Three households will be allowed to meet indoors over a five-day period between 23-27 December.
Covid-19: UK leaders reach deal on easing of Christmas rules
Reply
Category Archives: Mind Building
Don’t go to work when sick, ‘peculiar’ Brits told
People have tendency to soldier on, potentially making colleagues sick, health secretary says.
NaNoWriMo – Days 20-23
My novel is at 41,347 words now. I’m averaging about 1800 words per day, on pace to hit 50K words on November 28.
I recently decided to tackle the most challenging part, which was to figure out the Q factor and how I’m going to end the story in Act 3. I opted to just start writing to see what came through even though I didn’t have a good idea when I started.
What is the Q factor? The Q factor is a reference to the Q character in James Bond. It’s when Bond is given some gadget early in the story that he can use to escape a difficult trap later on, like a pen that houses a laser beam that can cut through bars. Q is the character who gives him those gadgets. A Q factor in a story is a callback to something earlier that the main character can use to solve a major problem later on. An example is when Obi-wan reminds Luke to “use the force” while attacking the Death Star in Star Wars.
I’ll have to toss out most of what I wrote for this part, but it led me to see a better way to frame the story so I can bring it to a strong and compelling close. I’d been considering a certain change for a while but wasn’t sure if I should do it, but now I think it’s the right way to go. I basically have to change up which character I define as the protagonist.
There are two main characters who are in almost every scene together, so the previous scenes I wrote still work regardless of which character I intend to be the protagonist. But I’m only seeing a good way to end the story if I reframe which one I’d label as the protagonist. Then it gets pretty interesting. It’s a bit unusual, but I think it’s more promising overall.
It’s similar to the framing in the movie Avengers: Infinity War. The protagonist is actually Thanos, not the Avengers. Even though he’s the bad guy, the story is really about his journey, and the Avengers keep antagonizing him along the way. Thanos benefits from the amazing Q factor at the end that lets him seize victory from the jaws of defeat – the Time Stone. If you’ve also seen the movie Doctor Strange, then there’s an extra nice payoff for that particular Q factor.
It still feels like the most important thing I’m doing for this first draft is to figure out the characters and their motivations. Secondly I’m exploring story possibilities in the form of scenes that could happen. I’m gradually building a jumbled tree of messy branches that may all connect to the same trunk, but the final story isn’t going to include every branch. I still have to explore enough of the tree to grasp where the most interesting branches are. The final story I actually write will be a small subset of the story possibilities that I’ve explored.
I like using a mostly pantser approach for this first draft. It’s good to have so much flexibility in how I approach this since I don’t already have a clear grasp of the story I’m telling. I know some of the major pieces but not all of the minor ones. It’s useful to throw more words onto the screen each day and then read them back the next day. I’ll end up throwing most of these words away, but they’re helping me to discover a compelling story within the possibility space.
Deaths in UK ‘a fifth higher than normal levels’
Nearly 14,000 deaths occurred in the week ending 13 November – with 3,000 linked to Covid.
Health24.com | Coronavirus morning recap: Vaccine latest – Oxford trial, access, and surge in Eastern Cape cases
LATEST SCIENCE AND RESEARCH
READ | Another Covid vaccine candidate reports promising results – what we know
Positive data from an interim analysis of the University of Oxford’s Covid-19 vaccine trial in the UK and Brazil shows that it protects 70% of people from developing Covid symptoms, Oxford’s manufacturing partner, AstraZeneca announced on Monday.
The data is from the COV002 Phase 2/3 trial in the UK and COV003 Phase 3 trial in Brazil, which involves more than 23 000 participants. No hospitalisations or severe cases of the disease were reported in volunteers who received the vaccine, named AZD1222.
A total of 30 cases of Covid-19 were found in participants who received two jabs of the vaccine, and 101 cases in people who received a saline injection. According to the researchers, it translates to 70% protection.
Additional data from the large-scale trial also suggests that perfecting the dose could increase protection up to 90%. This was seen for one course of dosing, where volunteers received a half dose of the vaccine, followed by a full dose at least one month after.
When participants were given two “high” doses, it resulted in 62% protection. However, this increased to 90% when participants received a “low” dose followed by a high one.
Professor Andrew Pollard, the trial’s lead investigator said: “Excitingly, we’ve found that one of our dosing regimens may be around 90% effective and if this dosing regime is used, more people could be vaccinated with planned vaccine supply.”
The researchers stated that it’s not clear why there is a difference, although Pollard told the BBC that the team is “really pleased with these results”.
There were also lower levels of asymptomatic infection in the low followed by high dose group which “means we might be able to halt the virus in its tracks,” Pollard said.
Vaccine’s architect Professor Sarah Gilbert also commented: “The announcement today takes us another step closer to the time when we can use vaccines to bring an end to the devastation caused by [the virus].”
READ | African countries must not be at back of queue for Covid-19 vaccine
Two vaccine candidates from pharmaceutical and biotech companies Pfizer and Moderna have shown promising results, but African countries need to ensure they aren’t left behind when vaccine rollouts start happening.
