Junior Digest

Washington , October 29,2020: The researchers, from the University of Cambridge and Northwestern University, tested the effectiveness of different fabrics at filtering particles between 0.02 and 0.1 micrometres – about the size of most viruses – at high speeds, comparable to coughing or heavy breathing.
The results, reported in the journal BMJ Open, show that most of the fabrics commonly used for non-clinical face masks are effective at filtering ultrafine particles. N95 masks were highly effective, although a reusable HEPA vacuum bag actually exceeded the N95 performance in some respects.
As for homemade masks, those made of multiple layers of fabric were more effective, and those which also incorporated interfacing, which is normally used to stiffen collars, showed a significant improvement in performance. However, this improvement in performance also made them more difficult to breathe through than an N95 mask.
The researchers also studied the performance of different fabrics when damp, and after they had gone through a normal washing and drying cycle. They found that the fabrics worked well while damp and worked sufficiently after one laundry cycle, however, previous studies have shown that repeated washing degrades the fabrics, and the researchers caution that masks should not be reused indefinitely.
“A mask which blocks particles really well but restricts your breathing isn’t an effective mask,” said first author Eugenia O’Kelly from Cambridge’s Department of Engineering.”N95 masks are much easier to breathe through than any fabric combinations with similar levels of filtration”.

Paris, Oct 29,2020: French President Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday announced a second nationwide lockdown until at least the end of November, the BBC reported.

In a televised address to the nation Mr Macron said, the new lockdown comes into effect from Friday, wherein people would only be allowed to leave home for essential work or medical reasons.

This meant that non-essential businesses, like restaurants and bars, will remain closed, but schools and factories will remain open.

France like several other European countries has in recent days seen a huge surge in COVID infections and daily deaths, which are the highest since the month of April. On Tuesday, 33,000 new cases were confirmed in the country.

Night curfews will come into force for the 46 million French citizens.

In the address on Wednesday, Mr Macron said that France must now “brutally apply the brakes” to avoid being “submerged by the acceleration of the epidemic”.

“The virus is circulating at a speed that not even the most pessimistic forecasts had anticipated,” he said, adding that half of all intensive care beds at French hospitals were being occupied by COVID patients.

The president said that under the new rules, people would need to fill in a form to justify leaving their homes, as was required in the initial lockdown in March. Social gatherings have been completely banned.

He also said that public services and factories would remain open, adding that the economy “must not stop or it will collapse”.

Mr Macron added that visits to care homes – which were banned during the two-month lockdown declared in March – would be permitted under the latest measures.

The curbs will apply until 1 December and will be reassessed every two weeks. The president said he retained “hope that families will be able to be reunited for Christmas”.

ATHENS Nov 05,2020: Greece ordered a nationwide lockdown on Thursday for three weeks to help contain a resurgence of COVID-19 cases, its second this year after a sharp increase in infections this week.
“I’ve chosen to take drastic measures sooner rather than later,” Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis said.

Although having previously said a nationwide lockdown was a last option, Mitsotakis said he was forced to act after a spike in cases in the past five days, saying that without a lockdown the pressure on the healthcare system would be “unbearable”.

Under the new countrywide restrictions to take effect from Saturday, retail businesses will be shut with the exception of supermarkets and pharmacies. Greeks will need a permit to venture outdoors at allocated times.

Primary schools will stay open, but high schools will shut.

The country has reported fewer cases than most in Europe, mainly due to an early nationwide lockdown it imposed when the pandemic broke out in February. It started unwinding those restrictions in May.

LONDON/BERLIN ,Oct 29,2020: Britain resisted pressure on Thursday to impose a second nationwide lockdown after France and Germany ordered sweeping restrictions on social life to contain a surge in coronavirus infections that has pushed health services to their limits.
Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s government has so far tried to avoid a nationwide lockdown, opting instead for a tiered system of local controls intended to tighten measures in affected regions while leaving others less restricted.

A new study by Imperial College in London underlined the dire situation facing Britain, the country with the largest number of coronavirus deaths in Europe, showing cases in England doubling every nine days.

Steven Riley, the author of the study, said the government should decide quickly if it wanted to follow France and Germany.

“And sooner is better than later for these,” Riley, a professor of infectious disease dynamics, told the BBC.

However Housing Minister Robert Jenrick said he did not think it was inevitable that the UK would follow France and Germany in imposing nationwide restrictions.

“The judgement of the government today is that a blanket national lockdown is not appropriate, would do more harm than good,” he told Times Radio.

Europe’s economies were plunged into their deepest recession on record by the blanket lockdowns imposed at the start of the crisis in March and April and the latest restrictions have snuffed out the faint signs of recovery seen over the summer.

Financial markets steadied somewhat on Thursday after a brutal selloff a day before as the prospect of a double dip recession came ever more clearly into view.

Governments have been desperate to avoid a repeat of the spring lockdowns but have been forced to move by the speed of new infections and a steadily increasing mortality rate across the continent.

