Category Archives: Society

An oral history of Oxford/AstraZeneca: ‘Making a vaccine in a year is like landing a human on the moon’

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It has shipped more than a billion doses, saved countless lives – and faced controversy over its safety and supply. Here, some of those who created the vaccine tell the story of their epic race against the virus

In December 2019, hospitals in Wuhan, China, reported that they were dealing with dozens of cases of pneumonia of an unknown cause. They soon identified the disease as being caused by a novel coronavirus.

Teresa Lambe, associate professor, Jenner Institute My brother lived in China, so whenever there was an emerging or break pathogen there, I used to follow it. I remember thinking very early on that this was probably another influenza strain.

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Boy, 12, makes £290,000 in non-fungible tokens with digital whale art

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Benyamin Ahmed’s Weird Whales sell in cryptocurrency and ownership is stored on blockchain

A 12-year-old boy had made about £290,000 after creating digital pictures of whales and selling tokens of their ownership which are stored on blockchain.

Benyamin Ahmed’s collection of pixelated artworks called Weird Whales went viral during the school holidays. His success may be a harbinger of the digital business models that could disrupt the banking sector.

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‘They don’t come for us’: Haitians face agonising wait for help after quake

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People in need of water, food and shelter are fending for themselves as aid response complicated by heavy rain, gangs and distrust of international agencies

On the morning a catastrophic earthquake struck southern Haiti, Jackson Mason, a barber, was picking up water and other shopping from Cavaillon’s bustling market.

“The earth below me started to shake – people were thrown into the air, others yelled, praying to Jesus to save them,” Mason, 35, says. “Everything flew in the air, even the wallets in people’s hands.”

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Air pollution linked to more severe mental illness – study

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Exclusive: research finds small rise in exposure to air pollution leads to higher risk of needing treatment

Exposure to air pollution is linked to an increased severity of mental illness, according to the most comprehensive study of its kind.

The research, involving 13,000 people in London, found that a relatively small increase in exposure to nitrogen dioxide led to a 32% increase in the risk of needing community-based treatment and an 18% increase in the risk of being admitted to hospital.

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NHS planning Covid vaccines for children from age 12, reports say

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UK health officials say no decision has been made yet as new school year in England looms

NHS England has been told to prepare to administer Covid vaccinations to all children aged 12 and above, as vaccine advisers continue to consider whether to extend the programme, according to reports.

The planned extension to the vaccination programme would coincide with the start of the new school year. NHS trusts have been told to have plans prepared by 4pm on Friday, the Daily Telegraph reported.

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Does Covid immunity wane and will vaccine booster jabs be needed?

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Multiple studies seem to suggest immunity declines over time, though what this means is unclear

With plans for the UK’s Covid vaccine booster programme this autumn soon to be revealed, we take a look at what we do – and don’t – know about waning immunity after vaccination.

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‘I’m one of them’: the FGM survivor providing a lifeline in Leeds

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Stigma can stop women seeking help but Hawa Bah, who was cut at eight, reaches those suffering in silence to get them the care they need


One night 14 years ago, Hawa Bah crept out of her house in Guinea and slipped into the darkness. She says she had lost count but it may have been her 14th or 15th escape attempt from an abusive marriage she was forced into with a man 37 years her senior.

Bah made her way through a maze of streets to the meeting point where a car was waiting with two strangers inside. When they took her to the airport, Bah felt her heart beating through her chest. She had not realised until then that she would be leaving her country. Aged 17, she had no belongings and no idea where she was going.

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Lucy Dawson: the model who got a mystery headache, a misdiagnosis – and a new mission in life

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When she began experiencing head pain as a student, Dawson was diagnosed with a breakdown and sectioned. She actually had encephalitis. Five years on, now paralysed in one leg, she is speaking out for disability rights

Lucy Dawson was skating through life. Everything came so easily to her: she had friends, confidence, academic success. At the age of 20, she was studying criminology at the University of Leicester, determined to join the police. Then, in the summer of 2016, she got a terrible headache that refused to go away.

The headache was to change Dawson’s life. It took almost four months for her to be diagnosed with autoimmune encephalitis, an acute inflammation of the brain that leaves many people with permanent brain damage and has a mortality rate of about one in 10. She was showing classic symptoms of encephalitis from the off (confusion, personality change, hallucinations and the headaches) which should have been spotted within a couple of days.

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Dangerous weight loss products for sale online with no health warnings

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Which? finds substances that can cause heart problems being sold on eBay, Wish and AliExpress

“Dangerous” weight loss products containing substances that can induce a stroke or heart attack are being sold on websites such as eBay without any health warnings, an investigation has found.

The consumer group Which? found dozens of products on sale online containing plant extracts that can make users agitated or aggressive and increase their heart rate and blood pressure.

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Number of young smokers rose by a quarter in first lockdown, England study shows

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Stress of pandemic could be behind increase in people aged 18-34, but number who quit habit also rose

The number of young adults who smoke in England rose by about a quarter in the first lockdown, research has suggested.

Nevertheless, the number of people who stopped smoking altogether increased, with the number across all age groups almost doubling during the first national lockdown when compared with the period immediately prior, researchers from University College London (UCL) and the University of Sheffield said.

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Jeanie Finlay: ‘I don’t film alpha males. They don’t need more exposure’

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She spent a year in her room as a teenager, and now makes heart-wrenching documentaries about people looking for safe spaces in record shops, on goth cruises – and even on the set of Game of Thrones

There are many wonderful moments in the films of Jeanie Finlay but my current favourite is in Seahorse, her intimate and profoundly moving 2019 documentary about the struggles of transgender man Freddy McConnell to conceive and give birth to his own child. The scene takes place during a party at Freddy’s mum’s house as a room full of family friends, all women, talk to Freddy about the clothes he’ll wear during pregnancy.

