• Super-Charging Drug Development for COVID-19

    Researchers are ramping up production of a promising drug that has proven effective in obliterating SARS-CoV in cellular cultures. The team hopes that the drug might also be effective in the fight against SARS’s close genetic cousin, the novel coronavirus (COVID-19). Northwestern University says that the team, led by Northwestern University and ShanghaiTech University, has produced the promising molecule, called valinomycin, in a cell-free system. With this approach, they increased production yields more than 5,000 times in just a few rapid design cycles, achieving higher concentrations of the molecule than achieved previously in cells.The research was published online recently in the journal Metabolic Engineering and will appear in the July 2020 print issue. 

  • Model Quantifies the Impact of Quarantine Measures on COVID-19’s Spread

    Every day for the past few weeks, charts and graphs plotting the projected apex of Covid-19 infections have been splashed across newspapers and cable news. Many of these models have been built using data from studies on previous outbreaks like SARS or MERS. Now, a team of engineers at MIT has developed a model that uses data from the Covid-19 pandemic in conjunction with a neural network to determine the efficacy of quarantine measures and better predict the spread of the virus. Mary Beth Gallagher writes in MIT News that Most models used to predict the spread of a disease follow what is known as the SEIR model, which groups people into “susceptible,” “exposed,” “infected,” and “recovered.” Dandekar and Barbastathis enhanced the SEIR model by training a neural network to capture the number of infected individuals who are under quarantine, and therefore no longer spreading the infection to others. Raj Dandekar, a Ph.D. candidate studying civil and environmental engineering, and George Barbastathis, professor of mechanical engineering, enhanced the SEIR model by training a neural network to capture the number of infected individuals who are under quarantine, and therefore no longer spreading the infection to others.

  • Climate-Driven Megadrought Is Emerging in Western U.S.: Study

    With the western United States and northern Mexico suffering an ever-lengthening string of dry years starting in 2000, scientists have been warning for some time that climate change may be pushing the region toward an extreme long-term drought worse than any in recorded history. A new study says the time has arrived: a megadrought as bad or worse than anything even from known prehistory is very likely in progress, and warming climate is playing a key role.

  • As Part of U.S. COVID-19 Reopening Steps, Midwest Governors Form Coalition

    Yesterday President Donald Trump during his daily coronavirus task force briefing will announce the first plans for reopening the economy and transitioning from widespread stay-at-home efforts. Yesterday during the briefing the president said America had likely passed the peak of its infections, and physical distancing measures were working. Joining governors on the West and East Coasts, seven Midwestern governors yesterday announced a new coalition to open the Midwest economic region. In a letter from Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer’s office, she and the governors of Ohio, Wisconsin, Minnesota, Illinois, Indiana, and Kentucky announced the partnership.

  • Virology Lab Finds Drug Originally Meant for Ebola is Effective against a Key Enzyme of Coronavirus That Causes COVID-19

    Scientists at the University of Alberta have shown that the drug remdesivir is highly effective in stopping the replication mechanism of the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, according to new research published today in the Journal of Biological Chemistry. The paper, Folio reports, follows closely on research published by the same lab in late February that demonstrated how the drug worked against the Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) virus, a related coronavirus. The paper demonstrates how remdesivir, developed in 2014 to fight the Ebola epidemic, works in detail. He likens the polymerase to the engine of the virus, responsible for synthesizing the virus’ genome.

  • COVID-19-Related Mortality By Age Groups in Europe: A Meta-Analysis

    To date, more than 1,000,000 confirmed cases and 65,000 deaths due to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) have been reported globally. Early data have indicated that older patients are at higher risk of dying from COVID-19 than younger ones, but precise international estimates of the age-breakdown of COVID-19-related deaths are lacking. Jérémie F. Cohen et al. write in medRxiv that  they evaluated the distribution of COVID-19-related fatalities by age groups in Europe. They found that people under 40 years of age represent a small fraction of the total number of COVID-19-related deaths in Europe. “These results may help health authorities respond to public concerns and guide future physical distancing and mitigation strategies,” the researchers write.

  • What the Coronavirus Figures Really Show: Males Are Dying at Twice the Rate, COVID-19 Is Third Most Common Cause of Death, England's Death Rate Per Capita is 50% Higher Than Wales and 10% of Victims Have No Underlying Conditions

    The Daily Mail reports that: Death rates are twice as high in men compared to women, with 97.5 deaths among every 100,000 men against 46.5 for women; England’s death rate is 50 per cent higher than Wales’, with 68.5 deaths for every 100,000 people - compared to 44.5 in Wales; coronavirus was the third most common cause of death during March, behind only dementia (6,401) and heart disease (4,042); heart disease was the most common pre-existing condition among the victims, with 14 percent of victims having the condition; two deaths from COVID-19 were registered before March 5 - the date officials first announced a woman in her 70s had died in Berkshire; true death toll in Britain could be 77 per cent higher than the official count given by the Department of Health each day; the death rate in March was lower than the five-year average - despite the last week of March being the deadliest since 2005.

