Category: Featured

People who catch Omicron are less likely to get Long Covid

Science.org Ever since the COVID-19 pandemic unfurled across the United Kingdom, hematologist John Willan has worried about the disease’s toll on his patients. In March 2020, Willan, who works at the University of Oxford and Wexham Park Hospital, began to track the hospital’s COVID-19 cases among people with leukemias, lymphomas, and other blood diseases. He […]

Mar 23, 2023

Surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 in the environment and animal samples of the Huanan Seafood Market

Preprint AbstractEmerging in December 2019, coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) eventually became a pandemic and has posed a tremendous threat to global public health. However, the origins of SARS-CoV-2, the causative agent of COVID-19, remain to be determined. It has reported that a certain number of the early case clusters had a contact history with Huanan […]

Mar 22, 2023

Wuhan Market Samples Contained Covid and Animal Mixtures, Report Says

New York Times In a much-anticipated study, experts described a swab that was positive for the coronavirus and contained loads of genetic material from raccoon dogs. On Jan. 12, 2020, Chinese investigators combing a market for clues about the outbreak of a mysterious new illness in the city of Wuhan swabbed a cart. It was […]

Mar 21, 2023

A Major Clue to COVID’s Origins Is Just Out of Reach

The Atlantic A key set of data could shore up the case for a purely animal origin. So why aren’t scientists sharing it? Last week, the ongoing debate about COVID-19’s origins acquired a new plot twist. A French evolutionary biologist stumbled across a trove of genetic sequences extracted from swabs collected from surfaces at a […]

Mar 21, 2023

COVID-origins study links raccoon dogs to Wuhan market: what scientists think

Nature Some scientists say the analysis provides new evidence supporting the hypothesis that the virus that causes COVID-19 spilled over from an animal — but falls short of definitive proof. Raccoon dogs, bamboo rats, palm civets: these are just some of the animals whose DNA has been found in swabs taken from the Huanan Seafood […]

Mar 21, 2023

Dr. Anthony Fauci Would Like to Set the Record Straight

Rolling Stone Magazine Famed immunologist who led the nation’s COVID response talks new PBS doc, Trump and Fox News, gain-of-function research, the lab-leak theory, and more EVERYONE SEEMS TO have an opinion about Dr. Anthony Fauci. For those on the left, the famed physician and immunologist who led America’s Covid-19 response under presidents Trump and Biden is a […]

Mar 21, 2023

Tanzania reports a Marburg outbreak, Africa’s second this year

STAT News Africa is grappling with not one, but two outbreaks of Marburg fever, a disease that causes symptoms and a death rate comparable to Ebola, its viral cousin. Health officials in Tanzania announced Tuesday that they had confirmed the country’s first-ever Marburg outbreak, involving at least eight people so far, five of whom have […]

Mar 21, 2023

The Strongest Evidence Yet That an Animal Started the Pandemic

The Atlantic A new analysis of genetic samples from China appears to link the pandemic’s origin to raccoon dogs. For three years now, the debate over the origins of the coronavirus pandemic has ping-ponged between two big ideas: that SARS-CoV-2 spilled into human populations directly from a wild-animal source, and that the pathogen leaked from […]

Mar 16, 2023

COVID, bird flu, mpox – a virologist on why we’re seeing so many viruses emerge

The Conversation From the widespread outbreak of mpox (formerly called monkeypox) in 2022, to the evolving bird flu situation, to recent cases of Marburg virus in Equatorial Guinea, COVID isn’t dominating the headlines as much as it used to. Instead, we’ve been regularly hearing about outbreaks of newly emerging or re-emerging viruses. So, is the incidence of virus outbreaks […]

Mar 14, 2023

Risk of avian flu spread to European poultry set to rise again

Watt Ag Net Over the coming months, migration of wild birds infected with the highly pathogenic avian influenza virus raises the risk of a further surge of outbreaks in European poultry. In a recent review, European health authorities conclude that the highly pathogenic avian influenza (HPAI) situation continues to evolve — not only in Europe […]

Mar 14, 2023