WHO downplays danger of coronavirus latching on to food packaging

‘Two cities in China have found traces of the new coronavirus in cargoes of imported frozen food, local authorities said on Thursday (Aug 13), although the World Health Organization downplayed the risk of the virus entering the food chain. A sample taken from the surface of frozen chicken wings imported into the southern city of Shenzhen from Brazil, as well as samples of outer packaging of frozen Ecuadorian shrimp sold in the northwestern city of Xian, have tested positive for the virus, local Chinese authorities said.

‘Viruses can survive up to two years at temperatures of minus 20 degrees Celsius, but scientists and officials say there is no strong evidence so far the coronavirus can spread via frozen food.’

Read here (Channel News Asia, August 14, 2020)

One in six foreign workers in dorms contracted Covid-19, based on official tally

‘About one in six foreign workers living in dormitories contracted Covid-19, a calculation based on Singapore's official tally showed, but the true infection rate in the dormitories is likely to be higher than this, experts say. If accurate, however, an infection rate of one in six would not be enough for herd immunity to develop in the migrant worker population, they added. A total of 52,425 out of 323,000 workers had been infected as of Wednesday.’

Read here (Straits Times, August 14, 2020)

The 1918 flu faded in our collective memory: We might ‘forget’ the coronavirus, too

‘This year is not the first time a new pandemic has prompted reexamination of the one in 1918. The 20th century saw two more flu pandemics, which occurred in 1957 and 1968. In both cases, “suddenly the memory of the Great Flu reoccurs,” Beiner says. “People begin looking for this precedent; people begin looking for the cure.” Likewise, during the avian flu scare in 2005 and the swine flu pandemic in 2009, Google searches worldwide for “Spanish flu” spiked (though both increases were dwarfed by the one that occurred this past March). All the while a growing body of historical research has been fleshing out the story of the 1918 flu, providing the foundation for a significant resurgence of its memory in the public sphere.’

Read here (Scientific American, August 13, 2020) 

Is Sweden's coronavirus strategy a cautionary tale or a success story?

‘Sweden was one of the few European countries not to impose a compulsory lockdown. Its unusual strategy for tackling the coronavirus outbreak has been both hailed as a success and condemned as a failure. So which is it? Those who regard the strategy as a success claim it reduced the economic impact, but it isn’t clear that it did. What is clear is that so far Sweden has had a more protracted outbreak with far more deaths per capita than its neighbours.

‘While it is sometimes implied that Sweden didn’t have a lockdown, it did. It was just largely voluntary, with only a few legal measures such as a ban on gatherings of more than 50 people. “Voluntary restrictions work as well as legal ones,” says the architect of Sweden’s strategy, chief epidemiologist Anders Tegnell.

Read here (New Scientist, August 13, 2020) 

Israeli hospital trials super-quick saliva test for Covid-19

‘A newly developed saliva test aims to determine in less than a second whether or not you are infected with the novel coronavirus, Israel’s largest medical center said on Thursday... The center said in an initial clinical trial involving hundreds of patients, the new artificial intelligence-based device identified evidence of the virus in the body at a 95% success rate... The company said they are in the process of getting regulatory approval. Each test costs less than 25 cents and it expects the device will eventually cost less than $200.’

Read here (Reuters, August 13, 2020)

Watch here (South China Morning Post video on Youtube)

New Zealand considers freight as possible source of new Covid-19 cluster

‘New Zealand officials are investigating the possibility that its first Covid-19 cases in more than three months were imported by freight, as the country plunged back into lockdown today. Investigations were zeroing in on the potential the virus was imported by freight... Bloomfield [Director General of Health Ashley Bloomfield] said surface testing was underway in an Auckland cool store where a man from the infected family worked... “We are very confident we didn’t have any community transmission for a very long period,” Bloomfield said during a televised media conference. “We know the virus can survive within refrigerated environments for quite some time.”

Read here (Malay Mail, August 12, 2020)

Coronavirus vaccine pre-orders top 5 billion doses in worldwide scramble for supplies

‘Although none of the coronavirus vaccines under development has proved its efficacy yet in clinical trials, at least 5.7 billion doses have been pre-ordered around the world. First shipments of a Covid-19 vaccine created by Western laboratories have often been snapped up by the United States. Six vaccines are in phase 3 efficacy trials involving thousands of people. In a surprise announcement, Russian President Vladimir Putin claimed on Tuesday that a vaccine dubbed “Sputnik V” – after the Soviet satellite – conferred “sustainable immunity” against the novel coronavirus.’

Read here (South China Morning Post, August 12, 2020)

How to stop Covid-19 fuelling a resurgence of AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis

‘A focus on the coronavirus has disrupted detection and treatment of other infectious diseases. Governments and funders can do four things to avert a catastrophe.

‘First, hospitals and health authorities in affected cities and regions must recognize that AIDS, malaria and TB are surging again... Second, researchers must continue to refine their models using more real-world data... Third, there is a need for public-information campaigns... Fourth, these campaigns cannot on their own keep surgeries and wards open, or equipment functioning. The resurgence of infectious diseases has created a greater demand for tests, treatments and research. All of these need more funding.’

Read here (Nature, August 12, 2020)

How the pandemic revealed Britain’s national illness

‘Much of the focus has been on Johnson: an apparent manifestation of all that has gone wrong in Britain, a caricature of imperial nostalgia, Trumpian populism, and a general lack of seriousness. Yet this was not simply an issue of inept political leadership, inept or otherwise: Johnson stuck closely to a strategy designed and endorsed by the government’s experts, leaders in their fields and respected internationally. Even if the prime minister did make serious mistakes, the country’s issues run far deeper. The British government as a whole made poorer decisions, based on poorer advice, founded on poorer evidence, supplied by poorer testing, with the inevitable consequence that it achieved poorer results than almost any of its peers. It failed in its preparation, its diagnosis, and its treatment...

‘As prime minister, Johnson must accept that Britain’s failures are his as well. Still, the difficult truth is that the country’s failures clearly go beyond Johnson. They were collective, multilayered, and deadly. The most difficult question about all this is also the simplest: Why?... What emerges is a picture of a country whose systemic weaknesses were exposed with appalling brutality, a country that believed it was stronger than it was, and that paid the price for failures that have built up for years.’

Read here (The Atlantic, August 12, 2020)

Spread of coronavirus fake news causes hundreds of deaths, thousands of hospistalisations

‘A study has revealed a so-called "infodemic" exacerbated COVID-19 suffering through the spread of rumours and conspiracy theories. The research looked into false notions such as drinking bleach and eating cow dung. 

‘Misinformation about the coronavirus has led to the deaths to at least some 800 people and possibly more, a newly published study in the American Journal of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene showed. The results revealed that roughly 800 people died from drinking highly-concentrated alcohol in the hope of disinfecting their bodies, while 5,900 citizens were hospitalized after consuming methanol, with 60 people going blind as a result.’

Read here (DW, August 11, 2020)

Tech companies are transforming people’s bedrooms into ‘virtual hospitals.’ Will it last Post-Covid?

‘Telehealth advocates say now is the time to act. A range of virtual offerings could be revolutionary for patients who are seriously sick, need long-term care, or live in rural areas, where hospital closings have left millions of Americans without easy access to treatment. “The environment in a hospital, although it’s very conducive to high intensity care, is not that conducive to being able to engage in normal activities of daily living that might be actually important for recovery,” says Dr. Michael Apkon, president and CEO of Tufts Medical Center...

‘Telehealth can also play an important role in helping patients before they reach the point of needing hospital care. When non-urgent procedures were canceled during the early months of the pandemic, many Americans turned to virtual visits to keep up with routine treatment and ask for guidance from health care providers before venturing into offices.’

Read here (Time, August 10, 2020) 

Hopes for a Covid-19 vaccine in early 2021, but that’s only the start of the story, experts say

‘With six Covid 19 vaccine candidates undergoing final clinical trials, initial data about whether they can protect people from the disease is expected to be available in the next two to three months, assuming all goes well. That gives hope to the possibility that a vaccine could hit the market by early next year...

“Most of the data so far supports the notion that they all do what it says on the tin: induce neutralising antibody and T-cells,” said Daniel Altmann, a professor in the department of medicine at Imperial College London. “But it is a long way from there to proof of safe, long-term, protective immunity.”

Read here (South China Morning Post, August 10, 2020)

Study: 14 face masks, here are the best, worst for Covid-19 coronavirus

This article, inappropriately whimsical in the initial paragraphs, gives summaries of the effectiveness of 14 types of face masks. They are the results of a simple Duke University test to analyse their effectiveness. The fitted N95 came out tops. Three-layer surgical masks and cotton masks, which many people have been making at home, also performed well.

