The United States is closer than ever to beating Covid-19, with half the country vaccinated and more restrictions lifting. But we're as far as ever from knowing how this virus, which shut down the world, came to be -- which is as frightening as anything, since there's growing suggestions that it didn't just occur naturally, [...]
Last July, when her immediate family tested positive for Covid-19, Breanna Aguilar did not fit into any groups considered at higher risk for severe disease. She is 31 years old, a pet sitter and former fitness teacher who once ran a half marathon. She was, by most measures, healthy. When Aguilar got Covid-19 she [...]
Health agency says the rates of myocarditis are not higher than expected and no causal link has been found to mRNA jabs. Some teenagers and young adults who received Covid-19 vaccines have experienced heart inflammation, a US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advisory group said, recommending further study of the rare condition. In [...]
Every time the coronavirus passes from person to person it picks up tiny changes to its genetic code, but scientists are starting to notice patterns in how the virus is mutating. For more than three months the patient struggled against Covid-19. His immune system was already in a bad way when he caught the [...]
A filter made from polymer nanothreads blew three kinds of commercial masks out of the water by capturing 99.9% of coronavirus aerosols in an experiment. "Our work is the first study to use coronavirus aerosols for evaluating filtration efficiency of face masks and air filters," said corresponding author Yun Shen, a UC Riverside assistant [...]
MSU researcher is studying, raising awareness about the role of sex in the efficacy of vaccines that make use of nanomedicine If there’s one take-home message for the general public about the coronavirus vaccines approved in the U.S., it’s that they are remarkably effective. MSU Assistant Professor Morteza Mahmoudi But Michigan State University’s Morteza [...]
Earlier this month, the World Health Organisation (WHO) acknowledged that the Coronavirus can also be airborne. After denying for more than a year, the WHO finally updated the mode of Covid-19 transmission and said that the disease can be an airborne threat. It said, “the virus can also spread in poorly ventilated and/or crowded [...]
A collaboration of Australian and US scientists has developed a potential antiviral therapy to directly target and treat COVID-19. Researchers from the Menzies Health Institute Queensland (MHIQ) at Griffith University and US research institute City of Hope have developed an RNA therapy that genetically targets SARS-CoV-2 and prevents it from replicating. Co-lead researcher Professor [...]
What happens if you mix COVID-19 vaccines, receiving a first dose of one jab and a second dose of a different inoculation? Scientists want to know. Why? Because mixing doses might give governments more flexibility to stretch available vaccine supplies across populations, ensuring more people get vaccinated and doses won’t go to waste. There’s also speculation [...]
CAR-T therapy can cure terminally ill cancer patients but it is prohibitively expensive, costing hundreds of thousands of dollars. Leveraging recent advances in chip technology scientists can create and mass produce small machines to re-engineer the immune system. But the scientific community needs public-private partnerships to ensure this medical breakthrough becomes accessible to everyone. [...]
