• Israeli Researchers Say They Can Make Disinfectant from Tap Eater

    Researchers electrify water to produce hypo chloric acid at defined level of acidity; patented method has not been published in science journal or subject to peer review. Shoshana Solomon writes in the Times of Israel that researchers at Bar-Ilan University have developed what they say is a new way to make strong and environmentally friendly disinfectants to kill bacteria and viruses by using just tap water. The disinfectant materials were recently tested by researchers in the virology labs of Prof. Ronit Sarid of the Mina and Everard Goodman Faculty of Life Sciences at the university and at the Poriya Hospital in the north of Israel, and were “proven effective” in neutralizing microbes, fungus and corona-type viruses, Aurbach said in a phone interview.

  • COVID-19 Is Another Wake Up Call for Food Security

    With lockdowns ordered to contain the COVID-19 pandemic, there are fears of food shortages caused by panic buying and supply chain disruptions. Paul Teng writes in SciDev.Net that recent announcements by some countries that they are initiating export restrictions of food products or reviewing export agreements have brought back memories of the 2007—2008 food crisis when there was an interruption to global food supply chains as several key countries limited exports of rice and wheat. This unleashed a series of events around the world, including food shortages, price spikes and civil disobedience in over 30 countries.

  • Life after Lockdown: New Zealand on the Verge of “Brilliant” Victory after Five Weeks of Restrictions

    For five weeks, Kiwis have endured some of the toughest lockdown conditions anywhere in the world. Jonathan Marshall writes in The Telegraph that the rules were conveyed loudly, clearly and frequently: no socializing with anyone outside your household; no beach swimming or boating; no holidays; no hiking; no children’s playgrounds; no weddings; no funerals; no haircuts, no restaurants - or even Uber Eats. “Educational” police roadblocks – and in around 500 cases prosecution – faced anyone failing to comply with New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern’s “stay home and save lives” mantra. Now, the country appears to be on the verge of victory.

  • Failure to Count COVID-19 Nursing Home Deaths Could Dramatically Skew U.S. Numbers

    With the clustering of people who are frail and have multiple other illnesses like heart disease, stroke, chronic lung disease and diabetes, the risk of severe illness and death from COVID-19 is much higher in nursing homes. Yet, the United States does not know how many people are dying from COVID-19 in part because the government is only just now requiring nursing homes to start reporting numbers of presumed and confirmed cases and deaths to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Thomas Perls writes that the missing cases could dramatically skew the national death count.

  • COVID-19 Treatments: Pandemic Urgency No Excuse for Ignoring Rigorous Clinical Research

    Leading biomedical ethicists are calling on the global research community to resist treating the urgency of the current COVID-19 outbreak as grounds for making exceptions to rigorous research standards in pursuit of treatments and vaccines. Crises are no excuse for lowering scientific standards, the authors of a paper, titled “Against Pandemic Research Exceptionalism,” argue.

  • Economic Reopening Begins, as Two Promising Drugs Suffer Setbacks

    Five things, among many others, caught our eye this week: On Saturday, the number of worldwide coronavirus deaths passed 205,000, with the U.S. death toll reaching 55,094; European governments outlined their plans for reopening their economy, and several have started on the process of going back to normal, or, rather, the new normal; the FDA issued a stern warning that hydroxychloroquinea, alone or in combination with azithromycin – touted by President Trump as “game changers” — should not be used to treat COVID-19 outside of a hospital or formal clinical trial; a similar disappointment befell the antiviral medicine remdesivir from Gilead Sciences, which failed to speed the improvement of patients with COVID-19 or prevent them from dying; the Justice Department got a court order to stop a Florida church from selling on its website an industrial bleach which the church marketed as a miracle treatment for the virus – the DOJ move came a few days before last Thursday’s White House briefing, in which Trump mused about whether household disinfectant injections or ingestion could be effective in treating the coronavirus.

