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Fatalism - the stalemate of us vs. COVID-19

Stephen Casper - medical historian at Clarkson University - offers a worrying prediction for COVID for the end of 2022. The analogy for COVID-19 won't be influenza but 'tuberculosis before the discovery of antibiotics'. A new hospital specialty might even exist - looking after COVID patients - and they...
Source: twitter.com

Omicron-variant border bans ignore the evidence, say scientists Mallapaty, Smriti. Nature 2021.

Researchers say travel restrictions in response to the newly detected coronavirus variant come too late and could even slow studies of Omicron. Researchers say travel restrictions in response to the newly detected coronavirus variant come too late and could even slow studies of Omicron.
Source: nature.com

U.S. employers get religion with vaccine mandates

As coronavirus infections rise again, U.S. companies mandating vaccinations are confronting an uncomfortable question rarely asked by an employer - what is an employee's religious belief?
Source: reuters.com

Cats Are Better Than Dogs (at Catching the Coronavirus)

Cats and dogs can be infected by the coronavirus — but cats are more susceptible to infection, a new study suggests.
Source: nytimes.com

Tracking SARS-CoV-2 variants

 All viruses, including SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, change over time. Most changes have little to no impact on the virus’ properties. However, some changes may affect the virus’s properties, such as how easily it spreads, the associated disease severity, or the performance...
Source: who.int

Covid-19 news: England sees rise in cases for first time in 5 weeks

The latest coronavirus news updated every day including coronavirus cases, the latest news, features and interviews from New Scientist and essential information about the covid-19 pandemic
Source: newscientist.com

Germany declares U.K. a virus variant region

Germany's public health institute on Friday declared Britain and Northern Ireland a virus variant region, requiring anyone entering the country from the United Kingdom to quarantine for two weeks on arrival.
Source: reuters.com

Why Did It Take So Long to Accept the Facts About Covid?

"The importance of airborne transmission in the pandemic was clear long before the World Health Organization finally began to acknowledge it." "If the importance of aerosol transmission had been accepted early, we would have been told from the beginning that it was much safer outdoors, where these small...
Source: nytimes.com

Innovators in Japan are Developing New Technologies to Counter Coronavirus

As the global coronavirus pandemic continues, the world is searching for new measures that will minimize the risk of infection while allowing essential institutions such as hospitals, government, and schools to continue to function.
Source: reuters.com

How a coronavirus variant tore into an English island - and the world.

Genomic scientists raced against time to find out what was causing the deadly surge in cases despite a national lockdown.
Source: reuters.com

The Next Trick: Pulling Coronavirus Out of Thin Air

Thermo Fisher Scientific’s new air sampler can help monitor for airborne pathogens, and signals renewed interest in bioaerosol surveillance.
Source: nytimes.com

Major employers scrap plans to cut back on offices - KPMG

Most major global companies no longer plan to reduce their use of office space after the coronavirus pandemic, though few expect business to return to normal this year, a survey by accountants KPMG showed on Tuesday.
Source: reuters.com

How to Virtually Become a Doctor

Medical schools and students alike have had to adapt to remote cadaver dissections and bedside-manner training via Zoom.
Source: nytimes.com

Vaccination isn’t the quick coronavirus solution many of us hoped for

Varying national approaches to dealing with the coronavirus and variance in how people respond to vaccines put new hurdles on the path to beating covid-19
Source: newscientist.com

WHO's Ryan says some countries didn't hear early COVID-19 warning

Some countries should have listened more carefully when the World Health Organisation declared a global health emergency in January 2020, Mike Ryan, the WHO's top emergency expert, said on Monday.
Source: reuters.com

Singapore 'bubble' business hotel welcomes first guests

Singapore has launched a travel "bubble" business hotel that allows executives to do face-to-face meetings without a risk of exposure to the coronavirus, in one of the world's first such facilities.
Source: reuters.com

UK COVID cases will surge again even with vaccines, medical officer says

Britain will see a resurgence in coronavirus cases at some point and can't bring deaths from COVID-19 down to zero even with a successful vaccine rollout, England's Chief Medical Officer Chris Whitty said on Tuesday.
Source: reuters.com

Ghana kicks off coronavirus vaccination campaign with COVAX shots

"Ghana began its coronavirus vaccination drive on Tuesday with 600,000 AstraZeneca doses it received from the global COVAX vaccine-sharing facility aimed at providing shots to developing nations to help combat the COVID-19 pandemic." Great to see Ghana in the news and reading about the ITU nurses getting...
Source: reuters.com

UK rollout data on AstraZeneca shot should guide other countries: vaccine chief

Natural experiments can be a really useful source of data. "Data from Britain's vaccine rollout on the effectiveness of the AstraZeneca/Oxford University COVID-19 shot in older people should help other countries reassess their use of it, the head of the university's vaccine research group said on Tuesday."
Source: reuters.com

Why Are COVID-19 Case Numbers Dropping?

"We don’t know. That part is easy. Also easy is that case numbers really are falling — it’s not just reduced testing — and it’s happening pretty much everywhere. Urban areas and rural. Red states and blue. Places with broad vaccine rollouts and those with hardly any. North and South America,...
Source: jwatch.org