• Study Examines How Hong Kong Managed First Wave of COVID-19 Without Resorting to Complete Lockdown

    Hong Kong appears to have averted a major COVID-19 outbreak up to March 31, 2020, by adopting far less drastic control measures than most other countries, with a combination of border entry restrictions, quarantine and isolation of cases and contacts, together with some degree of social distancing, according to a new observational study published in The Lancet Public Health journal. The study suggests testing and contact tracing and population behavioral changes — measures which have far less disruptive social and economic impact than total lockdown — can meaningfully control COVID-19. The public health measures implemented to suppress local transmission in Hong Kong are probably feasible in many locations worldwide, and could be rolled out in other countries with sufficient resources, researchers say. However, the researchers caution that because a variety of measures were used simultaneously, it is not possible to disentangle the individual effects of each one.

  • Two Months of COVID-19 Lockdown Will Cost France €120 Billion, Report Says

    France’s nearly two-month-long coronavirus lockdown is expected to cost the country some €120 billion in lost revenue while “forced savings” are estimated to reach €55 billion, the state-funded French Economic Observatory said on Monday. “During the lockdown, the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) was cut by 32 percent, corresponding to five points of GDP for the whole of 2020,” the state-funded French Economic Observatory (OFCE) wrote. The observatory went on to say that “almost 60 percent of the drop in national income was absorbed by public administrations” and 35 percent by businesses. France’s economic recovery depends on how much the French spend once lockdown is lifted, it said. France24 notes, however, that although the French are expected to have shored up €55 billion in so-called forced savings during the planned 17 March to 11 May lockdown period – meaning they will have spent less than they earned – they are not expected to spend these savings “completely or rapidly” once lockdown is lifted given the continuing uncertainties over Covid-19.

  • We Simulated How a Modern Dust Bowl Would Impact Global Food Supplies and the Result Is Devastating

    By Miina Porkka, Alison Heslin, and Matti Kummu

    When the southern Great Plains of the United States were blighted with a series of droughts in the 1930s, it had an unparalleled impact on the whole country. Combined with decades of ill-advised farming policy, the result was the Dust Bowl. Massive dust storms began in 1931 and devastated the country’s major cereal producing areas. But what consequences would a disruption like the Dust Bowl have now, when the Great Plains of the U.S. are not just the breadbasket of America, but a major producer of staple cereals that are exported around the world?

  • The Totalitarian Temptation Resisted

    In Hungary, Azerbaijan, Egypt, Russia, the Philippines, and other countries, strongman leaders are taking advantage of a distracted international community to reinforce authoritarian agendas. Josef Joffe writes that, in contrast, national emergencies in the West do not breed despots, nor the grasping security state. Joffe argues that those who predict that the coronavirus epidemic will facilitate an authoritarian takeover, ignore four critical points – all of which contribute to making Western democracies resilient in the face of challenges such as an epidemic and other crises.

  • 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

    By Kevin Krajick

    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.