Read here (Forbes, August 9, 2020)

Read the Duke University paper ‘Low-cost measurement of face mask efficacy for filtering expelled droplets during speech’ here 

Murdoch's misinformation: Covid-19, China and climate change

 ‘Is Rupert Murdoch's media empire responsible for spreading deadly misinformation on COVID-19? From the United States to Australia, Murdoch's media empire regularly courts controversy. Its coverage of COVID-19, however, is on another level. The Listening Post's Flo Phillips reports on the Murdoch factor in COVID-19 coverage.’

Also: ‘The Listening Post's Richard Gizbert speaks to someone who has known Rupert Murdoch for decades and is now one of his most outspoken critics: The former prime minister of Australia, Malcolm Turnbull.’

View here (Aljazeera, August 8, 2020)

Long and hard battle to clear worker dorms of Covid-19

On August 7, Singapore finished testing all 323,000 workers in dorms for Covid-19 -- a "massive undertaking" that has taken four months. This story with a video shows how the Sungei Tengah Lodge, a worker dormitory for 23,000, has been cleared of Covid-19. It provides some images of the living conditions there (after they have been cleaned up) and reveals how various agencies as well as the dorm operator have worked together to clear the virus.

Read here (Straits Times, August 8, 2020) 

South voices concerns over “vaccine nationalism” amid COVID-19

‘Several developing countries have expressed serious concerns at the World Trade Organization about rising “vaccine nationalism” and attempts to restrict affordable access to vaccines and therapeutics for combating the Covid-19 pandemic, as the worsening health crisis has continued to ravage countries by claiming nearly 700,000 lives around the world.

‘At the WTO’s TRIPS Council meeting that ended on 3 August, members elected South Africa’s trade envoy Ambassador Xolelwa Mlumbi-Peter as the new chair of the TRIPS Council.

‘The meeting witnessed sharp discussions on “IP measures in the context of the Covid-19,” “intellectual property and the 1998 e-commerce work program,” and “intellectual property and public interest: beyond access to medicines and medical technologies towards a more holistic approach to TRIPS flexibilities”, among others, said a participant, who asked not to be quoted.’

Read here (Third World Network, August 7, 2020)

Europe is near the brink of a second wave of Covid-19. Will its new containment strategy work?

‘While new daily cases are still several times lower than they were during Europe’s peak in March and April, one thing we know about COVID-19 is that it can spread exponentially if allowed to get out of control. Now, all eyes are on Europe to see if it can prevent that from happening.’ This story examines the following:

• Where are cases rising?
• What’s causing the increase?
• Is anything different compared to the first wave?
• Has tourism caused cases to increase?
• What other factors are to blame?
• How are leaders around Europe responding to the increase in cases?
• What lessons can the rest of the world learn?

Read here (Time, August 7, 2020)

India’s coronavirus fight and lessons from my family’s struggle with TB in the 1950s

‘During the current Covid-19 pandemic, I often imagine Biji [mother], with her gritty countenance, asking total strangers why they are not wearing a mask, or reprimanding a group of people for not maintaining a minimum social distance. I had already seen her tackling several difficult situations. But how did she get to a position where she could extract compliance and discipline from people around her?

‘The odds were heavily loaded against Biji for most of her wedded life. She lost four children to infant mortality. When Taaya [father, later inflicted with TB and died aged 43] lost his job, she struggled to run our home by stitching clothes or knitting cane chairs. One day in 1956, we had no vegetables, lentils, potatoes or cooking oil left at home. She gave me a one-anna coin to go and buy 200 grams of raw tomatoes, sprinkled salt on them, and we ate them with chapattis (Indian bread).

‘Alone, she braved deprivation but rarely succumbed to hopelessness. Each hardship only made her more determined to face life in a bold, liberated and result-oriented manner...’

J V Yakhmi is a former chairman of the Atomic Energy Education Society in Mumbai and a retired associate director of the physics group at the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre.

Read here (South China Morning Post, August 7, 2020)

Australian develops effective Triple Therapy to treat Covid-19

‘A combination of FDA and TGA approved Ivermectin, Zinc and Doxycycline has shown positive results for COVID-19 and should be considered immediately to fight the pandemic' says CDD Medical Director Professor Thomas Borody...

‘Australia's The Centre for Digestive Disease (CDD) Medical Director Professor Thomas Borody MB, BS, BSc(Med), MD, PhD, DSc, FRACP,FACP,FACG, AGAF, says FDA and TGA approved Ivermectin which he uses regularly in his hospital, has shown positive results for COVID-19 and should be considered immediately to fight the pandemic. Ivermectin was discovered in the 1970s and is on the World Health Organization (WHO) list of essential medicines.

‘Professor Borody has used the same methodology with the COVID-19 Ivermectin Triple Therapy as he used when he developed the world’s first cure for peptic ulcers saving millions of lives around the globe. He says this combination of 3 approved “off the shelf” drugs could be the answer to Australia’s COVID-19 crisis. “If nothing else, make it available in aged care homes immediately. Our elderly are at the highest risk and this is a very safe option especially when we have nothing else except ventilators. Also, our frontline workers deserve more protection with a preventative medication like this, and as an emergency treatment if they test positive,” says Professor Borody.

“An Ivermectin tablet can cost as little as $2 – which could make it by far the cheapest, safest, and fastest cure for Australians and the Australian economy," he added.’

Read here (Biospectrum, August 6, 2020)

One-two punch of protests, coronavirus playing havoc with mental health in Hong Kong, study finds

‘Some three-quarters of Hongkongers are harbouring negative thoughts in the aftermath of last year’s social unrest and amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, with young people suffering significantly more from post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and depressive symptoms, a new study has found.’

Read here (South China Morning Post, August 6, 2020)

Almost half of UK charities for world's poorest set to close in a year – Survey

‘Nearly half of the UK’s small charities working with the world’s poorest people expect to close within the next 12 months due to lack of financial support, a survey has found. Despite most of them seeing a spike in demand for their services during Covid-19, 15% of the charities will be forced to shut their doors within the next six months, and 45% within a year, according to data from the Small International Development Charities Network (SIDCN).’

Read here (The Guardian, August 6, 2020)

Mandated Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) vaccination predicts flattened curves for the spread of COVID-19

‘Our analysis shows that mandatory BCG vaccination is associated with a flattening of the curve in the spread of COVID-19. The effect we demonstrate is quite substantial. For example, our model estimates that the total number of COVID-19–related deaths in the United States as of 29 March 2020 would have been 468—19% of the actual figure (2467)—if the United States had instituted the mandatory BCG vaccination several decades earlier.’

Read here (Advances Science, August 5, 2020)

Proportion of youth with COVID-19 triples in five months: WHO

‘Young people who are hitting nightclubs and beaches are leading a rise in fresh coronavirus cases across the world, with the proportion of those aged 15 to 24 who are infected rising three-fold in about five months, the World Health Organization said. An analysis by the WHO of 6 million infections between Feb. 24 and July 12 found that the share of people aged 15-24 years rose to 15% from 4.5%.’

Read here (Reuters, August 5, 2020)

Nine important things we’ve learned about the coronavirus pandemic so far

Here are nine of the most important things we’ve learned about SARS-CoV-2 in the past seven months and why we didn’t fully understand or appreciate them at first.

1. Outbreaks of COVID-19 can happen anywhere
2. COVID-19 can sicken and kill anyone
3. Contaminated surfaces are not the main danger
4. It is in the air
5. Many people are infectious without being sick
6. Warm summer weather will not stop the virus
7. Masks work
8. Racism, not race, is a risk factor
9. Misinformation kills

Read here (Scientific American, August 4, 2020) 

US announces major clinical trial of antibody treatment

‘The US has begun late stage clinical trials into a drug formulated to fight Covid-19, officials said Tuesday. The medicine is an antibody against the new coronavirus called LY-CoV555, which was identified in the blood sample of a recovered patient by Canada’s Abcellera Biologics. It was then developed synthetically for mass production by US-based Lilly Research Laboratories in partnership with Abcellera. The Phase 3 trial will initially enrol some 300 volunteers around the world who have been hospitalised with mild to moderate Covid-19 with fewer than 13 days of symptoms.’

Read here (South China Morning Post, August 4, 2020)

China positions itself for ‘vaccine diplomacy’ push to fight Covid-19

‘Beijing is offering loans and priority access to developing countries for vaccinations as they move to large-scale trials. As richer nations scramble for early doses manufacturing constraints likely to cause shortages for years...

‘Vaccines being developed in China are among front-runners in the hunt for safe and effective immunisations to counter the pandemic. China’s diplomats are saying, if successful, the vaccines will be a “global public good”, a pledge made by President Xi Jinping at a meeting of the World Health Organisation’s governing body in May. The assurances come as multiple vaccines worldwide move into large-scale late-phase trials, a step away from potential approval. However, supply shortages for any approved products are likely to persist for months or even years due to manufacturing constraints.’

