Sunday, January 24, 2021
BioBot Analytics > If COVID-19 Testing is This Easy, Why Doesn't The City of Mesa Do It?
Biobot Analytics, a startup that analyzes wastewater to gain insights into public health, has begun requesting sewage samples from wastewater treatment facilities across the U.S. to test for SARS-CoV-2, the virus causing Covid-19.
The company’s technology, developed by CEO Mariana Matus PhD ’18 during her time at MIT in partnership with Newsha Ghaeli, then a research fellow in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning, has been geared toward estimating drug consumption in communities since its founding in 2017.
Biobot uses a proprietary device to gather representative samples of sewage, then ships those samples to its scientists for near-real time testing. Samples can be used to track opioid use, nutrition, environmental contaminants, antibiotic resistance, and the spread of infectious diseases. The resulting insights can be used to understand the health and well-being of small communities or large cities.
In the company’s Covid-19 testing program, which it launched pro bono in collaboration with researchers at MIT, Harvard, and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, the teams will process sewage samples from treatment facilities across the U.S., then use a laboratory technique known as a reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction to determine the presence of SARS-CoV-2.
The collaborators believe the program could complement existing testing methods in addition to helping guide community reponses, measure the effectiveness of interventions, and provide an early warning for re-emergence of the outbreak.
Biobot Analytics to Track COVID-19 in Sewage Pro Bono
Repurposing analytics it used to produce data on the opioid epidemic, Biobot is offering a pro bono water testing program to contribute data to the health community’s growing understanding of the pandemic.
Biobot Analytics 26 March 2020 https://news.mit.edu/2020/mit-companies-covid-19-0326
Biobot Analytics, a startup that analyzes wastewater to gain insights into public health, has begun requesting sewage samples from wastewater treatment facilities across the U.S. to test for SARS-CoV-2, the virus causing Covid-19.
The company’s technology, developed by CEO Mariana Matus PhD ’18 during her time at MIT in partnership with Newsha Ghaeli, then a research fellow in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning, has been geared toward estimating drug consumption in communities since its founding in 2017.
Biobot uses a proprietary device to gather representative samples of sewage, then ships those samples to its scientists for near-real time testing. Samples can be used to track opioid use, nutrition, environmental contaminants, antibiotic resistance, and the spread of infectious diseases. The resulting insights can be used to understand the health and well-being of small communities or large cities.
In the company’s Covid-19 testing program, which it launched pro bono in collaboration with researchers at MIT, Harvard, and Brigham and Women’s Hospital, the teams will process sewage samples from treatment facilities across the U.S., then use a laboratory technique known as a reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction to determine the presence of SARS-CoV-2.
The collaborators believe the program could complement existing testing methods in addition to helping guide community reponses, measure the effectiveness of interventions, and provide an early warning for re-emergence of the outbreak.
How many people are infected with Covid-19? Sewage suggests that number is much higher than officially confirmed
TL;DR: In an area with 446 reported cases, our sewage-based method estimates up to 115,000.
Estimating the true number of COVID-19 cases is extremely challenging. Counting confirmed clinical cases provides an important view into the scope of this pandemic, but case counts are a dramatic underestimate due to limited access to clinical testing. Moreover, asymptomatic patients or those with mild symptoms may never seek out testing in the first place, but they are potentially still contagious.
SARS-CoV-2 is shed in stool and has been detected in sewage in the U.S. by our team, and in the Netherlands by the KWR Research Institute.
Sewage suggests that a much larger number of people are infected with Covid-19.
Yesterday our team published in medRxiv the first study to estimate the number of people infected with Covid-19 based on the levels of SARS-CoV-2 quantified in sewage. We collected sewage samples from a large metropolitan area in the state of Massachusetts. On March 25, the area represented by the sample had approximately 446 confirmed cases of Covid-19. Based on our sewage analysis, we estimate that up to 115,000 people are infected and shedding the SARS-CoV-2 virus.
Our laboratory protocols were validated to quantify SARS-CoV-2 in sewage
Our detailed laboratory protocols have been made available open source to the scientific community on our website . . .
Beyond our own technical limitations, there are possible explanations why sewage is giving a higher number of infected people, as compared to confirmed cases:
- People with mild symptoms may not go to the hospital, or get tested,
- There is growing evidence that Covid-19 could have a large asymptomatic population,
- Limited access to clinical testing, and
- A lag in reporting confirmed cases.
