• Shielding the Vulnerable Using a Risk Calculator – Here’s Why It Won’t Be Enough

    In recent weeks, there have been controversial proposals to ask older, more vulnerable adults to isolate from society, while younger adults build herd immunity to COVID-19. These strategies have been criticized by leading figures as “practically impossible” and “unethical”. Yet calls for shielding from COVID “stratified by risk” persist.

  • Nuclear War could Take a Big Bite Out of the World's Seafood

    A new study reveals the damage that a nuclear war might take on wild-caught seafood around the world, from salmon and tuna to the shrimp in shrimp cocktails. The aftermath of such a conflict could put a major strain on global food security, an international team of scientists reports. The group estimates that a nuclear war might cut the amount of seafood that fishing boats are capable of bringing in worldwide by as much as 30 percent.

  • Pfizer’s Ultra-Cold Vaccine Could Be Difficult to Distribute

    The excitement that greeted the news of a vaccine candidate that may be highly effective against COVID-19 was indeed something to behold. One complicating factor will be the maintenance of the cold chain. Vaccines are fragile products: they need to be stored at specific temperatures, and some are sensitive to light and need to be transported in dark glass vials. These precise conditions must be maintained throughout the vaccine journey, right until the point when you’re in the GP surgery with your sleeve rolled up and the nurse opens the fridge door to extract the required immunization.

  • More Economic Worries Lead to Less Caution about COVID-19

    Workers experiencing job and financial insecurity are less likely to follow the CDC’s guidelines for COVID-19, such as physical distancing, limiting trips from home and washing hands. The researchers also found that state unemployment benefits and COVID-19 policies affected the connection between economic concerns and compliance with COVID-19 precautions.

  • Pfizer, Biontech Announce COVID-19 Vaccine Candidate Achieved Phase 3 Success

    Vaccine candidate was found to be more than 90 percent effective in preventing COVID-19 in participants without evidence of prior SARS-CoV-2 infection in the first interim efficacy analysis. The study enrolled 43,538 participants, with 42 percent having diverse backgrounds, and no serious safety concerns have been observed; Safety and additional efficacy data continue to be collected. Pfizer Inc. and BioNTech SE will apply for Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) after the required safety milestone is achieved, which is currently expected to occur in the third week of November. Clinical trial to continue through to final analysis at 164 confirmed cases in order to collect further data and characterize the vaccine candidate’s performance against other study endpoints.

  • Coronavirus: Sweden Keeps Its Laid-Back COVID-19 Strategy

    Despite rising infection rates, Sweden is sticking to its relatively relaxed approach to managing the coronavirus pandemic. But not everyone in the country is pleased with this tactic.

  • Odds and Evens: A Strategy for Safely Exiting Lockdown 2

    Should lockdowns be reimposed, and, if so, for how long? A key difficulty for governments in finding the right answer is that they do not know with any certainty how transmission rates might increase if restrictions are removed. Based on our research, we believe there is a case for a cyclic lockdown policy, which could help control the spread of COVID-19 and also provide evidence to help predict the future much better.

  • U.S. COVID-19 Cases Keep Climbing, with No End in Sight

    U.S. COVID-19 cases are skyrocketing as the coronavirus spreads to every corner of the country. The United States reported 121,888 new COVID-19 Thursday, and 1,210 deaths. That’s nearly 20,000 more cases than were reported Wednesday, and the third day in a row of more than 1,000 deaths.

  • Poor U.S. Pandemic Response Will Reverberate in Health Care Politics for Years, Health Scholars Warn

    Much has been written about the U.S. coronavirus response. Yet little is known about the views of a group of people particularly well qualified to render judgment on the U.S. response and offer policy solutions: academic health policy and politics researchers. We have surveyed 400 researchers, and the highlight the damaged reputation to government institutions. The surveyed scholars also believe the poor government response will shift the politics of health care.

  • Confronting the Notion that Face Masks Reduce COVID “Dose”

    When two physicians at the University of California at San Francisco published a commentary in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) on Sep 8 proposing to resurrect the 18th century practice of variolation using face coverings to prevent severe COVID-19 and confer immunity, the Internet lit up with headlines such as “Coronavirus: Another reason for that mask: You’ll get less sick.” Concerned that the piece, its positioning in a top medical journal, and the resulting media coverage would embolden people to abandon physical distancing and other public health measures in favor of only wearing face coverings, scientists warned against the practice.

  • Escaping the “Era of Pandemics”: Reducing Risks of Worse Crises to Come

    Future pandemics will emerge more often, spread more rapidly, do more damage to the world economy and kill more people than COVID-19 unless there is a transformative change in the global approach to dealing with infectious diseases, warns a major new report by 22 leading experts from around the world.

  • U.S. at “Critical Point” as COVID-19 Cases up Nationwide, Crossing the 9 Million Mark

    The COVID-19 pandemic in the United States is setting new records as infections continue to spike in the Midwest and other parts of the country. A member of the White House coronavirus task force said Wednesday that the nationwide increase in cases isn’t just a reflection of increased testing. “We are at another critical point in the pandemic response,” Admiral Brett Giroir, MD, told NBC’s Today Show. “Yes, we’re getting more cases identified, but the cases are actually going up. And we know that, too, because hospitalizations are going up.”

  • EU Uses Chinese Technology Linked to Muslim Internment Camps in Xinjiang

    In the fight against coronavirus, the EU is using thermal cameras produced by Chinese tech giant Hikvision. The firm has been linked to the oppression of Uighurs and other Muslim minorities in China’s Xinjiang province.

  • COVID-19 Drug Shortages—and the Solutions

    A new report lays out not only how the US drug supply chain has been vulnerable for years, but how those vulnerabilities are exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. The report points out that 29 (72.5 percent) of the 40 critical drugs for COVID-19 patients are experiencing shortages.

  • Russia Launches Disinformation Campaign to Undermine Public Confidence in Oxford University’s COVID Vaccine

    The U.K. government said it condemned as “utterly deplorable” a Russia disinformation campaign to undermine public confidence in a coronavirus vaccine currently under development by Oxford University scientists. The Times reported on Friday that Russian government officials have been using social media and Russian state media to depict the vaccine as dangerous – going as far as claiming that the vaccine would turn people into monkeys or chimpanzees.