Read here (South China Morning Post, August 4, 2020)

Electronic wristband to ensure stay-home notice: Quarantine monitoring devices being used by others worldwide

Besides Singapore, many other places in the world have also turned to electronic monitoring devices to help them control the spread of the coronavirus. Here are some places that do so: Hong Kong, South Korea, Malaysia (Sarawak), Jordan, Bahrain, Kuwait, Liechtenstein.

Read here (Straits Times, August 4, 2020)

Travellers to Singapore to wear electronic tracking device while serving Covid-19 stay-home notice outside of facilities

‘All travellers entering Singapore who are serving their stay-home notice (SHN) outside of dedicated facilities will soon have to wear an electronic monitoring device. From Aug 10, 11.59pm, such travellers will have to wear the device throughout the 14-day stay-home period. They include citizens, permanent residents, long-term pass holders, work pass holders and their dependants. Children aged 12 and below are exempted.’

Read here (Straits Times, August 4, 2020)

How the pandemic defeated America

‘It is hard to stare directly at the biggest problems of our age. Pandemics, climate change, the sixth extinction of wildlife, food and water shortages—their scope is planetary, and their stakes are overwhelming. We have no choice, though, but to grapple with them. It is now abundantly clear what happens when global disasters collide with historical negligence.

‘COVID‑19 is an assault on America’s body, and a referendum on the ideas that animate its culture. Recovery is possible, but it demands radical introspection. America would be wise to help reverse the ruination of the natural world, a process that continues to shunt animal diseases into human bodies. It should strive to prevent sickness instead of profiting from it. It should build a health-care system that prizes resilience over brittle efficiency, and an information system that favors light over heat. It should rebuild its international alliances, its social safety net, and its trust in empiricism. It should address the health inequities that flow from its history. Not least, it should elect leaders with sound judgment, high character, and respect for science, logic, and reason.

‘The pandemic has been both tragedy and teacher. Its very etymology offers a clue about what is at stake in the greatest challenges of the future, and what is needed to address them. Pandemic. Pan and demos. All people.’

Read here (The Atlantic, August 4, 2020)

Two decades of pandemic war games failed to account for Donald Trump

‘The scenarios foresaw leaky travel bans, a scramble for vaccines and disputes between state and federal leaders, but none could anticipate the current levels of dysfunction in the United States...

’Perhaps the biggest limitation of simulation exercises was that they didn’t actually drive policymakers to prioritize and fund improvements to the public-health system. Morrison [J. Stephen Morrison, director of global health policy at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington DC] now questions whether it’s even possible to do that through simulations alone, or whether people must experience an epidemic at first hand. After more than 70 people in Taiwan died as a result of SARS in 2003, the government mapped out its emergency-response network. “Every year since then, for the past 17 years, they’ve held annual outbreak exercises and practised, practised, practised,” Morrison says...

’Now, the United States has experienced a tragedy, too. The daily number of new COVID-19 cases broke records throughout much of July, after many states attempted to reopen their economies. Frieden [Tom Frieden, a former director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)] says that one of the most crucial actions now is for health departments to strengthen their response systems by analysing data in real time, so that they can tailor interventions as needed. “The best public-health programme is a programme that uses real-time data to make real-time decisions,” he says. “Real life is our exercise.”

Read here (Science Magazine, August 4, 2020)

UN chief outlines ‘bold steps’ for education in the face of Covid-19 disruption affecting 1 billion

The COVID-19 pandemic has created the largest disruption to education in history and prolonged school closures could further entrench inequalities in access to learning, the UN Secretary-General said on Tuesday, underlining the need for “bold steps” to address the crisis. [This is contained in a policy brief]

The UN estimates that the pandemic has affected more than one billion students worldwide. Despite efforts to continue learning during the crisis, including through delivering lessons by radio, television and online, many are still not being reached.

The UN chief said learners with disabilities, members of minority or disadvantaged communities, as well as refugees and displaced persons, are among those at highest risk of being left behind.

Read here (UN News, August 4, 2020) 

Use of MySejahtera app will soon be compulsory

‘Defence Minister Ismail Sabri said the use of the MySejahtera app, a mobile application commission by the federal government to facilitate Covid-19 contact-tracing, will soon be made compulsory in all business premises. "The Attorney-General's Office will gazette the usage of MySejahtera application as compulsory in the near future. However, exceptions are given to premises in rural areas where the internet connection is unstable," he told a press conference in Putrajaya today.’

Read here (Malaysiakini, August 3, 2020) 

Top US infectious disease expert Fauci urges caution on China and Russia Covid-19 vaccines

‘America’s top infectious diseases official has raised concerns over the safety of Covid-19 vaccines being developed by China and Russia as the world scrambles for answers to a pandemic the WHO warned will be felt for decades. Several Chinese companies are at the forefront of the race to develop an immunity to the disease and Russia has set a target date of September to roll out its own vaccine. But US infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci said it was unlikely his country would use any vaccine developed in either country, where regulatory systems are far more opaque than they are in the West.’

Read here (Straits Times, August 3, 2020)

WHO warns of long road ahead, may never be a ‘silver bullet’

‘The World Health Organisation warned on Monday that there might never be a “silver bullet” for Covid-19 in the form of a perfect vaccine, and that the road to normality will be long, with some countries requiring a reset of strategy. WHO director general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus and WHO emergencies head Mike Ryan exhorted nations to rigorously enforce health measures such as mask-wearing, social distancing, handwashing, contact tracing and testing. “For now, stopping outbreaks comes down to the basics of public health and disease control. The message to people and governments is clear: ‘Do it all’,” Tedros told a virtual news briefing from the UN body’s headquarters in Geneva.’

Read here (South China Morning Post, August 3, 2020)

Unmasking the masks facts and fallacies: Lecture on masks by Dato' Dr Amar Singh

This is highly relevant current information on Covid-19 transmission and the use of face masks including reusable cloth masks and emerging ones.

Watch here (Youtube, August 1, 2020)

Coronavirus: Just 0.3% of cases in Singapore admitted to ICU

‘While Covid-19 cases in Singapore have surged past 50,000, only a tiny fraction of those who fell ill - just 128, or 0.3 per cent - have been admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU) as of Monday. Experts said years of investment in healthcare, as well as a well thought out and executed strategy to keep infection numbers low, have helped to ensure the Republic has one of the world's lowest ICU admission - and fatality - rates from Covid-19.’

Read here (Straits Times, July 31, 2020)

What the D614G mutation means for Covid-19 spread, fatality, treatment, and vaccine

‘We are facing the global shift of the SARS-CoV-2 variant — from D614 to G614. The G614 variant is more infectious in laboratory settings; whether it means increased viral spread in humans is unconfirmed. Current evidence says that the G614 variant is not any deadlier than D614. And so, treatment options should not be any more different. Both the D614 and G614 variants should react similarly to vaccines, studies suggest, as the mutation does not change the immunogenic part of the spike protein; that is, the receptor-binding domain (RBD).’

[This is a survey of literature by a young post-grad Malaysian. It gives a rounded picture of the D614G mutation without using too much jargon. Must counter check the accuracy of what's stated against the originals.] 

Read here (Medium, July 31, 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)

Careless young people driving some Covid-19 spikes, says WHO

‘The World Health Organisation (WHO) on Thursday (July 30) warned that spikes in coronavirus transmission in a number of countries were being driven by young people "letting down their guard". "Young people are not invincible," WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told a virtual news conference in Geneva.

‘WHO's technical lead for Covid-19 Maria Van Kerkhove lamented in particular that nightclubs in a number of places had become "amplifiers" of transmission. "We are asking for all people, including young people, to be your own risk manager" and avoid behaviours that could easily increase transmission of the disease.’

Read here (Straits Times, July 31, 2020)

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)

‘We could see this tsunami of people coming’: Inside the secret world of intensive care

“When dealing with patients at the extremes of life,” writes Aoife Abbey, a doctor at University Hospital Coventry in her memoir The Seven Signs of Life, “there is an onus on doctors to be alert for the time when the burden of treatment outweighs the expected benefit for a patient. It is imperative that medicine knows when it is time to work with death, if it is to work at all. Intensive care, perhaps more than any other speciality, is defined by this specific sort of responsibility.”

‘During these months of treating Covid-19 patients, Abbey has seen patients come in with severe acute respiratory failure. Some patients stood to benefit from intensive care, while for others the escalation of treatments, including invasive forms of ventilation, were not deemed to be in their best interest. The established ethical frameworks used to make these kinds of decisions have remained the same when treating patients with Covid-19.’

Read here (The Guardian, July 30, 2020)

Only governments can prevent Covid-19 recessions becoming depressions

‘In March, French economists Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman, both at Berkeley, proposed that governments help ease pain and disruption with payer-of-last-resort programmes, with adversely affected businesses reporting unavoidable monthly overhead and maintenance costs to qualify for government aid.

