The first reported case involving the new virus was recorded in Japan in 2019. At that time, a 41-year-old man was admitted to hospital with fever and leg pain after suffering a tick bite during a stroll through a forest on the Japanese island of Hokkaido. The man, who was …
Read More »Japan planned to withhold public announcement of ‘highly infectious’ Lambda Covid variant until after the Tokyo Olympics – media
On July 20, the country’s National Institute of Infectious Diseases (NIID) reported the discovery to international virus database GISAID. But an unnamed researcher from the institute, the news outlet writes, claimed that it was decided to withhold releasing this information to the public – until after the Games. While the …
Read More »Hammered by infectious new Delta variant, Russia is now finding it has to get deadly serious about Covid-19 vaccine reluctance
For months, the country had seen the official tally of Covid-19 cases decline from its all-time peak in December and plateau at around 7,000 a day. Bars, shops, restaurants, food halls and even night clubs reopened in much of the country, while the rest of Europe was bouncing in and …
Read More »‘Aggressive measures needed’: India discovers 240 new, possibly more infectious Covid-19 strains
The new Covid-19 strains are likely behind the sudden spike of new cases in several Indian states, including Maharashtra – the second most populous state housing the city of Mumbai – a member of the regional Covid-19 task force, Shahshank Joshi, told NDTV. He added that a total of around …
Read More »Mutations have made coronavirus EIGHT times more infectious than original Wuhan variant – study
The new research into the D614G mutation on the spike protein in SARS-CoV-2, present in all the latest variants currently plaguing healthcare systems the world over, was led by researchers at New York University, the New York Genome Center, and Mount Sinai. “Confirming that the mutation leads to more transmissibility …
Read More »EU countries shutting down travel to and from UK amid new highly infectious Covid-19 strain scare
The string of travel bans announced on Sunday was started by Belgium. Its restrictions come into force at midnight and will affect air travel and Eurostar trains, which connect the country to the UK via France, Prime Minister Alexander De Croo said in an interview. The restriction will remain in …
Read More »‘No evidence’ that asymptomatic Covid-19 cases were infectious, analysis of post-lockdown Wuhan concludes
The analysis, published in the scientific journal Nature, looked at the results of a screening initiative held between May and June in Wuhan, the city where the first cases of the novel coronavirus were detected in late 2019. The origins of the virus have yet to be determined, with new …
Read More »Mutation that made coronavirus so infectious may also be Achilles heel for vaccines to target – study
One of the latest strains of coronavirus, and currently the most common in the world, is called D614G. Through tests on hamsters, researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the University of Wisconsin-Madison have discovered that this particular strain replicates faster and spreads more easily than …
Read More »Scientists discover ‘grappling hook’ which makes coronavirus so much more infectious than its SARS predecessor
Much like the original SARS, SARS-CoV-2 uses the ACE2 receptor to access our cells and spread rapidly throughout our respiratory systems and beyond. “The starting point of our study was the question why SARS-CoV, a coronavirus that led to a much smaller outbreak in 2003, and SARS-CoV-2, spread in such …
Read More »The real state of the Russian infectious disease hospitals.
So, friends — today will be a very interesting continuation of my post about the real state of Russian hospitals. As you regular readers of my blog — I recently posted a selection of photos of the real hospitals in Russia with a description of their condition. In comments to …
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