These were the words of the Regional Director of the World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Office for Africa, Dr Matshidiso Moeti, during a virtual discussion hosted by Doha Debates on Wednesday.
“It’s true we need to wait for full efficacy and safety data to be available, but we are all gearing up to make sure there is equitable distribution in Africa,” Moeti said. “Coming from Africa, I have to say our experience in the past has been that when a new technology comes out, African countries are at the back of the queue to get it.
“We’ve seen sometimes it takes a decade for a new technology to be available in Africa, in a scaled-up fashion in our health systems.”
In comments made earlier this year, Professor Helen Rees, executive director of the Wits Reproductive Health and HIV Unit (RHI), stressed that the opportunity to participate in trials must ensure that Africa is not left behind like it was in the past.
If trials are limited to the North, Rees cautioned that it will result in “vaccine nationalism”, which typically occurs when a country’s government manages to secure vaccine doses for its own citizens before it’s made available to other countries – something that has already been seen in the US and UK.
According to The Telegraph, the UK has already put in an order for five million doses of the Moderna vaccine, while CNBC reported in July that the US struck an agreement with Pfizer to get 100 million doses of their vaccine, and acquire 500 million additional doses if needed.
Rees commented then on the crisis with the pandemic flu vaccine and HIV antiretrovirals in the past, where Africa got left behind and ultimately received very little vaccine and months too late. “We cannot allow that to happen again,” she said.
READ | WHO says $4.3 bln urgently needed for vaccine sharing scheme
There is a risk that the poor and vulnerable will be trampled on in the stampede for coronavirus vaccines, the head of the World Health Organisation said on Monday, adding that $4.3 billion was needed urgently for a world vaccine-sharing scheme.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus was speaking at a virtual briefing in Geneva.
Dozens of countries have signed up to the global vaccine plan known as COVAX, which was set up by the WHO and the GAVI vaccine group to provide vaccine doses for countries that could not otherwise afford them.
CORONAVIRUS CASES LATEST
The latest number of confirmed cases is 769 759.
According to the latest update, 20 968 deaths have been recorded in the country.
There have been 711 195 recoveries.
So far, more than 5.3 million tests have been conducted, with 14 377 new tests reported.
Global cases update:
For the latest global data, follow this interactive map from Johns Hopkins University & Medicine.
Early on Tuesday morning, positive cases worldwide were just over 58.9 million, while deaths were close to 1.4 million.
The United States had the most cases in the world – close to 12.3 million, as well as the most deaths – more than 256 000.
WHAT’S HAPPENING IN SA
Latest news:
READ | Eastern Cape health MEC to target taverns amid Covid-19 second wave concerns
Eastern Cape Health MEC Sindiswa Gomba said the provincial government was concerned about the surge in Covid-19 infections, which signalled a second wave of infections in the province.
Taverns and other places that draw large crowds will be a focus point when Gomba, Health Minister Zweli Mkhize, Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs Minister Dr Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, and Social Development Minister Lindiwe Zulu meet this week to intensify the fight against the second wave.
HeraldLive reported that scores of unmasked patrons were sharing drinks in overcrowded taverns and not adhering to social distancing rules.
These were just some of the disturbing discoveries made by the police and Eastern Cape Liquor Board officials during tavern inspections over the weekend, the newspaper reported.
Broadcaster eNCA reported that 80% of people needing ventilators in Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality public hospitals and half of those entering casualty wards, do not make it out alive.
According to the channel, there were no oxygen points left at Uitenhage Provincial Hospital and award meant for eight patients had 20.
The channel also estimated that 10 people die daily of Covid-19 at Eastern Cape public hospitals.
Hospitals are filled to capacity amid a critical shortage of beds, the channel reported.This comes as the Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality and the Sarah Baartman District Municipality are battling a second wave of Covid-19.
The numbers of health workers testing positive was also increasing rapidly in the metro.
Gomba has announced that the provincial health department will this week continue to intensify the fight against Covid-19 by meeting with health workers, organised labour, religious and church leaders, civil society and businesses, especially tavern associations.
She said this will be done to ensure everyone plays their respective roles in the fight against the resurgence.
READ | Lockdown: 13 initiation schools shut down Eastern Cape for operating illegally
At least 13 initiation schools were shut down by Eastern Cape police and traditional leaders on Monday, and 30 initiates were sent home to their parents or to hospitals.
Initiation is suspended under Alert Level 1 lockdown, and those who organise the ritual, are in breach of lockdown regulations.
The raids took place on Monday in Buffalo City Metro Municipality and Nyandeni Local Municipality, confirmed Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (Cogta) spokesperson Mamkeli Ngam.
Ngam said the number of illegal initiates is expected to increase as officials continue raiding illegal initiation schools across the province.
Asked about the fate of the initiates, Ngam said: “Parents either took them home or we sent them to hospitals.”
The Monday clampdown took place in East London, Mdantsane, and in several villages in the Nyandeni local municipality, said Ngam.
Ngam said the police are investigating 13 cases of illegal circumcision. He added that 30 initiates have been affected by the closure of the schools so far.
