Pandemic News and Research

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A pandemic is a global disease outbreak. During a pandemic, transmission can be anticipated in the workplace, not only from patient to workers in health care settings, but also among co-workers in general work settings. A pandemic would cause high levels of illness, death, social disruption, and economic loss. Everyday life would be disrupted because so many people in so many places become seriously ill at the same time. Impacts could range from school and business closings to the interruption of basic services such as public transportation and food delivery.

New technique uses ultrasound to provide non-invasive assessments of lung health

Researchers from North Carolina State University and the University of North Carolina have developed a technique that uses ultrasound to provide non-invasive assessments of pulmonary fibrosis and pulmonary edema.

15 Oct 2020

Mendelian randomization helps evaluate impact of circulating proteins in COVID-19

Researchers identify circulating proteins influencing COVID-19 susceptibility and severity by employing a large-scale two-sample Mendelian randomization (MR) study.

15 Oct 2020

COVID-19 can cause sudden permanent hearing loss in rare cases

Many complications have been reported, including heart disease and prolonged respiratory issues in a group of people called “long-haulers.” Now, a new worrying finding shows that COVID-19 can cause sudden and irreversible hearing loss in patients.

15 Oct 2020

News coverage contributes to drug shortages in COVID-19

Researchers at Boston Children's Hospital in the U.S. have reported that the recent shortage of medicines used to treat coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) could be due to extensive news media coverage that results in individual hoarding or institutional stockpiling of medicines.

15 Oct 2020

No, the WHO didn’t change its lockdown stance or ‘admit’ Trump was right

On Monday, President Donald Trump claimed that the World Health Organization (WHO) "admitted" he was correct that using lockdowns to control the spread of COVID-19 was more damaging than the illness.

15 Oct 2020

KHN’s ‘What the Health?’: Democrats May lose on SCOTUS, but hope to win on ACA

Republicans appear to be on track to confirm Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court before Election Day, cementing a 6-3 conservative majority on the high court regardless of what happens Nov. 3. Democrats, meanwhile, lacking the votes to block the nomination, used the high-profile hearings to batter Republicans for trying to overturn the Affordable Care Act.

15 Oct 2020

Previous infections with seasonal coronaviruses might protect against SARS-CoV-2

Seasonal coronaviruses, which generally cause mild respiratory illness and symptoms of the common cold, belong to the same viral family as severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) – the agent that causes COVID-19.

15 Oct 2020

Blood purification outside the body in COVID-19 patients

Rodney Rosalia et al., in a recent medRxiv preprint research paper, study the longitudinal variation of parameters involved with systemic inflammation in critically ill COVID-19 patients upon EBP treatment.

15 Oct 2020

Study links SARS-CoV-2 seasonality to increased spread at lower temperatures

In a recent paper available on the bioRxiv preprint server, US researchers show that individual particles of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) undergo structural destabilization at relatively mild but elevated temperatures – strengthening the case for coronavirus disease (COVID-19) resurgence in the winter.

15 Oct 2020

Researchers identify potential drugs that could be repurposed as pan-coronavirus treatments

A large international consortium of almost 200 researchers from 14 leading institutions in six countries has studied three different coronaviruses - SARS-CoV-1, SARS-CoV-2, and MERS-CoV - with the aim of finding vulnerabilities shared by these three pathogens.

15 Oct 2020

Experts review contribution of Task Force in prevention and control of non-communicable diseases

On 24 September 2020, the Friends of the Task Force met in the margins of the high-level segment of the 75thsession of the United Nations General Assembly. Participants included Member States, UN agencies and non-State actors.

15 Oct 2020

INRS invests $1 million in COVID-19 research to address society's urgent needs

Quebec is particularly affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. For more than 50 years, Institut national de la recherche scientifique (INRS) has placed research at the service of the development of society, focusing its efforts on strategic issues.

15 Oct 2020

Cloud-based tool can rapidly detect and track emerging pathogens

Published today in the journal GigaScience is a new open source, cloud-based tool called IDseq that makes it possible to rapidly detect, identify, and track emerging pathogens such as SARS-CoV-2.

