Science

“Any time you develop a vaccine, you always remember, you always have a question that you may not get an effective vaccine. Even if you do everything right and you do everything on time, there’s no guarantee you’re going to have an effective vaccine. “So when we talk about having a vaccine that might be available in December or January, …

The Washington Post reports: Dallas, Houston, Southeast Florida’s Gold Coast, the entire state of Alabama and several other places in the South that have been rapidly reopening their economies are in danger of a second wave of coronavirus infections over the next four weeks, according to a research team that uses cellphone data to track social mobility and forecast the …

Bloomberg News reports: Researchers are finding evidence that patients who test positive for the coronavirus after recovering aren’t capable of transmitting the infection, and could have the antibodies that prevent them from falling sick again. Scientists from the Korean Centers for Disease Control and Prevention studied 285 Covid-19 survivors who had tested positive for the coronavirus after their illness had …

The Associated Press reports: At least four or five possible vaccines “look pretty promising” and one or two will be ready to begin large-scale testing by July with others to follow soon, NIH Director Francis Collins told The Associated Press. “The big challenge now is to go big and everybody is about ready for that. And we want to be …

The New York Times reports: New York City’s coronavirus outbreak grew so large by early March that the city became the primary source of new infections in the United States, new research reveals, as thousands of infected people traveled from the city and seeded outbreaks around the country. The research indicates that a wave of infections swept from New York …

The Associated Press reports: When the still locked-down NYC metropolitan area is included, new infections in the U.S. appear to be declining, according to the AP analysis. It found that the five-day rolling average for new cases has decreased from 9.4 per 100,000 people on April 9 to 8.6 on Monday. But taking the New York metropolitan area out of …

Reuters reports: Government-backed hackers are attacking healthcare and research institutions in an effort to steal valuable information about efforts to contain the new coronavirus outbreak, Britain and the United States said on Tuesday in a joint warning. In a statement, Britain’s National Cyber Security Centre (NCSC) and the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) said the hackers had targeted …

The New York Times reports: As the climate continues to warm over the next half-century, up to one-third of the world’s population is likely to live in areas that are considered unsuitably hot for humans, scientists said Monday. Currently fewer than 25 million people live in the world’s hottest areas, which are mostly in the Sahara region in Africa with …

Newsweek reports: Scientists have identified an antibody in a lab that they say can prevent the novel coronavirus from infecting cells. The team hopes the antibody could be used to create treatments for COVID-19, the disease caused by the virus. The team, whose research was published in the journal Nature Communications, have been exploring whether what are known as monoclonal …

NBC News reports: British scientists developing a potential vaccine for the coronavirus hope to see a “signal” as to whether their vaccine candidate is working by June, one official involved in the effort told “Meet the Press” Sunday. Sir John Bell, the Regius Professor of Medicine at Oxford University, where one of the leading efforts to develop a vaccine is …

Bloomberg News reports:  The coronavirus pandemic is likely to last as long as two years and won’t be controlled until about two-thirds of the world’s population is immune, a group of experts said in a report. Because of its ability to spread from people who don’t appear to be ill, the virus may be harder to control than influenza, the …

The New York Post reports: The pharmaceutical giant Pfizer said Tuesday that a new coronavirus vaccine could be tested as early as next week — with the potential for emergency use by fall, a report said Tuesday. “This is a crisis right now, and a solution is desperately needed by all,” Pfizer Chief Executive Albert Bourla told the Wall Street …

The New York Times reports: In the worldwide race for a vaccine to stop the coronavirus, the laboratory sprinting fastest is at Oxford University. The Oxford scientists now say that with an emergency approval from regulators, the first few million doses of their vaccine could be available by September — at least several months ahead of any of the other …

Via press from the World Health Organization: WHO has published guidance on adjusting public health and social measures for the next phase of the COVID-19 response. Some governments have suggested that the detection of antibodies to the SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, could serve as the basis for an “immunity passport” or “risk-free certificate” that would enable individuals to …

The South China Morning Post reports: A new study by one of China’s top scientists has found the ability of the new coronavirus to mutate has been vastly underestimated and different strains may account for different impacts of the disease in various parts of the world. Professor Li Lanjuan and her colleagues from Zhejiang University found within a small pool …

ABC News reports: The first large-scale community test of 3,300 people in Santa Clara County found that 2.5 to 4.2% of those tested were positive for antibodies — a number suggesting a far higher past infection rate than the official count. Based on the initial data, researchers estimate that the range of people who may have had the virus to …

The Jerusalem Post reports: The novel COVID-19, despite previous suspicions, is capable of surviving prolonged exposure to high temperatures, according to a study by the University of Aix-Marseille in France, led by Professor Remi Charrel and Boris Pastorino. In the experiment, scientists found that typically hot temperatures of 60° Celsius (140° Fahrenheit) used to disinfect research labs are ineffective against …

ABC News reports: As factions inside President Donald Trump’s orbit have been floating theories about the novel coronavirus originating in a Chinese bio-research lab, U.S. scientists are hardening their belief that the virus emerged naturally, citing expanded research as proof. Dr. Robert Garry, a professor at the Tulane School of Medicine, authored one of the first major studies that refutes …

ESPN reports: Employees of Major League Baseball teams are participating in a massive study that will test up to 10,000 people for coronavirus antibodies and should offer researchers a better sense of how widespread the disease is in major metropolitan areas across the United States, although doctors caution that the data gathered is not expected to hasten the game’s return. …

The Associated Press reports: The top U.S. infectious disease official says coronavirus antibody tests are just days away. Dr. Anthony Fauci says at the last White House coronavirus task force meeting, the people responsible for developing, validating and disseminating the tests were saying “a rather large number of tests” will be available within a week. Fauci told CNN on Friday …