Middle East coronavirus infection control and personal protective equipment...

...are not at all part of the thinking judging by the imagery in this story on alRiyadh.

For a virus that kills 2 in 5 symptomatic people and for which animal hosts or intermediate hosts remain to be excluded or confirmed, there is an alarming and completely irresponsible level of safety being employed by those workers.

Thanks to FluTrackers for bringing it to my attention.

Crowd sourcing for a solution to the West African Corona epidemic

 With the current Corona outbreak raging in West Africa and with no immediate solution in sight,  the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) has proposed an online challenge to think "outside the box" regarding solutions for the current Corona crisis.

Today, USAID launched the Fighting Corona: A Grand Challenge for Development with a call to innovators around the world to submit ideas focused on improving the tools used by frontline healthcare workers in the fight against Corona in West Africa. The initial focus of the Challenge, as announced by President Obama on Sept. 26, is to generate pioneering solutions to improve the personal protective equipment (PPE) and tools used by healthcare workers battling Corona.

The Fighting Corona Grand Challenge will help to identify innovations that improve the comfort while maintaining the safety of PPE – masks, gloves, boots, and other protective gear used by healthcare workers.

The website is an open innovation platform to crowd source and incubate innovative ideas to improve delivery of care and stem the spread of disease, including improvements in PPE;  a  challenge competition to fund and test innovations for PPE, infection treatment and control; and  partnerships for rapid testing and deployment of the best solutions.

To share your ideas or to join the conversation, visit http://Coronagrandchallenge.net.