‘WINTER WILL BE HARD’

While the French and German lockdowns will leave schools and most businesses open, they severely restrict social life by closing bars, restaurants, cinemas and the like and impose strict limits on people’s movements.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, who addressed parliament on Thursday, said her government had moved quickly to prevent intensive care facilities being overwhelmed.
After heavy criticism of a lack of coordination and planning in the initial phase of the crisis, European Union leaders aim to make progress on common testing and vaccination strategies at a video conference on Thursday.

Paris, Oct 15,2020: French President Emmanuel Macron on Wednesday announced that a curfew will be imposed from 9 pm to 6 am in number of cities, including Paris, starting from Friday midnight and last at least four weeks to stem the spread of coronavirus (COVID-19).

“A curfew will apply to the Ile-de-France region…and eight metropolitan areas — Grenoble, Lille, Rouen, Lyon, Aix-Marseille, Saint-Etienne, Toulouse, Montpellier and Rouen,” Macron said in a televised interview, Xinhua reported.

France has been in a second wave of the coronavirus epidemic with an average of 20,000 new infection cases per day. “We have now entered a phase to which we must react…The virus is everywhere in France,” Macron added.

The situation is worrying and the curfew is a “pertinent” measure while having the whole country locked down again would be “disproportionate”, he explained.

“We have not lost control. We are in a situation which is worrying and which justifies that we are neither inactive nor in panic. We have learned from the first wave,” Macron said.
The curfew does not ban driving between 9 pm to 6 am, but travel will be strictly limited unless with good reasons. “We must continue to be able to go to work in all sectors,” said Macron. “For those who have emergencies, health for example, there will be authorizations.”

Oct 18,2020:Global coronavirus cases rose by more than 400,000 for the first time late on Friday, a record one-day increase as much of Europe enacts new restrictions to curb the outbreak.

Europe, which successfully tamped down the first surge of infections, has emerged as the new coronavirus epicentre in recent weeks and is reporting on average 140,000 cases a day over the past week.

As a region, Europe is reporting more daily cases than India, Brazil and the United States combined.

Of every 100 infections reported around the world, 34 were from European countries, according to a Reuters analysis. The region is currently reporting a million new infections about every nine days and has reported more than 6.3 million cases since the pandemic began.

Major European countries – United Kingdom, France, Russia, Netherlands and Spain — accounted for about half of Europe’s new cases in the week to Oct. 18, according to Reuters tally.

France is reporting the highest seven-day average of new cases in Europe with 19,425 infections per day followed by the United Kingdom, Russia, Spain and Netherlands in worst affected European countries.

Several European countries are closing schools, cancelling elective surgeries and enlisting student medics as the authorities face a COVID-19 resurgence.

Russia is moving students to online learning and Northern Ireland is closing schools for two weeks and restaurants for four.

In Spain, authorities in Catalonia ordered bars and restaurants to close for 15 days and limited the numbers of people allowed in shops.

The Czech Republic has also shifted schools to distance learning and plans to call up thousands of medical students. Hospitals are cutting non-urgent medical procedures to free up beds.

Polish health officials have warned the country is on the brink of a disaster as a record 6,526 new coronavirus infections and 116 deaths were reported this week. Poland is ramping up training for nurses and considering creating military field hospitals.

Latin America is the worst-affected region with about 27% of total COVID-19 cases followed by Asia, North America and Europe, according to a Reuters analysis.

India is reporting fewer cases this month compared with September, with 69,000 cases per day, according to Reuters analysis. The numbers have fallen by more than 20,400 over the last three weeks, down 22% from its previous peak.

Washington, Oct 17,2020: The total number of COVID-19 cases in the United States surpassed grim milestone of eight million-mark on Friday, according to the Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University.

The country’s COVID-19 cases rose to 8,043,312, while the death toll reached 218,097, according to the CSSE.

The US COVID-19 cases reached five million-mark on August 9, hit 6 million on August 31, and exceeded 7 million on September 25.

The US has been the most affected country in the world, followed by Brazil in terms of deaths.

So far, Brazil has reported 153,214 deaths due to COVID-19.

According to the Johns Hopkins University, global COVID-19 cases reached 39,247,785, while the death toll stands at 1,103,352.

Washington, October 21,2020: Lack of sleep significantly impairs human ability to stop unwanted and unpleasant thoughts from entering the mind, a new study reveals.
The authors of the study say the findings could have implications for people suffering from psychiatric conditions associated with unwanted thoughts – such as post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and schizophrenia.
The study, from the University of York, tested the ability of participants to suppress intrusive thoughts when they were either sleep deprived or well rested. Sleep deprived participants suffered an increase in unwanted thoughts of nearly 50 percent compared to those who had a good night’s sleep.
“In everyday life, mundane encounters can remind us of unpleasant experiences. For example, a car driving too fast on the motorway might cause us to retrieve unwanted memories from a car accident many years ago. For most people, thought intrusions pass quickly, but for those suffering with psychiatric conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder, they can be repetitive, uncontrollable, and distressing,” Lead author of the study, Dr Marcus Harrington, from the Department of Psychology at the University of York, said.
“It is clear that the ability to suppress unwanted thoughts varies dramatically between individuals, but until now the factors that drive this variability have been mysterious. Our study suggests sleep loss has a considerable impact on our ability to keep unwanted thoughts out of our minds,” added Harrington.