‘Such a payer-of-last-resort programme would reduce hardship for workers and businesses. It could enable businesses to temporarily suspend or scale down operations, to limit haemorrhage and avoid insolvency, and to pick up quickly as conditions improve. It would maintain ‘cash flow’ for families and businesses, minimising Covid-19 shocks’ adverse secondary impacts on demand (e.g., due to fired workers spending less on consumption), while enabling more rapid recovery as demand resumes.’

Read here (ksjomo.org, July 30, 2020)

Here's what the science actually says about kids and Covid-19

‘As school districts across the United States decide whether to welcome kids back into the classroom for in-person education this fall, administrators find themselves weighing a complex set of variables. There’s the risk of children, teachers and staffers getting sick or spreading the disease, on the one hand. But on the other, there’s evidence that being out of school can degrade children’s long-term learning prospects and mental health; make it harder for many to get the food they need; and make it difficult for parents to work—especially mothers, who are often expected to handle a disproportionate amount of childcare duties. Millions of students, meanwhile, lack access to high-speed broadband internet and other technological resources required to get the most out of remote learning, making it an inadequate substitute for many.’

Read here (Time Magazine, July 29, 2020)

Moderna aims to price coronavirus vaccine at $50-$60 per course: FT

‘Moderna Inc is planning to price its coronavirus vaccine at $50 to $60 per course, at least $11 more than another vaccine from Pfizer Inc and BioNTech, the Financial Times reported on Tuesday, citing unnamed sources. Moderna’s proposed price for a two-dose course sold to governments compares with $39 for two doses under a deal that Pfizer Inc and German partner BioNTech struck with the U.S. government.’

Read here (Reuters, July 29, 2020)

Aliens and reptilians: The odd beliefs of Stella Immanuel, doctor in US viral video retweeted by Trump

‘A Houston doctor who praised hydroxychloroquine as a miracle coronavirus cure in a viral video retweeted by President Donald Trump blames gynaecological problems on sex with evil spirits and believes the US government is run by “reptilians”. Stella Immanuel’s viral speech has drawn attention to a little-known group calling themselves “America’s Frontline Doctors” who appear to exist to promote the common antimalarial drug in the fight against Covid-19.’

Read here (South China Morning Post, July 29, 2020)

Vietnam let down its guard, and cases surged

It’s a familiar story in Asia: Vietnam seemed like a miracle, where months went by without a single coronavirus death or even local transmission. 

 

The economy reopened, travel restarted and residents began leaving their masks at home. But over the weekend, the country announced that the virus was lurking after all — and spreading. Experts do not know the source. 

 

It followed a pattern in places that seemed to have done everything right: Japan, China, Australia and South Korea all recorded spikes on Wednesday. And the mystery is worrying medical experts and residents alike. 

 

Details: Shortly after a 57-year-old man from Danang tested positive, clusters emerged in five hospitals. By Wednesday, the virus had spread north to Hanoi, south to Ho Chi Minh City, to two provinces in the country’s center and even the remote Central Highlands. 

 

Quotable: “In my opinion, this outbreak is more dangerous than the previous one because it is happening at the same time in many places,” said the dean of public health at Quang Trung University.

Read here (New York Times, June 29, 2020)

Fight pandemic, not windmills of the mind

‘Reversing emergency expansionary measures too soon risks aborting recovery and may even trigger new recessions. Even an assets fund manager has acknowledged, “Like a course of antibiotics, an economic relief package is most efficacious when administered to completion”.

‘When President Franklin Delano Roosevelt tried to balance the budget in 1937 after securing re-election, the ensuing downturn ended the recovery, only revived after deficit spending resumed in 1939. Also, countries that abandoned fiscal expansion for consolidation from 2009 had worse recovery records than others.’

Read here (IPS News, July 28, 2020)

Covid-19: Getting our SOPs right - Amar Singh HSS and Lim Swee Im

This article discusses a number of issues on SOPs pertaining to Malaysia today:

• How can we best monitor our pandemic when our numbers are low?
• How ready are our testing capabilities for a second and subsequent waves?
• How good are our safe physical distancing measures?
• Optimising masks in Covid-19 prevention
• There is no way for the poor (B40) to comply with this ruling without a government mandated free programme
• Mask etiquette and our leaders

Read here (The Malay Mail, July 27, 2020)

Covid-19 vaccines may cause mild side effects, experts say, stressing need for education, not alarm

‘While the world awaits the results of large clinical trials of Covid-19 vaccines, experts say the data so far suggest one important possibility: The vaccines may carry a bit of a kick. In vaccine parlance, they appear to be “reactogenic,” meaning they have induced short-term discomfort in a percentage of the people who have received them in clinical trials. This kind of discomfort includes headache, sore arms, fatigue, chills, and fever.

‘At least two manufacturers, Cambridge, Mass.-based Moderna and CanSino, a Chinese vaccine maker, stopped testing the highest doses of their Covid-19 vaccines because of the number of severe adverse events recorded among participants in their clinical trials.’

Read here (STAT, July 27, 2020)

False and misleading claims about vaccines debunked

‘In the week that Oxford University announced promising results from its coronavirus vaccine trial, we're looking at claims on social media about vaccines and misleading statements about their safety.

‘The anti-vaccination movement has gained traction online in recent years, and campaigners opposed to vaccination have moved their focus to making claims relating to the coronavirus.’

Read here (BBC, July 26, 2020)

Child malnutrition and Covid-19: The time to act is now

‘The Lancet recently published a call to action co-authored by the directors of UNICEF, the Food and Agriculture Organization, the World Food Programme, and the WHO. The statement addresses the growing threat of childhood malnutrition due to downstream effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and associated response policies and operations, particularly in low- and middle-income countries. The statement listed 5 “urgent actions” to support children's right to adequate nutrition during the pandemic. Specifically, the authors call on national governments and private donors to support efforts to ensure access to nutritious, safe, and affordable diets; maternal and child health; early detection and treatment for child wasting; nutritious school meals for vulnerable children; and safe access to food and essential services. These priorities must be integrated more completely into the COVID-19 response.’ -- Center for Health Security, John Hopkins University

Read here (The Lancet, July 27, 2020)

What we know – and what we don’t know – about stopping the spread of the coronavirus

What's successful: (1) Fast action (2) Well-timed lockdowns (3) Travel restrictions (4) Face masks and coverings. What we still don’t know about the virus’ spread: (1) Mass gatherings (2) Super-spreaders (3) Indoor locations (4) Schools 

Read here (South China Morning Post, July 25, 2020)

Governments losing support for their handling of Covid-19: Survey

‘Governments are fast losing support for their handling of the coronavirus outbreak from a public that widely believes death and infection figures to be higher than statistics show, a survey of six countries [US, Britain, France, Sweden, Japan and Germany] revealed on Saturday (July 25).’

Read here (Straits Times, July 25, 2020)

US CDC: One-third of COVID-19 patients who aren't hospitalised have long-term illness

‘The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention acknowledged Friday that a significant number of COVID-19 patients do not recover quickly, and instead experience ongoing symptoms, such as fatigue and cough. As many as a third of patients who were never sick enough to be hospitalised are not back to their usual health up to three weeks after their diagnosis, the report found.

"COVID-19 can result in prolonged illness even among persons with milder outpatient illness, including young adults," the report's authors wrote. The acknowledgement is welcome news to patients who call themselves "long-haulers" — suffering from debilitating symptoms weeks and even months after their initial infection.

"This report is monumental for all of us who have been struggling with fear of the unknown, lack of recognition and many times, a lack of belief and proper care from medical professionals during our prolonged recovery from COVID-19," Kate Porter, who is on day 129 of her recovery, wrote in an email to NBC News.

Read here (MSNBC, July 25, 2020)

The Covid-19 pandemic is forcing a rethink in macroeconomics: It is not yet clear where it will lead

 ‘In the form it is known today, macroeconomics began in 1936 with the publication of John Maynard Keynes’s “The General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money”. Its subsequent history can be divided into three eras. The era of policy which was guided by Keynes’s ideas began in the 1940s. By the 1970s it had encountered problems that it could not solve and so, in the 1980s, the monetarist era, most commonly associated with the work of Milton Friedman, began. In the 1990s and 2000s economists combined insights from both approaches. But now, in the wreckage left behind by the coronavirus pandemic, a new era is beginning. What does it hold?...

‘The rethink of economics is an opportunity. There now exists a growing consensus that tight labour markets could give workers more bargaining power without the need for a big expansion of redistribution. A level-headed reassessment of public debt could lead to the green public investment necessary to fight climate change. And governments could unleash a new era of finance, involving more innovation, cheaper financial intermediation and, perhaps, a monetary policy that is not constrained by the presence of physical cash. What is clear is that the old economic paradigm is looking tired. One way or another, change is coming.’

Read here (The Economist, July 25, 2020)

Lancet says scapegoating China for pandemic ‘not constructive’

‘Prestigious scientific journal The Lancet has praised aspects of China’s response to Covid-19, while pushing back against political rhetoric blaming the country for the pandemic.

