Week in Review - How tech is responding to COVID-19

Hey everyone. Well, it was another intense week in COVID-19 land as the U.S. grew to be the country with the most disclosed diagnoses.Again, this week I’m compiling a whole bunch of links to coverage of the crisis that TechCrunch put out this week with a particular focus on the fight to stop the spread and how big tech and startups are contributing.

Research advances

• How one company is fast-tracking development of potential plasma-based treatments for the coronavirus
• Study behind updated FDA guidance shows self-swab tests are as effective as those done by clinicians
• New coronavirus research suggests vaccines developed to treat it could be long-lasting
• UK researchers develop new low-cost, rapid COVID-19 test that could even be used at home
• New study casts doubt on hyrdoxychloroquine’s effectiveness in treating coronavirus
• FDA now allows treatment of life-threatening COVID-19 cases using blood from patients who have recovered
• Moderna could make experimental COVID-19 vaccine available to healthcare workers by fall

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Tech's response

• Lyft to offer medical supply and meal delivery during coronavirus pandemic
• Amazon Prime Video is streaming kids’ movies and TV for free, no Prime membership required
• Spotify adds fundraising features and a COVID-19 news hub to address the health crisis
• Tencent launches $100M fund to fight COVID-19
• Apple will donate 10M face masks to healthcare workers
• Airbnb to provide free or subsidized housing for 100,000 COVID-19 healthcare workers
• Google sets aside $800M in ads and cash to help in COVID-19 fight

Extra Crunch analysis

Longtime LP Chris Douvos shares how COVID-19 could shake up venture industry

“People are really nervous. I’m calling a bunch of my GPs, and we also do direct investments — we’ve got about, you know, 50 investments directly in the companies — so I’m talking to a lot of the founders and management teams.

People don’t know what’s gonna happen. We’re in the early innings of this. We’ve got kind of twists and turns on tap that we may not even understand…”

Canceled conferences will force startups to focus on scalable lead generation

Described by Sequoia Capital as the black swan event of 2020, the long-term economic fallout of the COVID-19 pandemic on startups is still to be seen. However, one effect which is sure to disrupt the MO of many early-stage startups is the cancellation of events and conferences.

• Fleet Program Manager at City of Overland Park, KS (Overland Park, KS, USA)
• Fundraising Manager (P4) – Digital at UNICEF (Geneva, Switzerland)
• Product Owner - Next Gen Digital Investing App at Quantalytics Holdings, LLC (Jersey City, NJ, USA)
• Digital Growth Hacker/Marketer - Next Gen Digital Investing App at Quantalytics Holdings, LLC (Jersey City, NJ, USA)
• Senior Software Engineer - Next Gen Digital Investing App at Quantalytics Holdings, LLC (Jersey City, NJ, USA)

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