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 program to study financial hardship, food poverty within the Armed Forces Community

The UK's oldest national tri-service charity, in partnership with Northumbria University has today announced the launch of a programme of research into financial hardship and food poverty within the Armed Forces Community.

31 Jul 2020

Air travel helped spread novel coronavirus in Brazil

Domestic and international air travel helped spread the novel coronavirus in Brazil, a study has found, as tourism bodies push for global travel to resume amid infection resurgences in some countries.

31 Jul 2020

Brain Navi develops new nasal swab robot to prevent cross infections

Inspired by the pandemic, Brain Navi developed a new robot to perform nasal swab tests autonomously to prevent cross infections so we can save the medical system and reestablish economies.

31 Jul 2020

Insurance customers across Asia adopt healthier lifestyle habits amid COVID-19 anxieties

Amid the anxiety and disruption caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, insurance customers across Asia are starting to adopt healthier lifestyle habits in terms of physical health and mental well-being, and increasingly recognise the convenience of digital technology in their day-to-day lives, according to a new survey by Manulife.

31 Jul 2020

Study outlines new approaches to prevent and mitigate wildfire-related impacts

As the western United States enters the 2020 wildfire season with anticipated above normal significant fire potential, a new report from Physicians, Scientists, and Engineers for Healthy Energy (PSE) provides the most expansive synthesis to date on the public health dimensions of wildfire and California's approaches to wildfire prevention and the mitigation of wildfire-related impacts.

31 Jul 2020

Don’t count on lower premiums despite pandemic-driven boon for insurers

When COVID-19 smacked the United States in March and April, health plans feared medical costs could skyrocket, jacking up premiums drastically in 2021, when millions of the newly unemployed might still be out of work.

31 Jul 2020

Avoiding care during the pandemic could mean life or death

These days, Los Angeles acting teacher Deryn Warren balances her pain with her fear. She's a bladder cancer patient who broke her wrist in November. She still needs physical therapy for her wrist, and she's months late for a cancer follow-up.

31 Jul 2020

Managing cancer patients during COVID-19 pandemic

An ESMO interdisciplinary expert consensus paper on how to manage cancer patients during the COVID-19 pandemic has been published today in Annals of Oncology.

31 Jul 2020

Experts develop innovative e-learning program to improve cancer care

An innovative e-learning programme developed by experts at the University of Huddersfield and University of Stirling will educate and empower nurses to improve cancer care.

31 Jul 2020

GlobalData: US medtech market expected to return to normal very quickly

Following the recent quarterly earnings reports for multiple American Medtech companies;

31 Jul 2020

TAVR market shows hopeful signs of resiliency, says GlobalData

“Following Edwards Lifesciences’ announcement of an expected 5% growth for its transcatheter aortic valve replacement (TAVR) business, GlobalData observes hopeful signs of resiliency in the TAVR market.

31 Jul 2020

Juice launches six-week step challenge to improve employee health and wellbeing

Employee health and wellbeing firm Everyday Juice Ltd. has launched a six-week step challenge in a bid to help organisations reconnect their employees and improve health and wellbeing.

31 Jul 2020

A cheaper and rapid pooling strategy for RT-PCR-based detection of SARS-CoV-2

In a report in the Journal of Molecular Diagnostics, published by Elsevier, researchers at Augusta University and PerkinElmer Genomics describe a cheaper, rapid, and accurate pooling strategy for the RT-PCR-based detection of SARS-CoV-2 in clinical samples.

31 Jul 2020

New simple way of detecting COVID-19 in blood plasma

Even as the COVID-19 pandemic claims increasing numbers of patients, testing numbers are rising in most nations at the leading edge. However, the current reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT PCR) testing is often unavailable and takes up to several days for results to arrive.

31 Jul 2020

War of sugars - estrogen provides protection in COVID-19

Now a new study published on the preprint server bioRxiv in July 2020 reports that sex hormones could affect the function of the fusion protein that is dependent upon the human ACE2 receptor, thus preventing the entry of the virus into the host cell.

31 Jul 2020

Researchers report a liquid biopsy for COVID-19

A new study published on the preprint server medRxiv in July 2020 reports the potential of cell-free DNA as a marker of the severity of disease in COVID-19. This could help triage patients as well as provide a prognostic marker.

30 Jul 2020

Lab profiles differentiate MIS-C from severe COVID-19 in children

In the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic, the SARS-CoV-2 virus seemed only rarely to have serious complications in children.

30 Jul 2020

Global economic slowdown due to COVID-19 impacts food security

COVID-19 has led to a global economic slowdown that is affecting all four pillars of food security - availability, access, utilization, and stability - according to a new article from researchers at the International Food Policy Research Institute, published in the journal Science.

30 Jul 2020

Researcher uses in silico analysis of SARS-CoV-2 spike protein to fast-track passive immunity

With millions of COVID-19 cases reported across the globe, people are turning to antibody tests to find out whether they have been exposed to the coronavirus that causes the disease. But what are antibodies? Why are they important? If we have them, are we immune to COVID-19? And if not, why not?

30 Jul 2020

CZI, CZ Biohub, and The State Of California join forces to track COVID-19 transmission

Today, the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub, in partnership with the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, announced that it will provide free whole genome sequencing and analysis of the SARS-CoV-2 virus to all California Departments of Public Health and California local health jurisdictions through a newly-launched effort called the California COVID Tracker.

30 Jul 2020