Category Archives: Medical research

Why do Covid fatalities remain low when infection numbers are rising?

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While some scientists believe the virus has become less deadly, others look at the factors that suggest otherwise

Are Covid-19 death rates decreasing?
Most statistics indicate that although cases of Covid-19 are rising in many parts of Europe and the United States, the number of deaths and cases of severe complications remain relatively low. For example, patients on ventilators have dropped from 3,000 at the epidemic’s peak in Britain to 70. At the same time, the number of cases in the UK have begun to rise in many areas.

Why lies behind this trend?
Doctors are unsure exactly what is going on. Some suggest that medical interventions are more successful at treating those who suffer complications from the disease. For example, the drug dexamethasone was recently shown to improve survival rates among patients requiring ventilation. Others argue that different factors are involved. One suggestion is that Covid-19 is now becoming a disease of younger people who are less likely to die or suffer serious complications.

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UK coronavirus: top GCSE grades surge to record high in England – live news

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Nearly 550,000 pupils in England receive GCSE results awarded entirely by assessment for first time, but BTec students face further disruption

My colleagues Pamela Duncan and Tobi Thomas from the Guardian’s data unit report discrepancies in today’s GCSE results:

A rising tide lifts all boats and this year’s algorithm-to-teacher-graded-U-turn has resulted in an increase in top grades across every subject. However, some subjects’ boats were lifted higher than others.

After all the uncertainty of the exams fiasco, head teachers across the country are celebrating their pupils’ GCSE success, but they say recent experiences have damaged relations with the Department for Education (DfE).

Jules White, head teacher of Tanbridge House secondary school in Horsham, West Sussex and leader of the Worth Less? education funding campaign, was with pupils this morning, watching with delight as they found out their grades.

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UK coronavirus: Gavin Williamson apologises over ‘inconsistencies’ in exam grading process – live news

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Exams regulator Ofqual announces all A-levels and GCSEs in England will now be graded according to teacher assessment following similar moves in Wales, NI and Scotland

One of the groups that had been planning to take the UK government to court over exam grades has said it is dropping its legal action, following the U-turn. Jo Maugham QC, the director of the Good Law Project, tweeted:

Statement on Government A Level U-turn pic.twitter.com/wEWYElgCil

Mary Curnock Cook, the former chief executive of Ucas, said the government must announce immediately that the cap on university admissions will be lifted to accommodate the new grading system.

Many universities will have already filled their courses based on the grades published last Thursday. Speaking on BBC News, she said:

Decisions have already been made by universities about who they accept, who they don’t accept, who goes into clearing and so on. This change will mean that universities have to rethink completely.

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Sweden’s Covid-19 strategist under fire over herd immunity emails

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Anders Tegnell appears to have asked if higher death rate among older people acceptable if faster herd immunity achieved

Sweden’s light-touch approach to Covid-19 has come under renewed criticism after emails show the country’s chief epidemiologist appearing to ask whether a higher death rate among older people might be acceptable if it led to faster herd immunity.

Speculation about the views of Sweden’s leading public health officials was further fanned after it also emerged that Anders Tegnell, the architect of the country’s no-lockdown strategy, had deleted some of his emails.

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Covid vaccine tracker: when will we have a coronavirus vaccine?

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More than 170 teams of researchers are racing to develop a safe and effective vaccine. Here is their progress

Researchers around the world are racing to develop a vaccine against Covid-19, with more than 170 candidate vaccines now tracked by the World Health Organization (WHO).

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Coronavirus live news: British holidaymakers arrive home with minutes to spare before quarantine as Denmark makes face masks compulsory

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Australian death toll stands at 379; France removed from UK travel corridor; Greece and Croatia impose midnight curfew on bars and restaurants

Related: For Manhattan's retail industry normal may never return

It should have been a great year for Spanish wine: a bumper crop of grapes resulting in millions and millions of extra bottles for sipping or swilling at home and abroad.

But with Covid-19 leading to a catastrophic drop in wine sales, the Spanish government is offering growers subsidies to destroy part of this year’s record grape harvest.

