Tag Archives: science

CNN reports: Spain’s large-scale study on the coronavirus indicates just 5% of its population has developed antibodies, strengthening evidence that a so-called herd immunity to Covid-19 is “unachievable,” the medical journal the Lancet reported on Monday. The findings show that 95% of Spain’s population remains susceptible to the virus. Herd immunity is achieved when enough of a population has become …

The Daily Beast reports: Health officials in Florida have sounded the alarm over the discovery of a rare, brain-eating amoeba in the county that encompasses Tampa and several other cities. The Florida Department of Health announced the news Friday that a person in Hillsborough County had suffered a confirmed infection of naegleria fowleri, a single-celled living amoeba that can lead …

STAT News reports: An experimental Covid-19 vaccine being developed by the drug giant Pfizer and the biotech firm BioNTech spurred immune responses in healthy patients, but also caused fever and other side effects, especially at higher doses. The first clinical data on the vaccine were disclosed Wednesday in a paper released on medRXiv, a preprint server, meaning it has not …

The New York Times reports: One way to quickly see if a coronavirus vaccine works would be to immunize healthy people and then deliberately expose them to the virus, some researchers are suggesting. Proponents say this strategy, called a human challenge trial, could save time because rather than conducting tests the usual way — by waiting for vaccinated people to …

Scientific American reports: As scientists have learned more about COVID-19, it has become clear that so-called superspreader incidents—in which one person infects a disproportionate number of other individuals—have played an oversized role in the transmission of the virus that causes the disease. A Boston conference and the funeral in Georgia were among several superspreader events that played “a notable role …

Just in from Ipsos Polling: Concern with potential coronavirus infection has rebounded in the latest ABC News/Ipsos poll as the number of cases in the South and West surge, even as more Americans are leaving the home. This trend is connected to increases in protective actions and decreased willingness to engage in certain ‘routine’ activities. Americans are increasingly concerned with …

The Associated Press reports: How accurate are the coronavirus tests used in the U.S.? Months into the outbreak, no one really knows how well many of the screening tests work, and experts at top medical centers say it is time to do the studies to find out. When the new virus began spreading, the Food and Drug Administration used its …

The Hill reports: The final testing stage for a potential coronavirus vaccine developed by Moderna is set to begin in July, The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday. John Mascola, the director of the vaccine research center at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told the Journal that the trials will involve about 30,000 people at more than 50 …

The Washington Post reports: Shutdown orders prevented about 285 million novel coronavirus infections in China and about 60 million in the United States, according to a research study published Monday that examined how stay-at-home orders and other restrictions limited the spread of the contagion. A separate study from epidemiologists at Imperial College London estimated that the shutdowns saved approximately 3.1 …

The Washington Post reports: Hydroxychloroquine did not prevent healthy people exposed to covid-19 from getting the disease caused by the coronavirus, according to a study being published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine. The study is the first randomized clinical trial that tested the antimalarial drug, touted by President Trump, as a preventive measure. It showed that hydroxychloroquine …

STAT News reports: Researchers have begun testing what appears to be the first new medicine developed specifically against Covid-19, in a milestone for drug companies aiming to combat the disease, the medicine’s makers said Monday. The medicine, a human-made antibody against the coronavirus that causes the disease, was discovered by a Vancouver company, AbCellera, and is being developed by Eli …

Obviously this is an attack on Glorious Leader: The World Health Organization is temporarily pausing tests of the anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine as a coronavirus treatment in order to review safety concerns, the agency’s director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesu said Monday. The decision comes after a retrospective review published in The Lancet found that coronavirus patients who took hydroxychloroquine or its related …

Courthouse News reports: University researchers have developed and recorded the fastest internet data speed in the world from a single optical chip, holding the capacity to download 1,000 high-definition movies in a split second, according to new research revealed Friday. In the wake of the Covid-19 outbreak, the world’s internet infrastructure has experienced increased pressure, heightened by the pandemic isolation …

“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, …

CNN reports: In new guidance for mathematical modelers and public health officials, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is estimating that about a third of coronavirus infections are asymptomatic. The CDC also says its “best estimate” is that 0.4% of people who show symptoms and have Covid-19 will die, and the agency estimates that 40% of coronavirus transmission …

Clearly this is just another political hit job: A study of 96,000 hospitalized coronavirus patients on six continents found that those who received an antimalarial drug promoted by President Trump as a “game changer” in the fight against the virus had a significantly higher risk of death compared with those who did not. People treated with hydroxychloroquine, or the closely …

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 …

NBC News reports: Dr. Joseph Fair, a virologist and epidemiologist who has been hospitalized with the coronavirus despite being in good health and taking precautions, said Thursday that he believes he contracted the virus through his eyes on a crowded flight. Fair, 42, an NBC News contributor who has responded to multiple outbreaks around the world, got sick about three …

NBC News reports: Health care giant Johnson and Johnson is looking to produce a billion coronavirus vaccines next year, according to the company’s chief scientific officer. Dr. Paul Stoffels said the company is upscaling manufacturing and will start producing the vaccine later this year. “We are preparing clinical trials. We are fully underway and upscaling. We start clinical trials in …

CNBC reports: Hydroxychloroquine, a decades-old malaria drug touted by President Donald Trump, didn’t appear to help hospitalized patients with Covid-19, according to a new observational study published Thursday in the New England Journal of Medicine. The study, funded by the National Institutes of Health and conducted by researchers at New York-Presbyterian Hospital and Columbia University Irving Medical Center in New …