Pentagon medical researchers have created a microchip that will detect COVID-19 when placed under the skin.
Relax conspiracy theorists – they are not spread via vaccines.
The revolutionary technology was developed by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which operates under the Pentagon umbrella, according to the Sunday night broadcast ’60 Minutes’. The top-secret unit was launched during the Cold War to study emerging technologies for military use – including innovations to defend soldiers against biological weapons.
Retired army spot. Dr. Matt Hepburn, a physician for infectious diseases, revealed that the microchip, which is not widely used outside the Department of Defense, could detect COVID-19 in an individual before a patient could cause an outbreak of zero.
“We challenge the research community to come up with solutions that may sound like science fiction,” said Hepburn, whose role at DARPA, “took pandemics off the table.”
Hepburn compared their diagnostic microchip to a car’s check engine warning.
Despite conspiracy theories claiming that Microsoft’s Bill Gates uses vaccines as a vehicle to insert a microscopic global positioning system into our bodies, ’60 Minutes’ made it clear that the DARPA chip will not ‘follow every move’. It is also not administered via shots, as some prospective Twitter sleuths have considered.
“It’s a sensor,” Hepburn told CBS correspondent Bill Whitaker. “That little green thing in there, you put it under your skin and what tells you is that there are chemical reactions going on in the body and that the signal means you are going to have symptoms tomorrow.”
The microchip, embedded in a tissue-like gel, is designed to continuously test the blood of the chip recipient for the presence of the virus. Once COVID-19 is detected, the patient is warned to perform a rapid blood test that can be self-administered to confirm the positive result.
“We can have the information within three to five minutes,” Hepburn said. “While you are pinching that time, while diagnosing and treating, this is what you are doing to stop the infection in its tracks.”
The segment also unveiled technology that enabled a standard dialysis machine to remove COVID-19 from the blood using a custom filter. Blood is passed through the machine, where it is detoxified, and then pumped into a continuous stream in the body until the body gets rid of the virus.
Thanks to the new dialysis machine, a military spouse, ‘Patient 16’, survived a serious attack of the disease, including organ failure and septic shock. The treatment lasted four days, after which patient recovered 16 completely.
DARPA scientists say their research is critical to preventing outbreaks in overcrowded military quarters, such as those that took place on the USS Theodore Roosevelt in March and April 2020, in which 1,271 crew members tested positive for the coronavirus.
Pentagon researchers continue to study COVID-19, and much of their research has been critical to stopping the pandemic, including new methods of detecting and developing antibodies in about ten weeks – a fraction of the six up to 24 months previously required.
Ultimately, they hope to reduce the gap between new disease detection and vaccine development.
Finally, dr. James Crowe, a DARPA scientist, said: “We will start a blood sample from a survivor … and give you an injection of the drug within 60 days.”
“For us, at DARPA, if the experts laugh at you and say it’s impossible, you’re in the right place,” Hepburn said.