The platform’s new pandemic specifics allow customers to report if staff and other customers are following social distancing and mask protocols.
Topic: COVID-19
New Zealand buys enough COVID vaccine for its Pacific Islander neighbors
New Zealand Foreign Affairs Minister Hon Nanaia Mahuta confirmed NZD $75 million of assistancehad been earmarked to support Pacific and global vaccine access and roll-out.
European Union approves world’s largest green stimulus
EU lawmakers agreed to provide a €672 billion recovery fund boost for the EU economy. 37% of the funding has to go to projects that help the climate.
New Africa alliance aims to tackle deadly COVID ‘infodemic’
The Africa Infodemic Response Alliance (AIRA), brings together 13 international and regional organizations, together with fact-checking groups which have expertise in data and behavioural science, epidemiology, research, digital health and communications.
Pfizer reports COVID-19 vaccine 95% effective as Phase 3 trial concludes
Over 41,000 people had completed the vaccination protocol. Out of the 170 positive COVID cases detected in the trial only eight were observed in the active vaccine group.
Vaccine alliance Gavi raises $2 billion to buy COVID shots for poor nations
Over the last two decades, Gavi has helped to immunize a whole generation – over 822 million children – and prevented more than 14 million deaths, helping to halve child mortality in 73 developing countries.
‘Watershed’ coronavirus vaccine looks to be 90% effective in phase 3 trial of 43,500 people
The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) set a minimum effectiveness bar for COVID-19 vaccines at 50% for drugs seeking approval. This is the first COVID-19 candidate vaccine to produce data exceeding that mark.
New AI from MIT can detect COVID-19 by listening to coughs
After the team from MIT trained its model on tens of thousands of cough and dialog samples, the technology recognized 98.5 percent of coughs from people with confirmed COVID-19 cases. It identified 100 percent of people who were ostensibly asymptomatic, too.
Philippines teachers start call center to help struggling remote students
The temporary call center opened in the capital Manila and is staffed by 50 teachers and 20 substitute teachers who have been busy answering hundreds of daily queries by phone, e-mail, and instant messenger, all in a bid to ensure that students don’t fall behind in class.
Simple blood test predicts patients most likely to die from COVID-19
One standard test that quantifies the variation in size of red blood cells was found to be highly correlated with patient mortality, and the correlation persisted when controlling for other risk factors like patient age, some other lab tests, and some pre-existing illnesses.