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Category: Science/mathematics

Ohio’s GOP governor surges in popularity as he splits from Trump

Ohio’s GOP governor surges in popularity as he splits from Trump

The New York Times reports: For 40 years, Mike DeWine rose steadily if blandly up the ladder of Ohio politics, finally landing his dream job as governor. He took office last year as a familiar figure in the state, not because of any indelible political identify, but because, at 72, he had been around forever. But the coronavirus crisis has made Mr. DeWine something that decades in elected offices never did: a household name. A Republican, he took early and…

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Trump’s response to coronavirus reflects his contempt for science

Trump’s response to coronavirus reflects his contempt for science

The New York Times reports: At a March visit with doctors and researchers at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the public health agency at the heart of the fight against the coronavirus, President Trump spoke words of praise for the scientific acumen in the building — particularly his own. “Every one of these doctors said, ‘How do you know so much about this?’ Maybe I have a natural ability,” Mr. Trump said. It was a striking boast, even…

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Antibody surveys that seem to indicate a vast undercount of coronavirus infections may be unreliable

Antibody surveys that seem to indicate a vast undercount of coronavirus infections may be unreliable

Science reports: Surveying large swaths of the public for antibodies to the new coronavirus promises to show how widespread undiagnosed infections are, how deadly the virus really is, and whether enough of the population has become immune for social distancing measures to be eased. But the first batch of results has generated more controversy than clarity. The survey results, from Germany, the Netherlands, and several locations in the United States, find that anywhere from 2% to 30% of certain populations…

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In race for a coronavirus vaccine, an Oxford University lab leaps ahead

In race for a coronavirus vaccine, an Oxford University lab leaps ahead

The New York Times reports: In the worldwide race for a vaccine to stop the coronavirus, the laboratory sprinting fastest is at Oxford University. Most other teams have had to start with small clinical trials of a few hundred participants to demonstrate safety. But scientists at the university’s Jenner Institute had a head start on a vaccine, having proved in previous trials that similar inoculations — including one last year against an earlier coronavirus — were harmless to humans. That…

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The more we learn about the coronavirus, the harder it is to understand

The more we learn about the coronavirus, the harder it is to understand

David Wallace-Wells writes: We are now almost six months into this pandemic, which began in November in Wuhan, with 50,000 Americans dead and 200,000 more around the world. If each of those deaths is a data point, together they represent a quite large body of evidence from which to form a clear picture of the pandemic threat. Early in the epidemic, the coronavirus was seen as a variant of a familiar family of disease, not a mysterious ailment, however infectious…

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Unlike New York, Seattle’s approach to Covid-19 mirrored Epidemic Intelligence Service’s guidelines

Unlike New York, Seattle’s approach to Covid-19 mirrored Epidemic Intelligence Service’s guidelines

Charles Duhigg writes: The first diagnosis of the coronavirus in the United States occurred in mid-January, in a Seattle suburb not far from the hospital where Dr. Francis Riedo, an infectious-disease specialist, works. When he heard the patient’s details—a thirty-five-year-old man had walked into an urgent-care clinic with a cough and a slight fever, and told doctors that he’d just returned from Wuhan, China—Riedo said to himself, “It’s begun.” For more than a week, Riedo had been e-mailing with a…

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Global Covid-19 death toll could be 60% higher than reported

Global Covid-19 death toll could be 60% higher than reported

Financial Times reports: The death toll from coronavirus may be almost 60 per cent higher than reported in official counts, according to an FT analysis of overall fatalities during the pandemic in 14 countries. Mortality statistics show 122,000 deaths in excess of normal levels across these locations, considerably higher than the 77,000 official Covid-19 deaths reported for the same places and time periods. If the same level of underreporting observed in these countries was happening worldwide, the global Covid-19 death…

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Prof. Neil Ferguson defends UK Coronavirus lockdown strategy

Prof. Neil Ferguson defends UK Coronavirus lockdown strategy

  Swedish epideomiologist Johan Giesecke has claimed that the UK was wrong to implement its lockdown measures, and singled out Professor Neil Ferguson’s Imperial College study for being too pessimistic in its worst-case prediction of 500,000 corona deaths. In an interview for LockdownTV, Freddie Sayers speaks to Prof Ferguson to get his response to Giesecke’s critique.