‘An editorial published on Friday for the journal’s latest edition acknowledged that China had been “widely criticised for its role and responsibilities during the pandemic because of censorship, transparency, and human rights concerns”, but said the rest of the world could still learn from its disease control successes.’

Read here (South China Morning Post, July 24, 2020)

Download The Lancet editorial PDF here

US CDC report on symptom duration and risk factors for delayed return to usual health

Symptom duration and risk factors for delayed return to usual health among outpatients with COVID-19 in a multistate health care systems network — United States, March–June 2020

Read here (US CDC, July 24, 2020)

Finland’s cautious lockdown vs Sweden’s laidback approach

‘Despite being neighbours with some social similarities, Finland and Sweden adopted vastly different methods in confronting the coronavirus pandemic. Their differing ways of confronting this virulent disease resulted in a wide gap in the number of infections and deaths in both Scandinavian countries. Finland opted for a cautious lockdown; it has reported over 7,300 infections and more than 300 deaths. In contrast, Sweden embraced a laidback attitude; it has now over 78,500 confirmed infections and nearly 5,700 deaths.’

Read here (Aliran, July 24, 2020)

Viral loads: Review points to PCR-testing inadequacies and need to prioritise early case detection

A review of 79 studies on viral loads in people — specifically, SARS-CoV-2, SARS-CoV-1 and MERS-CoV — has shown that (1) ‘viral RNA can persist in and be shed from the body for long periods of time (more than 80 days in some cases)’ although ‘SARS-CoV-2 only remains viable and infectious for approximately one week after the onset of symptoms’ (2) ‘Viral load was at its highest approximately 3-5 days after the onset of symptoms, and there was a positive correlation between prolonged viral shedding and disease severity. Older patients also experienced prolonged viral shedding compared to younger patients, even when accounting for disease severity...

‘While there are fewer studies on the kinetics of viral load for asymptomatic infections, viral shedding appeared to be of a shorter duration, and overall viral load appeared to be lower compared to symptomatic cases.’ 

The authors conclude that (1) ‘PCR testing is likely not a good tool for evaluating patient recovery, because viral RNA is detectable long after the end of the infectious period’. (2) ‘Early case detection and isolation should be prioritised in order to maximise control efforts during the time when patients are the most infectious.’ -- Center for Health Security, John Hopkins University

https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.07.25.20162107v2.full.pdf

Read here (Medrxiv, July 25, 2020)

Malaysians ignoring SOPs at own peril: R0 at 1.36 on July 23

Health director-general Datuk Dr Noor Hisham Abdullah said the infectivity rate, or R0 (R-naught), was at 1.36 in the country. He said this was an increase from the rate of 0.3 after the Movement Control Order (MCO) and Conditional MCO were enforced.

"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)

German sniffer dogs show promise at detecting coronavirus

‘Scientists at the University of Veterinary Medicine Hanover have found that trained sniffer dogs could be used to detect COVID-19 in human samples with a relatively high rate of accuracy, a study published on Thursday revealed... The animals were able to positively detect SARS-CoV-2 infected secretions with an 83% success rate, and control secretions at a rate of 96%. The overall detection rate, combining both, was 94%.’

Read here (DW, July 23, 2020)

Covid-19 compounds developing country debt burdens

‘Covid-19 is expected to take a heavy human and economic toll on developing countries, not only because of contagion in the face of weak health systems, but also containment measures which have precipitated recessions, destroying and diminishing the livelihoods of many.

‘The unique, but varied and changing nature of the pandemic and efforts to contain contagion, and the specific challenges of relief, revival and reorientation imply that neither ‘one size fits all’ nor other formulaic solutions, e.g., to address financial crisis, are appropriate.

‘Policy measures will not only need to address the specificities of the Covid-19 crises, but must also take into consideration the legacy of earlier problems, including the burdens of accumulated debt and debt-servicing.’

Read here (IPS News, July 23, 2020)

The world needs a 'people's vaccine' for coronavirus, not a big-pharma monopoly: Helen Clark and Winnie Byanyima

‘Current distribution plans for the Oxford vaccine are an alarming reminder of what happens when you leave a public resource in the hands of a single company. Around 300m doses have been promised for developing countries by the end of this year – a welcome step, but one that pales in comparison with the 400m doses that will go to the US and UK. The Netherlands, Italy, France and Germany have secured another 400m doses between them. The EU and other rich nations are also pushing their way to the front of the queue. Many middle-income countries, such as those in Latin America, where the scale of the outbreak is frightening, may be completely locked out of these arrangements.’

Read here (The Guardian, July 23, 2020)

Inside the global quest to trace the origins of Covid-19 — and predict where it will go next

‘It has been 100 years since an infectious disease pushed the entire world’s population into hiding to the extent that COVID-19 has. And the primary approaches we take to combatting emerging microbes today are likewise centuries old: quarantine, hygiene and social distancing. We may never learn exactly where SARS-CoV-2 came from, and it’s clearly too late to prevent it from becoming a global tragedy. But extraordinary advances in scientific knowledge have given us new tools, like genetic sequencing, for a more comprehensive understanding of this virus than anyone could have imagined even a decade or two ago. These are already providing clues about how emerging viruses like SARS-CoV-2 operate and, most important, how they can be thwarted with more effective drugs and vaccines.’

Read here (Time Magazine, July 23, 2020)

Donald Trump willing to work with China on coronavirus vaccine for US

‘Remarks comes day after study shows candidate developed by CanSino and China’s military research unit is safe and induces immune response. US president has resumed daily Covid-19 press briefings as US cases continue to climb... Besides declaring support for masks as a way to fight the pandemic, he admonished young people against crowding bars and spreading the disease. It all marked a delayed recognition by Trump that the economic reopening he has been championing since April – and more importantly, his re-election – were imperilled by spiking cases nationwide.‘

Read here (South China Morning Post, July 22, 2020)

Dr Anthony Fauci warns the coronavirus won’t ever be eradicated

‘White House coronavirus advisor Dr. Anthony Fauci said Wednesday it is unlikely the coronavirus will ever be eradicated. While the virus will not disappear, it’s possible world leaders and public health officials could work to bring the virus down to “low levels,” the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases said during an interview with the TB Alliance.

“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)

The hunt for the origins of SARS-CoV-2 will look beyond China: The virus may have been born in South-East Asia

‘John Bell, a professor of medicine at the University of Oxford, says everyone thought there would be a flood of cases in Vietnam because the country is right across the border from China. Yet Vietnam has reported only 300 in a population of 100m, and no deaths. The country did not have a great lockdown either, he adds. Nobody could work out what was going on.

‘One explanation, he suggests, is that Vietnam’s population is not as immunologically “naive” as has been assumed. The circulation of other sars-like viruses could have conferred a generalised immunity to such pathogens.’

Read here (The Economist, July 22, 2020)

Trials for three Covid-19 vaccines show promise but much more work still needed, say experts

‘The global fight against Covid-19 received a boost on Monday with the release of encouraging findings from human trials of three coronavirus vaccines, including a closely watched one being developed by Oxford University. The results showed that the vaccines being tested did not cause any dangerous side effects, and that they could coax a protective response from the human body. But experts said that while the results were encouraging, much more work is still needed to plug remaining gaps in knowledge before a vaccine can be made commercially available.’

Read here (Straits Times, July 22, 2020)

Meet the generation changed by lockdown

“We should not trivialize [teenagers’] stressors or grief in the context of the larger issues playing out during this pandemic,” Beth Marshall, associate director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Adolescent Health, said during a Johns Hopkins faculty roundtable in May. “Their grief over what they are experiencing — or not getting to experience — is real.” But out of stagnation often comes transformation.

‘To be a teenager is to be in a state of constant growth and transition; to form values, priorities and plans that will affect your life for years to come. And for a generation of young adults who have seen their lives upended by a global pandemic and then witnessed their communities lit up by grassroots activism, this year might prove crucial in determining how they see the world and their home country as they grow up and gain power.’

Read here (Huffington Post, July 22, 2020)

Dengue fever, second wave: What are the hurdles Singapore faces in its coronavirus fight?

(1) Clearing the Covid-19 disease from worker dormitories remains the biggest challenge. ‘The testing in dorms is now in the “final stretch”, with 232,000 cases confirmed as recovered or virus-free as of July 16.’
(2) Singapore’s second challenge comes from imported cases, although the city state has limited this risk by shutting its borders.
(3) Singapore also faces the risk of a resurgence in infections triggered by a failure to comply with safe-distancing rules, which remain in place despite the lockdown being lifted.
(4) The fourth challenge is the simultaneous onset of dengue fever in Singapore, which has seen some 19,000 cases so far this year.

Read here (South China Morning Post, July 22, 2020)

How cultural differences help Asian countries beat Covid-19, while US struggles

‘Confucianism, a cultural force in East Asia that advocates duty to society over individual needs, has been cited to explain Asian responses to COVID-19 and lack of cohesion in the United States, according to March 31 blog post by the Wilson Center policy forum.

