire Photo / Taylor Soper)
Seattle Sounders FC players, coaches and family members celebrate at CenturyLink Field in Seattle in November won its second MLS Cup title in three years. (GeekWire Photo / Kevin Liosta)