SARS-CoV-2 acts like no pathogen humanity has ever seen

SARS-CoV-2 acts like no pathogen humanity has ever seen

Science reports: In Brescia, Italy, a 53-year-old woman walked into the emergency room of her local hospital with all the classic symptoms of a heart attack, including telltale signs in her electrocardiogram and high levels of a blood marker suggesting damaged cardiac muscles. Further tests showed cardiac swelling and scarring, and a left ventricle—normally the powerhouse chamber of the heart—so weak that it could only pump one-third its normal amount of blood. But when doctors injected dye in the coronary…

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Brazilian chloroquine study halted after high dose proved lethal for some patients

Brazilian chloroquine study halted after high dose proved lethal for some patients

The Guardian reports: A Brazilian study investigating whether the anti-malaria drug chloroquine was effective in treating patients with Covid-19 was halted on safety concerns, after a high dose of the drug proved lethal for some patients. Chloroquine, and a related drug, hydroxychloroquine, in combination with the antibiotic azithromycin, has been touted as a potential treatment for coronavirus by Donald Trump despite a lack of evidence. The findings were published as a letter in the journal Nature raised alarm about serious…

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Hundreds of people volunteer to be infected with coronavirus in ‘human challenge’ vaccine study

Hundreds of people volunteer to be infected with coronavirus in ‘human challenge’ vaccine study

Nature reports: Momentum is building to speed the development of coronavirus vaccines by intentionally infecting healthy, young volunteers with the virus. A grass-roots effort has attracted nearly 1,500 potential volunteers for the controversial approach, known as a human-challenge trial. The idea is also gaining traction with US politicians. The effort, called 1Day Sooner, is not affiliated with groups or companies developing or funding coronavirus vaccines. But co-founder Josh Morrison hopes to show that there is broad support for human-challenge trials,…

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The attributes that make SARS-CoV-2 the perfect pathogen

The attributes that make SARS-CoV-2 the perfect pathogen

David Shaywitz writes: Who bears responsibility for the COVID-19 pandemic? While a detailed forensic accounting will ultimately reveal the contribution of people and institutions to the current crisis, we must take care not to lose sight of the most important culprit: the unique character of the virus itself. To a first approximation, a virus can be defined by two parameters: R0 (“R-naught”) is the basic reproduction number, which measures how transmissible the virus is. Meaning: If you’re a typical patient…

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Checking blood for coronavirus antibodies – 3 questions answered about serological tests and immunity

Checking blood for coronavirus antibodies – 3 questions answered about serological tests and immunity

Testing blood provides answers about who has been infected. Sean Gallup/Getty Images News via Getty Images By Aubree Gordon, University of Michigan and Daniel Stadlbauer, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai Coronavirus testing in the United States is moving into a new phase as scientists begin looking into people’s blood for signs they’ve been infected by SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. This technique is called serological testing. Virologist Daniel Stadlbauer helped develop a serological test to detect SARS-CoV-2…

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Group guiding British government on coronavirus is shrouded in secrecy — updated

Group guiding British government on coronavirus is shrouded in secrecy — updated

The New York Times reports: As the British government comes under mounting criticism for its response to the coronavirus — one that has left Britain vying with Italy and Spain as the worst hit countries in Europe — Prime Minister Boris Johnson and his aides have defended themselves by saying they are “guided by the science.” The trouble is, nobody knows what the science is. The government’s influential Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies — known by its soothing acronym, SAGE…

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The scientific advances we need to stop COVID-19

The scientific advances we need to stop COVID-19

Bill Gates writes: The coronavirus pandemic pits all of humanity against the virus. The damage to health, wealth, and well-being has already been enormous. This is like a world war, except in this case, we’re all on the same side. Everyone can work together to learn about the disease and develop tools to fight it. I see global innovation as the key to limiting the damage. This includes innovations in testing, treatments, vaccines, and policies to limit the spread while…

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Covid-19’s ‘silent’ and deadly attack on the lungs

Covid-19’s ‘silent’ and deadly attack on the lungs

Dr Richard Levitan writes: We are just beginning to recognize that Covid pneumonia initially causes a form of oxygen deprivation we call “silent hypoxia” — “silent” because of its insidious, hard-to-detect nature. Pneumonia is an infection of the lungs in which the air sacs fill with fluid or pus. Normally, patients develop chest discomfort, pain with breathing and other breathing problems. But when Covid pneumonia first strikes, patients don’t feel short of breath, even as their oxygen levels fall. And…

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