  • Study Identifies 275 Ways to Reduce Spread of Coronavirus Following Lockdown

    Phased re-opening of schools, businesses and open spaces should be considered alongside a range of practical ways to keep people physically apart, say the authors of a new study on how lockdown can be eased without a resurgence of coronavirus infections. The University of Cambridge says thatThe study identified 275 ways to reduce transmission of the coronavirus. Medical possibilities were not considered. It does not offer recommendations: a shortlist of the most appropriate options for specific regions and contexts should be considered in the context of their likely effectiveness, cost, practicality and fairness.

  • The Coronavirus Contact Tracing App Won't Log Your Location, but It Will Reveal Who You Hang Out With

    The Australian federal government has announced plans to introduce a contact tracing mobile app to help curb COVID-19’s spread in Australia. Roba Abbas and Katina Michael write in The Conversation that rather than collecting location data directly from mobile operators, the proposed TraceTogether app will use Bluetooth technology to sense whether users who have voluntarily opted-in have come within nine metres of one another. Contact tracing apps generally store 14-21 days of interaction data between participating devices to help monitor the spread of a disease. The TraceTogether app has been available in Singapore since March 20, and its reception there may help shed light on how the new tech will fare in Australia.

  • How Lasers Can Help with Nuclear Nonproliferation Monitoring

    Scientists developed a new method showing that measuring the light produced in plasmas made from a laser can be used to understand uranium oxidation in nuclear fireballs. This capability gives never-before-seen insight into uranium gas-phase oxidation during nuclear explosions. These insights further progress toward a reliable, non-contact method for remote detection of uranium elements and isotopes, with implications for nonproliferation safeguards, explosion monitoring and treaty verification.

  • Understanding Hungary’s Authoritarian Response to the Pandemic

    In the face of the coronavirus pandemic, governments around the world have taken measures — border closures, enhanced surveillance, dramatic speech and media restrictions, election postponements, and shuttering of legislatures and courts – purportedly aimed at containing the spread of the disease. Laura Livingston writes that while some forbearance of civil liberties is reasonable in the face of a grave threat, “the pandemic has already served as an opportunity for would-be authoritarians to consolidate the power they have long coveted.” No other ruler has gone further than Hungary’s Viktor Orbán, who, critics charge, is well on his way to turning Hungary into the EU’s first dictatorship.

  • Antibody Tests May Hold Clues to COVID-19 Exposure, Immunity—but It's Complicated

    As the nation looks for ways to emerge from the shelter-in-place orders instituted across the country, there’s growing hope that our blood might hold clues for how we move forward. Chris Dall writes in CIDRAP that late last week, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced that it has begun recruiting volunteers for a study to determine how many Americans without a confirmed COVID-19 diagnosis have been exposed to the SARS-CoV-2 virus, based on the presence of antibodies in their blood. Antibody tests, while not useful for diagnostic purposes because of the time it takes to produce an antibody response, could indicate those who’ve had the illness at some point but never received official confirmation of infection, and those who’ve had very mild or even asymptomatic (symptom-free) infections. But experts say there remains a numbers of unknowns that need to be addressed.

  • Don't You Dare Ask When the Lockdown Will End! Matt Hancock Loses His Cool as He Tells Radio Interviewer that the Government Won't Release Exit Plan Because Public Can't Be Trusted with It

    The British Health Secretary Matt Hancock om Thursday insisted the public cannot be trusted with a coronavirus “exit strategy” as they might stop obeying lockdown rules. James Tapsfield writrs in the Daily Mail that in a bad-tempered interview as the government prepares to extend draconian curbs for another three weeks, the Health Secretary said he recognized that “everybody wants to know what the future looks like.” But he flatly dismissed calls for the government to flesh out how the restrictions will finally be eased, despite mounting fears that they are wreaking havoc on the economy. Hancock said the “clarity of messaging” had a “direct impact on how many people obey” social distancing rules.

  • Global COVID-19 Total Tops 2 Million; WHO Responds to U.S. Funding Freeze

    As the global COVID-19 total topped 2 million cases yesterday, the World Health Organization (WHO) pandemic response was buffeted by fresh attacks from US President Donald Trump, who announced yesterday that his administration would freeze its funding for the agency. Meanwhile, steady activity in hot spots in the United States and Europe pushed the global total to 2,034,425 cases from 185 countries, along with 133,261 deaths.

  • British Firm that Can Deliver 1 Million Coronavirus Tests Per Week Left Waiting for Public Health England Order

    One million coronavirus tests a week can be delivered by a British company, but Public Health England (PHE) has not taken up the offer, it has emerged, amid growing concerns that the Government’s 100,000-a-day target is now unreachable. Sarah Knapton writes in The Telegraph that Berkshire-based Apacor Ltd has already gained approval from the Medicines & Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) to supply coronavirus antigen tests and said the first 150,000 could be delivered overnight. The South Korean test, made by Wells Bio, is already being used by Germany, but the PHE laboratory at Colindale has still not sent for a sample so it can be verified and has said it cannot find time to talk to the company until next week.