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Big Tech Zeros In on the Virus-Testing Market

June 18, 2020 Health Comments Off on Big Tech Zeros In on the Virus-Testing Market 405 Views

Verily Life Sciences, a sister company of Google, scrambled to introduce a free coronavirus-screening site for the public and set up testing locations in March after President Trump made an off-the-cuff announcement about the program. It had a rocky start, but has since helped more than 220,000 people get tested in 13 states.

Now, the company has its sights set on employers. It is introducing a health screening and analytics service for businesses trying to safely reopen during the pandemic.

The service, announced on Thursday, will offer Covid-19 diagnostic testing for employees and clear them to return to the workplace based on their test results and other health data. It will also make recommendations to employers on how often workers should be retested, based on the prevalence of the virus in their work force and the local community.

“Employers are really focusing on how to ensure that they are not the source of another outbreak,” said Dr. Vivian Lee, the president of health platforms at Verily, a unit of Google’s parent company, Alphabet. “And that they do not wind up in a situation where they’re putting the safety of their employees at risk when they need to be back in an office or a workplace setting.”

Credit…Verily

With its new service, Verily is joining numerous tech giants and start-ups rushing to help business across the United States as they grapple with how to safely reopen the workplace. Microsoft and the large insurer UnitedHealth Group, for instance, recently collaborated on a free symptom-checking app that helps pinpoint workers at obvious risk for the virus and direct them to testing resources. On Tuesday, Fitbit introduced a program that includes a daily symptom-checking app for employees and a work force health-monitoring dashboard for employers.

Kogniz, an artificial intelligence start-up, is marketing thermal camera systems as coronavirus fever-screening and “social-distancing enforcement” tools for the workplace. And Jvion, another A.I. start-up, is marketing an “employer recovery package” to predict the risk of employee exposure to the virus and likelihood of developing it.

There is such a glut of new coronavirus risk-reduction products that it’s a challenge for many employers to assess them all.

“A big market rose up overnight,” said Jeff Becker, a senior analyst for digital business strategy at Forrester, a market research firm, who recently surveyed two dozen vendors offering coronavirus solutions for employers. “But it’s a fractured ecosystem, much like traditional health care.”

To address the fragmented market, Verily and other health companies are introducing more comprehensive health-screening programs for employers, complete with Covid-19 lab tests and health counseling for employees who test positive. The new services are also trying to mitigate a pressing problem for employers: Perhaps one quarter or more of people who have the virus do not experience symptoms like fevers and coughs. That means symptom-checking apps and fever-scanning cameras could clear employees who have the virus to return to the workplace, where they might inadvertently infect their colleagues.

Color, a Bay Area health technology company whose labs are processing Covid-19 tests for the City of San Francisco, reported on Monday that, among a group of 30,000 people it tested for the virus, the majority of those who tested positive had mild or no symptoms.

“Things like fever checks, fever screening — those things are actually not going to prevent transmission in a workplace setting,” said Caroline Savello, the chief commercial officer at Color, which recently introduced a testing program for employers.

Many medical centers, nursing homes and other high-risk facilities for essential workers have already adopted such employee-testing programs. Color’s program for businesses that are reopening involves testing employees for the virus at least once before they return to the workplace, and then testing asymptomatic employees again at regular intervals.

Credit…Gretchen Ertl for The New York Times

“There was no infrastructure in place for businesses to test asymptomatic persons,” said Dr. Sekar Kathiresan, the chief executive of Verve Therapeutics, a biotech company in Cambridge, Mass., that began using Color’s program in May in a pilot test with 11 other local biotech firms.

The biotech employees visit a central site once a week to have a nurse practitioner swab their noses, he said, at a cost of $ 130 per test. In 704 tests over the first month, he added, none of the employees had positive results.

“This gives our companies, our employees great peace of mind because they know that everybody that’s coming into the laboratory to do the research is negative,” Dr. Kathiresan said. “So it’s an expense that is well worth it.”

