Category Archives: Science

Coronavirus live news: Iran fears fifth wave due to Delta variant; keep some restrictions in England after 19 July, doctors urge

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BMA chair says easing restrictions not an ‘all or nothing decision’; Indonesia locks down Bali and Java in effort to curb surging infections

The UK government has confirmed that proposals to end the requirement to self-isolate for those who have received two doses of a coronavirus vaccine are under “consideration”.

Downing Street said it was looking at whether to drop all legal self-isolation measures for fully vaccinated people who come into contact with someone who is infected “as part of the post-Step 4 world”.

Hundreds of healthcare workers in Italy have launched a legal bid against the requirement that they get the Covid-19 vaccination, according to media reports.

The case, brought by professionals throughout northern Italy, will be heard on 14 July.

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‘Real’ T rex goes on show in England for first time in over a century

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The skeleton of Titus, discovered in the US in 2018, makes its world debut at Nottingham museum

The first ‘real’ Tyrannosaurus rex to be exhibited in England for more than a century will go on show in Nottingham on Sunday.

The skeleton of Titus, discovered in the US state of Montana in 2018, will make its world debut at the Wollaton Hall Natural History Museum as part of a new exhibition on the dinosaur’s life and environment.

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Thailand reports record Covid-19 cases as concerns mount about vaccine shortages

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Health authorities reported more than 6,200 new Covid-19 cases on Saturday, setting a record for a third straight day

Health authorities in Thailand reported more than 6,200 new Covid-19 cases on Saturday, setting a record for a third straight day, as concerns mounted over shortages of treatment facilities and vaccine supplies.

Officials also reported 41 deaths, bringing the total to 2,181.

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Richard Branson aims to beat Jeff Bezos into space by nine days

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Virgin Galactic founder has announced he will take off on board the next test flight on 11 July

Virgin Galactic’s Richard Branson is aiming to beat fellow billionaire Jeff Bezos into space by nine days.

Branson’s company announced on Thursday evening that its next test flight will take place on 11 July and that its founder will be among the six people on board. All other passengers are company employees. It will be only the fourth trip to space for Virgin Galactic.

The winged rocket ship – the first carrying a full crew – will launch from New Mexico after the US Federal Aviation Administration gave Virgin permission to take paying customers to space in late June, after a successful test flight in May.

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Australia ‘at back of the queue’ for Pfizer Covid vaccines, minister admits

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Bulk of Pfizer and other mRNA vaccines expected to arrive in third quarter of this year, despite widespread lockdowns

Australia’s finance minister has said the country is at the “back of the queue” for Pfizer vaccines, contradicting assurances from the prime minister Scott Morrison and the health minister that “our strategy puts Australia at the front of the queue”.

Simon Birmingham on Thursday said Australia has had supply challenges “because European countries and drug companies have favoured those nations who’ve had high rates of Covid for the delivery of vaccines like Pfizer”.

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Scientists urge UK to expand official list of Covid symptoms

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UK’s narrow clinical definition only includes high fever, continuous cough, or loss of smell and taste

Senior scientists have called for the UK to expand its official list of Covid symptoms to reduce the number of missed cases and ensure more people know they should self-isolate.

The researchers, who include Prof Calum Semple, a member of the government’s Sage committee of experts, argue the UK’s narrow clinical definition of Covid leads to delays in identifying people with the disease and may miss them altogether, hampering efforts to disrupt the spread of the virus.

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Covid: Sage scientist fears England could repeat ‘mistakes of last summer’

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Prof Stephen Reicher says restrictions may have to be reimposed if reopening leads to surge in infections

A scientific adviser to the government’s Covid-19 response has expressed fears England could be in danger of repeating “the mistakes of last summer”.

Prof Stephen Reicher, from the University of St Andrews and a member of the Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) subcommittee on behavioural science, said the government may have to reimpose restrictions if the reopening leads to a surge in infections.

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‘I felt betrayed’: how Covid research could help patients living with chronic fatigue syndrome

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People with ME/CFS face debilitating symptoms but often feel dismissed by doctors. The focus on long Covid could help change that

In the fall of 2016, Ashanti Daniel, a nurse in Beverly Hills, California, went to an infectious disease physician looking for answers about a weird illness she couldn’t shake. After falling sick with a virus four months earlier, she still felt too tired to stand up in the shower.

The appointment lasted five minutes, she said. The doctor didn’t do a physical exam or check her vitals. His assessment: her illness was psychogenic, resulting from something psychological.

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Coastguard seizes half a tonne of cocaine floating off Algeria coast

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Fishermen alerted authorities to ‘suspicious’ items floating in the sea

The Algerian coastguard has seized almost half a tonne of cocaine after fishers alerted authorities to “suspicious” items floating off the north-west coast.

The coastguard fished out 490kg (1,080 pounds) of cocaine split up into 442 packages from the water six nautical miles (11 kilometres) off Oran’s Cap Carbon on Saturday evening, a defence ministry statement said on Monday.

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Now is not the time to abandon all Covid caution

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Analysis: scientists say the Delta variant should make the government think twice about resting all its hopes on vaccines

If the new health secretary is to be believed, we are about to embark on an “exciting new journey” come 19 July. Sajid Javid, like the prime minister, appears confident that restrictions will be lifted irreversibly on that date. The data, however, is beginning to tell a different story.

