Newly released data from early in the Covid-19 pandemic has offered a crucial insight into the outbreak’s origins, suggesting that Covid-infected animals were present at a market in Wuhan and could have been a “potential source of human infections”. A pre-print report on Monday by a team of international researchers fleshed out analysis of previously unseen genomic samples collected by Chinese scientists at the Huanan market in Wuhan in the early days of the pandemic. Initially leaked last week after a meeting of the World Health Organization (WHO) committee studying…
Tag: Microbiology
How seriously should we take the US DoE’s Covid lab leak theory?
What has the US energy department said about the origin of the Covid outbreak? According to the Wall Street Journal, an updated and classified 2021 US energy department report has concluded that the coronavirus behind the recent pandemic most likely emerged from a laboratory leak but not as part of a weapons programme. Does this report mean it is more likely Covid came from a lab? Not necessarily. The report’s conclusion runs counter to that from several scientific studies as well as reports by a number of other US intelligence…
China rushes to boost intensive care beds, doctors and stocks of medicine as Covid surges
Chinese authorities are rushing to boost the number of intensive care beds and health workers and increase medication supplies as Covid-19 surges through the country. Since the abrupt dismantling of the stringent zero-Covid regime, cases have skyrocketed in China. A full picture of the impact is difficult to gauge. Authorities have conceded it is “impossible” for the testing system to keep track, and the narrow parameters for attributing deaths to the virus mean the official count – fewer than 10 this week – is at odds with widespread anecdotal reports…
Half of Covid-hospitalised still symptomatic two years on, study finds
More than half of people hospitalised with Covid-19 still have at least one symptom two years after they were first infected, according to the longest follow-up study of its kind. While physical and mental health generally improve over time, the analysis suggests that coronavirus patients discharged from hospital still tend to experience poorer health and quality of life than the general population. The research was published in the Lancet Respiratory Medicine. “Our findings indicate that for a certain proportion of hospitalised Covid-19 survivors, while they may have cleared the initial…
China shuts down city of 17.5m people in bid to halt Covid outbreak
China’s government has locked down Shenzhen, a city of 17.5 million people, as it tries to contain its worst ever Covid-19 outbreak across multiple provinces, with case numbers tripling from Saturday to Sunday. All businesses in the finance and technology hub, which borders Hong Kong, were ordered to close or work from home unless they supplied food, utilities, or other necessities, according to a government notice on Sunday. It said all residential communities were now under “closed management”, meaning they would be locked down. Every resident would undergo three rounds…