Hollywood planing to deploy high tech robots on sets to kill virus as filming resumes?

As the countries are preparing to ease lockdown measures, Hollywood is looking for ways to keep the sets safe and virus-free. According to international media reports, the film industry has taken note of a 'Germ-Zapping Robot' -- a device that uses ultraviolet rays to kill the virus. As per the Texas Biomedical Research Institute, the robot is 99.9 percent effective at killing the virus within two minutes, and can also clean an N96 mask in five minutes.

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About the device

As per reports, the Xenex Germ-Zapping Robot is a part of the Xenex co-founder and CSO Dr. Mark Stibich's Production Safe Zone venture in partnership with former filmmaker Justin Golding. The robot is manufactured by Xenex Disinfection Services and the manufacturers have already approached Tinseltown titans such as Netflix, Sony, and Amazon to discuss the bots.

Currently, the robots are being used at certain medical facilities. Reports suggest that soon, the robots will be available for purchase for around $125,000. In order to operate the device, a professional needs to keep the robot in a designated area, turn it on, and leave the room. The robot will then spread the ultraviolet rays around the room. 

Read: China reports no new COVID-19 cases for first time since virus outbreak

The COVID-19 crisis 

The World Health Organization (WHO) declared the COVID-19 outbreak as a pandemic on March 11. At present, there are around 5,306,928 confirmed cases of COVID-19 infection across the globe and the disease has led to the death of around 340,072 people.

In a ray of hope, around 2,160,530 people are also reported to have recovered. Leading the number of worldwide cases of novel coronavirus COVID-19 infection, the United States has become the epicentre of the pandemic surpassing China, Italy, and Iran. 

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