Related: Spain’s vineyards destroy record harvest as wine sales crash

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Flu and Covid: winter could bring ‘double-barrel’ outbreak to US, experts say

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But the same measures that fight coronavirus are effective against the flu – and vaccines offer another weapon against it

Public health experts, researchers and manufacturers warn the coming flu season could bring a “double-barrel” respiratory disease outbreak in the United States, just as fall and winter are expected to exacerbate spread of Covid-19.

At the same time, researchers said the strategies currently used to prevent Covid-19 transmission – namely, hand-washing, mask-wearing and social distancing – could also help lessen flu outbreaks, if Americans are willing to practice them.

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Russia says suggestion its coronavirus vaccine may be unsafe is ‘groundless’ – video

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Russia said on Wednesday the first batch of its Sputnik V Covid-19 vaccine would be ready within two weeks and rejected safety concerns over its rapid approval as 'groundless'. The health minister, Mikhail Murashko, said the vaccine, developed by the Gamaleya Institute, would be administered on a voluntary basis. The vaccine has not yet completed its final trials. Only about 10% of clinical trials are successful and some scientists fear Moscow may be putting national prestige before safety

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Covid live news: Lebanon hits record daily cases after blast; Russian vaccine must follow safety procedure, says WHO

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Coronavirus updates: New Zealand records first new local cases in 102 days; global deaths likely to pass 750,000 this week, says WHO

As we reported earlier, the Dutch health minister said he plans to introduce mandatory home quarantine for people identified by local authorities as having been in close contact with somebody infected with coronavirus, and for travellers returning from high-risk countries.

Health minister Hugo de Jonge said in a letter to lawmakers that mandatory quarantine could be imposed if people refuse to isolate voluntarily.

Germany has extended a partial travel warning for Spain to the capital of Madrid and the Basque region due to the Covid-19 pandemic, the foreign ministry said on Tuesday.

The foreign ministry said it was warning against any unnecessary tourist trips to both regions because of a rising number of new infections and local restrictions put in place to contain the spread of coronavirus.

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Russia’s coronavirus vaccine: will it work, and is it safe?

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Sputnik V’s development has been marked by worrying opacity and ethical issues

The race to find a vaccine against Covid-19 has not always been particularly edifying, driven at times by so-called “vaccine nationalism”, much cautioned against by the World Health Organization, which has itself been accused of being invested as much in self-interest and prestige as global public health.

Russia’s announcement that it has registered its Sputnik V vaccine as safe and effective for mass production and inoculation even before so-called phase 3 large-scale safety trials, which usually take months, fits the pattern.

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Study links cannabis use during pregnancy to autism risk

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Research suggests 50% greater risk for children whose mothers report using cannabis

Children born to mothers who report using cannabis during pregnancy have about a 50% greater risk of developing autism, research suggests.

While the team behind the work said more research was needed to unpick whether cannabis itself was behind the link, they said the results were concerning.

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What we are learning about Covid-19 and kids

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As schools around the world prepare to reopen, new scientific evidence about children and coronavirus is coming to light

Back in April, the French epidemiologist Arnaud Fontanet found himself leading an investigation in the town of Crépy-en-Valois, a small community of 15,000 inhabitants just to the north-east of Paris. In February, the town’s middle and high schools had become the centre of a new outbreak of Covid-19.

Fontanet and colleagues from the Pasteur Institute in Paris were tasked with conducting antibody testing across Crépy-en-Valois to understand the extent to which the virus had been circulating. As they surveyed the town, they noted an interesting pattern. While the virus had spread rampantly through the high school, with 38% of students being infected, along with 43% of teachers and 59% of non-teaching staff, the same was not true for the town’s six primary schools. While three primary-age pupils had caught Covid-19 in early February, none of these infections had led to a secondary case. Overall, just 9% of primary age pupils, 7% of teachers and 4% of non-teaching staff had been infected with the virus.

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‘The virus piggybacked on racism’: why did Covid-19 hit BAME families so hard?

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Ida lost two brothers in 10 days, and Ken’s teenage sweetheart died at 44. Now, they’re looking for answers

Sir Oyaseh Ivowi sits in front of a poster of two of his three boys. Olume, the older brother, hovers over Isi; both wear traditional Nigerian dress. Underneath are the words: “Gone too soon, but not forgotten. Olume Godfrey Ivowi, 7 November 1973 to 10 April 2020. Isi Benjamin Emitsemu Ivowi, 17 November 1985 to 19 April 2020.”

