Featured Headlines
A year ago, we asked 6 questions about COVID-19. Here’s how the answers evolved – Science News
One year ago, Science News published the first of our Coronavirus Update newsletters. The goal was to provide readers with a quick glimpse into the latest research and news on the novel coronavirus amidst an ever-rising tide of questions and fears.
Brazil has record COVID deaths in 24 hours – NBC
The country was hit by a new variant last year that left the already struggling country with a health-care crisis. Brazil logged a record 1,972 deaths from the coronavirus in 24 hours on Thursday, according to Reuters.
Brazil’s COVID-19 Cases Rise Amid Disinformation, Variant P.1 – NPR
5 min audio at the link – NPR’s Rachel Martin talks to Dr. Mauricio Nogueira with Faculty of Medicine of São José do Rio Pretol in São Paulo about the race to vaccinate Brazilians, and rampant disinformation.
New York City’s public schools have seen remarkably low virus transmission compared with the citywide rate of positive test results in the months since the nation’s largest school system reopened for thousands of students, according to a major new peer-reviewed study in the medical journal Pediatrics.
Scientists Needed Help Against Covid-19. They Asked Sports. – Wall Street Journal
NBA protocols suggest that James is one of several players who have taken close to 300 coronavirus tests during the pandemic. Brady was tested at least 200 times while the NFL tested more than nearly a dozen U.S. states through the end of its regular season. And something unexpected happened as the leagues poured money into protecting their business: They became an essential part of the scientific process.
Coronapod: COVID’s origins and the ‘lab leak’ theory – Nature
Where did the SARS-CoV-2 virus come from? As a team of researchers from the WHO prepares to report on its investigation into the origins of the virus, we discuss the leading theories, including the controversial ‘lab leak’ hypothesis.
Vaccine Headlines
German coronavirus vaccine inventor being investigated – DW
Physician Winfried Stöcker developed and produced a coronavirus vaccine in his lab and administered it to volunteers — without getting it approved first. Criminal proceedings against him are now underway.
Welcome To The Vaccination Club – NPR
In Lebanon, a Jimmy Kimmel parody video about the Pfizer vaccine is presented as a real news item. Despite doubts from his congregation, an imam in the UK turns his mosque into a vaccination center. And in Israel, a tale of two realities: theater and gym access for the vaccinated, while the rest are turned away.
The E.U. has exported millions of vaccine doses despite a supply crunch at home – NYT
The European Union exported 25 million doses of vaccines produced in its territory last month to 31 countries around the world, with Britain and Canada the top destinations, just as the bloc saw its own supply cut drastically by pharmaceutical companies, slowing down vaccination efforts and stoking a major political crisis at home.
Moderna, Inc. a biotechnology company pioneering messenger RNA (mRNA) therapeutics and vaccines, today announced that the first participants have been dosed with the Company’s modified COVID-19 vaccines, designed to address the potential need for booster vaccine candidates, in an amendment to the ongoing Phase 2 clinical study.
Clinical Considerations
Antibiotic Use Ran High In Early Days Of COVID-19, Despite Viral Cause – NPR
3 min Audio at the link – Doctors treating COVID-19 patients early in the pandemic often reached for antibiotics. But those drugs were not helpful in most cases, and overuse of antibiotics is a serious concern.
Convalescent Plasma Strikes Out As COVID-19 Treatment – NPR
4 min audio at the link – More than half a million Americans have received an experimental treatment for COVID-19 called convalescent plasma. But a year into the pandemic, it’s not clear who, if anyone, benefits from it.
Some Children with COVID-19 or MIS-C Face Kidney Injury: Study – The Scientist
More than 10 percent of children hospitalized with COVID-19 or multisystem inflammatory syndrome, an inflammatory condition commonly known as MIS-C that in rare cases has followed SARS-CoV-2 infection, experienced acute kidney injury, according to a study published March 3 in Kidney International. Kids with kidney damage remained in the hospital an average of eight days longer than did other children facing these conditions without the added kidney stress.
COVID-19 and the kidneys: What we know so far – Medical News Today
A large proportion of people with COVID-19, particularly severe COVID-19, develop acute kidney injury (AKI). In this feature, we review the existing research on the links between COVID-19 and kidney health.
Severe covid-19 pneumonia: pathogenesis and clinical management – BMJ
Severe covid-19 pneumonia has posed critical challenges for the research and medical communities. Older age, male sex, and comorbidities increase the risk for severe disease. For people hospitalized with covid-19, 15-30% will go on to develop covid-19 associated acute respiratory distress syndrome (CARDS). Autopsy studies of patients who died of severe SARS CoV-2 infection reveal presence of diffuse alveolar damage consistent with ARDS but with a higher thrombus burden in pulmonary capillaries.
Pregnancy and COVID: what the data say – Nature
Yalda Afshar was about two months pregnant when reports of COVID-19 began to emerge in the United States in February last year. As an obstetrician managing high-risk pregnancies at the University of California, Los Angeles, Afshar knew that respiratory viruses are especially dangerous to pregnant women.
Official Reporting for March 11, 2021
World Health Organization
Weekly Epi Update March 9, 2021
Confirmed Cases: 117,332,262
Deaths: 2,605,356
Johns Hopkins
Confirmed Cases: 117,980,987
Deaths: 2,618,490
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
Total cases: 28,992,598 (+52,815 New Cases)
Total deaths: 526,213 (+1,503 New Deaths)
Science and Tech
Psychological and Sociological Impact
How Have You And Your Neighbors Helped Each Other Through The Pandemic? – NPR
The coronavirus pandemic has exposed just how fragile some of our institutions are. How have you and your neighbors or community networks filled in the gaps to help each other?
One Year With COVID-19 – Psychiatric Times
On the front cover of the 2020 March issue, Psychiatric TimesTM featured the story, “The New Game of Microbiology Clue: The Who, When, Where, & Why of the Novel Coronavirus.” When Nidal Moukaddam, MD, and Asim Shah, MD, began writing the story in January 2020, most of the public (and even much of the health care industry) knew very little of the virus that was devastating Wuhan and other parts of China. It seemed worlds away from our safe haven in the United States. By the time the issue arrived in our mailboxes, the country was on lockdown thanks to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).
Published Research
Surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 in Zimbabwe shows dominance of variants of concern – The Lancet
Antibody Responses in Seropositive Persons after a Single Dose of SARS-CoV-2 mRNA Vaccine – NEJM
SARS-CoV-2 Seroprevalence and Symptom Onset in Culturally Linked Orthodox Jewish Communities Across Multiple Regions in the United States – JAMA
Brazil’s COVID-19 Cases Rise Amid Disinformation, Variant P.1 –NPR
Misinformation, Disinformation, and Conspiracy Theories
Black and Hispanic communities are confronted with vaccine misinformation – New York Times
Black and Hispanic communities are confronting vaccine conspiracy theories, rumors and misleading news reports on social media.
Coping in 2020 (and probably most of 2021)
A beach and sunshine sounds pretty good about now…
These six islands opened to travelers — and still have some of the world’s lowest Covid rates – NBC
Micronesia has confirmed only one case of Covid-19 to date. The Polynesian island of Samoa and the South Pacific island of Vanuatu have just three cases each.