The U.S. has been badly hit by COVID-19. The virus was transmitted to healthcare workers after they treated infected patients. Luckily, as the virus continues to increase the death rate of hospital staff, Boston Dynamics’ Spot robot “dog” has joined the fight against the fatal disease.
So, they’ve called in Spot to help. Hospitals from Boston are keen to know who this robot dog is. They are curious about how he can change the lives of the patients.
Boston Dynamics, the maker of Spot, released a statement in a blog post a couple of days ago regarding the interests of some medical institutions to hire the robot dog.
“Starting in early March, [we] started receiving inquiries from hospitals asking if our robots could help minimize their staff’s exposure to COVID-19,” Boston Dynamics said in a blog post. It further explained the actual state of other hospitals, as well as their urgent need to remedy the situation, who are greatly affected by the coronavirus outbreak.
“One of the hospitals that we spoke to shared that, within a week, a sixth of their staff had contracted COVID-19 and that they were looking into using robots to take more of their staff out of range of the novel virus,” it stated.
Spot’s first stardom
The robo-dog first gained its fan club on YouTube, performing different kinds of shenanigans with Adam Savage. The makers of Spot opened a lease contract for commercial use. Hence, Spot has been busy doing all sorts of gigs at oil rig and bomb squad task forces.
The robot dog proved its competence. Spot, recently, helped at Brigham and Women’s Hospital of Harvard University for 14 days. At the moment, Spot is in-charge of telemedicine assistance. He’s giving a hand to frontline employees in makeshift testing areas like car parks and triage tents.
Spot will be carrying an iPad and an attached two-way radio. This will allow the hospital staff to communicate with patients through video conference while weaving through the throngs of patients in the testing areas.
Bosses commend Spot
Boston Dynamics, recently, commented on Spot’s impressive work in its current assignment. “For every intake shift completed by a teleoperated robot shift, at least one healthcare provider is able to reduce their interaction with the disease,” it stated. Well, carry on Spot, your boss says you’re doing a good job!
Although there is still more that this helpful robo-dog can do, that will have to wait. Right now, Spot can focus on keeping the frontliners safe from the deadly disease.
Way to go, Spot!
Images courtesy of The Verge/YouTube Screenshot