‘Ethnic Malay cultures in Malaysia and Indonesia promote banding together against common threats, [Alan] Chong [associate professor at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies] said. Within a week of Malaysia declaring its lockdown, some 95% of the population had complied with the order, said Ibrahim Suffian, program director with the polling group Merdeka Center in Kuala Lumpur.

Read here (VOA, July 22, 2020)

EU leaders reach recovery deal after marathon summit

‘Tempers were often frayed during the negotiations. The "frugal four", Sweden, Denmark, Austria and the Netherlands, along with Finland had opposed extending €500bn in grants. The group originally set €375bn as the limit. Other members, such as Spain and Italy, did not want to go below €400bn. At one point French President Emmanuel Macron reportedly banged his fists on the table, as he told the "frugal four" they were putting the European project in danger...

‘Another issue was over linking aid to the "rule of law". Hungary and Poland both threatened to veto the package if it adopted a policy of withholding funds from nations deemed to fall short of democratic principles.’

Read here (BBC, July 21, 2020)

Household contacts over 6 times more likely to become infected: South Korea study

‘A recent study by researchers in South Korea, published in the US CDC’s Emerging Infectious Diseases journal, found that SARS-CoV-2 transmission was far more common in household settings compared to public settings. Based on analysis of more than 59,000 contacts of more than 5,700 COVID-19 “index patients,” the researchers found that household contacts were more than 6 times more likely to become infected than non-household contacts. The study identified cases in 11.8% of household contacts, compared to only 1.9% of non-household contacts.

‘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)

Is America’s second corona wave a political hoax?

There is a bunch of information in this article that is not consistent with what is widely believed by the established scientific community or reported by mainstream media. A must-read to see how other seemingly highly-educated people think and influence others.

Read here (Global Research, July 21, 2020)

The people with hidden immunity against Covid-19

‘While the latest research suggests that antibodies against Covid-19 could be lost in just three months, a new hope has appeared on the horizon: the enigmatic T cell... T cells are a kind of immune cell, whose main purpose is to identify and kill invading pathogens or infected cells. It does this using proteins on its surface, which can bind to proteins on the surface of these imposters... Several studies have shown that people infected with Covid-19 tend to have T cells that can target the virus, regardless of whether they have experienced symptoms...

‘Most bizarrely of all, when researchers tested blood samples taken years before the pandemic started, they found T cells which were specifically tailored to detect proteins on the surface of Covid-19. This suggests that some people already had a pre-existing degree of resistance against the virus before it ever infected a human. And it appears to be surprisingly prevalent: 40-60% of unexposed individuals had these cells.’

Read here (BBC, July 20, 2020)

Protein treatment trial ‘a breakthrough’

‘The preliminary results of a clinical trial suggest a new treatment for Covid-19 dramatically reduces the number of patients needing intensive care, according to the UK company that developed it. The treatment from Southampton-based biotech Synairgen uses a protein called interferon beta which the body produces when it gets a viral infection... The initial findings suggest the treatment cut the odds of a Covid-19 patient in hospital developing severe disease - such as requiring ventilation - by 79%.’

Read here (BBC, July 20, 2020

Scathing Covid-19 book from Lancet editor — rushed but useful

‘Now [Richard] Horton has a book of his own. The COVID-19 Catastrophe is a sort of history, diagnosis and prescription, in real time. It is wide ranging, querying the changing role of international cooperation and the fallout of austerity economics, and taking a deeper dive into China’s scientific and political response to the crisis than most Western media have offered. But the book returns again and again to the catastrophe in both the United Kingdom and the United States. It is haunted by the question: how did two of the richest, most powerful and most scientifically advanced countries in the world get it so wrong, and cause such ongoing pain for their citizens?’

Read here (Nature, June 18, 2020)

UN makes record $10.3bn appeal for pandemic fight: Up to 265m people could face starvation by end-2020

‘The United Nations is making an appeal for $10.3 billion (£8.2 billion) to help fight the coronavirus pandemic, its largest ever fundraising call. The UN says up to 265 million people could face starvation by the end of the year because of the impact of Covid-19. The money will be for used for low income and fragile countries.’

Read here (BBC, July 17, 2020)

Press releases by RECOVERY (Randomised Evaluation of Covid-19 Therapy) Trial, University of Oxford

This UK national clinical trial, conducted by researchers at the University of Oxford in concert with other relevant institutions, aims to identify treatments that may be beneficial for people hospitalised with suspected or confirmed COVID-19... A range of potential treatments have been suggested for COVID-19 but nobody knows if any of them will turn out to be more effective in helping people recover than the usual standard of hospital care which all patients will receive. The RECOVERY Trial is aimed at evaluating the efficacy of such treatments. It has made a series of press statements from end-March 2020. This link takes you to them.

Read here (RECOVERY Trial website)

The new stability

‘I look for hope and find none, but I am not allowed to admit to total free fall. “Stronger together” say the screen savers on every screen in the hospital, the banners on the sides of the shuttle bus. What I’ll see in the coming weeks is just how much this isn’t true, how so many of our sickest patients are Black or Brown like you, “essential” and yet unprotected. I will see a 46-year-old Black man, infected with SARS-CoV-2, die instead from having a police officer kneel on his neck. I will see those who protest police brutality, though masked and mostly peaceful, tear-gassed and shot with rubber bullets. I will see unregulated corporate bailouts, record unemployment, record housing insecurity. I will see political polarization recast common-sense public health policy as liberal propaganda. I will see your death multiplied by 10,000, by 100,000, all those bodies, mothers and fathers, daughters and sons. I wish I could tell you how sorry I am, for my fear, for our nation, for what happens next.’

Read here (New England Journal of Medicine, July 17, 2020)

Anger in Japan as US army bases report mounting Covid-19 outbreak

‘An escalating Covid-19 outbreak at American bases in Okinawa has seen 136 US military personnel and dependents infected so far, with the governor of the southern Japanese island complaining that United States officials have refused to provide details of infections among service members...

‘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)

Vulnerable: The law, policy and ethics of Covid-19

The contents of this 649-page book ‘confronts the vulnerabilities that have been revealed by the pandemic and its consequences. It examines vulnerabilities for people who have been harmed or will be harmed by the virus directly and those harmed by measures taken to slow its relentless march; vulnerabilities exposed in our institutions, governance, and legal structures; and vulnerabilities in other countries and at the global level where persistent injustices affect us all. Covid-19 has forced us to not only reflect on how we govern and how we set policy priorities, but also to ensure that pandemic preparedness, precautions, and recovery include all individuals, not just some.’

Most of its contents are focussed on Canada, however, there are articles about other places. The last 100 pages e.g. is on “Global health and governance”. Even while being Canada-centric, many of the issues are relevant to other countries albeit developed ones.

Download here (uO Research, University of Ottawa, 2020)

Swiftly waning Covid-19 immunity poses vaccination challenge

‘Emerging evidence that the body's immune defence against Covid-19 may be short-lived makes it even harder for vaccine developers to come up with shots fully able to protect people in future waves of infection, scientists said on Tuesday.

‘Preliminary studies in China, Germany, Britain and elsewhere have found that patients infected with the novel coronavirus make protective antibodies as part of their immune system's defences, but these appear to last only a few months.’

Read here (Malaysiakini, July 15, 2020)

COVAX: Ensuring global equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines

‘The WHO and other international groups, such as CEPI and GAVI, have established the COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access (COVAX) Facility to encourage and coordinate donations from high-income countries in order to support the distribution of vaccine doses to lower-income countries. Low- and middle-income countries (LMICs) may not be able to purchase sufficient vaccine on their own or compete against wealthier countries to secure access to early doses without external support...

According to a GAVI press release of July 15: ‘Seventy-five countries submit expressions of interest to COVAX Facility, joining up to 90 further countries which could be supported by the COVAX Advance Market Commitment (AMC). The COVAX Facility, and the AMC within it, is designed to guarantee rapid, fair and equitable access to COVID-19 vaccines for every country in the world, rich and poor, to make rapid progress towards slowing the pandemic. Interest from governments representing more than 60% of the world’s population offers ‘tremendous vote of confidence’ in the effort to ensure truly global access to COVID-19 vaccines, once developed.’

Read here (GAVI, July 15, 2020) and here

Ignoring effects of Covid-19 on women could cost $5tn, warns Melinda Gates

‘The failure of leaders to take into account the disproportionate impact of Covid-19 on women, and their roles in lessening its harm, will mean a long, slow recovery that could cost the world economy trillions of dollars, Melinda Gates has warned. Even a four-year delay in programmes that promote gender equality, such as advancing women’s digital and financial inclusion, would wipe a potential $5tn (£4tn) from global GDP by 2030. “As policymakers work to protect and rebuild economies, their response must account for the disproportionate impact of Covid-19 on women, and the unique roles women will have to play in mitigating the pandemic’s harm,” Gates said in a paper published on Wednesday.’

