a16z Podcast

Novel Coronavirus Updates: How Healthcare System, Tests Work; More

Episode Summary

This is last week's episode of 16 Minutes on the news from a16z, which we are cross-posting here now -- with most recent updates added in the intro -- given that the topic of *health system preparedness* and community spread is top of mind for many right now.

Episode Notes

This episode covers the following -- since our previous deep-dive on the novel coronavirus outbreak -- including:

1. practical implications for the U.S. healthcare system given how it works today, and where we might go in the future — with a16z general partner Julie Yoo, given our vantage point in tech; and
2. how the rt-PCR test works — with a16z bio partner Judy Savitskaya;

…in conversation with Sonal Chokshi.

Sources for updates at top:

• CDC's latest briefing February 26, 2020, transcript
• WHO situation report #27  February 25, 2020 [we covered #6 and #25 on previous episodes]

Sources for last week's episode:

• latest numbers: cases in the U.S. (CDC, as of February 17, 2020); global cases (WHO situation report #25, February 14, 2020); spike in diagnosing cases as reported in China (SCMP, Scott Gottlieb)
• situation & policy statements/reports: CDC summary (as of February 14, 2020); “Annual report on global preparedness for health emergencies”, WHO (Global Preparedness Monitoring Board, 2019)
• on definitions (of pandemics, endemics), other terms, and various naming conventions: “Understanding pandemics: What they mean, what they don’t mean, and what comes next with the coronavirus”, Helen Branswell, StatNews (February 12, 2020); on disease occurrence and levels (CDC); “misinfodemic“; best practices on naming new human infectious diseases (WHO); qPCR (Keith Robison)

image: CDC test kit for COVID-19/ Wikimedia Commons