Related: ‘It’s so normalised you think it’s part of your job’: the woman who lifted the lid on harassment in TV

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UK scientists look at reducing boosters to save vaccine for rest of the world

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JCVI considers lower third jab dosage to release stocks for poorer nations

Scientists in Britain are examining whether smaller doses of Covid vaccine could be used as part of booster programmes, amid hopes that the approach could also increase the supply of jabs across the world.

The use of so-called “fractional doses” has been proposed as a way of ensuring that precious supplies can immunise as many people as possible in parts of the world where there are shortages, while still providing high levels of protection from the virus.

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The Wuhan lab leak theory is more about politics than science

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Whatever this week’s Biden review finds, the cause of the pandemic lies in the destruction of animal habitats

If Joe Biden’s security staff are up to the mark, a new report on the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic will be placed on the president’s desk this week. His team was given 90 days in May to review the virus’s origins after several US scientists indicated they were no longer certain about the source of Sars-CoV-2.

It will be intriguing to learn how Biden’s team answers the critically important questions that still surround the origins of Sars-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19. Did it emerge because of natural viral spillovers from bats to another animal and then into humans? Or did it leak from the Wuhan Institute of Virology? And, if so, had it been enhanced to make it especially virulent?

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Raging Delta variant takes its toll as Philippines runs out of nurses

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Bad pay and conditions at home and demand for Filipino nursing skills overseas have left the country with a soaring death rate

The Covid Delta variant has swept across south-east Asia over recent months, prompting lockdowns and overwhelming hospitals – from Malaysia to Thailand and Indonesia. Now the impact is being felt in the Philippines, just as the country’s chronic lack of health workers reaches a crisis point.

“The disease has become very aggressive,” said Michael Bilan, who works on a Covid ward in Manila. This time, patients tend to require a higher amount of oxygen, for longer, he said. The number of Covid patients is also at a record high: last week, 277 were receiving treatment. New wards have been opened to meet demand.

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No icy lager, no sundowners: could you handle a sober holiday?

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For many of us, a getaway means sun, sea, sand and… alcohol. But what if you drink so much at home that a break is a chance to go booze-free?

A couple of years ago, before a two-week holiday to the Algarve, I decided I wouldn’t drink. I thought it would be difficult. There would be no more vinho verde to wash down a charcoal-grilled bream. It would be adeus to the icy Sagres lager that goes so perfectly with those fat, yellow Portuguese chips. Aside from the gustatory pleasures, I worried about being the sober one. Drinking is part of the routine of the British holiday. If I didn’t participate, it might endanger everyone else’s fun, too.

Besides, it was part of my “personal brand”. It wasn’t that I was an alcoholic, but I did think that being gregarious, and generally up for a good time and a pint in the sun, was part of the reason people wanted to go on holiday with me. At 32, I worried that I risked projecting Big Midlife Crisis Energy years before my time.

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Disinfection robots and thermal body cameras: welcome to the Covid-free office

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A workplace in Bucharest filled with anti-virus innovations could become the new normal in office design, its creators hope

Not so long ago it may have seemed more like a futuristic vision of the workplace – or a hospital.

But the hands-free door handles, self-cleaning surfaces, antimicrobial paint, air-monitoring display tools, UV light disinfection robots, and 135 other measures at an office block in Bucharest are here to stay, say the creators behind what they are touting as one of the world’s most virus-resilient workplaces, which they hope will become the new normal in office design.

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9,000 Covid cases linked to Euro 2020 games in mass events scheme

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Study paper says England’s progress to final ‘generated a significant risk to public health across the UK’

More than 9,000 Covid infections were linked to Euro 2020 football games monitored for the government’s mass events test scheme, and scientists have said the tournament generated “a significant risk to public health”.

An analysis of the third and final stage of the research programme, released on Friday, found that more than 85% of all the infections connected to the 49 days of various outdoor sport, music and entertainment events came from the eight Euros games involved, and mainly the semi-final and final.

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Zimbabwean man charged with rape after girl, 15, dies giving birth

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Death has caused outrage in country where one in three girls are likely to be married by 18, despite ban

Zimbabwean police have charged a man after a 15-year-old girl died while giving birth at a church shrine last month.

Hatirarami Momberume, 26, has been charged with raping Anna Machaya, whose death provoked outrage in the country and was condemned by the UN.

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UK regulator approves ‘first of its kind’ Covid antibody treatment

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Sajid Javid says green light for Ronapreve – which was used to treat Donald Trump – is ‘fantastic news’

The antibody cocktail used to treat Donald Trump for Covid has been approved by the UK’s medicines regulator, becoming the first treatment in Britain using artificial antibodies to tackle the virus.

The drug, developed by the US biotech company Regeneron, has received the backing of the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA). Clinical trials showed it helped to prevent Covid infection as well as to reduce the risk of hospitalisation or symptoms in severe cases, when given soon after exposure.

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Brazil’s first transgender pastor: ‘All humans have flaws, being trans isn’t one of them’

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In a country with shocking brutality against LGBTQ+ people, Alexya Salvador is using her faith to help others like her

Desperate calls from LGBTQ+ youths contemplating suicide or from their parents after they have made an attempt on their lives often punctuate Alexya Salvador’s day. When they do, she drops everything to talk.

As a transgender woman, she recognises the anguish in their voices. “I feel their pain in my body because I went through this,” she says. “My family went through this.”

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