What Europeans have learned from a year of pandemic

‘From the first case diagnosed a year ago at a hospital in northern Italy to the empty shops, restaurants and stadiums of Europe's cities, the lives of Europeans have been changed forever. Curbs on movement have forced every country and society to adapt its rules and rethink its culture. There have been hard truths and unexpected innovations in a year that changed Europe.

• Restrictions are tough for societies used to freedom
• Experts are essential, but mistakes have been made
• The EU wasn't set up for a pan-European health crisis
• Societies have responded in different ways
• A Europe without borders is fine in theory
• Hard truths about how we slaughter animals
• Europeans embraced lifestyle change in different ways

Read here (BBC, Feb 20, 2021)

WHO to look at controversial Italian samples in search for origins

‘The World Health Organization is looking into controversial research suggesting the coronavirus that causes Covid-19 was circulating in Italy months before it was first detected in China, the health body said on Friday, while cautioning against using such data to speculate about the disease’s origins.

‘The WHO plans to run tests with the Italian researchers who made waves earlier this month for their peer-reviewed findings based on tests of blood samples from a cancer screening carried out starting before the pathogen was detected in China.’

Read here (South China Morning Post, Nov 27, 2020) 

Covid-19 was present in Italy as early as SEPTEMBER 2019, study of lung cancer screenings shows

‘The Covid-19 virus had been active in Italy months before it was first officially detected, new research has found, raising further questions about the true origins, extent and actual duration of the ongoing pandemic. The new groundbreaking study, conducted by scientists with Milan Institute of Cancer and the University of Siena, was published this week by the Tumori Journal. The research is based on the analysis of blood samples from 959 people, collected during lung cancer screening tests conducted between September 2019 and March 2020.

‘More than 11 percent of the tested – 111 people – turned out to have had coronavirus-specific antibodies. All the tested people were asymptomatic and were not showing any signs of the disease. Some 23 of the positive results date back to September 2019, suggesting that the virus was actually present in the country as early as during last summer – some six months before the pandemic ‘began’ and ‘reached’ Italy.

‘The new research is poking new holes in the already well-battered belief that the novel coronavirus emerged from the Chinese city of Wuhan around December 2019 and that it turned into pandemic in January 2020. The data from Italian researchers is particularly valuable, as it’s based on actual blood samples, as compared to the earlier, less conclusive findings that also suggested that the established pandemic timeline could be wrong.’

Read here (RT, Nov 15, 2020)

‘Mutant coronavirus’ seen before on mink farms, say scientists

‘The coronavirus mutation causing concern in Denmark has arisen before in mink, scientists have revealed. The mutated virus has been detected retrospectively in mink at a farm in the Netherlands, but it did not spread to humans, said a leading Dutch expert...

‘The genetic data from Denmark was released on an international database a few days ago, with some scientists questioning why it had not been released sooner. "I think that it is most disappointing that the data have only just reached the light of day," said Prof James Wood, head of the department of veterinary medicine at the University of Cambridge, UK...

‘Six countries have reported coronavirus outbreaks at mink farms: the Netherlands, Denmark, Spain, Sweden, Italy and the US.’

Read here (BBC, Nov 9, 2020)

For Covid-19, as with everything else, Americans on the right and left live in different universes when it comes to trusting the media

‘More in Common — a group that tries to “counter polarization” and “build bridges across dividing lines” — has a new report out this morning called “The New Normal,” which looks at “the impacts of COVID-19 on trust, social cohesion, democracy and expectations for an uncertain future.” It looks at seven countries (U.S., U.K., France, Germany, Italy, Poland, and the Netherlands) and is based on surveys of about 14,000 people.’

This story focuses on ‘how people in [the] seven countries view the motives of the news media in covering the pandemic. Only in the United States is that a profoundly partisan question.’

Read here (Nieman Lab, Sept 17, 2020)

New evidence suggests young children spread Covid-19 more efficiently than adults

Two new studies, though from different parts of the world, have arrived at the same conclusion: that young children not only transmit SARS-CoV-2 efficiently, but may be major drivers of the pandemic as well. The first, which was published in JAMA yesterday, reports findings from a pediatric hospital in Chicago, Illinois. The second, a preprint manuscript awaiting peer review, was conducted in the mountainous province of Trento, Italy.

Read here (Forbes, July 31, 2020)

The effect of large-scale anti-contagion policies on the Covid-19 pandemic

‘...we compile new data on 1,717 local, regional, and national non-pharmaceutical interventions deployed in the ongoing pandemic across localities in China, South Korea, Italy, Iran, France, and the United States (US)... We estimate that across these six countries, interventions prevented or delayed on the order of 62 million confirmed cases, corresponding to averting roughly 530 million total infections. These findings may help inform whether or when these policies should be deployed, intensified, or lifted, and they can support decision-making in the other 180+ countries where COVID-19 has been reported.

