In the face of the virus emergency, research standards have been relaxed to encourage faster publication and mistakes become inevitable. This is risky. Ultimately, if expert advice on the pandemic turns out to be wrong, it will have dire consequences for how reliable scientific evidence is treated in other policy areas, such as climate change.
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Coronavirus epidemic, A Symptom of Our Mass Extinction
UCSB professor says ecological and human health are inseparable. Climate change has contributed to mass extinction of animals and this has pushed nature out of balance. The coronavirus epidemic is therefore a direct consequence of
Why are there so many drugs to kill bacteria, but so few to tackle viruses?
Why are there so few antivirals? The answer boils down to biology, and specifically the fact viruses use our own cells to multiply. This makes it hard to kill viruses without killing our own cells in the process.
Israeli scientists discover monoclonal antibody that neutralizes SARS-CoV-2
In a significant medical breakthrough, Israel's Institute for Biological Research Institute (IIBRI) has wrapped up the development of a potential treatment for the coronavirus disease. The scientists say they have identified an antibody that neutralizes SARS-CoV-2 in vitro or outside of a living organism.
Scanning for answers to a pandemic
The greater Seattle Coronavirus Assessment Network—or SCAN—is a first-of-its-kind disease surveillance platform for COVID-19 that allows participants to use a self-swab test to collect their own nasal samples and send them to a lab without leaving home. As a surveillance program, SCAN’s goal isn’t to test every person or serve as a replacement for medical care.
Researchers hypothesize that a highly contagious strain is spreading; other experts remain skeptical
A research paper from scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory, not yet peer-reviewed, reports that one strain of the novel coronavirus has emerged in Europe and become dominant around the planet, leading the researchers to believe the virus has mutated to become more contagious The bold hypothesis, however, was immediately met with skepticism by many infectious-disease experts, and there is no scientific consensus that any of the innumerable mutations in the virus so far have changed the general contagiousness or lethality of covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus.
Coronavirus can survive prolonged exposure to high temperatures
In the experiment, scientists found that typically hot temperatures of 60°Celsius (140° Fahrenheit) used to disinfect research labs are ineffective against the coronavirus. Instead, the pathogen may only be killed in a maintained temperature of 92 °C for 15 minutes.The researchers concluded that using chemicals rather than heat to disinfect would be the best way to go.
Influential Covid-19 model shouldn't guide U.S. policies, critics say
Epidemiologists are criticizing an influential coronavirus model as flawed and warning against relying on it as the basis for government decision-making. In particular, they warn against relying on it as the basis for government decision-making, including on “re-opening America.”
Everything we know about coronavirus immunity, and plenty we still don't
This post cautions that the antibody test for coronavirus are not all the same. Some have not been validated, and those that have been can still provide false results. We can not rely on these tests to know who is protected.