Media Watch Archives
UC Irvine physicians and local fabric cutting business team up to produce new type of mask
Daily Pilot -
Aditi Sharma, a resident physician in the UC Irvine Health dermatology department, said the sterilization wraps can be used in masks that filter up to 87% of particles, which is almost as effective as N95 masks, which have a filtration efficiency of 95%. … To design the mask, the physicians received help from several of the engineering groups on the UCI campus, including the Michelle Khine lab, Elliot Hui lab, and the Ben Dolan lab. UCI medical students have also helped cut wire for the masks. … To produce the masks, Sharma is partnering with UCI alumna Jenny Farrell, owner of OC Cutworks. [Subscription required, you can request an electronic copy of the article by sending an email to communications@uci.edu.] Read More
UCI Team Develops App For Coronavirus Tracing
Orange County Business Journal -
University of California, Irvine researchers said they have developed a way to digitally track the spread of the coronavirus, providing a means to keep track of the COVID-19 pandemic and aiding the reopening the state’s economy. TrackCOVID is a free open-source smart phone app ….. “It’s completely voluntary, said lead author Tyler Yasaka, a software engineer and junior specialist in otolaryngology at the UCI School of Medicine. “We’re actually just tracking the point where transmission could occur.” … The UICI researchers say their app preserves privacy.[Subscription required, you can request an electronic copy of the article by sending an email tocommunications@uci.edu.] Read More
Turning Kitchen Mixers into Ventilators
Orange County Business Journal -
Irvine-based Aria Group … and a group including two doctors from University of California, Irvine have come up with a plan to turn household mixers into emergency ventilators during the coronavirus pandemic. … The call to action was put out by the Bridge Ventilator Consortium whose founders include Dr. Govind Rajan, an anesthesiologist and intensive care specialist at UCI, and UCI surgeon Dr. Brian Wong. Meanwhile, Ranjan and UCI colleagues are working to validate the design with mannequin testing and secure necessary approvals from the FDA to deploy the solution in U.S. hospitals. [Subscription required, you can request an electronic copy of the article by sending an email tocommunications@uci.edu.] Read More
Coronavirus: Virgin Orbit in Long Beach will soon deploy ventilators nationwide
Long Beach Press Telegram -
To design the ventilators, the folks at Virgin Orbit worked with the Bridge Ventilator Consortium — a group of doctors, medical researchers, and medical device engineers that UC Irvine established to help meet the current demand for the medical equipment. Read More
UC Irvine researchers develop app to help track COVID-19, but will people use it?
Daily Pilot -
UC Irvine researchers have developed a phone application that could potentially help stem the spread of COVID-19 by tracking and isolating people who may have been exposed to the deadly virus. But activist groups and legal experts are warning of potential privacy encroachments that could occur if tracking technology is widely adopted. … Tyler Yasaka, the project’s lead author, said privacy was a significant consideration for the group as they developed the tool.[Subscription required, you can request an electronic copy of the article by sending an email to communications@uci.edu.] Read More
New App Uses QR Codes to Trace Coronavirus Exposure
Nextgov -
TrackCOVID could be instrumental in this effort. The project appears in a paper published recently in JMIR mHealth and uHealth. “Contact tracing is the process of tracking down and isolating people who may have been exposed to an infectious disease after someone has tested positive,” says lead author Tyler Yasaka, a software engineer and junior specialist in otolaryngology at the University of California, Irvine School of Medicine. … TrackCOVID works in a different way, he says, by creating an anonymous graph of interactions. Read More
Can smartphone apps track COVID-19 without violating your privacy?
Popular Science -
“We’re looking at probably some sort of automated technology-based contact tracing, I think, if we want to be realistic,” says Tyler Yasaka, a software engineer and junior specialist in otolaryngology at the University of California, Irvine School of Medicine. He and his colleagues are among many teams of researchers around the world who have developed mobile apps to track the spread of COVID-19. Read More
How to Make a Ventilator
VICE -
Govind Rajan, an anesthesiologist at UC Irvine’s medical school and a contributor to the Bridge Ventilator Consortium ventilator project, described the use-case for that project as “only in situations where you don't have any ventilators available and the patient needs a ventilator.” In collaboration with the consortium, Virgin Orbit has designed a ventilator of the “automating-a-manual-resuscitator” variety. It’s nowhere near as complex as a critical care ventilator. Read More
UC Irvine students developing app to trace path, keep track of COVID-19 exposure checkpoints
ABC7 -
An app that has the potential to trace the path of COVID-19, while also maintaining the identity of the individuals who use it, is in the works at the University of California, Irvine. Instead of focusing on who contracts it, the app records that various places the virus itself presents itself, said junior specialist Tyler Ysaka, one of the co-creators of TrackCOVID. … "I tried to think about a design where you really don't keep up with the people as much as possible. You just keep up with the paths that the virus could take," Yasaka said. Read More
What’s New in Civic Tech: New App Traces Coronavirus Contact
Government Technology -
Developers have built a new smartphone app for tracing potential coronavirus infections. A team of researchers at the University of California, Irvine announced the tool this week, describing as potentially “instrumental” in the effort to trace and track infections, which is something governors have described as a vital step in reopening the economy. The tool is called TrackCOVID, and it is a free, open-sourced app that its creators say also ensures the privacy of those who are potentially affected. Read More