For the study, sixty healthy participants learnt to associate faces with photographs of emotionally negative scenes (such as an image from a war zone) or neutral scenes (such as an image of a cityscape).
The following morning, after a night of either sleep or total sleep deprivation, participants were shown the faces and asked to try to suppress thoughts related to the scenes with which they were paired.
Compared to the sleep group, the sleep deprived participants had much more difficulty keeping unwanted thoughts of the emotionally negative and neutral scenes from their minds. While the task became easier with practice for the rested participants, for those who had gone without sleep, thought intrusions remained consistently high.
The sleep group’s success at suppressing unwanted thoughts caused them to view the negative scenes more positively after the suppression task, and they also showed a reduced sweat response when the negative scenes were presented. In contrast, the sleep deprivation group’s failure to keep unwanted thoughts out of mind meant that they did not experience this positive change in their responses.
“This study offers an important insight into the impact of sleep on mental health. Besides post-traumatic stress disorder and depression, our findings might have implications for our understanding of other disorders linked to sleep disturbances, such as obsessive-compulsive disorder and schizophrenia,” Senior author of the study, Dr Scott Cairney, from the Department of Psychology at the University of York, said.
“The study also suggests that the onset of intrusive thoughts and emotional disturbances following bouts of poor sleep could create a vicious cycle, whereby upsetting intrusions and emotional distress exacerbate sleep problems, inhibiting the sleep needed to support recovery,” added Cairney.

New Delhi, October 24,2020: Delhi’s air quality index (AQI) on Saturday deteriorated to the ‘severe’ category, which is likely to affect people’s health, according to the Delhi Pollution Control Committee data (DPCC).
The AQI in Alipur was at 432 while it stood at 427 and 409 in Mundka and Wazirpur, respectively.
According to experts, the severe category affects the health of people and seriously impacts those with existing diseases.
An AQI between 0-50 is marked good, 51-100 is satisfactory, 101-200 is moderate, 201-300 is poor, 301-400 is very poor and 401-500 is considered severe.
Amid the rise in pollution levels, people are having problems with breathing and some children have started facing throat problems due to contaminated air.

Recently, the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) submitted before the Delhi High Court that it has issued directions to implementing agencies including State Pollution Control Boards, construction agencies, municipal bodies, traffic police and transport department of Delhi and NCR for strict action against air polluting activities.
On Friday, a plea sought filed in Delhi High Court sought directions to the Delhi government and Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) to issue fresh orders and instructions at the earliest putting a strict ban on bursting firecrackers and burning of effigies to prevent further air pollution.

It also sought directions to the Department of Environment, Delhi Government, and the Union Ministry of Environment to come up with eco-friendly ways of celebrating Dusshera.

The petitioners urged the court to direct appropriate departments to take immediate and appropriate steps to ban burning of effigies and fire-crackers in Delhi on the festival of Dussehra in light of COVID 19 pandemic.

New Delhi, Oct 21,2020: With the onset of festival season, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday made an impassioned appeal to people to follow COVID-19 guidelines, saying this is not the time to be careless as the virus is still around and even a small negligence can dampen the festive spirit.

In his seventh address to the nation following the COVID-19 outbreak, Modi cited examples of the US and several European countries to note that the coronavirus cases there have seen a sudden and worrisome rise after witnessing a fall, as he cautioned citizens against any laxity until an effective cure is found.

He said pictures and videos have of late emerged showing that many people have either stopped following precautions like wearing masks or have become negligent.

“This is absolutely not right. Those who have become negligent and are moving around without masks are putting themselves and their families, including children and elderly, at risk,” he said in his televised speech.

He noted that people have been getting on with their lives after the lockdown was lifted while economic activities are picking up and crowds are slowly returning to markets in the festive times.

At one point in his speech, he folded his hands to impress upon people to take precautions like wearing masks, sanitising their hands and maintaining social distance and said he wants to see them safe and their families happy.
Modi invoked sages like Kabir and the holy scripture of Ramcharitmanas to make his point about not taking a disease lightly until it is fully overcome.

People should continue to be careful and not be callous until a vaccine is found, Modi said.

Countries across the world are working at a war-footing to develop a vaccine, and scientists in India have also been working hard in this regard.

The prime minister said the government is making all efforts to ensure that a vaccine, whenever it is launched, reaches every Indian.
Modi also highlighted India’s “success” in saving lives in the fight against the disease compared to resourceful countries like the US, Spain, Brazil and Britain.

While there are 25,000 COVID cases for one million population in countries like the US and Brazil, the corresponding figure in India is only 5,500. The number of fatalities in India is 83 for a million population against more than 600 in nations like the US, Brazil, Spain and Britain, he said.