The raids came as deputy minister of cooperative governance and traditional affairs Obed Bapela declared its intention to clamp down on bogus initiation.
In a statement Bapela said: “To this end, government and all stakeholders will not tolerate bogus initiation schools and anyone who is found to be disobeying the order of initiation suspension in the wake of Covid-19.
WHAT’S HAPPENING IN THE REST OF THE WORLD
Latest news:
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson is set to announce that strict coronavirus rules will be suspended for several days over Christmas, allowing multiple households across the country to mix both at home and in pubs over the festive period.
Johnson will announce a UK-wide plan for relaxed rules at the end of December after discussions with scientists, government ministers, and the devolved administrations about how to let people see their families this Christmas in a way that minimises transmission of the virus.
The details of the government’s Christmas plan are yet to be confirmed. However, ITV’s Robert Peston reported that up to three households will be allowed to form bubbles for five days between December 23 and 27.
Johnson is expected to announce the plan this week, possibly as soon as Tuesday, once it has been signed off by the devolved administrations in Scotland, Northern Ireland, and Wales as part of a UK-wide approach.
The prime minister will on Monday afternoon also set out to Members of Parliament details of a new regional tier system for England that will replace the current national lockdown when it expires on Wednesday, December 2.
The new system of local restrictions is expected to be harsher than its predecessor, with households in tier 2 and 3 areas unable to mix in any other indoor setting, possibly for several months.
The toughened tiers are set to be particularly restrictive for England’s hospitality industry.
Unlike the previous tier system, households will not be allowed to mix in pubs, restaurants, and other hospitality settings, according to multiple reports. Pubs and restaurants in tier 2 will only be allowed to serve alcohol to people in the same household as part of “substantial meals,” and in tier 3 they will have to be takeaway-only, reports suggest.
READ | Bodies of Covid-19 victims are still in New York City freezer trucks 8 months after they died
More than 600 bodies of New Yorkers who died in the Covid-19 pandemic’s first wave are still being stored in freezer trucks, according to a Wall Street Journal report.
The cost of burial and the difficulty in contacting relatives led to a backlog, the paper reported, even as the country experiences a sustained resurgence of the virus.
The temporary cold storage was set up on a Brooklyn pier to handle the overflow of deaths from the virus in late March, when New York City was the US epicentre of the surging pandemic.
At that time, hospital morgues were running out of room, as Insider’s Dave Mosher reported. The city’s chief medical examiner’s office became overwhelmed, according to the Journal.
The paper said that Chief Medical Examiner Dina Maniotis and her team were faced with 200 deaths to process per day, instead of the 20 or so they were used to.
To cope with the influx of calls, more than 100 staff were redirected from the city’s health department, the Journal reported.
But it was not enough to solve the backlog. The office is still trying to track down the next of kin of about 230 people from that period, per the Journal’s report on Sunday November 22.
Medical staff found that in some cases, the relatives they were trying to reach had themselves died, Aden Naka, the deputy director of forensic investigations told the Journal.
Most of the remaining deceased are still in storage due to the costs of holding a funeral, according to the WSJ. While the city increased burial assistance from $900 to $1,700 under an emergency directive, the funeral costs still remain out of many families’ reach.
HEALTH TIPS (as recommended by the NICD and WHO)
• Maintain physical distancing – stay at least one metre away from somebody who is coughing or sneezing
• Practise frequent hand-washing, especially after direct contact with ill people or their environment
• Avoid touching your eyes, nose and mouth, as your hands touch many surfaces and could potentially transfer the virus
• Practise respiratory hygiene – cover your mouth with your bent elbow or tissue when you cough or sneeze. Remember to dispose the tissue immediately after use.
Image credit: Getty Images
News24.com | Coronavirus morning recap: Vaccine latest – Oxford trial, access, and surge in Eastern Cape cases
LATEST SCIENCE AND RESEARCH
READ | Another Covid vaccine candidate reports promising results – what we know
Positive data from an interim analysis of the University of Oxford’s Covid-19 vaccine trial in the UK and Brazil shows that it protects 70% of people from developing Covid symptoms, Oxford’s manufacturing partner, AstraZeneca announced on Monday.
The data is from the COV002 Phase 2/3 trial in the UK and COV003 Phase 3 trial in Brazil, which involves more than 23 000 participants. No hospitalisations or severe cases of the disease were reported in volunteers who received the vaccine, named AZD1222.
A total of 30 cases of Covid-19 were found in participants who received two jabs of the vaccine, and 101 cases in people who received a saline injection. According to the researchers, it translates to 70% protection.
Additional data from the large-scale trial also suggests that perfecting the dose could increase protection up to 90%. This was seen for one course of dosing, where volunteers received a half dose of the vaccine, followed by a full dose at least one month after.
When participants were given two “high” doses, it resulted in 62% protection. However, this increased to 90% when participants received a “low” dose followed by a high one.
Professor Andrew Pollard, the trial’s lead investigator said: “Excitingly, we’ve found that one of our dosing regimens may be around 90% effective and if this dosing regime is used, more people could be vaccinated with planned vaccine supply.”
