Older and sicker people are more vulnerable to serious illness and death and are in danger from the ever-growing COVID-19 outbreaks. As of July 15, more than 40% of the U.S. Coronavrius deaths are linked to nursing homes or long term facilities.
Notably, some nursing homes were able to avoid the coronavirus completely. Michigan nursing homes took precautionary and strict measures swiftly when the state governor ordered lockdowns of nursing homes on March 13 by rigorously disinfecting buildings, putting strict limits on what was brought inside and who could enter, and actively scouring for limited supplies such as masks. As a result, 20 of Michigan’s 83 counties have nursing homes that have not reported a single case of COVID-19 among residents since the start of the pandemic. While precautions involving quality of disinfection, physical distancing limitations, and supply shortages work cohesively in order to protect residents and workers, inventions that would allow for easier enforcement of just one of these precautions would make drastic improvements in protection against COVID-19.
Therefore, attention towards Panasonic’s recently published U.S. Patent Application 20200219623 entailing a risk evaluation system and method is well deserved. The application encompasses an imager that takes images of equipment in different zones at different times and a controller that counts the contact times in different zones and outputs evaluation information. This invention could allow for more efficient cleaning work for reducing contact infection for high touch surfaces in nursing homes or long term facilities (e.g., handrail, light switch, doorknob).
Analyze the claims of this novel application and stay up to date with patent documents related to the pandemic with the free Magic Number® Pandemic Patent Forecast®.