India now has more than 90 lakh beds for COVID-19 patients, 12,000 quarantine centres, 2,000 labs for testing, the prime minister said, adding that the total number of tests will soon cross 10 crores.

Festivals are a time of happiness but even a small amount of negligence can dampen our spirits, he said.

While Navratra and Durga Puja festivities have already begun, festivals like Diwali and Chhath will be celebrated next month.

Modi also greeted people for various festivals, including Eid-Milad-un-Nabi and Guru Nanak’s birth anniversary.

The number of new coronavirus infections reported daily in India dropped below 50,000 for the first time in nearly three months, taking the COVID-19 caseload to 75,97,063 on Tuesday, according to the Union Health Ministry.

A total of 46,790 fresh infections were reported in a day, while the death toll climbed to 1,15,197 with 587 fatalities being registered in a span of 24 hours, the data updated showed.

The number of new fatalities reported daily across the country was recorded below 600 for the second consecutive day.

The total recoveries crossed 67 lakh while active cases of coronavirus infection remained below 8 lakh for the fourth consecutive day. A total 67,33,328 people have recuperated from the disease so far pushing the national recovery rate to 88.63 per cent while the case fatality rate due COVID-19 stands at 1.52 per cent.

LONDON Oct 26,2020: The COVID-19 vaccine being developed by the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca Plc produces a robust immune response in elderly people, the Financial Times said on Monday, citing early results.

A vaccine that works is seen as a game-changer in the battle against the novel coronavirus, which has killed more than 1.15 million people, hammered the global economy and shuttered normal life across the world.

The Oxford vaccine triggers protective antibodies and T-cells in older age groups, the FT said on.ft.com/3kxKyJI, citing two people familiar with the finding.

Immunogenicity blood tests carried out on a subset of older participants echo data released in July which showed the vaccine generated “robust immune responses” in a group of healthy adults aged between 18 and 55, the newspaper reported.

Oxford and AstraZeneca did not immediately respond to a request by Reuters for comment. Details of the finding are expected to be published shortly in a clinical journal, the FT said. It did not name the publication.

The FT cautioned that positive immunogenicity tests do not guarantee the vaccine will ultimately prove safe and effective in older people.

AstraZeneca, which is developing the vaccine with Oxford University researchers, is seen as a frontrunner in the race to produce a vaccine to protect against COVID-19.

The vaccine is expected to be one of the first from big pharma to secure regulatory approval, along with Pfizer and BioNTech’s candidate.

The vaccine is likely to provide protection for about a year, CEO Pascal Soriot said in June.

Called AZD1222 or ChAdOx1 nCoV-19, the vaccine was developed by Oxford University scientists and licensed to AstraZeneca in April, which took on the task of scaling trials and production.

The British drugmaker has signed several supply and manufacturing deals with companies and governments around the world as it gets closer to reporting early results of a late-stage clinical trial.

AstraZeneca resumed the U.S. trial of the experimental vaccine after approval by U.S. regulators, the company said on Friday.

Staff at a major London hospital trust have been told to be ready to receive the first batches of the vaccine being developed by the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca Plc, The Sun newspaper reported on Monday.

The Sun said the hospital, which was not identified, was told to prepare for the vaccine from the “week commencing the 2 November”.

PARIS/PRAGUE Oct 15,2020: France imposed curfews while other European nations are closing schools, cancelling surgeries and enlisting student medics as overwhelmed authorities face the nightmare scenario of a COVID-19 resurgence at the onset of winter.
With new cases hitting about 100,000 daily, Europe has by a wide margin overtaken the United States, where more than 51,000 COVID-19 infections are reported on average every day.

As cases in France climbed rapidly, President Emmanuel Macron announced night curfews for four weeks from Saturday in Paris and other major cities, affecting almost one-third of the country’s 67 million people.

Macron said in an interview on national television that the curfews were to halt temporarily “the parties, the moments of conviviality where there are 50 or 60 people, festive evenings because, unfortunately, these are vectors for the acceleration of the disease.”

“We’ll get through this if we stick together,” he said.

Most European governments eased lockdowns over the summer to start reviving economies already battered by the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic.

But the return of normal activity – from packed restaurants to new university terms – fuelled a sharp spike in cases all over the continent.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said that she and leaders of Germany’s 16 states agreed on Wednesday on tougher measures without detailing them. “We are already in a phase of exponential growth, the daily numbers show that,” she said.

Bars and pubs were among the first to shut or face earlier closing in the new lockdowns, but now the surging infection rates are also testing governments’ resolve to keep schools and non-COVID medical care going.

Even Pope Francis was subject to new coronavirus rules, staying put at a safe distance from well-wishers at his weekly audience on Wednesday.

In Lisbon, football fans were unsurprised after Portugal captain Cristiano Ronaldo tested positive for the virus, saying it simply showed everyone was at risk of getting infected.

The Czech Republic, with Europe’s worst rate per capita, has shifted schools to distance learning and plans to call up thousands of medical students. Hospitals are cutting non-urgent medical procedures to free up beds.