Olume, 46, and Isi, 34, died in Luton and Milton Keynes respectively. Their passing made headlines because it was so shocking: two brothers killed by Covid-19 in such a short space of time. A third brother, Osi, also caught the virus, but has recovered.

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Coronavirus live news: UK recalls home tests over safety concerns as Indian health workers strike

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Ten of thousands demand better pay and protection as cases rise in the Philippines, Greece and Italy

Hi, it’s Aaron Walawalkar here in London, picking up the blog from my colleague Damien Gayle.

Please get in touch with any suggestions for coverage, or comments by DM on Twitter @AaronWala or by email at aaron.walawalkar@theguardian.com.

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‘Wishful thinking’: the dangers of UK hype during Covid-19

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From the UK government over-promising on testing to scientific spin on a vaccine, realism is in short supply

They were billed by the UK health secretary, Matt Hancock, as “lifesaving” and “hugely beneficial”: two new coronavirus tests that claim to deliver results within 90 minutes, promoted enthusiastically to the public with the help of front pages in the Times, the i and the Daily Mail, which declared they would “transform the war on corona”.

The suppliers are little known, evaluation data is not yet available, and it is unclear how effective the tests are outside hospital settings, not least because taking blood or swabs is difficult for non-medics.

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Revealed: UK’s rapid Covid test not yet approved by regulators

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Exclusive: no data on accuracy of this and other test bought by government has been published

One of two 90-minute rapid coronavirus tests bought by the UK government and announced on Monday has yet to be approved by regulators, while no data on the accuracy of either has been published, the Guardian has learned.

The test, from Oxford Nanopore, a young biotech company spun off from Oxford University, has not yet gained a CE mark. Before Covid-19, Oxford Nanopore had been involved only in research, not tests for patients.

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‘We’re still so tired’: Europe’s doctors brace for second Covid-19 wave

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When the Guardian spoke to staff in March they had no time for reflection. So what do they think of the new surge now?

During the initial peak of Spain’s Covid-19 pandemic in the spring, the virus displayed an unexpected mercy. In its spread, ferocity and awful novelty, it left health workers too tired and overwhelmed to look beyond the next few hours.

“There’s no time to get angry or to wonder why things have been organised the way they have been,” Sara Gayoso, an A&E doctor at El Escorial hospital near Madrid, told the Guardian at the end of March.

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Covid-19 may spread more easily in schools than thought, report warns

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US health body highlights risks of reopening after outbreaks in state of Georgia and in Israel

Coronavirus may be more easily transmitted in school and summer camp settings than previously understood, after the emergence of new details of outbreaks in the US state of Georgia and in Israel that have underscored the risks of school reopenings.

A report by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) into an outbreak at a summer camp in Georgia suggests children – even asymptomatic cases – may play an important role in community transmission of Covid-19.

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‘Disgusting’ study rating attractiveness of women with endometriosis retracted by medical journal

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Fertility and Sterility took seven years to take down Italian study, which was criticised by doctors for ethical concerns and dubious justifications

A widely criticised peer-reviewed study that measured the attractiveness of women with endometriosis has been retracted from the medical journal Fertility and Sterility.

The study, Attractiveness of women with rectovaginal endometriosis: a case-control study, was first published in 2013 and has been defended by the authors and the journal in the intervening years despite heavy criticism from doctors, other researchers and people with endometriosis for its ethical concerns and dubious justifications, with one advocate calling the study “heartbreaking” and “disgusting”.

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Cramped workplaces, parties … the factors fuelling local Covid-19 spikes

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What have resurgences around the world taught us about how local clusters emerge?

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    • It is not always possible to pinpoint the origin of a local spike in cases, particularly in countries like the UK, where the disease is still circulating at relatively significant levels.

    But in countries where overall caseloads are lower, and with rigorous test-and-trace schemes, it has been possible to pinpoint the factors that have sparked or fuelled local outbreaks.

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