The researchers stated that it’s not clear why there is a difference, although Pollard told the BBC that the team is “really pleased with these results”.
There were also lower levels of asymptomatic infection in the low followed by high dose group which “means we might be able to halt the virus in its tracks,” Pollard said.
Vaccine’s architect Professor Sarah Gilbert also commented: “The announcement today takes us another step closer to the time when we can use vaccines to bring an end to the devastation caused by [the virus].”
READ | African countries must not be at back of queue for Covid-19 vaccine
Two vaccine candidates from pharmaceutical and biotech companies Pfizer and Moderna have shown promising results, but African countries need to ensure they aren’t left behind when vaccine rollouts start happening.
These were the words of the Regional Director of the World Health Organization (WHO) Regional Office for Africa, Dr Matshidiso Moeti, during a virtual discussion hosted by Doha Debates on Wednesday.
“It’s true we need to wait for full efficacy and safety data to be available, but we are all gearing up to make sure there is equitable distribution in Africa,” Moeti said. “Coming from Africa, I have to say our experience in the past has been that when a new technology comes out, African countries are at the back of the queue to get it.
“We’ve seen sometimes it takes a decade for a new technology to be available in Africa, in a scaled-up fashion in our health systems.”
In comments made earlier this year, Professor Helen Rees, executive director of the Wits Reproductive Health and HIV Unit (RHI), stressed that the opportunity to participate in trials must ensure that Africa is not left behind like it was in the past.
If trials are limited to the North, Rees cautioned that it will result in “vaccine nationalism”, which typically occurs when a country’s government manages to secure vaccine doses for its own citizens before it’s made available to other countries – something that has already been seen in the US and UK.
According to The Telegraph, the UK has already put in an order for five million doses of the Moderna vaccine, while CNBC reported in July that the US struck an agreement with Pfizer to get 100 million doses of their vaccine, and acquire 500 million additional doses if needed.
Rees commented then on the crisis with the pandemic flu vaccine and HIV antiretrovirals in the past, where Africa got left behind and ultimately received very little vaccine and months too late. “We cannot allow that to happen again,” she said.
READ | WHO says $4.3 bln urgently needed for vaccine sharing scheme
There is a risk that the poor and vulnerable will be trampled on in the stampede for coronavirus vaccines, the head of the World Health Organisation said on Monday, adding that $4.3 billion was needed urgently for a world vaccine-sharing scheme.
Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus was speaking at a virtual briefing in Geneva.
Dozens of countries have signed up to the global vaccine plan known as COVAX, which was set up by the WHO and the GAVI vaccine group to provide vaccine doses for countries that could not otherwise afford them.
CORONAVIRUS CASES LATEST
The latest number of confirmed cases is 769 759.
According to the latest update, 20 968 deaths have been recorded in the country.
There have been 711 195 recoveries.
So far, more than 5.3 million tests have been conducted, with 14 377 new tests reported.
Global cases update:
For the latest global data, follow this interactive map from Johns Hopkins University & Medicine.
Early on Tuesday morning, positive cases worldwide were just over 58.9 million, while deaths were close to 1.4 million.
The United States had the most cases in the world – close to 12.3 million, as well as the most deaths – more than 256 000.
WHAT’S HAPPENING IN SA
Latest news:
READ | Eastern Cape health MEC to target taverns amid Covid-19 second wave concerns
Eastern Cape Health MEC Sindiswa Gomba said the provincial government was concerned about the surge in Covid-19 infections, which signalled a second wave of infections in the province.
Taverns and other places that draw large crowds will be a focus point when Gomba, Health Minister Zweli Mkhize, Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs Minister Dr Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, and Social Development Minister Lindiwe Zulu meet this week to intensify the fight against the second wave.
HeraldLive reported that scores of unmasked patrons were sharing drinks in overcrowded taverns and not adhering to social distancing rules.
These were just some of the disturbing discoveries made by the police and Eastern Cape Liquor Board officials during tavern inspections over the weekend, the newspaper reported.
Broadcaster eNCA reported that 80% of people needing ventilators in Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality public hospitals and half of those entering casualty wards, do not make it out alive.
According to the channel, there were no oxygen points left at Uitenhage Provincial Hospital and award meant for eight patients had 20.
The channel also estimated that 10 people die daily of Covid-19 at Eastern Cape public hospitals.
Hospitals are filled to capacity amid a critical shortage of beds, the channel reported.This comes as the Nelson Mandela Bay Municipality and the Sarah Baartman District Municipality are battling a second wave of Covid-19.
The numbers of health workers testing positive was also increasing rapidly in the metro.
Gomba has announced that the provincial health department will this week continue to intensify the fight against Covid-19 by meeting with health workers, organised labour, religious and church leaders, civil society and businesses, especially tavern associations.
She said this will be done to ensure everyone plays their respective roles in the fight against the resurgence.
READ | Lockdown: 13 initiation schools shut down Eastern Cape for operating illegally
At least 13 initiation schools were shut down by Eastern Cape police and traditional leaders on Monday, and 30 initiates were sent home to their parents or to hospitals.
