Stanford Medicine and the Chan-Zuckerberg BioHub have launched a new low-cost testing and surveillance program that can be quickly distributed to monitor outbreaks within a community.
“It’s a novel way of administering what we call ‘surveillance’,” said Dr. Yvonne Maldonado, chief of pediatric infectious diseases at the Stanford University School of Medicine. “This is a way to capture many, many people in a population so we can be tracking who’s entering, who’s got disease, who doesn’t and how many people are positive.”
Vera is a centralized software platform that allows participants to track their symptoms, order an at-home test, receive their results and connect with public health officials.
The platform will also be used to facilitate widespread testing throughout the Bay Area, a study that Dr. Maldonado is leading.
“So it’s a really exciting way, for example, for schools, for different populations, for counties to be able to just plug right into our software system and we can help them track who’s entering, how many people don’t have symptoms, how many do and how many of those people are positive,” she explained.
The platform was a collaboration between software engineers, epidemiologists and public health experts.
Dr. Maldonado says one of the main hurdles in fighting the pandemic has been the lack of easily accessible testing. “That’s been clear from the beginning."
Throughout different points in the pandemic, Bay Area residents have faced numerous barriers to getting tested including a lack of supply, long wait times for a test and results and a lack of testing centers in areas of high demand.
Schools have also struggled to set up a robust testing infrastructure for teachers and staff as many district prepare to reopen classrooms.
Vera aims to resolve those barriers.
But Dr. Maldonado says while data is critical in understanding the pandemic’s progress, testing alone will not stop transmission. People who test positive or are exposed to a case of COVID-19 need to isolate for 14 days in order to not pass the virus on to others. And the public at large should follow basic guidelines including wearing face coverings, social distancing and minimizing contact with people who are not part of their household.