Friday 31 July 2020
Unmasking the masks facts and fallacies: Lecture on masks by Dato' Dr Amar Singh
Thursday 30 July 2020
New evidence suggests young children spread Covid-19 more efficiently than adults
Careless young people driving some Covid-19 spikes, says WHO
One more reason to wear a mask: You’ll get less sick from Covid-19
‘It’s likely that face masks, by blocking even some of the virus-carrying droplets you inhale, can reduce your risk of falling seriously ill from COVID-19, according to Monica Gandhi, MD, an infectious disease specialist at UC San Francisco.
‘These epidemiological observations are among the evidence that Gandhi and colleagues cite in a paper in the Journal of General Internal Medicine, in which they propose that masks can lead to milder or asymptomatic infections by cutting down on the dose of virus people take in...
‘To Gandhi, these case studies [comparing situations at cruise ships, seafood processing centres, etc] suggest that if more people wore masks, we could see less serious illness from COVID-19 and a higher proportion of asymptomatic cases, currently estimated to be around 40 percent of cases by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Milder infections would ease the burden on the health care system, save lives, and even nudge us closer to herd immunity before a vaccine becomes available, said Gandhi.’
Read here (The University of California, San Francisco, July 31, 2020)
Tuesday 28 July 2020
Here's what the science actually says about kids and Covid-19
Saturday 25 July 2020
What we know – and what we don’t know – about stopping the spread of the coronavirus
Read here (South China Morning Post, July 25, 2020)
Friday 24 July 2020
Malaysians ignoring SOPs at own peril: R0 at 1.36 on July 23
"If our R0 continues to increase, we worry that more people will be infected. Right now, it is at 1.36, but once it goes above 1.6, there is a risk that cases may spike in the near future," he said at a press conference yesterday. Dr Noor Hisham said before the MCO was implemented, the R0 was 3.55, which meant that one person could infect 3.55 people.
Read here (New Straits Times, July 24, 2020)
Wednesday 22 July 2020
Dr Anthony Fauci warns the coronavirus won’t ever be eradicated
“I think with a combination of good public health measures, a degree of global herd immunity and a good vaccine, which I do hope and feel cautiously optimistic that we will get, I think when we put all three of those together, we will get control of this, whether it’s this year or next year. I’m not certain,” he said.’
Read here (CNBC, July 22, 2020)
Tuesday 21 July 2020
Household contacts over 6 times more likely to become infected: South Korea study
‘Notably, households with an “index patient” aged 10-19 years were at even higher risk for transmission—cases identified in 18.6% of household contacts, compared to 11.8% in households with “index patients” of other ages. The lowest transmission risk among household contacts was for “index patients” aged 0-9 years. In these households, cases were identified in only 5.3% of household contacts; however, this was still greater than the overall risk for non-household contacts. This indicates that children who are infected at school could transmit the infection at home more easily than in other settings, particularly for older children, which would put other family members at increased risk.‘
Source: Newsletter, Center for Health Security, John Hopkins University.
Read here (EID Journal, 2020)
Thursday 16 July 2020
Anger in Japan as US army bases report mounting Covid-19 outbreak
‘The question of quarantine regulations for US troops and their family members is a particularly contentious one, with local media reporting that Tokyo has little control over the US nationals who fly into Japan, even if they are arriving at commercial airports. The SOFA [Status of Forces Agreement between Japan and the US] permits service personnel to sidestep testing that is presently mandatory for all other arrivals from overseas.’
Read here (South China Morning Post, July 16, 2020)
Monday 13 July 2020
Airborne transmission of SARS-CoV-2: Theoretical considerations and available evidence
Read here (JAMA Network, July 13, 2020)
Saturday 11 July 2020
Why has the pandemic spared the Buddhist parts of South-East Asia?
Read here (The Economist, July 11, 2020)
Tuesday 7 July 2020
School openings across globe suggest ways to keep coronavirus at bay, despite outbreaks
This article discusses the following:
- How likely are children to catch and transmit the virus?
- Should children play together?
- Should kids wear masks?
- What should schools do when someone tests positive?
- Do schools spread the virus to the wider community?
- What lies ahead?
Read here (Science Magazine, July 7, 2020)
Monday 6 July 2020
The coronavirus may not have originated in China, says Oxford professor
‘Dr Tom Jefferson, from the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine (CEBM) at Oxford University, has pointed to a string of recent discoveries of the virus’s presence around the world before it emerged in Asia as growing evidence of its true origin as a global organism that was waiting for favourable conditions to finally emerge.
‘Traces of COVID-19 have been found in sewage samples from Spain, Italy and Brazil which pre-date its discovery in China. A preprint study, which has not been peer reviewed, claims to have found the presence of SARS-CoV-2 genomes in a Barcelona sewage sample from 12 March 2019.’
Read here (BBC Science Focus, July 6, 2020)
Saturday 4 July 2020
239 experts with 1 big claim: The coronavirus is airborne
Read here (New York Times, July 4, 2020)
Wednesday 1 July 2020
Microbiologist shows how well masks work in gross but effective demonstration
Read here (Distractify, July 1, 2020)
Monday 22 June 2020
Asymptomatic patients may shed virus for longer than others, study says
Read here (South China Morning Post, June 22, 2020)
Thursday 18 June 2020
An analysis of three Covid-19 outbreaks: How they happened and how they can be avoided
Read here (El Pais, June 18, 2020)
Sunday 14 June 2020
Tale of Covid-19 in two Indian cities: Dharavi, Mumbai, a rare success, and Delhi which was “messed up”
Watch here (Youtube, June 14, 2020)
Wednesday 10 June 2020
How to avoid the virus as the world reopens
Read here (Financial Times, June 10, 2020)
Worst ever Covid variant? Omicron
John Campbell shares his findings on Omicron. View here (Youtube, Nov 27, 2021)
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‘Much was riding on the Oxford vaccine, a British-led endeavour also involving UK drugs firm AstraZeneca. Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s gov...
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‘It appears that vaccine hesitancy is due to lack of information and trust. Despite the government's assurances about Covid-19 vaccines,...
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‘It is hard to stare directly at the biggest problems of our age. Pandemics, climate change, the sixth extinction of wildlife, food and wate...