Data-driven science experiments—and a little imagination—underpin ongoing research efforts within the Homeland Security Department’s Science and Technology Directorate to support COVID-19 response.
After releasing a predictive modeling tool that forecasts the decay of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, on surfaces in May, insiders have now unveiled two new resources for the public to lean on amid the ongoing national health crisis: a second decay calculator that can help determine the virus’ lifespan in the air under varied environmental conditions and a do-it-yourself solution for decontaminating personal protective equipment using a relatively common household item.
“We are an operational component trying to take science and figure out how to apply it to help solve the problems that the department faces—and the nation writ large,” Lloyd Hough, a microbiologist who also leads the department’s Hazard Awareness and Characterization Technology Center, told Nextgov Monday. “And so that's what we're up to, and that's what we do.”
The multiple in-progress pandemic-focused projects and research endeavors are continuously being conducted and refined as part of the directorates Probabilistic Analysis for National Threats Hazards and Risks, or PANTHR program, and they involve both federal scientists and other relevant contractors. While some individuals are able to work remotely, some efforts are unfolding inside an interagency campus—the National Biodefense Analysis and Countermeasures Center—on Fort Detrick in Maryland. The directorate did not receive additional funding in its budget for these specific initiatives, Hough noted, but officials “were able to find some resources to allow ..
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