Read here (The Guardian, July 15, 2020)

Training for the pandemic economy

‘But we can learn from the failure of earlier programs. Their record reveals that training works best when it is closely connected to a real job or occupation. Program design should be informed by detailed government forecasts of the types of jobs that are coming and which skills they will require. Similarly, training works best when firms and industries collaborate on program design, because employers are a source of information about the skills that will be needed. At the implementation stage, on-the-job training – apprenticeships, in other words – is essential, and not only for blue-collar jobs. Although we think of apprentices as machinists and plumbers, increasingly they are nursing assistants and insurance underwriters.

‘Here, Europe has a leg up, owing to strong trade unions that can cooperate with employers’ associations in organizing apprenticeships, and because worker-firm attachments are relatively strong. In the US, progress will be harder...’

Read here (Project Syndicate, July 13, 2020)

A new understanding of herd immunity

‘Gabriela Gomes studies chaos. Specifically, patterns in nonlinear dynamics... So with all its apparently chaotic eccentricities, the coronavirus was an ideal challenge for Gomes, a professor at the University of Strathclyde, in Glasgow, Scotland... Based on data from several countries in Europe, she said, her results show a herd-immunity threshold much lower than that of other models. “We just keep running the models, and it keeps coming back at less than 20 percent,” Gomes said. “It’s very striking.”

‘If that proves correct, it would be life-altering news. It wouldn’t mean that the virus is gone. But by Gomes’s estimates, if roughly one out of every five people in a given population is immune to the virus, that seems to be enough to slow its spread to a level where each infectious person is infecting an average of less than one other person. The number of infections would steadily decline...

There are two more arguments in the story, citing levels from 20 to 70 percent... The conclusion, as stated in the subhead: ‘The portion of the population that needs to get sick is not fixed. We can change it.’

Read here (The Atlantic, July 13, 2020)

Airborne transmission of SARS-CoV-2: Theoretical considerations and available evidence

‘All told, current understanding about SARS-CoV-2 transmission is still limited. There are no perfect experimental data proving or disproving droplet vs aerosol-based transmission of SARS-CoV-2. The balance of evidence, however, seems inconsistent with aerosol-based transmission of SARS-CoV-2 particularly in well-ventilated spaces. What this means in practice is that keeping 6-feet apart from other people and wearing medical masks, high-quality cloth masks, or face shields when it is not possible to be 6-feet apart (for both source control and respiratory protection) should be adequate to minimize the spread of SARS-CoV-2 (in addition to frequent hand hygiene, environmental cleaning, and optimizing indoor ventilation).’

Read here (JAMA Network, July 13, 2020)

Health workers silenced, exposed and attacked

‘Governments must be held accountable for the deaths of health and essential workers who they have failed to protect from COVID-19, Amnesty International said today, as it released a new report documenting the experiences of health workers around the world.

‘The organization’s analysis of available data has revealed that more than 3000 health workers are known to have died from COVID-19 worldwide - a figure which is likely to be a significant underestimate.

‘Alarmingly, Amnesty International documented cases where health workers who raise safety concerns in the context of the COVID-19 response have faced retaliation, ranging from arrest and detention to threats and dismissal.’

Read here (Amnesty International, July 13, 2020)

Russian university completes clinical trials of Covid-19 vaccine

Russia has become the first country to have completed clinical trials of a Covid-19 vaccine candidate, after Sechenov University said that it had concluded its study. According to Sechenov University Center for Clinical Research on Medications head and chief researcher Elena Smolyarchuk, study data showed the vaccine candidate’s effectiveness, reported Russian news agency TASS. Smolyarchuk was quoted by the news agency as saying: “The research has been completed and it proved that the vaccine is safe. The volunteers will be discharged on 15 July and 20 July.”

Read here (Clinical Trials Arena, July 13, 2020)

Merck CEO Ken Frazier discusses a Covid cure, racism, and why leaders need to walk the talk

‘As chairman and CEO of the leading vaccine producer in the world, pharmaceutical giant Merck & Co., Ken Frazier has one of the highest-profile positions in global business.

‘But Frazier, who is leading one of the firms on a charge to develop a COVID-19 vaccine, is unique in another way: He is just one of four Black CEOs leading a Fortune 500 company. Frazier is also outspoken, having resigned from President Trump’s American Manufacturing Council to make a clear statement against “hatred, bigotry and group supremacy” that surfaced in protests at Charlottesville, Virginia.

‘In the video [with transcript] below, Frazier provides insights into this turbulent period of American history with Tsedal Neeley (@tsedal), the Naylor Fitzhugh Professor of Business Administration at Harvard Business School. Topics ranged from corporate America’s role in hiring more African Americans to the experience of being raised just one generation away from slavery.’

View/read here (Harvard Business School, July 13, 2020)

China and Kazakhstan try to smooth over ‘deadly pneumonia’ row

‘Chinese ambassador reaffirms ties in phone call to Kazakh health minister. WHO says many cases in the Central Asian nation were likely Covid-19 but just not diagnosed correctly.’

Read here (South China Morning Post, July 11, 2020)

Why steroids are a Covid-19 game changer

This video provides clear information on how Covid-19 affects our bodies adversely, e.g. via inflammation and over-reaction of the immune system (cytokine storm); why anti-viral remdesivir and drug hydroxychloroquine have been found to be relatively ineffective; and how a low-cost steroid dexamethasone produced quite dramatic positive results in severely affected patients. Although well-produced, this video is a means by the producers Real Science to advertise services like Nebula and CuriosityStream.

View here (Real Science, July 11, 2020)

Why has the pandemic spared the Buddhist parts of South-East Asia?

‘Vietnam is the standout: with 97m people, it claims no deaths from covid-19. Thailand, with 70m, has seen just 58 fatalities and no local transmission in over 40 days. Impoverished Myanmar claims just six deaths from 317 cases, while Cambodia (141 confirmed cases) and tiny Laos (19 cases) also have no deaths apiece and no local transmission since April. Compare that with the nearby archipelagic nations of Indonesia (some 68,100 cases and 3,400 deaths) and the Philippines (50,400 cases and 1,300 deaths), where the pandemic still rages.’

Read here (The Economist, July 11, 2020)

WHO’s Covid-19 inquiry is a shrewd move in a sea of disinformation

‘In the week in which the US formally announced its intention to quit the WHO, the organisation’s announcement of the two figures who will lead its review of the pandemic and its response feels significant.

‘Given Trump’s record of denigrating female leaders, and of racist dog-whistles, it is striking that the review will be chaired by two highly regarded and independent-minded women leaders, one of them from Africa – Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, a Nobel laureate and the former president of Liberia, and Helen Clark, former prime minister of New Zealand.’

Read here (The Guardian, July 10, 2020)

Covid-19: Are we being misled again by Big Pharma?

This Third World Network article examines the parallels between the production, marketing and distribution strategies of (1) antiviral medicine oseltamivir (Tamiflu) by Roche for H1N1 in the years 2005 and 2009 and (2) remdesivir by Gilead Sciences for Covid-19 during this pandemic.

Read here (Third World Network, July 10, 2020)

WHO promises ‘honest evaluation’ of how world handled COVID-19

The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Thursday it was setting up an independent panel to review its handling of the COVID-19 pandemic and the response by governments. The announcement follows strong criticism by U.S. President Donald Trump’s administration of the global agency’s role in the crisis - though the WHO said the review was not linked to the United States. Former New Zealand prime minister Helen Clark and former Liberian president Ellen Johnson Sirleaf have agreed to head the panel, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said.

Read here (Reuters, July 9, 2020)

Will medical tourism survive Covid-19?

‘Treatment in Asia is up to 90% cheaper than private healthcare in the US. According to the MHTC [Malaysia Healthcare Travel Council], a coronary artery bypass graft that would cost $92 000 in the US, costs less than $10 000 in India, for example. Coupled with a steep reduction in the cost of long haul air travel, the region has successfully broadened the appeal of medical tourism beyond just the most affluent customers.

‘But all that was before the pandemic. The uncertainty of covid-19, lockdowns, border restrictions, and social distancing has stalled international travel. The UN World Tourism Organisation estimates that the travel industry could decline by 60% to 80% by the end of 2020, calling it the “worst crisis that international tourism has faced since records began.” It says Asia and the Pacific have been the regions hardest hit, with a loss of 33 million tourists.’

Read here (BMJ, July 10, 2020)

Coronavirus: Sweden has become the world's cautionary tale

‘Sweden's grim result - more death and nearly equal economic damage - suggests that the supposed choice between lives and pay cheques is a false one: A failure to impose social distancing can cost lives and jobs at the same time.’