  • EU Approves $580 Billion to Mitigate COVID-19 Consequences

    The European Union approved a $580 billion aid package to help mitigate the consequences of coronavirus pandemic lockdowns in member countries. VOA News reports that European Council President Charles Michel said Thursday the package was expected to be operational by 1 June. Michel said it would help pay lost wages, keep companies afloat and fund health care systems. At Thursday’s virtual summit, the EU leaders also agreed on a recovery fund, without giving a specific figure, intended to rebuild the 27-nation bloc’s economies. However, officials said $1.1 trillion to $1.6 trillion would be needed. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said the impact of the economic crisis following the coronavirus outbreak is unprecedented in modern times.

  • Trump Adds Confusion on COVID-19 Treatments as U.S. Deaths Top 50,000

    Direct sunlight, injected disinfectants, heat. Those were some of the remedies for coronavirus infection President Donald Trump mentioned during yesterday’s White House task force briefing. Today the manufacturers of Lysol and Dettol cleaners, as well as the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the CDC, issued statements and warnings contradicting Trump’s remarks. They warned consumers against ingesting any disinfectants, and urged them to follow the warning labels on disinfectants containers. The FDA on Friday has issued a strong statement urging doctors and patients not to use hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin to treat COVID-19 patients outside of controlled medical trials. The warning came after the largest retrospective test of the two compounds has proven ineffective in treating the disease relative to a placebo, while having serious side effects, including death, in some cases. The U.S. has so far recorded 884,004 cases and 50,360 deaths.

  • Britain Starts Testing Vaccine for Coronavirus on Humans

    Britain has performed the first human trial of a coronavirus vaccine in Europe. Zlatica Hoke writes in VOA News that two volunteers were injected Thursday in the city of Oxford, where a university team developed the vaccine in less than three months. Hundreds of other volunteers will be injected with the trial vaccine, and the same number will get a vaccine for meningitis so the results can be compared. Volunteers will not know which vaccine they are getting. The trial offers new hope just as an antiviral drug – remdesivir — proved ineffective against coronavirus on patients in China.

  • FDA Warns about Hydroxychloroquine Dangers, Cites Serious Effects

    The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) warned Friday that people should not take chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine to treat COVID-19 outside of a hospital or formal clinical trial, citing reports of “serious heart rhythm problems.” Madeline Farber writes for Fox News that many of those adverse effects occurred in patients with the virus who were treated with the anti-malaria drugs, often in combination with azithromycin, also known as Z-Pak. President Trump has described such drugs as a potential “game-changer,” although results from clinical trials are not yet in to show whether they are effective. “We will continue to investigate risks associated with the use of hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine for COVID-19 and communicate publicly when we have more information,” the FDA wrote. The adverse events reported include abnormal heart rhythms such as QT interval prolongation, dangerously rapid heart rate called ventricular tachycardia and ventricular fibrillation, and in some cases, death, the agency said. The FDA did not say how many deaths have been reported. Patients who also have other health issues such as heart and kidney disease are likely to be at increased risk of these heart problems when receiving these medicines. The malaria drugs are not approved for use in COVID-19 patients, but the FDA is allowing hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine products donated to the Strategic National Stockpile to be distributed and used in limited circumstances, such as for certain hospitalized patients with COVID-19, the agency noted.

  • As the Coronavirus Interrupts Global Supply Chains, People Have an Alternative – Make It at Home

    As COVID-19 wreaks havoc on global supply chains, a trend of moving manufacturing closer to customers could go so far as to put miniature manufacturing plants in people’s living rooms. Most products in Americans’ homes are labeled “Made in China,” but even those bearing the words “Made in USA” frequently have parts from China that are now often delayed. The coronavirus pandemic closed so many factories in China that NASA could observe the resultant drop in pollution from space, and some products are becoming harder to find. Joshua M. Pearce writes in The Conversation that at the same time, there are open-source, freely available digital designs for making millions of items with 3D printers, and their numbers are growing exponentially, as is an interest in open hardware design in academia. Some designs are already being shared for open-source medical hardware to help during the pandemic, like face shields, masks and ventilators. The free digital product designs go far beyond pandemic hardware. The cost of 3D printers has dropped low enough to be accessible to most Americans. People can download, customize and print a remarkable range of products at home, and they often end up costing less than it takes to purchase them.

