AS HEARD ON NH Today with Jack Heath WGIR-AM 610: The Technology and Spread of the Coronavirus and More

Welcome,

Good Monday morning, everybody. Craig Peterson here. I was on with Jack Heath this morning. We discussed Iran, The Broadcom chipset in cable modems that makes them vulnerable to attack, How Amazon is changing it's delivery model and most importantly if you use Firefox, the Patch that is available. Here we go with Jack.

These and more tech tips, news, and updates visit - CraigPeterson.com

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Automated Machine Transcript:

Craig

We are going to have to be prepared for and expect this as it is not just an aberration, nor was the SARS concern or is any outbreak, right.

Craig Peterson 

Good morning, everybody, Craig Peterson here. Thanks for joining me.

I don't know about you, but I'm concerned about the coronavirus. So let's get into it. I discussed it with Jack Heath this morning. Here we go.

Jack Heath

The coronavirus is traveling worldwide, and I'm going to ask our next guest just about it on the technology side of things. If technology can help speed up, for example, a vaccine for this coronavirus. Still, it's interesting that this has affected our financial markets so much. Is it due to the global implications on the spread of it or just a reaction to all the news reports recently? We haven't had spent a quiet period with the whole Iranian situation, whether it was a Qasem Soleimani twos weeks ago or all the impeachment stuff or that coronavirus is responsible for market impacts or could it be the markets are jittery after the announcement that a Massachusetts company is working among many on a possible vaccine. Here is Craig Peterson, our tech talk guy, and who has a show on Saturday on these iHeart news-talk stations. Craig, in this fast-moving era, coming out of China, the source but also as it spreads and mutates, I guess a few thousand people may have been affected by this virus. The question is, can technology help curb it?

Craig Peterson

Good morning. It is a very, very big problem they've got in China right now. Of course, one of the significant issues we've had over the years with China when it comes to these diseases is that they've been so tight-lipped about it. So there is a doctor who is working up in Toronto, and he did some fantastic stuff. He founded this company called Blue Dot and previously involved with the SARS outbreak. Now, you might remember that back in 2003, it was an epidemic, and it spread from China and, ultimately, all around the world. Yeah, it was a huge deal. And these types of flu can, of course, cripple hospitals. China is building a hospital right now. Another one. In fact, during the SARS epidemic, they constructed a 1000 bed hospital in six days total to help handle those people. So he was working as an epidemiologist during the SARS whole outbreak. He wanted a better way to figure out what was going on. And he did. That's what blue.is he got about $10 million worth of funding when he first launched a few years ago. And he and blue dot were able to predict on December 31, and they told their customers who are all major countries. So December 31, he said everybody, hey, we see the spread. Now what they do, Jack and it is rather interesting. There's they're looking at things like global airline ticketing data to help calculate the spread based on travel by residents. It monitors newspapers in 65 different languages. And it's using a form of artificial intelligence to figure it out. So he was able to correctly predicted the virus would jump from Juan to Bangkok to Seoul, Taipei, and Tokyo. And he got it 100%. Right. So that's one piece of technology that's an amazing blue dot. And then just for the regular stuff, if you're interested in watching what's happening with the usual slews, you can go ahead online and go to google.com or google.org slash Flu Trends. And Google's tracking it as well. But Google's paying a little more attention to some of the social media and some of the other things that are going on, but they've got the public Data Explorer, you'll find there and many other things. And we're using that we're also using some of these devices. Is that we wear the monitor our heart rates, but also can monitor our body temperature. They're also using the collected data at airports, watching people thermally for diseases, we've been doing that for quite a while. There's a lot of technology involved. Well, back up to December 31, he said his data showed -- hey, we've got an outbreak, it's going to spread. The US Centers for Disease Control warned us on January six, but they'd already gotten notification from Blue Dot, and the World Health Organization was January 9. So basically, right now, we had about a one week jump on everything else knowing what was going to be happening.

Jack

It's interesting because you mentioned the SARS epidemic, and I'm not sure if that, you know, it's a good thing if these things don't pan out. Justin did allude earlier with the traditional strains that are not the current strain right now of flu that is out there. Now is the height of the flu season. Due to the potency of this virus and the lack of a valid vaccine, this could get dangerous. We must be prepared for and expect that this is not just an aberration, nor was a SARS concern or nor is any outbreak.

Craig

Yeah, you're right. It is something that could kill a lot of people. You might remember the Spanish flu back in 1918. And that killed millions of people worldwide. And that's all it takes. So getting this little bit of early warning, knowing where it might be coming from in a country like China, of course, they just shut down all travel for the rest of us a little bit more complicated but knowing it's out there, being able to take the next step. There's also new technology when you talk about the shots for like the flu that we get. Right now. Its kind of against most of our seasonal flu, do come from Asia, and it seems to have to do with the handling of everything over there, poultry, pork products, etc. Were there live at the markets Not just mentioned just the sheer population. I mean, you know, you gotta look at how many people are in China. Jack

Jack

You make fun of me for being a vegetarian see, they're still going to make you sick Justin on the universal flu shot and showing a lot of promise, and it's already entered into the trial. So you know, who knows what we'll be talking about next year during flu season, Craig Peterson.

Craig  

Hey, as always, I try and give you some tips and things to do the obvious stuff. Well, according to the officials right now would have slowed down or even stopped entirely the spread of this virus. and that is to wash your hands and don't touch your face with your hand, especially during flu season. You know, make sure if you have a cough, you cough into your elbow. Hopefully, you've got a long sleeve shirt on, and that'll help stop the spread. So basic. Things will help a whole lot. You don't need high tech for any of that stuff. All right, take care, guys. Have a great day. We'll be back tomorrow, Karen and I and the rest of the team. we're busy, busy getting everything ready for you guys. So we'll let you know when that's all set.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

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