WIRED is usually about solutions, which has been hard in the past few weeks as Covid-19 continued its deadly trek across the world. For a while there, it felt like the biggest questions were: What is going on? And when will it end? This week, the tech and science folk we usually lean on for ideas started to roll some big ones out. Researchers looked at whether it’s possible to prevent more coronavirus outbreaks by using mobile location data to track the whole country’s movements—without putting every bit of our lives on view. Google and Apple said yeah, sure, we can help with that.
Meanwhile, gig workers for companies like Uber and Lyft aren’t having an easy time getting their hands on federal pandemic relief funds. It’s been another week; let’s get you caught up.
Want to receive this roundup as an email every week? Sign up here!
Headlines
Stories you might have missed from WIRED this week
Innovation of the Week
Sometimes, terrible things have a thin but shiny silver lining. This week, that’s Delta Airlines’ new social distancing policy, which—blessedly!—does away with the middle seat. The policy follows a similar one by American Airlines, which blocks half of the middle seats on each flight. Unfortunately, it’s not clear the middle seats are needed right now: Air travel is way, way down globally, and US airlines are still pushing for a comprehensive federal bailout.
Stat of the Week: 104,090
The almost-too-terrible-to-believe number of passengers moving through US Transportation Safety Administration checkpoints on Friday. Compare that to the same day one year ago: 2,487,398. In fact, this week the number of daily travelers who enjoyed the song and dance of airport security fell below 100,000—not once, but twice.
Required Reading
News from elsewhere on the internet