Initiation is suspended under Alert Level 1 lockdown, and those who organise the ritual, are in breach of lockdown regulations.
The raids took place on Monday in Buffalo City Metro Municipality and Nyandeni Local Municipality, confirmed Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (Cogta) spokesperson Mamkeli Ngam.
Ngam said the number of illegal initiates is expected to increase as officials continue raiding illegal initiation schools across the province.
Asked about the fate of the initiates, Ngam said: “Parents either took them home or we sent them to hospitals.”
The Monday clampdown took place in East London, Mdantsane, and in several villages in the Nyandeni local municipality, said Ngam.
Ngam said the police are investigating 13 cases of illegal circumcision. He added that 30 initiates have been affected by the closure of the schools so far.
The raids came as deputy minister of cooperative governance and traditional affairs Obed Bapela declared its intention to clamp down on bogus initiation.
In a statement Bapela said: “To this end, government and all stakeholders will not tolerate bogus initiation schools and anyone who is found to be disobeying the order of initiation suspension in the wake of Covid-19.
WHAT’S HAPPENING IN THE REST OF THE WORLD
Latest news:
UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson is set to announce that strict coronavirus rules will be suspended for several days over Christmas, allowing multiple households across the country to mix both at home and in pubs over the festive period.
Johnson will announce a UK-wide plan for relaxed rules at the end of December after discussions with scientists, government ministers, and the devolved administrations about how to let people see their families this Christmas in a way that minimises transmission of the virus.
The details of the government’s Christmas plan are yet to be confirmed. However, ITV’s Robert Peston reported that up to three households will be allowed to form bubbles for five days between December 23 and 27.
Johnson is expected to announce the plan this week, possibly as soon as Tuesday, once it has been signed off by the devolved administrations in Scotland, Northern Ireland, and Wales as part of a UK-wide approach.
The prime minister will on Monday afternoon also set out to Members of Parliament details of a new regional tier system for England that will replace the current national lockdown when it expires on Wednesday, December 2.
The new system of local restrictions is expected to be harsher than its predecessor, with households in tier 2 and 3 areas unable to mix in any other indoor setting, possibly for several months.
The toughened tiers are set to be particularly restrictive for England’s hospitality industry.
Unlike the previous tier system, households will not be allowed to mix in pubs, restaurants, and other hospitality settings, according to multiple reports. Pubs and restaurants in tier 2 will only be allowed to serve alcohol to people in the same household as part of “substantial meals,” and in tier 3 they will have to be takeaway-only, reports suggest.
READ | Bodies of Covid-19 victims are still in New York City freezer trucks 8 months after they died
More than 600 bodies of New Yorkers who died in the Covid-19 pandemic’s first wave are still being stored in freezer trucks, according to a Wall Street Journal report.
The cost of burial and the difficulty in contacting relatives led to a backlog, the paper reported, even as the country experiences a sustained resurgence of the virus.
The temporary cold storage was set up on a Brooklyn pier to handle the overflow of deaths from the virus in late March, when New York City was the US epicentre of the surging pandemic.
At that time, hospital morgues were running out of room, as Insider’s Dave Mosher reported. The city’s chief medical examiner’s office became overwhelmed, according to the Journal.
The paper said that Chief Medical Examiner Dina Maniotis and her team were faced with 200 deaths to process per day, instead of the 20 or so they were used to.
To cope with the influx of calls, more than 100 staff were redirected from the city’s health department, the Journal reported.
But it was not enough to solve the backlog. The office is still trying to track down the next of kin of about 230 people from that period, per the Journal’s report on Sunday November 22.
Medical staff found that in some cases, the relatives they were trying to reach had themselves died, Aden Naka, the deputy director of forensic investigations told the Journal.
Most of the remaining deceased are still in storage due to the costs of holding a funeral, according to the WSJ. While the city increased burial assistance from $900 to $1,700 under an emergency directive, the funeral costs still remain out of many families’ reach.
HEALTH TIPS (as recommended by the NICD and WHO)
• Maintain physical distancing – stay at least one metre away from somebody who is coughing or sneezing
• Practise frequent hand-washing, especially after direct contact with ill people or their environment
• Avoid touching your eyes, nose and mouth, as your hands touch many surfaces and could potentially transfer the virus
• Practise respiratory hygiene – cover your mouth with your bent elbow or tissue when you cough or sneeze. Remember to dispose the tissue immediately after use.
Image credit: Getty Images
Health24.com | Existing treatments continue to be looked at for Covid-19: Latest science on BCG and the MMR vaccine
- One of the oldest vaccines to exist, BCG, may offer protection against the world’s newest infectious disease, Covid-19
- In addition to this vaccine, the MMR vaccine is also currently being trialled globally to see if it offers the same benefit
- According to two independent studies recently published, MMR reduced Covid-19 severity in participants, while BCG reduced the chances of contracting Covid-19
Scientists have been looking at existing vaccines to see whether they could also induce protection against Covid-19, the disease caused by SARS-CoV-2. Among them are the measles-mumps-rubella (MMR) vaccine, as well as the decades-old tuberculosis vaccine, Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG).