Poland is ramping up training for nurses and considering creating military field hospitals, Moscow is to move many students to online learning and Northern Ireland is closing schools for two weeks and restaurants for four.

Irish Prime Minister Micheal Martin described Northern Ireland’s rise in cases as “hugely worrying,” and the government increased restrictions in three counties on the border as well as almost all visits to homes across the country.

“We are on the brink of disaster,” immunologist Pawel Grzesiowski said in Poland, which reported a record 6,526 infections and 116 deaths on Wednesday.

Efforts to develop a vaccine hit snags in some areas, with Johnson & Johnson JNJ.N pausing its trial after an unexplained illness in a study participant. AstraZeneca’s AZN.L U.S. trial has remained on hold for more than a month.

Russia, which recorded a record daily increase in cases, has meanwhile granted regulatory approval to a second vaccine.
IMPOSSIBLE CHOICES

Germany, England and France have so far resisted pressure to close schools, but in Germany, politicians are debating whether to extend the Christmas-New Year school break to curb contagion.

The Netherlands returned to partial lockdown, closing bars and restaurants, but kept schools open.

European infections have been running at an average of almost 100,000 a day – about a third of the global total – forcing governments to tighten restrictions while attempting to avoid destroying livelihoods.

The United Kingdom, France, Russia and Spain accounted for more than half of Europe’s new cases in the week to Oct. 11, according to the World Health Organization.

In the United States, with the world’s highest number of confirmed infections, 22 states have so far in October set records for increases in new cases. But deaths are trending downward and have averaged 700 a day over the last week.
FIELD HOSPITALS

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson faces opposition calls for another national lockdown in England, but has so far resisted. Hospital admissions, however, are climbing and field hospitals constructed in the spring are once more being readied.

London faces tighter restrictions within days, the Financial Times reported.

In Spain, authorities in Catalonia ordered bars and restaurants to close for 15 days and limited the numbers of people allowed in shops.

In Belgium, with Europe’s second worst infection rate per capita, hospitals must now reserve a quarter of their beds for COVID-19 patients.

In Australia, one of the most successful countries in fighting the virus, clusters have emerged in the two most populous states, prompting New South Wales to delay relaxing some restrictions.

And new curbs have been imposed in Malaysia, where the royal palace postponed all meetings for two weeks.

London [UK], October 22,2020: People who consume a diet including flavanol-rich foods and drinks, including tea, apples and berries, could lead to lower blood pressure, according to the first study using objective measures of thousands of UK residents’ diet.
The findings, published in Scientific Reports, studied the diet of more than 25,000 people in Norfolk, UK and compared what they ate with their blood pressure. In contrast to most other studies investigating links between nutrition and health, the researchers did not rely on study participants reporting their diet but instead measured flavanol intake objectively using nutritional biomarkers – indicators of dietary intake, metabolism or nutritional status that are present in our blood.
The difference in blood pressure between those with the lowest 10% of flavanol intake and those with the highest 10% of intake was between 2 and 4 mmHg. This is comparable to meaningful changes in blood pressure observed in those following a Mediterranean diet or Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension (DASH) diet. Notably, the effect was more pronounced in participants with hypertension.
Professor Gunter Kuhnle, a nutritionist at the University of Reading who led the study said:
“Previous studies of large populations have always relied on self-reported data to draw conclusions, but this is the first epidemiological study of this scale to objectively investigate the association between a specific bioactive compound and health. We are delighted to see that in our study, there was also a meaningful and significant association between flavanol consumption and lower blood pressure.

“What this study gives us is an objective finding of the association between flavanols – found in tea and some fruits – and blood pressure. This research confirms the results from previous dietary intervention studies and shows that the same results can be achieved with a habitual diet rich in flavanols. In the British diet, the main sources are tea, cocoa, apples and berries.
“The methodology of the study is of equal importance. This is one of the largest ever studies to use nutritional biomarkers to investigate bioactive compounds. Using nutritional biomarkers to estimate intake of bioactive food compounds has long been seen as the gold standard for research, as it allows the intake to be measured objectively. The development, validation and application of the biomarker were only possible because of the long-term commitment of all collaborators. In contrast to self-reported dietary data, nutritional biomarkers can address the huge variability in food composition. We can therefore confidently attribute the associations we observed to flavanol intake.”
An international team from the University of Reading, Cambridge University, the University of California Davis, and Mars, Incorporated studied 25,618 participants from the European Prospective Investigation into Cancer (EPIC) Norfolk study and found that the biggest difference was observed in participants with the highest blood pressure. This suggests if the general public increased its flavanol intake, there could be an overall reduction in cardiovascular disease incidence.
Hagen Schroeter, Chief Science Officer at Mars Edge, said:
“This study adds key insights into a growing body of evidence supporting the benefits of dietary flavanols in health and nutrition. But, perhaps even more exciting was the opportunity to apply objective biomarkers of flavanol intake at a large scale. This enabled the team to avoid the significant limitations that come with past approaches which rely on estimating intake based on self-reported food consumption data and the shortcomings of current food composition databases.”