When Boris Johnson said his government would be guided by “data, not dates”, the scientific community – for the most part – endorsed the cautious approach. Now, the signs are ominous. Driven by the highly transmissible Delta variant, cases are once again starting to rise exponentially. Vaccination rates have slowed. An exhausted NHS is seeing a rise in hospitalisations. Over half of all people in the UK are not fully vaccinated.

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Mixing Covid vaccines offers strong immune protection – study

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Oxford researchers say having AstraZeneca then Pfizer jabs is almost as potent as two shots of Pfizer

Having different Covid vaccines for first and second shots produces a strong immune response to the virus, according to research that will help improve the resilience of vaccine programmes around the world.

Scientists in Oxford looked at the impact of a mix-and-match approach to vaccinations where people were given either the standard two shots of Oxford/AstraZeneca or Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine, or a combination of the two.

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Vaccine inequality: how rich countries cut Covid deaths as poorer fall behind

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Developed countries are seeing the benefits of quickly vaccinating their populations, but concerns remain about the unequal share of global vaccine supplies

New analysis by the Guardian has confirmed that a speedy Covid vaccination campaign pays off when it comes to escaping the worst of the pandemic.

As the chart below shows, countries such as Israel, the UK and the US have all seen deaths decline as vaccination coverage extended to the most vulnerable in their societies.

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‘Health systems should be prepared’: doctors brace for tsunami of long Covid

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As the debilitating post-viral condition affects millions around the world, medical experts are scrambling to nail down what causes it – and how to treat it

When his throat first started hurting, John Brown didn’t think much of it.

It was March 2020 and the 48-year-old was onboard the Voyager of the Seas, a cruise travelling through the Pacific Islands.

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Covid live news: Luxembourg PM ‘tests positive for Covid’; UK records 14,876 new cases

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Xavier Bettel in isolation after self-test result, according to reports; UK’s daily cases figure falls slightly from Saturday

France reported 1,345 coronavirus patients in intensive care today - four less than yesterday - and updated its overall death toll to 84,512, reports Reuters.

UK opposition leader Keir Starmer says there are “huge questions still to answer” following the resignation of health minister Matt Hancock.

Asked if Sajid Javid is a good replacement for Hancock, who resigned after footage emerged of him kissing an aide, PA reports that the Labour leader said:

We need a strong Health Secretary as we come through the pandemic.

But obviously there’s huge questions still to answer. If anybody thinks that the resignation of Matt Hancock is the end of the issue, I think they’re wrong and I think the incoming Health Secretary and the Prime Minister now have serious questions to answer about the CCTV, about the access, the passes, the contracts, etc.

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Wild swimming scientist Heather Massey: ‘Hypothermia is not a pretty sight’

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The physiologist and survival expert on the joys and dangers of cold water immersion

Dr Heather Massey is a researcher at the University of Portsmouth’s Extreme Environments research group and a seasoned open water swimmer. Having swum the Channel and competed in the world ice swimming championships, her research into the effects of extreme temperatures on the body is personal.

During lockdown the number of people enjoying wild swimming soared, but so did the number of deaths. Massey’s research examines whether cold water swimming is more likely to kill or cure.

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The Oxford vaccine: the trials and tribulations of a world-saving jab

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Amid bemusement from scientists at the deluge of often undeserved criticism, the Guardian pieces together the story behind the vaccine’s successes and failures

In January 2020, when most of the world slept soundly in ignorance of the pandemic coming its way, a group of scientists at Oxford University got to work on a vaccine to save the planet. They wanted it to be highly effective, cheap, and easy to use in even the poorest countries.

Prof Sarah Gilbert, Prof Andrew Pollard and others pulled it off. With speed crucial, they designed it and launched into trials before bringing in a business partner. The giant Anglo-Swedish pharmaceutical company AstraZeneca would manufacture it, license it around the world – and not make a profit until the pandemic was over.

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NSW Covid outbreaks: Gladys Berejiklian locks down Sydney, Central Coast, Blue Mountains and Wollongong

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New South Wales premier says lockdown will last two weeks and new restrictions will be in place for rest of state

All of greater Sydney, the Central Coast, the Blue Mountains and Wollongong regions will enter a two-week coronavirus lockdown until 9 July and new restrictions will be in place for the remainder of New South Wales.

The NSW premier, Gladys Berejiklian, announced the expanded lockdown – the first lockdown of greater Sydney since last year – would commence at 6pm Saturday, following crisis talks due to the growing number of exposure sites associated with the Sydney outbreak of the Delta Covid-19 variant.

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Fossilised bones found in Israel could belong to mystery extinct humans

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Remains with combination of Neanderthal and early human features date back 100,000 years

Fossilised bones recovered from an ancient sinkhole in Israel may belong to a previously unknown group of extinct humans that lived in the Levant more than 100,000 years ago.

Researchers unearthed the bones alongside stone tools and the remains of horses, fallow deer and wild ox during excavations at the Nesher Ramla prehistoric site near the city of Ramla in central Israel.

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Rich countries ‘deliberately’ keeping Covid vaccines from Africa, says envoy

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Questions raised over failure of Covax scheme to provide promised doses to the continent

African Union special envoy Strive Masiyiwa has accused the world’s richest nations of deliberately failing to provide enough Covid-19 vaccines to the continent.

Masiyiwa, the union’s special envoy to the African vaccine acquisition task team, said the Covax scheme had failed to keep its promise to secure production of 700 million doses of vaccines in time for delivery by December 2021.

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