In a new study published in mBio, an open-access journal of the American Society for Microbiology, researchers provide evidence that in the MMR vaccine, mumps IgG titers (also known as levels of IgG antibody) are inversely correlated with severity in recovered Covid-19 patients previously vaccinated with the MMR II vaccine produced by Merck.
And, according to a new study by Cedars-Sinai, Bacillus Calmette-Guérin (BCG) is associated with reduced likelihood of contracting Covid-19. The study was published in the Journal of Clinical Investigation.
Why the MMR vaccine?
The MMR vaccine has been looked at as a possibility to work against Covid-19 since the early months of the pandemic, as it is known to protect against viruses that are similar to the coronavirus.
The World Health Organization (WHO) states that the vaccine is widely used for the immunisation of children in certain regions of the world due to its advantages over individual vaccines.
The vaccine, which was developed almost 50 years ago, has since been received by hundreds of millions of people worldwide.
Countries involved in a study launched earlier this year include Canada, Ghana, Ireland, South Africa, Uganda, the UK, the US, Zambia and Zimbabwe, Health24 reported.
“… This type of vaccine, which contains small amounts of very weakened measles, mumps and rubella viruses, appears to strengthen the body’s immune response to infections in general, not just to the viruses in that particular vaccine,” said Sinead Delany-Moretlwe, one of the SA trial’s national principal investigators, and a research professor at the Wits Reproductive Health and HIV Institute (Wits RHI).
Another reason it may be effective is that there are similarities between the weakened viruses in the vaccine and the Covid-19 virus, Delany-Moretlwe explained.
The researchers commented that all of these viruses have similar proteins on their surfaces that are involved in infecting cells in the body, and they therefore hypothesise that antibodies made in response to the MMR vaccine may also recognise and fight SARS-CoV-2.
About the more recent study, lead study author Jeffrey Gold, president of World Organization in Watkinsville, Georgia, said: “We found a statistically significant inverse correlation between mumps titer levels and Covid-19 severity in people under age 42 who have had MMR II vaccinations.
“This adds to other associations demonstrating that the MMR vaccine may be protective against Covid-19. It also may explain why children have a much lower Covid-19 case rate than adults, as well as a much lower death rate.”
The majority of children get their first MMR vaccination around 12 to 15 months of age and a second one from 4 to 6 years of age, commented Gold.
Co-author David Hurley, professor and molecular microbiologist at the University of Georgia, also commented: “The MMR II vaccine is considered a safe vaccine with very few side effects. If it has the ultimate benefit of preventing infection from Covid-19, preventing the spread of Covid-19, reducing the severity of it, or a combination of any or all of those, it is a very high reward low risk ratio intervention.
“Maximum seropositivity is achieved through two vaccinations at least 28 days apart. Based upon our study, it would be prudent to vaccinate those over 40 regardless of whether or not they already have high serum MMR titers.”
TB vaccine linked to lower risk of contracting Covid
The BCG vaccine was developed between 1908 and 1921 and is given to more than 100 million children around the globe every year.
Researchers have been studying BCG’s potential to curb illnesses other than TB for several years, in part because of a concept scientists call “trained immunity”, explains this article by Bhekisisa.
Researchers think that immunisations such as BCG and measles, the article explains, help reprogramme our immune cells to better respond to infections later.
A 2014 research review published in the Journal of Clinical Infectious Disease, for instance, found that BCG worked effectively to protect children against TB in northern countries, which typically have lower burdens of TB.
Researchers of the Cedars-Sinai study tested the blood of more than 6 000 healthcare workers in the Cedars-Sinai Health System for evidence of antibodies to SARS-CoV-2. Participants were also asked about their medical and vaccination histories.
The findings reveal that those who had received BCG vaccinations in the past (nearly 30% of participants) were significantly less likely to test positive for SARS-CoV-2 antibodies in their blood or to report having had infections with coronavirus or coronavirus-associated symptoms over the previous six months, compared to those who had not received BCG.
These effects were not related to whether workers had received meningococcal, pneumococcal or influenza vaccinations.
However, the reasons for the lower SARS-CoV-2 antibody levels in the BCG group were not clear, according to Moshe Arditi, MD, director of the Paediatric and Infectious Diseases and Immunology Division at Cedars-Sinai and co-senior author of the study.
“It appears that BCG-vaccinated individuals either may have been less sick and therefore produced fewer anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibodies, or they may have mounted a more efficient cellular immune response against the virus,” said Arditi.
“We were interested in studying the BCG vaccine because it has long been known to have a general protective effect against a range of bacterial and viral diseases other than TB, including neonatal sepsis and respiratory infections.”
Based on their study results, co-author Susan Cheng, associate professor of Cardiology and director of Public Health Research at the Smidt Heart Institute at Cedars-Sinai, believes that large, randomised clinical trials are urgently needed to confirm whether BCG vaccination can induce a protective effect against SARS-CoV2 infection.
