Tag: SARS-CoV-2

What are zoonotic diseases and what can we do about them?

Infectious diseases that leap from animals to humans are called zoonotic diseases. Covid-19 is an example of a zoonotic disease caused by a coronavirus. Source: https://earthsky.org/human-world/what-are-zoonotic-diseases-coronavirus-covid19…

Experts Are Puzzled Over Why the Coronavirus Lingers in Some Asymptomatic Patients For as Long as 40 Days

Shashank Bengali, reporting for Los Angeles Times: By his second day in the hospital with COVID-19, Charles Pignal’s mild cough and 102-degree fever had disappeared. Bored and “bouncing off the walls” of his room in the isolation ward at Singapore’s National Center for Infectious Diseases, he felt like he could go out and play a set of tennis. The 42-year-old footwear…

Coronavirus genome like a shipping label that lets epidemiologists track where it’s been

Every time the virus copies itself it makes mistakes, creating a trail that researchers can use to build a family tree with information about where it’s traveled, and when. Source: https://earthsky.org/human-world/coronavirus-genome-epidemiologists-track…

How coronavirus drifts through the air in microscopic droplets

Aerosols are the tiny particles of liquid and material that float around in our environment. When they come from an infected person, they may be a significant source of coronavirus transmission. The science of infectious aerosols. Source: https://earthsky.org/human-world/coronavirus-microscopic-droplets-infectious-aerosols…

‘Claim That Covid-19 Came From Lab In China Completely Unfounded Scientists Say’

Newsweek reports: There is no evidence to back claims the coronavirus that has caused the COVID-19 pandemic emerged from a lab in China, scientists have told Newsweek. Adam Lauring, an associate professor at the University of Michigan Medical School and an expert in the evolution of viruses, told Newsweek: “This claim is a conspiracy theory and it is not supported at…

University of Washington Lab Will Begin Testing of Thousands For COVID-19 Antibodies

GeekWire reports:
The University of Washington School of Medicine’s Virology Lab is reporting encouraging results from trial runs of a new test from Abbott Laboratories that detects the antibodies created by people who have had COVID-19, whether they knew they had it or not. “This is a really fantastic test,” Keith Jerome, who leads UW Medicine’s virology program, told reporters today. He…

Does the novel coronavirus have any links to a high-security lab in Wuhan?

Where did SARS-CoV-2 come from? Several ideas have been put forward from natural-borne in bats, an escape from a lab in Wuhan and others. Here’s the murky origin story of the novel coronavirus. Source: https://www.livescience.com/coronavirus-wuhan-lab-complicated-origins.html