  • Coronavirus: The U.K. Could Be over the Peak

    While most British people support the lockdown, they will still be keen to know when the epidemic has reached its peak. Well, they don’t need to wait any longer – the answer is in. Data suggests that the UK is most likely over the peak. Christian Yates writes in The Conversation that data released by NHS England, in which deaths are aggregated by the date of death rather than the date of reporting, shows a clear decline in recent days. “While the figures are subject to constant revision, the numbers are starting to give us a coherent picture of the shape of the epidemic,” he writes. “Knowing that we have passed the peak is important because it shows that we can, with great effort and sacrifice, bring this disease under control.” He notes that the numbers are not always clear, for several reasons: there are large numbers of different sources for the figures in the U.K.– the different branches of the NHS, government websites and the Office for National Statistics – all of whose figures differ slightly. A more obfuscating factor is the lag between people dying and their deaths being reported. In rare instances, this can be as long as a month, although the vast majority of deaths make their way into the government’s daily totals within a week. And even when these daily numbers are reported by date of death (as in the NHS numbers in the top figure), there are reasons to doubt that they are a true reflection of the number of deaths. “Still, being over the peak is indisputably positive news,” he notes. “Although not cause for celebration, reaching the plateau is perhaps cause for a somber degree of relief.”

  • Government tells U.K. Businesses: Time to Get Back to Work

    Businesses are being discreetly advised by ministers on how to get people back to work in the coming days and weeks amid growing concerns over the economic impact of the lockdown.  Harry Yorke, Gordon Rayner, and Hayley Dixon write in The Telegraph that the government believes there is plenty of room within the existing restrictions for more people to be working, and is now actively encouraging firms to reopen. British Steel, house builder Persimmon and McDonalds are among the latest in a growing number of firms announcing that they are reopening despite the lockdown. It came as the chief medical officer said there was now “scope for maneuver” to ease some restrictions in the near future because the transmission rate of the virus is now within a manageable range. Scientific advisers have told ministers that Britain should be in a position to start lifting the lockdown by mid-May, with a team of experts compiling a detailed report on the issue for Boris Johnson when he returns to work next week. Ministers are already making plans for garden centers, car dealerships and other retailers where social distancing can be maintained, to reopen during the first phase of a gradual exit from lockdown. New data shows that increasing numbers of people are venturing out to shops, parks and workplaces as the nation grows tired of staying at home.

  • Europeans Start Feeling a Way Out of Coronavirus Lockdowns

    European governments are rolling out plans outlining how they will start to cautiously unlock their countries and fire up their economies, but the lifting of lockdowns is being complicated by a string of studies suggesting that even in cities and regions hit hard by the coronavirus, only a small fraction of the population has contracted the infection. That presents governments with exactly the same dilemma they faced when the virus first appeared: Lock down and wreck the economy to save lives and prevent hospitals from being overwhelmed with the sick, or, allow the virus to do its worst and watch health care systems buckle and the death toll mount. There had been hope that sizable numbers — many more than confirmed cases — had contracted the virus, protecting them with some immunity, even if temporary, from reinfection. That would help ease the complications of gradually lifting restrictions.

  • Ministers Can’t Keep Hiding Behind the Science

    It’s dishonest and cowardly to keep pretending that how and when the lockdown is lifted isn’t a political judgment call. Matthew Parris writes that the political leaders of the country – the U.K. in his case, but any country – must have the courage to share with the public the political — political, not medical — choices they must make, and take ownership “of the trade-offs that only politics can settle: trade-offs between deaths caused by one disease and deaths caused by others less immediately in the public eye; between the longevity of the elderly and the education of the young; between mortality in April 2020 and debt that will scar a whole generation; between loss of life and loss of livelihood.” Whichever side you come down on in this trade-off, Parris write. somebody’s got to say there’s a trade-off, and it isn’t ‘the’ science. “It is for the ministers who will make the judgment to be upfront with the public about the human cost. They can ‘follow’ the science, cite the science, be guided by the science, but in the end the science will lead them to a point where paths diverge.”