A new device can detect the coronavirus in the air in minutes
The detector can sense as a few as seven to 35 coronavirus particles per liter of air — about as sensitive as a PCR test but much quicker.
https://www.sciencenews.org/article/new-device-detect-coronavirus-airOpen linkView original on kbin.social
Cool. And now that it exists, they will be increasingly quick to adapt it to the next pandemic. There are other coronaviruses out there.
These will never get deployed because the cost of COVID is a shared cost between too many parties and none of them will benefit from, and therefore buy, these devices.
We need strict air quality regulations to make developments like these plausible for real world use.
I imagine it's worth it in healthcare contexts, but depending on cost it might be worth it for businesses too. If you run the risk of severe disruptions to critical services, the argument for installing these in your building isn't hard to make.
Something like this would really disrupt my company's "I need you in the office every day" policy.
2 years late
Still better than nothing. The virus is still around, some places more than others
As the article explains the approach is applicable to other air-born pathogens