We are at war with a virus that is currently winning by taking two 9/11’s worth of victims every week—by Christmas it could be three. There is no question that if 1,000 Americans were dying each day in a war, we would act swiftly and decisively. Yet, we are not. This should not be about politics—it is…
The Swedish COVID-19 experiment of not implementing early and strong measures to safeguard the population has been hotly debated around the world, but at this point we can predict it is almost certain to result in a net failure in terms of death and suffering. As of Oct. 13, Sweden’s per capita death rate is 58.4 per…
ASW Reopening in August 2020 The American School of Warsaw reopened on 18 August 2020, ready to welcome students and prepared with a three-layer plan, STOP-PROTECT-REACT (Figure 1). We started the year by testing all students and staff. We were pleased to see no positive cases in that initial round of testing, and we started…
Antigen test reliably and quickly triages people suspected of SARS-CoV-2, with results ready in 15 minutes, allowing informed treatment decisions Antigen test accurately screens individuals with known exposure to infected SARS-CoV-2 patients, providing fast answers regarding their infection status Affordable and small, instrument-free testing kit enables convenient use for healthcare professionals at different point of…
Hong Kong third wave is ‘worrying’ Public health experts say the third wave of infection now hitting Hong Kong is the worst it has seen so far, and is much more worrying than an outbreak earlier this year. “This is the start of a sustained massive local outbreak that we have never seen,” said Prof…
Politicians, government officials and pharma executives alike have been predicting a COVID-19 vaccine debut by year’s end, but Merck CEO Kenneth Frazier doubts that’s possible—and Merck has enough vaccine experience to know the obstacles ahead. Instead, those who are promising vaccines later this year could be hurting the overall fight against the pandemic, Frazier figures.…
The news: We should prepare now for a potential new wave of coronavirus cases this winter, according to the UK’s Academy of Medical Sciences. Health-care systems tend to struggle in winter anyway because infectious diseases spread faster as we spend more time in poorly ventilated indoor spaces, and because conditions like asthma, heart attacks, and stroke…
(CNN) – Refusing to wear a face mask during the Covid-19 pandemic should be as socially unacceptable as drunk-driving, or driving without using a seat belt, the president of the UK’s Royal Society said Tuesday. Venki Ramakrishnan called for everyone to wear a face covering in public — particularly in enclosed public spaces — pointing to new evidence suggesting…
Abstract The potential virucidal effects of UV-C irradiation on SARS-CoV-2 were experimentally evaluated for different illumination doses and virus concentrations (1000, 5, 0.05 MOI). Both virus inactivation and replication inhibition were investigated as a function of these parameters. At a virus density comparable to that observed in SARS-CoV-2 infection, an UV-C dose of just 3.7…
The news: Keeping people two meters apart from each other is far more effective than just one at reducing the risk of spreading coronavirus, according to a new analysis in The Lancet. The researchers combed through 172 observational studies across 16 countries and found that the risk of infection when people stand one meter away is 3%,…
