Medical researchers with the Chinese army engineered mice with humanized lungs in 2019 to test viruses on them, it has been reported. The mice, developed using CRISPR gene-editing technology, were mentioned in an April 2020 study which researched their susceptibility to SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes the COVID-19 illness, Vanity Fair revealed in its bombshell investigation. Of the study's 23 co-authors, [...]
Healthcare systems across Africa are “far from ready” to cope with a fresh surge of coronavirus infections, with vaccine deliveries at a near standstill and cases surging in many countries, the World Health Organization (WHO) has warned. “Many African hospitals and clinics are still far from ready to cope with a huge rise in [...]
All viruses, including SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, change over time. Most changes have little to no impact on the virus’ properties. However, some changes may affect the virus’s properties, such as how easily it spreads, the associated disease severity, or the performance of vaccines, therapeutic medicines, diagnostic tools, or other public health and social measures. WHO, in collaboration with partners, expert networks, national [...]
Vaccines can be great at preventing you from getting sick, while at the same time not necessarily stopping you from getting infected or spreading the germ. Preliminary evidence seems to suggest the COVID-19 vaccines make it less likely someone who's vaccinated will transmit the coronavirus, but the proof is not yet ironclad. Unvaccinated people [...]
People who recover from mild COVID-19 have bone-marrow cells that can churn out antibodies for decades, although viral variants could dampen some of the protection they offer. Many people who have been infected with SARS-CoV-2 will probably make antibodies against the virus for most of their lives. So suggest researchers who have identified long-lived [...]
British spies believe that the thesis that COVID-19 leaked from a lab in China is plausible and are seeking to recruit sources on the darknet as they investigate the claim, reported The Sunday Times. Sources told the publication that while UK intelligence was initially highly skeptical of the theory that the disease escaped from the [...]
Authorities in Vietnam have detected a new coronavirus variant that is a hybrid of strains found in India and the United Kingdom, an official said. Nguyen Thanh Long, the Vietnamese health minister, told a government meeting on Saturday that scientists found the new variant after examining the genetic makeup of the virus that had [...]
A team of German scientists believe that they have worked out why some people given the AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson vaccines against Covid-19 develop blood clots – and claim they can tell the manufacturers how to improve the vaccine to avoid it. The key is in the adenovirus – the common cold virus that is used to [...]
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 [...]