Read here (Nature, June 8, 2020)

New coronavirus losing potency, top Italian doctor says

‘The new coronavirus is losing its potency and has become much less lethal, a senior Italian doctor said on Sunday. “In reality, the virus clinically no longer exists in Italy,” said Alberto Zangrillo, the head of the San Raffaele Hospital in Milan in the northern region of Lombardy, which has borne the brunt of Italy’s coronavirus contagion. “The swabs that were performed over the last 10 days showed a viral load in quantitative terms that was absolutely infinitesimal compared to the ones carried out a month or two months ago,” he told RAI television.’

Read here (Reuters, June 1, 2020)

Italy's PM outlines lockdown easing measures

Speaking on television on Sunday, Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte outlined how the country would begin "Phase Two" of lifting its coronavirus lockdown. The measures include:

1. People will be allowed to move around their own regions - but not between different regions
2. Funerals are set to resume, but with a maximum of 15 people attending, and ideally to be carried out outdoors
3. Individual athletes can resume training, and people can do sports not only in the vicinity of their homes but in wider areas
4. Bars and restaurants will reopen for takeaway service from 4 May - not just delivery as now - but food must be consumed at home or in an office
5. Hairdressers, beauty salons, bars and restaurants are expected to reopen for dine-in service from 1 June
6. More retail shops not already opened under the earliest easing measures will reopen on 18 May along with museums and libraries
7. Sports teams will also be able to hold group training from 18 May
8. There was no announcement on the possibility of Italy's premier football league Serie A resuming, even behind closed doors.

Read here (BBC, April 27, 2020)

In Italy, home is also a dangerous place that may be propping up the infection curve the lockdown was meant to suppress

‘Italy’s leading virologists now consider home infections, alongside clusters in retirement homes, to be a stubborn source of the country’s contagion. Living together in close quarters and the failure to move the infected into dedicated quarantine facilities have, they say, paradoxically propped up the curve of infections that “stay home” measures were designed to suppress.

‘The problem is one the Chinese government bludgeoned quickly. It ordered the roundup of all residents in Wuhan infected with the coronavirus, warehousing them in quarantine camps, sometimes with little care. While that approach may have helped contain the virus, ripping people apart from their homes is anathema to Western democracies, especially Italy, where tight-knit families are the rule.’

Read here (New York Times, April 24, 2020)

Congested Milan to turn roads into cycle lanes after drop in air pollution due to lockdown

‘Milan is preparing to launch an ambitious scheme to reallocate street space from cars to cyclists and pedestrians when it begins to exit its months-long coronavirus lockdown. The Italian city, which is in the hard-hit region of Lombardy, has some of the worst pollution in Europe and introduced a temporary daytime car ban earlier this year in an attempt to reduce high levels of smog. Motor traffic congestion has dropped by 30-75 per cent during Italy’s lockdown and officials in Milan hope to use the reopening of the city as an opportunity to turn residents away from car use.’

Read here (The Independent, April 23, 2020)

‘SARS-CoV-2 RNA found in air pollution particles in Italy’

’A study conducted in Italy (not yet peer reviewed) detected the presence of SARS-CoV-2 RNA in air pollution particles. The particulate matter that contributes to air pollution can be inhaled, potentially providing an additional mechanism for SARS-CoV-2 infection. This study did not evaluate the viability of the virus detected in the air pollution, nor did it assess the potential for this route of exposure to result in infection.‘

Read here (Medrxiv, April 15, 2020)

Mild cases as infectious as severe ones? There are strong correlations in Lombardy and Guangzhou. If proven true, this would underscore the need for tweaking social-distancing policies for the longer term...

 ‘If you have a high viral load, you are more likely to infect other people, because you may be shedding more virus particles. However, in the case of covid-19, it doesn’t necessarily follow that a higher viral load will lead to more severe symptoms.

‘For instance, health workers investigating the covid-19 outbreak in the Lombardy region of Italy looked at more than 5,000 infected people and found no difference in viral load between those with symptoms and those without. They reached this conclusion after tracing people who had been in contact with someone known to be infected with the coronavirus and testing them to see if they were also infected.

‘Similarly, when doctors at the Guangzhou Eighth People’s Hospital in China took repeated throat swabs from 94 covid-19 patients, starting on the day they became ill and finishing when they cleared the virus, they found no obvious difference in viral load between milder cases and those who developed more severe symptoms...

‘It is early days, but if the infectious dose doesn’t correlate with the severity of disease symptoms, this would mark covid-19 out as different from influenza, MERS and SARS...’

Read here (New Scientist, March 27, 2020)