“It would be wonderful if one of the oldest vaccines that we have could help defeat the world’s newest pandemic,” commented Arditi.
READ | What the latest science says about a TB vaccine and Covid-19
WATCH | Why are scientists testing a TB vaccine to see if it protects against Covid-19?
Image: RF._.studio from Pexels
Supersized wind turbines generate clean energy–and surprising physics
Twenty years ago, wind energy was mostly a niche industry that contributed less than 1% to the total electricity demand in the United States. Wind has since emerged as a serious contender in the race to develop clean, renewable energy sources that can sustain the grid and meet the ever-rising global energy demand. Last year, wind energy supplied 7% of domestic electricity demand, and across the country — both on and offshore — energy companies have been installing giant turbines that reach higher and wider than ever before.
“Wind energy is going to be a really important component of power production,” said engineer Jonathan Naughton at the University of Wyoming, in Laramie. He acknowledged that skeptics doubt the viability of renewable energy sources like wind and solar because they’re weather dependent and variable in nature, and therefore hard to control and predict. “That’s true,” he said, “but there are ways to overcome that.”
Naughton and Charles Meneveau at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, organized a mini-symposium at the 73rd Annual Meeting of the American Physical Society’s Division of Fluid Dynamics, where researchers described the promise and fluid dynamics challenges of wind energy.
In order for wind energy to be useful — and accepted — researchers need to design systems that are both efficient and inexpensive, Naughton said. That means gaining a better understanding of the physical phenomena that govern wind turbines, at all scales. Three years ago, the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) brought together 70 experts from around the world to discuss the state of the science. In 2019, the group published grand scientific challenges that need to be addressed for wind energy to contribute up to half of the demand for power.
One of those challenges was to better understand the physics of the part of the atmosphere where the turbines operate. “Wind is really an atmospheric fluid mechanics problem,” said Naughton. “But how the wind behaves at the levels where the turbines operate is still an area where we need more information.”
Today’s turbines have blades that can stretch 50 to 70 meters, said Paul Veers, Chief Engineer at NREL’s National Wind Technology Center, who provided an overview of the challenges during the symposium. These towers tower 100 meters or more over their environs. “Offshore, they’re getting even bigger,” said Veers.
The advantage to building bigger turbines is that a wind power plant would need fewer machines to build and maintain and to access the powerful winds high above the ground. But giant power plants function at a scale that hasn’t been well-studied, said Veers.
“We have a really good ability to understand and work with the atmosphere at really large scales,” said Veers. “And scientists like Jonathan and Charles have done amazing jobs with fluid dynamics to understand small scales. But between these two, there’s an area that has not been studied all that much.”
Another challenge will be to study the structural and system dynamics of these giant rotating machines. The winds interact with the blades, which bend and twist. The spinning blades give rise to high Reynolds numbers, “and those are areas where we don’t have a lot of information,” said Naughton.
Powerful computational approaches can help reveal the physics, said Veers. “We’re really pushing the computational methods as far as possible,” he said. “It’s taking us to the fastest and biggest computers that exist right now.”
A third challenge, Naughton noted, is to study the behavior of groups of turbines. Every turbine produces a wake in the atmosphere, and as that wake propagates downstream it interacts with the wakes from other turbines. Wakes may combine; they may also interfere with other turbines. Or anything else in the area. “If there’s farmland downwind, we don’t know how the change in the atmospheric flow will affect it,” said Naughton.
He called wind energy the “ultimate scale problem.” Because it connects small-scale problems like the interactions of turbines with the air to giant-scale problems like atmospheric modeling, wind energy will require expertise and input from a variety of fields to address the challenges. “Wind is among the cheapest forms of energy,” said Naughton. “But as the technology matures, the questions get harder.”
Tracking and fighting fires on earth and beyond
Mechanical engineer Michael Gollner and his graduate student, Sriram Bharath Hariharan, from the University of California, Berkeley, recently traveled to NASA’s John H. Glenn Research Center in Cleveland, Ohio. There, they dropped burning objects in a deep shaft and study how fire whirls form in microgravity. The Glenn Center hosts a Zero Gravity Research Facility, which includes an experimental drop tower that simulates the experience of being in space.
“You get five seconds of microgravity,” said Gollner. The researchers lit a small paraffin wick to generate fire whirls and dropped it, studying the flame all the way down.
Experiments like this, presented at the 73rd Annual Meeting of the American Physical Society’s Division of Fluid Dynamics, can help fire scientists answer two kinds of questions. First, they illuminate ways that fire can burn in the absence of gravity — and may even inform protective measures for astronauts. “If something’s burning, it could be a very dangerous situation in space,” said Gollner. Second, it can help researchers better understand gravity’s role in the growth and spread of destructive fires.
The fire burned differently without gravity, said Gollner. The flame was shorter — and wider. “We saw a real slow down of combustion,” said Gollner. “We didn’t see the same dramatic whirls that we have with ordinary gravity.”
