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COVID Vaccine More Effective Than Infection Against Death, Hospital Care, Study Finds
One of the first large studies to compare deaths, hospitalizations, and emergency department visits among COVID-19 vaccine recipients versus those who were infected shows the vaccines were more effective in preventing negative outcomes, especially for adults aged 60 years and older.
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Software Tracking Pandemics
DHS has awarded $5 million to create tools to increase the nation’s level of preparedness for biological threats — including an infection rate tracking program for COVID-19 developed by a Sandia National Laboratories team in 2020.
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Biodefense and Emergency Use Authorization
Emergency-use-authorization (EUA) is the representative biodefense policy that allows the use of unlicensed medical countermeasures or off-label use of approved medical countermeasures in response to public health emergencies. The EUA policies of the United States and South Korea produced drastically different outcomes.
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When Will COVID-19 Become Endemic?
Government leaders are optimistic that COVID-19 is becoming endemic, meaning more predictable and manageable. But many scientists say it’s too soon to behave like the pandemic is over.
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What Have We Learned from COVID-19? Apparently Not Much
Even if it were true that COVID-19 is no longer a major part of our lives, the fact still remains that these numbers are as high as they are because of how poorly the US responded to the pandemic. This boom and bust funding cycle clearly does not work for public health.
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How to End COVID-19 as a Public Health Threat
Over 350 multidisciplinary experts from more than 100 countries reach consensus: A new global COVID-19 study provides actionable recommendations to end the public health threat without exacerbating socio-economic burdens or putting the most vulnerable at greater risk.
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What Plagues of the Past Have to Tell Us About Current Crises
One expert says that event system theory (EST) helps us understand Albert Camus’s classic 1947 novel The Plague; the Black Death of the 14th century and the lethal waves that followed; and societal response to disruptions like COVID. EST reframes societal disruptions from isolated events to being the result of slowly unfolding chains of connected events.
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Bolstering Biosafety Education to Address Biosecurity Professionals Shortfalls
Many countries face an severe shortages of biosafety and biosecurity professionals. To address these shortages, experts call for a multisectoral effort toward a future sustainable workforce by formalizing a biosafety & biosecurity career path within the higher education system.
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Debate Over COVID Origins Continues
Late last week, ProPublica published an article claiming to have unveiled new information from the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) supporting the lab leak theory of COVID-19’s origin. Now, the piece some have described as a train wreck is being heavily criticized for having faulty translations, mis-matched dates, misrepresenting the sources of the documents discussed in it, not understanding how common VPN usage is in China-related research, and more.
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Senate Panel Minority Staff Report Argues for Lab-Leak Theory of COVID Origins
The Republican minority staff of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee earlier this week issued a 35-page report contending that “SARS-CoV-2 and the resulting COVID-19 global pandemic was, more likely than not, the result of a research-related incident associated with coronavirus research in Wuhan, China.” The report has failed to win over prominent supporters of the lab leak theory, including Rutgers University’s Dr. Richard Ebright, who said that “there was no information in the report that has not been publicly presented in the media and discussed in the media previously.”
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Coronavirus Origins: The Debate Flares Up, but the Evidence Remains Weak
A recent, not-yet-peer-reviewed, study claims to have identified possibly unusual sequence patterns in the SARS-CoV-2 genome which may indicate that the virus was genetically modified in a lab. The study has been poorly received by most experts in the field. The evidence reported in the study is neither conclusive nor final, and the findings may turn out to be a fluke, or generated by a flaw in the method, as the study’s authors concede. This study and its reception remind us that it would be unwise to suppress a discussion of the lab leak theory by arguing that such a discussion has fueled conspiracy theories. A confirmation of an accidental lab leak – if such a leak has indeed occurred – would be less damaging than a confirmation of a lab leak whose evidence has been aggressively suppressed.
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A One Health Approach to Preparedness and Prevention
COVID-19 is the latest zoonotic RNA virus epidemic of concern. Learning how it began and spread will help to determine how to reduce the risk of future events.
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Traces of the Polio Virus found in Several New York State Counties
Polio was declared eradicated in the United States in 1979. In the summer, the first case of polio was discovered in New York, and an examination of the wastewater in several NY counties found traces of the virus which were genetically related to the virus which infected the polio patient in the summer.
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China's Anti-COVID Policies in Tibet Trigger Resentment, Online Outcry
The harsh COVID-19 containment restrictions China is imposing across Tibet are leading to public resentment in the capital of Lhasa, where residents who have tested positive are being quarantined in empty stadiums, schools, warehouses and unfinished buildings.
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Lancet Commission on COVID-19 Response: “Massive Global Failure”
A stinging new Lancet Commission report on the international COVID-19 pandemic response calls it “a massive global failure on multiple levels” and spares no one the responsibility—including the public—for millions of preventable deaths and a backslide in progress made toward sustainable development goals in many countries.
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