More than 100 researchers and staff members at CERN are finding innovative ways to combat the coronavirus pandemic.
Scientists, engineers, and technicians at the world's largest particle-physics laboratory, near Geneva, Switzerland, are teaming up to fill crucial gaps in the local and international responses to the outbreak — from manufacturing and distributing large quantities of hand sanitizer to designing an open-source ventilator.
One of CERN's strengths is its ability to connect people across a wide range of expertise and locations, says Beniamino Di Girolamo, a CERN particle physicist and the chair of the CERN Against COVID-19 task force. The group is working closely with local agencies, biomedical experts, and the World Health Organization to ensure that CERN's resources are being put to best use and that its designs are safe for patients.
How the coronavirus pandemic is affecting the world's most significant physics experiments
One of its main projects so far is the design of the High Energy Physics Community Ventilator, HEV. Because the researchers and technicians who work on CERN's Large Hadron Collider have extensive experience in managing gas flows and control systems, Di Girolamo says they were well-positioned to take on this project. The team posted its ventilator designs on the arXiv preprint server on 1 April and is currently soliciting feedback on a prototype from several medical professionals. The design should be ready for production "in a month, maximum," says Di Girolamo.
CERN staff are also manufacturing 3D-printed masks and face shields and making hand sanitizer for local emergency-response departments. The center is offering high-performance computing resources to epidemiologists and virologists searching for a COVID-19 vaccine. And some staff are distributing necessities to elderly and otherwise at-risk community members.
Going forward, Di Girolamo says, the task force plans to continue to source ideas from CERN staff, as well as taking requests from community partners in need of its expertise.
"We cannot just lockdown," Di Girolamo says. "There is a lot of energy at CERN. There are a lot of people who can help."
8 April 16:00 BST — Tracking-app data suggest a loss of smell is a crucial COVID-19 symptom
The loss of sense of smell and taste should be considered a symptom of COVID-19, suggest the first results from a UK-based symptom-tracking app. There have been many anecdotal reports of the phenomenon of COVID-19. Still, loss of smell — known scientifically as anosmia — is not currently listed as a symptom of the coronavirus by the World Health Organization (WHO).
The COVID Symptom Tracker smartphone app, which has recruited more than 1.5 million people in the United Kingdom, asks users to record health information daily, including their temperature, and tiredness, and other potential symptoms of coronavirus infection. An analysis of data collected between 24 and 29 March found that users who tested positive for COVID-19 were three times more likely to report losing their sense of smell and taste than were those who had symptoms of the virus but tested negative. Other common symptoms experienced by people who tested positive for COVID-19 were fever, persistent cough, fatigue, diarrhea, abdominal pain, and loss of appetite.
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