Year: 2020
-
UN: The first coronavirus famines are in our doorstep
Four chronically-deprived conflict-ridden countries are in danger of experiencing widespread crisis which endangers the lives of millions of women, men, and children. The alarm was raised by Mark Lowcock, undersecretary general for humanitarian affairs of the United Nations. Yemen, South Sudan, northeast Nigeria, and the Democratic Republic of Congo have always been vulnerable to food-deprivation…
-
New study shows immunity to COVID-19 higher than antibody tests show
A new study from the Karolinska Institutet and Karolinska University Hospital shows that mild or asymptomatic COVID-19 patients have T-cell immunity against the new coronavirus even if they test negative for antibodies. The study, which was published at the scientific journal Cell shows that twice as many people have developed T-cell immunity than those detected…
-
Study: Some parts of UK are nearing herd immunity
A new study published by the British Medical Journal says that more people may have COVID-19 antibodies than tests show. In an interview with The Week, a member of the research team, Dr. Stephen Burgess of Cambridge University says that current antibody tests are highly selective in what they detect. He says, “It’s possible that…
-
AstraZeneca pauses clinical trials due to safety issue
AstraZeneca has voluntarily paused all clinical trials for their COVID-19 vaccine due to a “potentially unexplained illness in one of the trials”. The pause will enable an independent committee to review the safety data and to determine whether a serious adverse event was caused by the vaccine. Spokesperson for the company says that such pauses…
-
How media has us thinking all wrong about the coronavirus
In this opinion piece written for The Washington Post, Emily Oster, a professor of economics at Brown University explains how our penchance for the surprising and unexpected was “indulged” by the media in its reporting about the pandemic, which in turn led us to irrational decisions. The focus on the “surprises”, Oster says, made us…
-
Prof. Sunetra Gupta: Let children be exposed to viruses
In an interview with the Evening Standard published last September 3, 2020, Sunetra Gupta, professor of theoretical epidemiology at Oxford says that she welcomes the return of schoolchildren to the classroom. She adds that children will benefit from being exposed to the novel and other seasonal coronaviruses. She says, “evidence is mounting that early exposure…
-
Is Sweden’s coronavirus response finally silencing the doubters?
In this article for The Telegraph, author Richard Orange reports that Sweden’s case rate has fallen below that of Denmark and Norway, registering 12 new cases per million compared to 18 for Denmark and 14 for Norway. Meanwhile, COVID deaths in Sweden are averaging at two to three per day, down from over a hundred…
-
Herd immunity may be closer than we think
Several experts are now saying that the herd immunity threshold (HIT) for the new coronavirus may be much lower than previously predicted. In this article for The New York Times, Apoorva Mandavilli interviews experts like Bill Hanage, an epidemiologist at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, Tom Britton, a mathematician at Stockholm University,…
-
COVID death rates continue to fall as doctors reject ventilators
In this article for The Telegraph, author Henry Bodkin reports that deaths among the seriously ill COVID-19 patients have declined sharply as more doctors rejected the use of mechanical ventilators. Data shows that chances of dying in intensive care units (ICUs) dropped from 43% to 35% in the period after the pandemic’s peak in UK…
-
The truth about the August 1 Berlin protest
The following is a letter sent to Robert F. Kennedy, Jr. and the Children’s Health Defense. The author, a friend of Kennedy, related to him the events that transpired at the August 1 Unite For Freedom Rally at Berlin [we wrote about this protest in the article 17,000+ gather in Berlin to protest against COVID-19…