Next steps to make our Covid-19 case estimation more accurate.
Our next step to make our Covid-19 case estimation model more accurate is to model the person-to-person variability in SARS-CoV-2 shedding in stool. Our team is already in conversation with other academic groups tackling this issue. Kudos to academic collaboration!
Sewage samples collected from geographical areas with different rates of Covid-19 infection will also make our modeling more accurate. We will be announcing our campaign shortly. For more information, sign up at www.biobot.io/covid19
Press releases
Saturday, January 23, 2021
Brave New Frontiers > Political Satire is Fully Protected by The First Amendment
Political Satire Is Protected Speech – Even If You Don’t Get the Joke
This blog post was co-written by EFF Legal Fellow Houston Davidson.
"Should an obviously fake Facebook post—one made as political satire—end with a lawsuit and a bill to pay for a police response to the post? Of course not, and that’s why EFF filed an amicus brief in Lafayette City v. John Merrifield.
In this case, Merrifield made an obviously fake Facebook event satirizing right-wing hysteria about Antifa. The announcement specifically poked fun at the well-established genre of fake Antifa social media activity, used by some to drum up anti-Antifa sentiment. However, the mayor of Lafayette didn’t get the joke, and now Lafayette City officials want Merrifield to pay for the costs of policing the fake event.
In EFF’s amicus brief filed in support of Merrifield in the Louisiana Court of Appeal, we trace the rise and proliferation of obviously parodic fake events. These events range from fake concerts (“Drake live at the Cheesecake Factory”) to quixotic events designed to forestall natural disasters (“Blow Your Saxophone at Hurricane Florence”) to fake destruction of local monuments (“Stone Mountain Implosion”). This kind of fake event is a form of online speech. It’s a crucial form of social commentary whether it makes people laugh, builds resilience in the face of absurdity, or criticizes the powerful.
EFF makes a two-pronged legal argument. First, the First Amendment clearly protects the kind of satirical speech that Merrifield has made. Political satire and other parodic forms are an American tradition that goes back to the country’s founding. The amicus brief explains that “Facetious speech may be frivolously funny, sharply political, and everything in between, and it is all fully protected by the First Amendment, even when not everybody finds it humorous.” Even when the speech offends, it may still claim constitutional protection. While the State of Louisiana may not have seen the parody, the First Amendment still applies. Second, parodic speech, by its very definition, has no intent to cause the specific serious harm that the charge of incitement or similar criminal liabilities requires. After all, it was meant to make a point about online misinformation.
We hope the appeals court follows the law, and rejects the state’s case.
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RELATED CONTENT / more details
EFF Tells Louisiana Court Satire Is Still Protected Speech Even If The Government Doesn't Get The Joke
from the an-inability-to-get-a-joke-doesn't-make-it-any-less-funny dept
Last summer, as anti-police brutality protests were in full swing, a Lafayette man posted an obviously bogus Antifa call to action on his "cajUUn Memes" Facebook page. The announcement called for "cajun comrades" to rise up and engage in a takeover of the River Ranch neighborhood.
Anyone with half a brain reading the post would have known it was a joke. It contained references to marijuana (the group was to meet at 4:20 pm) and asked that only "card carrying members" of Antifa show up. There was also the line: "Arms optional. Legs encouraged."
For some reason, neither the mayor nor the local police department got the joke. The mayor issued an official statement about the city's "zero-tolerance policy for threats to life and property" and a police spokesperson said the PD would be monitoring the event despite there being "no credible evidence" the planned takeover of River Ranch would take place.
The day came and went without any Antifa uprising taking place. That should have been the end of it. It wasn't . . ."
Read more!
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Facial Recognition and Coded Bias: Online Conversation With EFF's Associate Director of Community Organizing and the Coded Bias Team
On Wednesday, January 27, EFF Associate Director of Community Organizing, Nathan 'nash' Sheard (he/ze), will take part in a live Q&A on Twitter with the team behind Coded Bias, a revelatory documentary that exposes the ways that AI systems have developed algorithms that can infringe on our privacy...
Friday, January 22, 2021
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Flash News: Ukraine Intercepts Russian Kh-59 Cruise Missile Using US VAMPIRE Air Defense System Mounted on Boat. Ukrainian forces have made ...
