How Physicists At CERN Are Aiding The Fight Against COVID-19
Like the rest of the world, activities at CERN, one of the leading laboratories in particle physics and home of the Large Hadron Collider, have been limited to only those essential for the safety and security of the site and equipment. However, the 18,000 members of the CERN community felt that their technologies and expertise could be utilized in the collective fight against COVID-19. Therefore, at the end of March, a dedicated group called CERN against COVID-19 was set-up to coordinate the organizations efforts, releasing all innovations under an open license.
In its short lifetime, the group have already produced around 1,200 liters of sanitizer gel for emergency response teams, used the facilitys 3D printing and workshop capability to produce protective equipment such as masks and Perspex barriers for those in public service roles, and have begun studies into the deployment of the particle physics communitys large computing capacity to assist in the search for a vaccine.
CERNs own Fire and Rescue Service have also been working with emergency services in Geneva, Switzerland, where it's located, and some personnel who can neither work from home or on site have been using CERNs vehicle fleet to deliver supplies to those at risk.
On top of that, a team of physicists and engineers from the Large Hadron Collider, the worlds most powerful particle accelerator that straddles the French-Swiss border at CERN, have been leading a project to produce a novel streamlined ventilator, called HEV (the High Energy Ventilator).
Read more: https://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/how-physicists-at-cern-are-aiding-the-fight-against-covid19/