London,24,2020: The following is a roundup of some of the latest scientific studies on the novel coronavirus and efforts to find treatments and vaccines for COVID-19.
Wildfire smoke likely helped to spread COVID-19

Large wildfires may be linked to increases in COVID-19 cases and deaths in the San Francisco area, according to a paper in the European Review for Medical and Pharmacological Sciences. Researchers found that between March and September, increases in smoke particles, other wildfire pollutants and carbon monoxide levels corresponded to increases in daily COVID-19 diagnoses and total COVID-19 deaths. While correlation does not necessarily mean causality, coauthor Sultan Ayoub Meo of King Saud University in Saudi Arabia said air pollution provides a means for viruses to move around the environment. These tiny pollution particles, along with the microorganisms they carry, “can easily be inhaled deep into the lungs and cause infections,” Meo said. “Carbon monoxide is a highly toxic gas which can damage our lungs, resulting as a triggering factor for an increase in COVID-19 cases and deaths in the wildfire region,” he told Reuters.

Antiviral mouthwash could help curb coronavirus transmission.
Mouthwashes with antiviral ingredients could help decrease COVID-19 transmission by reducing viral loads in the mouths of infected patients when they cough, sneeze or speak, according to a paper in the Journal of Dental Research published on Thursday. Studies have found that rinses containing cetylpyridinium chloride or povidone-iodine can reduce the oral coronavirus load; other promising compounds include hydrogen peroxide, chlorhexidine, cyclodextrin, Citrox, and certain essential oils. Coauthor Dr. Florence Carrouel of University Claude Bernard Lyon in France told Reuters everyone should be using these mouthwashes because people can be infected and not realize it. While more studies are needed to determine appropriate regimens, she suggests using three doses of antiviral mouthwash the day before a meeting, and one dose the morning of the event. COVID-19 patients should be using mouthwash regularly for seven to 10 days.
Common-cold antibodies may hijack body’s COVID-19 response

A phenomenon called “antigenic sin” may explain why some COVID-19 patients become critically ill, researchers say. Because the new virus shares some features with coronaviruses that cause common colds, the body’s immune response can include antibodies that previously learned to recognize and attack those older viruses. This can in turn detract from the body’s ability to fight COVID-19, because the common cold antibodies do not reliably attack the new virus. In severely ill COVID-19 patients, the immune response directed at other coronaviruses is higher than in mildly ill patients, researchers reported on medRxiv ahead of peer review. This situation – when the body reacts to a new invader based on its “memory” of previous invaders – has been seen before and is called “original antigenic sin.” New vaccines must be able to prompt an immune response against this new virus, not merely boost immune responses toward common cold viruses, said coauthor Gijsbert van Nierop of Erasmus Medical Center in The Netherlands told Reuters.
Powerful bowel-disease drugs appear safe during pandemic

People with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) do not increase their risk for COVID-19 by taking immunosuppressive drugs to control their symptoms, according to a study of more than 5,300 patients with Crohn’s disease or ulcerative colitis published on Thursday in the medical journal Inflammatory Bowel Diseases. “After weighing other known risk factors for COVID-19, including age, race, and other medical issues, we found that immunosuppressive therapy was not associated with an increased risk of COVID-19,” coauthor Dr. Kristin Burke of Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School told Reuters. “Amongst the people with IBD that got COVID-19, we also found that use of immunosuppressive medications did not increase risk of getting severe disease, which we defined as disease requiring hospitalization, intensive care unit stay, or death.” As other studies have shown, however, older age and obesity were risk factors for severe COVID-19 in these patients, too.

MILAN/CHICAGO ,Oct,27,2020: The United States, Russia, France and many other countries are setting records for coronavirus infections as a tidal wave of cases washes over parts of the Northern Hemisphere, forcing some countries to impose new curbs.
The gloom weighed on global financial markets on Monday as surging infections clouded the economic outlook.

U.S. stocks had their worst day in four weeks over the double whammy of record coronavirus cases and political deadlock in negotiations to provide more economic aid.

Word that a vaccine being developed by the University of Oxford and AstraZeneca Plc produced immune responses in both elderly and young people offered some positive news as autumn turns to winter in northern countries and more people socialise indoors.

But British Health Secretary Matt Hancock cautioned that the vaccine would not be widely available until next year and said, “We’re not there yet”.

Any vaccine faces both scientific and public relations hurdles. Surveys have shown only about half of Americans would get a COVID-19 vaccination due to concerns about safety, effectiveness and the approval process.

In the United States, the number of hospitalized COVID-19 patients is at a two-month high, straining health care systems in some states.

U.S. President Donald Trump, facing a tough re-election battle on Nov. 3, lashed out again at reports that the coronavirus is surging.

