covid-19

Following the announcement of Pfizer's vaccine success last week, Moderna has announced its preliminary results. While Pfizer had a 90% effective vaccine, Moderna's vaccine had 94.5% efficacy. These vaccines are the first to be made of mRNA, and based on their data, suggest incredible potential for…

U.S. cases hit a daily record of 68,767 over a 7-day average on Sunday. On the same day, White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows stated that the U.S. was no longer going to control the pandemic but instead focus on a vaccine or therapeutic to manage the pandemic. This comes after Washington’s…

President-elect Joe Biden and Vice President-elect Kamala Harris say that they will move the pandemic response in an entirely different direction than President Trump. Biden is expected to announce the leaders that will serve on his coronavirus task force. The number one promise on Biden’s plan is…

Amongst some devastating COVID-19 related news this past week—including record daily cases and 1,000+ daily coronavirus-related deaths in the U.S.—there is hope for an end to the pandemic. Pfizer and BioNTech have been developing a vaccine and conducting Phase 3 clinical trials in hopes of…

As the new President-elect, Joe Biden has named thirteen health experts into his Covid-19 Advisory Board. He calls for a stronger and more coordinated handling of the pandemic; a response much different from President Trump's criticisms of leading infectious disease expert Dr. Fauci. With more than…

Pfizer, a pharmaceutical company based in New York, have collaborated with the German drugmaker BioNTech to announce that an early analysis of clinical trials has suggested the robust effectiveness of their new vaccine. Pfizer plans to gain approval for emergency authorization of the vaccine later…

England, along with other European nations, has re-enacted a national lockdown in order to curb the spike in Covid-19 cases and deaths in the UK. With worries about the second wave of the pandemic being worse than the first, restrictions will close restaurants, bars, and non-essential businesses…

Minks found in Denmark have contracted the coronavirus and transferred a mutated variant back to humans. The Danish government has decided to kill millions of minks as a precaution. The mink is currently the only known animal case to cause this mutation and retransmission. The mutation did not…

Scientists are becoming more aware of the deadly effects of the coronavirus on the vascular system. For serious COVID-19 infections, the virus can alter the endothelial cells which are inside blood vessels. People who died from COVID-19 have more blood clots and damage to the endothelial cells than…

Scientists from Columbia, Cornell, and the Netherlands may have developed a useful tool against COVID-19. The nasal spray uses a lipoprotein to prevent the COVID-19 virus from fusing with the cell. So far, the study has found that ferrets are protected. The spray could be useful since it is cheaper…

Most vaccines are temperature sensitive and cannot be distributed outside of the “cold-chain”. However, scientists in India are developing a heat-stable vaccine in order to improve distribution. If they succeed, the country will be able to distribute COVID vaccines to rural areas that could not be…

Danish authorities have found five cases of coronavirus in mink farms and several cases in humans. In response, the prime minister has concluded that the virus has mutated in minks and has spread to humans. Efforts to cull infected mink began in June, and one-million were culled in October. Now,…

While many White House officials appear to be advocating for the country to push towards a “herd mentality,” Dr. Fauci, the nation's top infectious disease official, has made it clear that moving towards herd immunity is not only ineffective, but it will involve a catastrophic number of infections…

Taiwan has gone 200 consecutive days without local transmission of COVID-19. Despite other countries seeing record-high surges in new cases, Taiwans quick and early response proved to be effective in curbing the spread of the virus. By having ongoing mask mandates, early interventions, and intense…