AstraZeneca releases preliminary US data, Miami Beach responds to pandemic spring breakers, and experts call for surveilling virus spillback. Here's what you should know: Headlines AstraZeneca releases preliminary results from Phase III trial in the US AstraZeneca announced today that preliminary results from Phase III trials in the US show its vaccine is 79 percent effective at preventing symptomatic Covid-19 and 100 percent effective at preventing severe disease and hospitalizations. The drugmaker also said its experts didn't find any increased risk of blood clots, which caused concern last week and led several European countries to halt the shot's rollout. AstraZeneca has yet to publish full trial data but said it plans to apply for emergency use authorization in the US in the first half of April. Miami Beach implements measures to curb spread amid influx of spring breakers On Saturday, Miami Beach officials declared a state of emergency and issued a curfew after several days of vacationers crowding local establishments and beaches. The popular spring break spot has had an influx of visitors and activity in the last few weeks as travel increases around the country. Officials are concerned that this could lead to a Covid-19 outbreak in the city. Experts call for surveilling the ways that the coronavirus could go from humans to other animals Researchers have been studying how the coronavirus spilled over from bats to humans since before Covid-19 was declared a pandemic. But there's another problem that a small group of scientists is now working hard to shed light on: How the novel coronavirus gets from humans back into other animal species. There's already some evidence that this phenomenon, called "spillback," is happening. To understand, and prevent, further mutation and spread, experts say we'll need to create a better system for surveilling how SARS-CoV-2 jumps between species. Daily Distraction From familiar theme songs to nostalgic aesthetics, there are so many reasons why retro games get so much love. Something to Read In recent months, vacuum cleaners, children's clothes, and at least $150,000 of frozen shrimp have sunk to the ocean floor as a large number of shipping containers have fallen off of cargo ships. Why? Weather, an uptick in imports, and perhaps an oceanic phenomenon called parametric rolling. Sanity Check It's never too early to learn how to handle money. Here are the best tools for teaching your kids about finances. One Question How do virus variants get their names? Scientists try to avoid naming diseases after places or people, for obvious reasons. Ideally, a virus's name tells us something about what it does or where it fits on the family tree. But the world of Covid nomenclature has three houses, and all of them are confusing. There's GISAID, the Global Initiative on Sharing All Influenza Data, which is the main data repository for SARS-CoV-2 genomes. Nextstrain organizes information based on clades, or branches of the phylogenetic tree of life, each of which is then organized by the year it was discovered and a letter of the alphabet. And Pangolin, a system where the first two SARS-CoV-2 sequences are lettered A and B, and each subsequent generation gets a number, then another number after a period, for the first three generations. These are all way too complicated. In response, the WHO has started organizing meetings to make sense of how all of these systems work. They may also devise a new, more media-friendly way to talk about them. Covid-19 Care Package 📦 The Covid-19 virus can linger on objects for as little as a few hours or as long as a couple of days, depending on the surface. Here's a look at the research. 😷 If you're planning to go out in public anytime soon, you're going to need a mask. Here are the best ones you can buy, or how to make one at home. 🧼 It's not just your hands that need washing—your gadgets, clothes, and home need it too. Here's how to properly disinfect your stuff. 💻 Whether or not you're a work-from-home pro, here's how to stay productive without losing your mind. 😔 It's hard not to be anxious about a global pandemic, but here's how you can protect yourself and your family without spiraling and how to not hate the loved ones you're quarantined with. ✂️ It may still be a while before you can see your hairstylist, so here's how to cut your hair at home, plus other ways to keep yourself lookin' fresh. 🦠 Read all of our coronavirus coverage here. |
0 Comments:
Post a Comment