He repeated his unfounded claim that COVID-19 cases are rising because there is more testing, an assertion not supported by data and one that has been rejected by health experts.
The number of new COVID-19 cases in the United States last week rose 24% while the number of tests performed rose 5.5%, according to a Reuters analysis.
‘LOCKDOWN LIGHT’

In Europe the picture was unrelentingly grim as a string of countries reported record increases, led by France, which posted more than 50,000 daily cases for the first time on Sunday, while the continent passed the threshold of 250,000 deaths.
France may even be experiencing 100,000 new infections a day, professor Jean-François Delfraissy, who heads a council that advises the government, told RTL radio.

Governments have been desperate to avoid the lockdowns which curbed the disease earlier in the year at the cost of shutting down their entire economies. But the steady rise in new cases has forced many in Europe to tighten curbs.

“We are facing very, very difficult months ahead,” German Chancellor Angela Merkel told a meeting of leaders from her Christian Democrat party, according to daily Bild.

She plans “lockdown light” that will focus on closing bars, restaurants and public events, the newspaper said.

The Spanish government faced a backlash over its plans to put one of Europe’s worst COVID-19 hot spots under a six-month state of emergency. Opposition parties said six months was too long, epidemiologists said this may be too little too late and some citizens balked at nightly curfews.

Russia’s daily tally of new COVID-19 infections surged to a record high of 17,347 on Monday as the Kremlin warned the pandemic was beginning to take a greater toll outside Moscow.

Russia in August became the first country to grant regulatory approval for a vaccine against COVID-19 after less than two months of human testing, raising eyebrows among sceptical scientists in the West. Regulators approved a second vaccine earlier this month.

With 1.5 million infections, the country of around 145 million people has recorded the world’s fourth largest COVID-19 case load – after the United States, India and Brazil.

Italy, the country worst hit in the early stages of the crisis in March, imposed new restrictions, ordering restaurants and bars to close from 6 p.m., shutting cinemas and gyms and imposing local curfews in several regions.

More than 43 million people are reported to have been infected by the coronavirus globally and 1.15 million have died, according to a Reuters tally. The United States has the highest number of deaths and infections.

Washington [US], October 28,2020: A team of researchers has shown that regularly consuming foods rich in omega-3 fatty acids, from both animal and vegetable origins, strengthens the membranes of the heart and helps improve the prognosis in the event of myocardial infarction.
The study was conducted by researchers from from the Germans Trias i Pujol Hospital and Research Institute (IGTP) and the Hospital del Mar Medical Research Institute (IMIM).
To arrive at these conclusions, they used data from 950 patients. The omega-3 levels in the blood of these individuals were determined when they were admitted to hospital to be treated for the heart attack. This measurement indicates, very accurately, how much of these fats the patients had eaten in the weeks prior to the sampling, in other words, before the heart attack.
The patients were monitored for three years after being discharged, and the researchers observed that having high levels of omega-3 in the blood at the time of the infarction, which had been consumed in the weeks leading up to the heart attack, was associated with a lower risk of complications.
The results of the study have just been published in the prestigious Journal of the American College of Cardiology.

Eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) is a type of omega-3 fatty acid found in oily fish. When we eat oily fish on a regular basis, EPA is incorporated into the phospholipids in the membranes of the cardiomyocytes, protecting them from a wide variety of heart stressors. This enrichment of the myocardial membranes limits the damage caused in the event of a heart attack.
The major novelty of this study is that it also focused on another omega-3 fatty acid, of vegetable origin, known as alpha-linolenic acid (ALA). This fat, which is found in walnuts as well as soybeans and their derivatives, is far less well studied than marine omega-3s.
The researchers observed that EPA and ALA do not compete, but are complementary to one another. While high levels of EPA are associated with a lower risk of hospital readmission from cardiovascular causes, higher levels of ALA are associated with a reduced risk of death.

Vancouver [Canada], October 29,2020: Loneliness and social isolation may increase the risk of high blood pressure and hypertension in women, suggested a study.
The research was undertaken by the researchers at the University of British Columbia and was recently published in the Journal of Hypertension.
The study has found that social isolation affects the health of men and women in different ways–including placing women at higher risk of high blood pressure.
It further discovered that middle-aged and older women who lacked social ties were much more likely than men to suffer from hypertension — a known risk factor for heart disease, which is the leading cause of death among women–and stroke.
“Among older adults, social isolation is the largest known risk factor for mortality, equal only to smoking,” said principal investigator Annalijn Conklin, assistant professor in the faculty of pharmaceutical sciences at UBC and researcher with the Centre for Health Evaluation and Outcome Sciences. “Less well known is how social isolation affects men and women differently, or how it affects biomarkers of longevity. Our research indicates that women, in particular, are more likely to be hypertensive when they experience isolation in middle and older age.”

