Tag: SARS-CoV-2

Wuhan Coronavirus Update, February 20th, 2020: Coursera and Imperial College London Are Offering a Free, Eight-Week Course on SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19 to the General Public

This scanning electron microscope image shows SARS-CoV-2 (orange)—also known as 2019-nCoV, the virus that causes COVID-19—isolated from a patient in the U.S., emerging from the surface of cells (green) cultured in the lab. Credit: NIAID-RML

I decided it was time for a quick update on the SARS-CoV-2 virus outbreak. (The Wuhan coronavirus had an interim name of 2019-nCoV, but it is now known officially by scientific researchers as SARS-CoV-2, and the disease it causes is now referred to as COVID-19.)

In the past few days, there have been various worrying reports of human-to-human transmission of the virus in countries outside of China: Japan, South Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore, and, for the first time, Iran. It would appear that despite our best containment efforts, the virus, which seems to be as easily transmissible as regular seasonal influenza, is slowly spreading worldwide. Scientists are studying these outbreaks outside China in an effort to better understand the virus.

Coursera is offering a free eight-week online course with Imperial College London, called Science Matters: Let’s Talk About COVID-19:

Welcome to this Science Matters on the Novel Coronavirus (COVID19) – a free course to learn about the science underpinning the outbreak response.

On January 30th, the World Health Organisation (WHO) declared an outbreak of the Novel Coronavirus, now officially referred to as COVID19.

As the epidemic seems to spread to more and more countries, people around the world are wondering about the trajectory of the epidemic and whether they should be concerned. Media reports of the epidemic often focus on the more eye-catching events: governments evacuating their citizens from Hubei province, passengers on cruise ships being stopped from disembarking following a detection of a case, or images of supermarket supplies running out in areas perceived to be at high risk. On social media, other reports about the epidemic range from unsupported rumours to deliberate disinformation are increasing a sense of panic many individuals are experiencing. Robust, reliable analysis is vital at this stage not only as a way to give concerned members of the public a sense of perspective, but also to support governments and other stakeholders in planning their responses.

Researchers at the MRC Centre of Global Infectious Diseases Analysis (GIDA) and the Jameel Institute for Disease Emergency Analytics (J-IDEA) have been working hard on coming up with reliable estimates of the spread of the epidemic and its prospects, and are doing this in close collaboration with a number of global stakeholders, including the World Health Organisation (WHO).

You will hear directly from the experts conducting the analyses. You will be able learn about the current state of the epidemic, while also learn about the epidemiological and public-health principles and challenges that underpin these analyses. This will include understanding how the spread of the epidemic is modelled, how transmissibility of infections is estimated, what the challenges are in estimating the case fatality ratio, and also learning about the importance of community involvement in responding to the epidemic.

Today I finished the first two weeks of the online course, and I can recommend it very highly! You do not need to have a science background in order to understand the concepts, which are clearly explained.

Good Sources of Information on SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19

Here is my updated list of good, credible, authoritative resources to learn more about the Wuhan coronoavirus (formerly called 2019-nCoV and now officially called SARS-CoV-2; the disease the virus causes is now called COVID-19):

If you want a quick, up-to-date overview of the current situation, here are three good places to check:

Stay informed, get prepared, and stay healthy!

How a Potential Coronavirus Pandemic Will Help (and Hurt) Virtual Reality in 2020

This scanning electron microscope image shows SARS-CoV-2 (yellow)—also known as 2019-nCoV, the virus that causes COVID-19—isolated from a patient in the U.S., emerging from the surface of cells (blue/pink) cultured in the lab. Credit: NIAID-RML

Although I said I would no longer write daily updates about the Wuhan coronavirus (now officially called SARS-CoV-2), I feel that now is a good time to talk about how a potential global pandemic could impact the still-nascent virtual reality market.

The world may be facing a situation not encountered in 102 years, when the 1918/1919 Spanish influenza pandemic swept around the globe in three successive waves in 18 months (in an era before commercial air travel), infecting one third of the world’s population and killing over 50 million people, more than the total number who died in World War I.

Not too long ago, I blogged about the eight tactics used to limit the spread of infectious diseases throughout human history. Of those eight tactics, two—quarantines and social distancing—are already being heavily used in China.