15 Oct 2020

Wearing blue-light glasses before sleeping can improve sleep quantity and quality

During the pandemic, the amount of screen time for many people working and learning from home as well as binge-watching TV has sharply increased. New research finds that wearing blue-light glasses just before sleeping can lead to a better night's sleep and contribute to a better day's work to follow.

15 Oct 2020

Despite expansion of food assistance programs, levels of food insecurity remain high

In the last several months, the proportion of New Yorkers reached by the public food programs initiated by New York City to address rising rates of food insecurity has doubled, indicating progress in reaching those in need.

15 Oct 2020

Digital environmental tools can help track and predict effects of COVID-19

A digital sprint, featuring a series of hackathons, led by Cranfield University and the Natural Environment Research Council has seen multiple projects awarded prizes for innovation and use of digital technology.

15 Oct 2020

Capillary blood microsampling could prove a breakthrough in SARS-CoV-2 serosurveillance

As COVID-19 seems to be making a comeback in many areas of the world, including Japan, a new study published on the preprint server medRxiv in October 2020 shows the relevance of microsamples of blood in serosurveillance of this disease.

15 Oct 2020

Higher levels of lymphocytes reduce risk of long-term complications in asymptomatic COVID-19 patients

COVID-19 remains stubbornly inconsistent. More than a million people have died and 35 million have been diagnosed, but a large fraction of people infected with the coronavirus--about 45%, according to recent estimates--show no symptoms at all.

15 Oct 2020

Rapid SARS‐CoV‐2 IgM‐IgG combined antibody test

A recent study published on the preprint server medRxiv in October 2020 reports a new diagnostic test for SARS-CoV-2 based on the detection of antibodies.

15 Oct 2020

SARS-CoV-2 may become endemic if reinfection proves commonplace, say researchers

To date, a few verified repeat SARS-CoV-2 infections have been documented around the world. "Should reinfection [with SARS-CoV-2] prove commonplace, and barring a highly effective vaccine delivered to most of the world's population, SARS-CoV-2 will likely become endemic," write Jeffrey Shaman and Marta Galanti in this Perspective.

15 Oct 2020

Pandemic News and Research

Further Reading

New technique uses ultrasound to provide non-invasive assessments of lung health

Mendelian randomization helps evaluate impact of circulating proteins in COVID-19

COVID-19 can cause sudden permanent hearing loss in rare cases

News coverage contributes to drug shortages in COVID-19

No, the WHO didn’t change its lockdown stance or ‘admit’ Trump was right

KHN’s ‘What the Health?’: Democrats May lose on SCOTUS, but hope to win on ACA

Previous infections with seasonal coronaviruses might protect against SARS-CoV-2

Blood purification outside the body in COVID-19 patients

Study links SARS-CoV-2 seasonality to increased spread at lower temperatures

Researchers identify potential drugs that could be repurposed as pan-coronavirus treatments

Experts review contribution of Task Force in prevention and control of non-communicable diseases

INRS invests $1 million in COVID-19 research to address society's urgent needs

Cloud-based tool can rapidly detect and track emerging pathogens

Wearing blue-light glasses before sleeping can improve sleep quantity and quality

Despite expansion of food assistance programs, levels of food insecurity remain high

Digital environmental tools can help track and predict effects of COVID-19

Capillary blood microsampling could prove a breakthrough in SARS-CoV-2 serosurveillance

Higher levels of lymphocytes reduce risk of long-term complications in asymptomatic COVID-19 patients

Rapid SARS‐CoV‐2 IgM‐IgG combined antibody test

SARS-CoV-2 may become endemic if reinfection proves commonplace, say researchers

Best practices - optimize qPCR processes for pathogen detection eBook

Designing fluidic architecture for scalable diagnostic platforms

Evaluating new approaches for rare disease genomics

Expanding access to NMR with the Fourier 80 Duo

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