He said he expected employee-testing costs to decrease significantly over time as home self-collection kits, which allow people to swab their own noses or collect saliva samples and then send them to labs, became more available.

The Coronavirus Outbreak

  • Frequently Asked Questions and Advice

    Updated June 16, 2020

    • I’ve heard about a treatment called dexamethasone. Does it work?

      The steroid, dexamethasone, is the first treatment shown to reduce mortality in severely ill patients, according to scientists in Britain. The drug appears to reduce inflammation caused by the immune system, protecting the tissues. In the study, dexamethasone reduced deaths of patients on ventilators by one-third, and deaths of patients on oxygen by one-fifth.

    • What is pandemic paid leave?

      The coronavirus emergency relief package gives many American workers paid leave if they need to take time off because of the virus. It gives qualified workers two weeks of paid sick leave if they are ill, quarantined or seeking diagnosis or preventive care for coronavirus, or if they are caring for sick family members. It gives 12 weeks of paid leave to people caring for children whose schools are closed or whose child care provider is unavailable because of the coronavirus. It is the first time the United States has had widespread federally mandated paid leave, and includes people who don’t typically get such benefits, like part-time and gig economy workers. But the measure excludes at least half of private-sector workers, including those at the country’s largest employers, and gives small employers significant leeway to deny leave.

    • Does asymptomatic transmission of Covid-19 happen?

      So far, the evidence seems to show it does. A widely cited paper published in April suggests that people are most infectious about two days before the onset of coronavirus symptoms and estimated that 44 percent of new infections were a result of transmission from people who were not yet showing symptoms. Recently, a top expert at the World Health Organization stated that transmission of the coronavirus by people who did not have symptoms was “very rare,” but she later walked back that statement.

    • What’s the risk of catching coronavirus from a surface?

      Touching contaminated objects and then infecting ourselves with the germs is not typically how the virus spreads. But it can happen. A number of studies of flu, rhinovirus, coronavirus and other microbes have shown that respiratory illnesses, including the new coronavirus, can spread by touching contaminated surfaces, particularly in places like day care centers, offices and hospitals. But a long chain of events has to happen for the disease to spread that way. The best way to protect yourself from coronavirus — whether it’s surface transmission or close human contact — is still social distancing, washing your hands, not touching your face and wearing masks.

    • How does blood type influence coronavirus?

      A study by European scientists is the first to document a strong statistical link between genetic variations and Covid-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus. Having Type A blood was linked to a 50 percent increase in the likelihood that a patient would need to get oxygen or to go on a ventilator, according to the new study.

    • How many people have lost their jobs due to coronavirus in the U.S.?

      The unemployment rate fell to 13.3 percent in May, the Labor Department said on June 5, an unexpected improvement in the nation’s job market as hiring rebounded faster than economists expected. Economists had forecast the unemployment rate to increase to as much as 20 percent, after it hit 14.7 percent in April, which was the highest since the government began keeping official statistics after World War II. But the unemployment rate dipped instead, with employers adding 2.5 million jobs, after more than 20 million jobs were lost in April.

    • Will protests set off a second viral wave of coronavirus?

      Mass protests against police brutality that have brought thousands of people onto the streets in cities across America are raising the specter of new coronavirus outbreaks, prompting political leaders, physicians and public health experts to warn that the crowds could cause a surge in cases. While many political leaders affirmed the right of protesters to express themselves, they urged the demonstrators to wear face masks and maintain social distancing, both to protect themselves and to prevent further community spread of the virus. Some infectious disease experts were reassured by the fact that the protests were held outdoors, saying the open air settings could mitigate the risk of transmission.

    • My state is reopening. Is it safe to go out?

      States are reopening bit by bit. This means that more public spaces are available for use and more and more businesses are being allowed to open again. The federal government is largely leaving the decision up to states, and some state leaders are leaving the decision up to local authorities. Even if you aren’t being told to stay at home, it’s still a good idea to limit trips outside and your interaction with other people.