Read here (Straits Times, July 8, 2020)

School openings across globe suggest ways to keep coronavirus at bay, despite outbreaks

“Outbreaks in schools are inevitable,” says Otto Helve, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare. “But there is good news.” So far, with some changes to schools’ daily routines, he says, the benefits of attending school seem to outweigh the risks—at least where community infection rates are low and officials are standing by to identify and isolate cases and close contacts.

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)

Once-model states suffer response fatigue as Covid-19 surges in India

‘The city of Bangalore... was a model for the response to Covid-19 in India just last week. But infections have doubled in the first six days of July, crossing 10,000. With about 1,000 new infections a day, the famed tech city is now gripped by confusion about bed availability, disappearing medical staff, and falling rates of testing...

‘The neighbouring state of Kerala, which received international praise for its early and rigorous response to the pandemic that began with its - and India's - first case on January 30, is also showing signs of response fatigue.’

Read here (Straits Times, July 7, 2020)

This is not a normal mental-health disaster

‘The full extent of the fallout will not come into focus for some time. Psychological disorders can be slow to develop, and as a result, the Textbook of Disaster Psychiatry, which Morganstein helped write, warns that demand for mental-health care may spike even as a pandemic subsides. “If history is any indicator,” Morganstein says of COVID-19, “we should expect a significant tail of mental-health effects, and those could be extraordinary.” Taylor worries that the virus will cause significant upticks in obsessive-compulsive disorder, agoraphobia, and germaphobia, not to mention possible neuropsychiatric effects, such as chronic fatigue syndrome...

‘In 2013, reflecting on the tenth anniversary of the SARS pandemic, newspapers in Hong Kong described a city scarred by plague. When COVID-19 arrived there seven years later, they did so again. SARS had traumatized that city, but it had also prepared it. Face masks had become commonplace. People used tissues to press elevator buttons. Public spaces were sanitized and resanitized. In New York City, COVID-19 has killed more than 22,600 people; in Hong Kong, a metropolis of nearly the same size, it has killed seven. The city has learned from its scars.’

[Joshua Morganstein is the chair of the American Psychiatric Association’s Committee on the Psychiatric Dimensions of Disaster; Steven Taylor is a psychiatrist at the University of British Columbia and the author of The Psychology of Pandemics]

Read here (The Atlantic, July 7, 2020)

Will universities learn from lockdowns?

‘Like many businesses, universities are struggling with how to reopen and are adopting a range of strategies. For example, the University of Cambridge in the United Kingdom has announced that its lectures will be online-only until at least the summer of 2021. Others, including Stanford University, are offering a mix of in-person and online classes, as well as spreading out their academic year so that fewer students will be on campus at any time.

‘Make no mistake: COVID-19 represents a massive economic hit to higher education. Dorm rooms are unoccupied, sports stadiums remain empty, and students push back against paying full tuition fees. For many colleges and universities, the drop in revenue from foreign students, especially Chinese, is likely to be painful; numerous smaller and less-endowed schools may close.’

Read here (Project Syndicate, July 6, 2020)

The coronavirus may not have originated in China, says Oxford professor

‘The coronavirus may have been lying dormant across the world until emerging under favourable environmental conditions, rather than originating in China, an expert has claimed.

‘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)

Lessons for Covid-19 from the early days of AIDS

‘Thirty-six years ago, we were, like today, in the midst of a new and still somewhat mysterious global pandemic. In the U.S. alone, more than one million people were infected with HIV, and 12,000 had already died of AIDS. At the time, we were just beginning to understand how the virus worked. But that didn’t stop some leaders from making wildly optimistic claims about an AIDS vaccine being delivered within two years.

‘Now, with COVID-19, we are in a remarkably similar spot: 2.7 million people have been infected across the U.S., and 128,000 have died of the disease. Despite our limited understanding of how the novel coronavirus works and what it does to the human body, many are putting what I consider a disproportionate amount of faith in the possibility of a COVID-19 vaccine by 2021. My feelings today echo my feelings a third of a century ago: yes, a vaccine may be possible, but it is by no means a certainty.’

Read here (Scientific American, July 6, 2020)

239 experts with 1 big claim: The coronavirus is airborne

‘The World Health Organization has long held that the coronavirus is spread primarily by large respiratory droplets that, once expelled by infected people in coughs and sneezes, fall quickly to the floor. But in an open letter to the WHO, 239 scientists in 32 countries have outlined the evidence showing that smaller particles can infect people, and are calling for the agency to revise its recommendations. The researchers plan to publish their letter in a scientific journal next week.’

Read here (New York Times, July 4, 2020)

The national humiliation we need

‘What’s the core problem? Damon Linker is on to a piece of it: “It amounts to a refusal on the part of lots of Americans to think in terms of the social whole — of what’s best for the community, of the common or public good. Each of us thinks we know what’s best for ourselves.”

‘I’d add that this individualism, atomism and selfishness is downstream from a deeper crisis of legitimacy. In 1970, in a moment like our own, Irving Kristol wrote, “In the same way as men cannot for long tolerate a sense of spiritual meaninglessness in their individual lives, so they cannot for long accept a society in which power, privilege, and property are not distributed according to some morally meaningful criteria”.’

Read here (New York Times, July 2, 2020)

Rethink food security and nutrition following Covid-19 pandemic

‘The Covid-19 crisis has had several unexpected effects, including renewed attention to food security concerns. Earlier understandings of food security in terms of production self-sufficiency have given way to importing supplies since late 20th century promotion of trade liberalization.

‘Food systems need to be repurposed to better produce and supply safe and nutritious food. Ensuring that food systems improve nutrition is not just a matter of increasing production. The entire ‘nutrition value chain’ — from farm to fork, from production to consumption — needs to be considered to ensure the food system better feeds the population.

‘Food systems have to improve production practices, post-harvest processing and consumption behaviour. Resource use and abuse as well as environmental damage due to food production and consumption need to be addressed to ensure sustainable food systems.’

Read here (IPS News, July 2, 2020)

Coronavirus autopsies: A story of 38 brains, 87 lungs and 42 hearts

‘Given widespread reports about neurological symptoms related to the coronavirus, Fowkes [an associate professor of pathology who is part of a team at Mount Sinai Health that has performed autopsies on 67 covid-19 patients] said, she expected to find virus or inflammation — or both — in the brain. But there was very little. When it comes to the heart, many physicians warned for months about a cardiac complication they suspected was myocarditis, an inflammation or hardening of the heart muscle walls — but autopsy investigators were stunned that they could find no evidence of the condition.

‘Another unexpected finding, pathologists said, is that oxygen deprivation of the brain and the formation of blood clots may start early in the disease process. That could have major implications for how people with covid-19 are treated at home, even if they never need to be hospitalized.’

Read here (Washington Post, July 2, 2020)

Microbiologist shows how well masks work in gross but effective demonstration

Dr Davis's conclusion is a simple one: "Masks as a political / social litmus test or used to shame those who won't (or disabled folks who truly can't!) wear them is a travesty. We wash hands after using the bathroom and wipe noses on tissues. Masks / face shields need to be just another normalized act of hygiene.

Read here (Distractify, July 1, 2020)

Priorities for the Covid-19 economy: Joseph Stiglitz

‘Because Covid-19 looks likely to remain with us for the long term, we have time to ensure that our spending reflects our priorities. When the pandemic arrived, American society was riven by racial and economic inequities, declining health standards, and a destructive dependence on fossil fuels. Now that government spending is being unleashed on a massive scale, the public has a right to demand that companies receiving help contribute to social and racial justice, improved health, and the shift to a greener, more knowledge-based economy. These values should be reflected not only in how we allocate public money, but also in the conditions that we impose on its recipients.’

Read here (Project Syndicate, July 1, 2020)

US buys up world stock of key Covid-19 drug remdesivir

‘The US has bought up virtually all the stocks for the next three months of one of the two drugs proven to work against Covid-19, leaving none for the UK, Europe or most of the rest of the world. Experts and campaigners are alarmed both by the US unilateral action on remdesivir and the wider implications, for instance in the event of a vaccine becoming available. The Trump administration has already shown that it is prepared to outbid and outmanoeuvre all other countries to secure the medical supplies it needs for the US.’

Read here (The Guardian, June 30, 2020)

Stealth infections

‘From the Black Death to polio, the most dangerous pathogens have moved silently, transmitted by apparently healthy people...

‘It isn’t ‘pandemics’ per se that we need to fear. The concept of being ‘overdue for a pandemic’ actually makes little sense. Pandemics aren’t cyclical, nor are they necessary products of global warming. We are vulnerable to pandemic outbreaks because of our interconnected world, not because there is some mysterious mechanism in the world that’s going to produce them. It takes precise conditions, what we can call ‘disease factories’, to produce pandemics, and these conditions don’t exist until we create them. The 2009 H1N1 influenza pandemic was the product of a disease factory: it most likely sprang out of a giant pig farm in the Mexican state of Veracruz, owned in part by Smithfield Foods, a giant US pig-raising and meat-packing conglomerate.’

Read here (Aeon, June 30, 2020)