Lifeboat Foundation

The Nordic country has a much higher fatality rate than its neighbors.

An Israeli scientist is urging people to ask a simple question daily to save lives from coronavirus: can I smell? There is widespread confusion about how to identify coronavirus symptoms, as several of them are similar to symptoms of flu and the common cold. But Noam Sobel says that there is one highly unusual pattern, a sudden inability to smell, and he has built a website to help people keep tabs on their odor-assessing abilities. People are signing up from all over the world, at an average rate of 200 per hour.

Smell garlic and toothpaste and save lives from coronavirus: It’s not a folk cure, but a Weizmann Institute initiative, and 200 people an hour are joining.

The doctor added that the virus has “outsmarted all of us,” since he says it’s able to hide symptoms for up to 24 days — which contradicts current guidance that the incubation period is two weeks.

Chinese doctors sounding the alarm on the coronavirus say the illness could be even deadlier for patients who catch it again, according to a report.

The whistleblowing physicians working to fight the virus in Wuhan, the epicenter of the outbreak, revealed that medically cleared patients have been getting reinfected, the Taiwan News reported.

Continue reading “Whistleblower doctors say coronavirus reinfection even deadlier” »

The global race to make a vaccine and treatment for the Covid-19 coronavirus is well underway as the epicenter of the pandemic is now shifting toward the United States.

Many of the vaccine and drug development efforts are building on past efforts to deal with other viral outbreaks, including coronaviruses like MERS and SARS — which means researchers had a head start with Covid-19. In the US, a phase 1 clinical trial of a vaccine is already underway.

CERN has established a task force to identify and support contributions from the Organization’s 18 000-strong global community to combatting the COVID-19 pandemic. Set up by the Director-General at the end of March, the CERN against COVID-19 task force has already received hundreds of messages suggesting ideas ranging from producing sanitizer gel to designing and building sophisticated medical equipment. The design of a novel ventilator, expected to be tested by healthcare experts in the coming weeks, is an example of deployment of CERN’s technology to the service of society in these troubled times. Details of the initiatives and projects supported will be published on the dedicated website cern.ch/against-covid-19, which will be regularly updated.

“CERN is a world leading laboratory in particle physics and in the related technologies. As such, it’s a hub of resources, including the World-wide LHC Computing Grid, WLCG, mechanical workshops, sophisticated design and prototyping facilities, advanced technologies and expertise ranging from science and engineering to industrialisation,” said Director-General Fabiola Gianotti. “We want to deploy our resources and competences to contribute to the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.”

CERN’s overall approach is to ensure effective and well-coordinated action, drawing on CERN’s many competencies and advanced technologies and working closely with experts in healthcare, drug development, epidemiology and emergency response so as to maximise the impact of the Organization’s contributions. To this end, the Organization has established links with local hospitals and emergency services, and in the context of an agreement established in 2011, entered into dialogue with experts at the World Health Organization. Discussions are also underway with sister European scientific organisations, the European Molecular Biology Organization and the European Bioinformatics Institute.

Doctors are reaching for drugs that dampen the immune response — but these also undermine the body’s own fight against the coronavirus. Uncertainty is hampering doctors’ ability to choose treatments.

At the height of the epidemic in the city, Jinyintan was treating close to 500 coronavirus patients, he said. It currently still has 123 under observation, he said. A study published last month in the New England Journal of Medicine, based on a test in Chinese patients with severe COVID-19 at Jinyintan, said that Kaletra, also known as Aluvia, was not effective as a potential treatment.

Last month, Israel approved the licensing of a generic version of Kaletra to treat patients infected with the coronavirus.

A conspiracy theory linking 5G wireless networks to the Covid-19 pandemic is spreading. The theory is false — and psychologists explain why it is still so popular.

Many companies have made strong commitments to support their employees, customers, suppliers and communities through what is perhaps the gravest global crisis since the second world war. And all at a time when they are themselves counting the costs of lockdowns and physical distancing.

Others have joined more directly in fighting the outbreak. Amazon is distributing coronavirus tests, Diageo is making hand sanitiser, while Formula 1 teams are designing ventilators.

But business has a powerful opportunity to go further and play a critical part in resolving the crisis — as well as in managing it — by helping fund the vital research that provides the only viable exit strategy that can bring the world back to business as usual.