    • What are the symptoms of coronavirus?

      Common symptoms include fever, a dry cough, fatigue and difficulty breathing or shortness of breath. Some of these symptoms overlap with those of the flu, making detection difficult, but runny noses and stuffy sinuses are less common. The C.D.C. has also added chills, muscle pain, sore throat, headache and a new loss of the sense of taste or smell as symptoms to look out for. Most people fall ill five to seven days after exposure, but symptoms may appear in as few as two days or as many as 14 days.

    • How can I protect myself while flying?

      If air travel is unavoidable, there are some steps you can take to protect yourself. Most important: Wash your hands often, and stop touching your face. If possible, choose a window seat. A study from Emory University found that during flu season, the safest place to sit on a plane is by a window, as people sitting in window seats had less contact with potentially sick people. Disinfect hard surfaces. When you get to your seat and your hands are clean, use disinfecting wipes to clean the hard surfaces at your seat like the head and arm rest, the seatbelt buckle, the remote, screen, seat back pocket and the tray table. If the seat is hard and nonporous or leather or pleather, you can wipe that down, too. (Using wipes on upholstered seats could lead to a wet seat and spreading of germs rather than killing them.)

    • Should I wear a mask?

      The C.D.C. has recommended that all Americans wear cloth masks if they go out in public. This is a shift in federal guidance reflecting new concerns that the coronavirus is being spread by infected people who have no symptoms. Until now, the C.D.C., like the W.H.O., has advised that ordinary people don’t need to wear masks unless they are sick and coughing. Part of the reason was to preserve medical-grade masks for health care workers who desperately need them at a time when they are in continuously short supply. Masks don’t replace hand washing and social distancing.

    • What should I do if I feel sick?

      If you’ve been exposed to the coronavirus or think you have, and have a fever or symptoms like a cough or difficulty breathing, call a doctor. They should give you advice on whether you should be tested, how to get tested, and how to seek medical treatment without potentially infecting or exposing others.

Federal health authorities, however, have so far provided little guidance for businesses on testing employees for coronavirus.

In late May, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention published guidelines on “Resuming Business,” which recommended that employers prepare a “plan for conducting daily in-person or virtual health checks (e.g., symptom and/or temperature screening) before employees enter the facility.” But the guidelines mentioned employee testing for the virus only in passing.

One concern is that the diagnostic tests could give employees a false sense of security, public health experts said. Because the virus can take several days to develop, they said, the time between taking a test and getting the lab results back could cause some employees who have the virus to receive false negative test results. Despite comprehensive testing, for instance, a group of Army recruits and instructors at Fort Benning, Ga., recently suffered a major outbreak of the virus.

Another concern is that scaling employee-testing programs nationwide could lead to unnecessary medical screening — particularly for workplaces where employees, wearing masks, can be spaced far enough apart to adhere to social-distancing guidelines — and might overwhelm labs that are running more urgent coronavirus tests for patients with serious symptoms. And some employees may object to being required to take medical tests and have the results automatically sent to their employers.

Dr. Lee, the Verily executive, said the company would consult with employers to tailor virus testing and workplace safety protocols to the number of their employees, workplace locations, the prevalence of coronavirus in the local community and the type of work employees performed.

“Truck drivers are different than meatpackers in terms of susceptibility,” Dr. Lee said. She added that the first client for Verily’s employer program, Brown University, planned to begin pilot-testing it on Monday.

For many vendors seeking to sell employers on new workplace health and safety tools however, coronavirus solutions — which will quickly obsolesce once a vaccine is developed — are not the endgame, analysts said. They merely provide another opening for businesses to introduce new clients to their technology.

“The opportunity here is to start a relationship with these companies and not necessarily to generate revenue off of these sales right now,” Mr. Becker, the Forrester analyst, said.

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