Yesterday, The New York Times reported (archived version):

Residential lockdowns of varying strictness — from checkpoints at building entrances to hard limits on going outdoors — now cover at least 760 million people in China, or more than half the country’s population, according to a New York Times analysis of government announcements in provinces and major cities. Many of these people live far from the city of Wuhan, where the virus was first reported and which the government sealed off last month.

Many infectious disease experts have already stated that they believe that the SARS-CoV-2 virus can no longer be contained to China. Indeed, we are already seeing cases of human-to-human transmission in many countries and areas, notably Hong Kong, Singapore, and Japan, including 355 confirmed cases on a cruise ship docked at Yokohama (the largest single infection site outside mainland China). The virus is spreading.

Humanity has no natural immunity to this coronavirus (despite the hucksters taking advantage of the situation to sell you various “immunity boosters”). There is no vaccine against SARS-CoV-2, and there will not be one for at least a year. The World Health Organization has already stated that existing pneumonia vaccines are useless against the specific kind of pneumonia caused by SARS-CoV-2.

In other words, you really can’t prepare your body for this infection. It is true that some people seem to have very light or no symptoms at all (but are still able to infect others). The virus appears to be deadlier to older people, overweight people, and people with pre-existing health conditions, such as asthma and diabetes. (In other words, I am a sitting duck.)

Researchers are still trying to calculate the infectiousness (R0 or R-naught) and case fatality rate (CFR) of this new viral outbreak, and experiments with various treatment options are currently being conducted on infected patients to see what works and what doesn’t. However, all the preliminary reports suggest that the SARS-CoV-2 is about as easily transmissible as the regular, seasonal influenza we see every year.

As an interim measure, it is possible (some would say, likely) that we will begin to see the same kind of social distancing and quarantine policies currently seen in China being implemented by governments around the world. Travel between countries has already been and will continue to be negatively impacted. Major international conferences, such as the Mobile World Conference, are already being cancelled.

All of the preceding discussion is merely preamble to the point I am trying to make: that a potential pandemic will both help and hurt virtual reality.

How will a potential coronavirus pandemic help VR?

I believe that this truly unprecedented combination of circumstances might actually drive more people to embrace virtual reality technology and social VR platforms as a way to safely attend conferences, training sessions, and other events, where it is not physically possible due to pandemic quarantines and social distancing policies. In other words, more people will be exposed to VR, and sooner than predicted, due to the impact of SARS-CoV-2.

Some people (who might not be aware of social VR) are already tweeting about the need for this:

To which I replied:

This situation might even lead to a boom in the use of various social VR platforms (and perhaps even non-VR virtual worlds such as Second Life). We will probably begin to see many more conferences held partly or completely in virtual reality, such as this week’s Educators in VR 2020 International Summit, where presenters and attendees can share ideas and mingle without the worry of being exposed to an infectious virus!

How will a potential coronavirus pandemic hurt VR?

Many factories have shut down production of goods in mainland China, where many of the computer gadgets we use everyday are manufactured. While a potential pandemic might strengthen demand for VR headsets, it might also make it much harder to get your hands on one.

For example, I have already written about the impact that the Wuhan coronavirus is having on availability of the popular Oculus Quest headset, which is now completely sold out in most consumer markets. We can expect to see similar problems crop up with other VR hardware that is fully or partially manufactured by those countries affected by SARS-CoV-2. Tony (a.k.a SkarredGhost) of the VR newsblog The Ghost Howls reports that Beijing-based augmented reality headset maker nReal has completely shut down production, for example.

So, the coronavirus is a double-edged sword with respect to virtual reality.

Good Sources of Information on SARS-CoV-2

Here is my updated list of good, credible, authoritative resources to learn more about the Wuhan coronoavirus (formerly called 2019-nCoV and now officially called SARS-CoV-2; the disease the virus causes is now called COVID-19):

If you want a quick, up-to-date overview of the current situation, here are three good places to check:

Stay informed and stay healthy!

P.S. Effective today, I have created a new blogpost category called Virtual Reality (General), under which I will put those blogposts that talk about VR in a general way that don’t fit under a more specific existing category. I will try to go back and add this category to older blogposts, but obviously, at 1,700 blogposts written to date, I can’t go back and do them all!