Other researchers, including a team from Los Alamos National Laboratory in New Mexico, introduced new developments to a computational fluid dynamics model that can incorporate fuels of varying moisture content. Many existing environmental models average the moisture of all the fuels in an area, but that approach fails to capture the variations found in nature, said chemical engineer Alexander Josephson, a postdoctoral researcher who studies wildfire prediction at Los Alamos. As a result, those models may yield inaccurate predictions in wildfire behavior, he said.
“If you’re walking through the forest, you see wood here and grass there, and there’s a lot of variation,” said Josephson. Dry grasses, wet mosses, and hanging limbs don’t have the same water content and burn in different ways. A fire may be evaporating moisture from wet moss, for example, at the same time it’s consuming drier limbs. “We wanted to explore how the interaction between those fuels occurs as the fire travels through.”
Los Alamos scientists worked to improve their model called FIRETEC (developed by Rod Linn), collaborating with researchers at the University of Alberta in Canada and the Canadian Forest service. Their new developments accommodate variations in moisture content and other characteristics of the simulated fuel types. Researcher Ginny Marshall from the Canadian Forest Service recently began comparing its simulations to real-world data from boreal forests in northern Canada.
During a session on reacting flows, Matthew Bonanni, a graduate student in the lab of engineer Matthias Ihme at Stanford University in California, described a new model for wildfire spread based on a machine learning platform. Predicting where and when fires will burn is a complex process, says Ihme, that’s driven by a complex mix of environmental influences.
The goal of Ihme’s group was to build a tool that was both accurate and fast, able to be used for risk assessment, early warning systems, and designing mitigation strategies. They built their model on a specialized computer platform called TensorFlow, designed by researchers at Google to run machine learning applications. As the model trains on more physical data, said Ihme, its simulations of heat accumulation and fire-spreading dynamics improve — and get faster.
Ihme said he’s excited to see what advanced computational tools bring to wildfire prediction. “It used to be a very empirical research area, based on physical observations, and our community works on more fundamental problems,” he said. But adding machine learning to the toolbox, he said, shows how algorithms can improve the fidelity of experiments. “This is a really exciting pathway,” he said.
The science of windy cities
Global population and urbanization have boomed over the last few decades. With them came scores of new tall buildings, drones, more energy-efficient ventilation systems, and planned air taxis by Uber and other companies. But these technological advancements must contend with a natural physical phenomenon: wind.
Scientists presented the latest findings on modeling and predicting urban airflow — in the hope of building better buildings, cities, and transportation — at the 73rd Annual Meeting of the American Physical Society’s Division of Fluid Dynamics.
The urban skies of the future could teem with autonomous aircraft: air taxis, drones, and other self-flying systems. A team from Oklahoma State University has developed techniques to model environmental hazards these vehicles might encounter so they can safely navigate cities.
“Urban environments present enormous challenges for drone and urban air mobility platforms,” said researcher Jamey Jacob, who led the team. “In addition to the challenges of traffic congestion and obstacles, critical technology gaps exist in modeling, detecting, and accommodating the dynamic urban local wind fields as well as in precision navigation through uncertain weather conditions.”
Researchers attached sensors to robotic aircraft to take more cohesive measurements of building wakes, or the disturbed airflow around buildings. They combined this data with numerical predictions to get a better picture of the complex wind patterns found in urban environments.
The work could help improve wind and weather forecasting, not only for unmanned aircraft but also for conventional airplanes.
“The potential of outfitting every drone and urban air taxi, as well as other aircraft, with sensors provides a game changing opportunity in our capability to monitor, predict, and report hazardous weather events,” said Jacob.
Another group, based at the University of Surrey also investigated building wakes. With an eye toward enhancing air quality in cities, they looked for wake differences between a single tall building and a cluster of tall buildings.
“Understanding how to model the wake of tall buildings is the first step to enable city planners to reduce the heat-island effect as well as improve urban air quality,” said Joshua Anthony Minien, a researcher in mechanical engineering.
The team carried out experiments in a wind tunnel, varying the grouping, aspect ratio, and spacing of tall buildings. They were encouraged to see that when measured far enough downstream, a cluster of buildings and an isolated building have similar wake characteristics. Changes to wind direction also seem to significantly affect the wakes of clusters of buildings.
All buildings, tall or not, must be ventilated.
“The ability to predict ventilation flow rates, purging times and flow patterns is important for human comfort and health, as highlighted by the need to prevent the airborne spread of coronavirus,” said University of Cambridge researcher Nicholas Wise.
With engineering professor Gary Hunt, Wise found a problem in current models of passive natural ventilation systems. These often use displacement flow — where cooler night air enters a building through one opening and warmer air accumulated during the day exits through another opening.
Their mathematical modeling revealed that displacement flow does not continue during the purge of warm air, as was believed. Instead, the room experiences an “unbalanced exchange flow” which can slow down the purging process.
“Every displacement flow transitions to unbalanced exchange flow,” said Wise.
The researchers were surprised at just how much adding a small low-level opening speeds up room cooling, compared to a room with only a high-level opening. Their model will be useful for designers of natural ventilation systems.
