Like millions of others right now, we on the Verge Science video team are hunkered down in our homes to help slow the spread of COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus. This presents some obvious difficulties for video production: what do you film when you can’t leave the house?
Tricky as it is, we’re committed to getting scrappy with our circumstances. So I whipped up a small demonstration that doesn’t require a studio or co-workers. Step one: get a powder called Glo Germ, which sticks to hands, faces, and other surfaces and also glows under ultraviolet light. This will be my stand-in for virus particles. Step two: put some powder on my hands, and go about my normal business in my apartment. Step three: retrace my steps and see just how far and wide my faux-contamination has spread.
Check out the video above to see the results and learn more about the science behind all of those public health recommendations regarding handwashing and surface-cleaning. And follow along with The Verge’s guide to the COVID-19 pandemic for our latest reporting.
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Virus Basics
11
- Everything you need to know about the coronavirus
- No one knows when the COVID-19 pandemic will end
- It’s hard to figure out how often people without symptoms spread COVID-19
- More than 1 million people in the US have tested positive for COVID-19
- Here’s who’s most at risk from the novel coronavirus
- Why we’re seeing some severe COVID-19 cases among younger people
- After recovering, COVID-19 patients struggle to know when to stop isolating
- The best graphs and data for tracking the coronavirus pandemic
- What is contact tracing?
- It’s impossible to count everyone with COVID-19
- We’ve known how to make healthier buildings for decades
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Virus Response
11
- The new COVID-19 surge may be harder to contain
- The EU plans to ban US travelers indefinitely after haphazard COVID-19 response
- New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut will quarantine travelers from states with surging COVID-19 cases
- Emergency COVID-19 vaccines will have to convince a skeptical public
- You can’t find ‘super-spreader’ businesses with old GPS data
- Coronavirus testing shouldn’t be this complicated
- The new coronavirus is not an excuse to be racist
- Personal privacy matters during a pandemic — but less than it might at other times
- Here’s how hospitals are keeping up emergency services during COVID-19
- Grief support systems have been wrecked by COVID-19
- Masks may be good, but the messaging around them has been very bad
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How Tos
7
- Everything you wanted to know about self-quarantine, from a person who’s living it
- A germophobe’s guide to a clean phone
- How to make your own hand sanitizer
- How to debunk COVID-19 conspiracy theories
- Apps aren’t a reliable way to measure blood oxygen levels
- How do you deal with people who refuse to wear a mask?
- How to stop your glasses from fogging up when you wear a mask
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Virus Science
10
- Unproven strategies lead the race for a COVID-19 vaccine
- Don’t worry about coronavirus mutations
- The disappointing truth about antibody testing
- Sports bubbles are good places to study COVID-19
- Satellites documented COVID-19’s impact from space
- Hydroxychloroquine study retraction shows the problems of speedy science
- Genetic analysis of the coronavirus gives scientists clues about how it’s spreading
- To fight the coronavirus, labs are printing its genome
- COVID-19 clinicians wrestle with false negative results
- The search for COVID-19 treatments shows how messy science can be
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What the tech sector is doing
16
- Sick days
- How Ford, GM, FCA, and Tesla are bringing back factory workers
- Twitter won’t add ‘misleading’ label to bad science shared by Trump adviser
- Apple and Google are building a coronavirus tracking system into iOS and Android
- Without Apple and Google, the UK’s contact-tracing app is in trouble
- Electronics companies are getting gridlocked by coronavirus lockdowns
- Tech giants will keep paying hourly staff even if they are asked to stay home due to coronavirus
- Postmates says it will start ‘non-contact’ meal deliveries during the coronavirus outbreak
- Facebook temporarily bans ads for medical face masks to prevent coronavirus exploitation
- Google and Microsoft are giving away enterprise conferencing tools due to coronavirus
- Etsy has started cracking down on coronavirus merchandise
- Amazon has barred a million products for making false coronavirus claims
- Facebook confirms ban on misleading coronavirus ads
- How GM and Ford switched out pickup trucks for breathing machines
- The algorithms big companies use to manage their supply chains don’t work during pandemics
- After the pandemic, doctors want their new robot helpers to stay
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