• Safeguarding the Nation’s Public Transit Systems

    While millions of Americans are working from home due to the ongoing pandemic, using public transportation remains a daily necessity for many. Public health measures like wearing a mask, installing new ventilation systems and filters, and reducing capacity all help to keep commuters safe – but there is always more that can be done to ensure the continued safety and security of mass transit nationwide.

  • Integrated Approaches to Disease Elimination

    The novel coronavirus pandemic has demanded an unprecedented, coordinated global response, which has culminated in increased global funding, and more importantly, increased attention to healthcare. But whilst efforts to produce and rollout effective diagnostics, therapeutics and vaccines in record time are being widely acclaimed, there is a danger that this focus on COVID-19 threatens to derail decades of progress in the control and elimination of preventable infectious diseases, including malaria, polio and Neglected Tropical Diseases (NTDs).

  • Guinea Reports Deadly Ebola Outbreak as Vaccination Begins in DRC

    Health officials in Guinea yesterday reported an Ebola outbreak in the southeast, marking the first reappearance of the virus in the country since West Africa’s massive outbreak that spanned 2014 to 2016. Also, another illness was confirmed in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC), which is battling a flare-up in North Kivu province, the epicenter of a 2-year outbreak—the world’s second largest—that was declared over in June of 2020.

  • China Probe: SARS-CoV-2 Jump from Go-Between Host Most Likely Scenario

    Representatives from China and an international joint mission team led by the World Health Organization (WHO) Monday in Wuhan detailed the results of a 2-week probe into the zoonotic source of the outbreaks, which didn’t reveal a definitive source but did shed new light on the events. At the nearly 3-hour briefing, officials laid out four main theories, some of them less likely possibilities.

  • How China Is Controlling the COVID Origins Narrative — Silencing Critics and Locking Up Dissenters

    Just over a year has gone by since the novel coronavirus first emerged in the Chinese city of Wuhan and the world still has many questions about where and how it originated. The Chinese government has greatly restrained any attempts to investigate the origins of COVID-19 — both internally and by foreign experts — while at the same time advocating alternate theories that the pandemic originated elsewhere. The top leadership sees control over this narrative as vital to its hold over the Chinese population and the boosting of its international reputation.

  • Climate Change May Have Driven the Emergence of SARS-CoV-2

    Global greenhouse gas emissions over the last century have made southern China a hotspot for bat-borne coronaviruses, by driving growth of forest habitat favored by bats.

  • Conspiracies, Contagion, and Convergence: Troubling Trends and COVID-19

    For hundreds (if not thousands) of years, disease outbreaks have been accompanied by exaggerated or downright false claims of origin, spread, and treatment. Some of these claims are misinformation—incorrect information spread without an intent to mislead. On the other hand, disinformation is deliberately misleading or biased information. While misinformation and disinformation are both dangerous, disinformation is more insidious. What the COVID-19-related disinformation shows is that there is a potential convergence of various communities spreading similar conspiracy theories.

  • A Third of Americans Say They Are Unlikely or Hesitant to Get COVID-19 Vaccine

    News reports indicate COVID-19 vaccines are not getting out soon enough nor in adequate supplies to most regions, but there may be a larger underlying problem than shortages. A new study found that more than a third of people nationwide are either unlikely or at least hesitant to get a COVID-19 vaccine when it becomes available to them.

  • The Evolution of COVID-19 Dark Web Marketplaces Before the Vaccine

    In new research, data scientits highlight the importance of the continuous monitoring of dark web marketplaces (DWMs), especially in light of the current shortage and availability of COVID-19 vaccines.

  • Food Export Restrictions Could Skyrocket Global Food Crop Prices

    Recent events such as the Covid-19 pandemic, locust infestations, drought and labor shortages have disrupted food supply chains, endangering food security in the process. A recent study shows that trade restrictions and stockpiling of supplies by a few key countries could create global food price spikes and severe local food shortages during times of threat.

  • Experts Tout Delaying 2nd COVID Vaccine Dose as U.S. Deaths Mount

    Following record COVID-19 deaths in January, several U.S. experts extolled the benefits of vaccinating as many people as possible with one dose of COVID vaccine before ensuring people receive the recommended second dose. Such a dosing strategy has already been used in the United Kingdom and Israel, two countries further ahead in vaccinating their populations than the United States.

  • Europe's Populists Ready to Seize on COVID Vaccination Bungle

    Europe’s populists have seen their polling numbers dip since the coronavirus emerged on the continent, but as the economic impact of lockdowns and restrictions starts to be felt in earnest, widening income disparity, they could see a revival, some analysts forecast. 

  • Feds Unprepared to Meet First U.S. Evacuees from Wuhan Last Year

    Federal officials at a California military base last year who met with the first American evacuees from Wuhan, China, the place where the coronavirus emerged, were not prepared for their mission, according to a new report.

  • Bold Action Can End Era of Pandemic Threats By 2030

    The Bipartisan Commission on Biodefense has called on the federal government to urgently implement the recommendations specified in its new report, The Apollo Program for Biodefense: Winning the Race Against Biological Threats. The report details an ambitious program to develop and deploy the technologies needed to defend against all biological threats, empower public health, and prevent pandemics.

  • Pandemic Shows Need for Biological Readiness

    President Joe Biden’s inauguration comes during the worst stage of the deadliest biological event of our lifetimes. As bad as this pandemic is, imagine if instead it were caused by the deliberate release of a sophisticated biological weapon. About 2 percent of those infected have died of COVID-19, while a disease such as smallpox kills at a 30 percent rate. A bioengineered pathogen could be even more lethal. Our failed response to the pandemic in 2020 has exposed a gaping vulnerability to biological threats, ranging from natural outbreaks to deliberate biological weapons attacks.