Using data from the Canadian Longitudinal Study on Aging, these researchers analyzed the social ties of 28,238 adults aged 45 to 85, and found that women who were non-partnered, engaged in fewer than three social activities a month, or had a small social network (fewer than 85 contacts) had higher odds of hypertension. Average systolic blood pressure was highest among widowed, lone-living and socially inactive women, and the largest difference in blood pressure was between widowed and married women. Widowed women were found to have the strongest likelihood of hypertension across all categories.
Among men, the picture was quite different. Those who were single, shared a home with others, and had the largest social networks had the highest blood pressure, while those who had smaller networks and lived alone had lower blood pressure.
The researchers found that combinations of different social ties also mattered. Regular social participation appeared to have a protective effect among non-partnered women, suggesting that health care providers may want to screen for the number of monthly social activities, and include these alongside healthy diet and exercise when treating non-partnered older women.
“Among women, the increase in blood pressure that was associated with the lack of social ties was similar to that seen with non-steroidal anti-inflammatory use, increased sodium diets pollution or weight gain,” said Conklin. “This represents a significant women-specific risk factor for heart disease or stroke.”
Previous research by Conklin using the same data set found that women who were single, widowed, divorced or separated had higher odds of abdominal and general obesity, while men were less likely to be obese if they lived alone and had a smaller social network.
“Taken with our previous research, our new findings underline how social isolation affects health in men and women differently,” said Conklin. “At a time when COVID-19 is forcing us to limit our social interactions, it’s important for those working in health care and public health to encourage older women, in particular, to find new ways to be socially active.”
Zeinab Hosseini, the lead author who contributed to the work as a former postdoctoral fellow at UBC said more studies are needed on how exactly social connections impact cardiovascular risk factors. “Prospective and intervention studies can help us understand this as well as why the associations are different for women compared to men,” she said.

London, Oct 29,2020: Authorities in the UK confirmed on Thursday that nearly 100,000 people are getting infected by the coronavirus everyday, leading to an unprecedented rise in the number of COVID cases, in the second wave, even as experts warn that the UK is fast approaching the peak in infections seen in the spring.

The study, carried out by the Imperial College London, said that the pace of the epidemic is accelerating and estimates that the number of people infected is now doubling every nine days.

Unlike France and Germany the government in the UK is not going for a nationwide lockdown, but is sticking to its regional strategy.

The React-1 study is highly influential because it is the most up-to-date assessment of Covid-19 in the country, with the last swabs taken only on Sunday and nearly 86,000 volunteers taking part.

The study shows that cases are rising in every age group and in every region of England.

While the North currently leads in the number of cases, infections are surging more rapidly in the South now.

Oct 26,2020: All citizens of India will get free Covid-19 vaccine, Union Minister Pratap Sarangi has said.

Union Minister Pratap Sarangi on Sunday said all people of the country will be given free coronavirus vaccine, amidst the demand by the Opposition for a free vaccine for all and not only in poll-bound Bihar as announced by the BJP, news agency PTI reported.
After addressing a campaign meeting for the November 3 assembly by-poll in Balasore, Union Minister Pratap Sarangi said an estimated Rs 500 odd will be spent on vaccination of each person. Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced that all people will be provided free of cost vaccines.

PM Modi, in a televised address to the nation on October 20, had said Indian scientists are in the process of developing several vaccines that are at different stages of clinical trials and the results seem encouraging.

Sarangi, the Union Minister of State for Animal Husbandry, Dairy, Fisheries and Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises made the remark in reply to question raised by Odisha Food Supplies and Consumer Welfare Minister, R P Swain, the PTI report added.

The BJP announcement of free coronavirus vaccine for Bihar, where assembly polls begin this week, had kicked up a controversy with the opposition parties tearing into the NDA government alleging that the ruling party was using the pandemic for political reasons.

Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman had said the announcement was in order as it was an election manifesto announcement.

The governments of Tamil Nadu, Madhya Pradesh, Assam and Puduchchery have already announced free of cost Covid vaccines for the people of their states, while Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal has demanded free vaccine for all citizens across the country.

Brasilia, Oct 21,2020: The Brazilian government said on Wednesday that they plan to use a Chinese-made coronavirus vaccine as part of its nationwide immunisation programme against the virus.

This was confirmed by São Paulo Governor João Doria who said that the federal government has agreed to buy some 46 million doses of the vaccine CoronaVac, a BBC report said.

He further said that the immunisation programme would be the first of its kind in the world against COVID-19 and could begin as early as January 2021.

Brazil has been third worst affected country in the world from the coronavirus pandemic in terms of number o cases, after the United States and India.

The country has so far recorded nearly 5.3 million confirmed cases, and is second only to the US in terms of deaths, with nearly 155,000 registered so far.

If the drug is approved by the country’s health regulator, CoronaVac – which is being developed by the Chinese company Sinovac Biotech – will be one of two vaccines included in Brazil’s immunisation programme.

The other vaccine is the one being created by England’s Oxford University and the drug giant AstraZeneca.

Mr Doria has previously touted Sinovac’s experimental vaccine, announcing plans to use it to inoculate residents of São Paulo.

The Chinese vaccine is being tested by São Paulo state’s research centre Butantan Institute.

The institute announced on Monday that the two-dose vaccine appeared to be safe in a late-stage clinical trial.

However, it warned the result was only preliminary, with testing still ongoing. It said data on how effective the vaccine is will not be released till the trial is over.