Science | The Guardian

What the statistics from the outbreak so far can tell us about infection and mortality rates

Streets, shops and public spaces to be cleared in next 24 hours after virus kills hundreds

The NBA has led by example and put public health above self-interest, which is more than the Trump administration can say

With a ‘if we don’t test people, then the outbreak is contained’ approach to testing, the US can continue to vilify the rest of the world for their responses while not doing any betterYesterday, after nearly a month of acute and chronic health issues that continue to be unexplained, I took my husband – at the urging of his cardiologist – to the emergency room at St Thomas Hospital West in Nashville, Tennessee for serious cardiac and respiratory issues.This being our fifth ER visit since early February, we provided the intake staff the same information in response to the coronavirus screening questions that have been asked four times before: in addition to my husband coming into close and frequent contact with a physician who had recently returned from a trip to China, he and I have both traveled extensively in the past few months, including to some of the nation’s largest international airports and overnight stays in a variety of hotels. While we couldn’t confirm we had been in contact with someone who had tested positive for coronavirus, we had no way of ruling it out. Continue reading...

It would be good to know the evidence for the UK strategy – which is starkly different to that of other countriesWith an estimated 5,000 to 10,000 coronavirus cases now present in the UK, the government has eschewed social distancing measures such as closing schools and banning large sporting events. Instead, it has opted for behavioural “nudges”: wash your hands, don’t touch your face, don’t shake hands with others, stay at home if you feel ill, and self-isolate if you have a continuous cough.This approach differs starkly from the quarantine measures taken in China, South Korea, Italy and Iran. But it also marks the UK out as different from countries such as Ireland, Norway and Denmark, which have implemented school closures despite seeing only a relatively small number of coronavirus cases. Patrick Vallance, the government’s chief scientific adviser, has explained that part of the reason for not embracing bans is to encourage “herd immunity”. Allow enough of those who can survive coronavirus disease to get infected, and the virus won’t have new people to infect, meaning new cases will dry up. Other European countries seem to have judged this too bold an approach. Immunity will probably be temporary, so later outbreaks are to be expected, and dealt with by heightened contact tracing when they occur. Continue reading...

What is Covid-19, how does it spread, what are the symptoms, and at what point should you call a doctor?

Trustworthy health advice has never been more vital – it could be the difference between life and death

Patrick Vallance says aim is to broaden peak of epidemic as Jeremy Hunt raises concerns

Covid-19 essential guide: can it be caught on public transport, how is it different from the flu, and how sick will I get?

Trump used to flirt with anti-vaxxers. Now he is demanding a coronavirus vaccine

Earliest case detected on 17 November, weeks before authorities acknowledged new virus, says Chinese media

Justin Trudeau’s wife and diplomat at the UN test positive as Australian Grand Prix is cancelled and Arsenal and Chelsea teams affected

From exams to the five-day week, the pandemic is making us question our everyday practices. Some changes will stickFor days now, the list has been growing in my head. All the meetings, all the working coffees, everyone I bumped into in the street over the last week or two. The dinners with old friends, the book launch party, the kids’ sleepovers, the dog walks with neighbours and cups of tea made for the builders. Even a boring middle-aged life, living in the country and working much of the time from home, is more sociable than it looks.Related: On the UK’s high streets, coronavirus poses a special kind of threat | Tom Grindrod Continue reading...

A summary of the biggest developments in the global coronavirus outbreak

Investigating mind-bending concepts from string theory to quantum gravity has taken physicist Brian Greene on a journey through the universe and towards its ultimate demise. In his new book, Until the End of Time, Greene explores this cosmic impermanence and how we can still find meaning and purpose in human experience Continue reading...

Pandemic upends lives of millions as more countries decide to close schools

Chief medical officer adds that 80% of UK could contract virus, with half a million people dyingCoronavirus – latest updatesUp to 10,000 people may already have coronavirus in Britain and many families should expect to lose loved ones before their time, Boris Johnson warned on Thursday as he set out measures less stringent than those taken by other countries.Medical, scientific and public health experts criticised the steps outlined to tackle what the prime minister described as the “worst public health crisis for a generation”, including ending school trips abroad, stopping older and vulnerable people taking cruises and the use of self-isolation for a temperature and cough lasting four hours. Continue reading...

Medical and scientific experts react to Boris Johnson’s press conference as the UK moves into the delay phaseProf Deenan Pillay, professor of virology, University College LondonThe ways these measures are developed and issued will be balancing the urgency of trying to flatten the curve of the peak versus activities that are sustainable and realistic. The purpose of staying at home for seven days if you have a new continuous cough or a high temperature is to blunt the number of people contributing to ongoing transmission, and that is a very important step. It will help reduce deaths, but also reduce the number of people who are admitted to hospital and intensive care. From the situation in Italy, we can see that intensive care is one of the services that will soon become overwhelmed. Continue reading...

The UK is adopting a much more limited response than other countries. It may be ignoring essential lessons from elsewhereHow quickly the unthinkable can become reality. We are all entering a new world as the Covid-19 pandemic takes hold. Many more families in the UK will lose loved ones, the prime minister has warned: while 590 cases have been identified, officials say the true number is probably between 5 and 10,000. The government has now moved from trying to contain the outbreak, to seeking to delay it. It says it is doing so on the advice of experts. Yet there are questions about whether its policy is adequate. The editor of the medical journal the Lancet describes it as complacent. Some experts had already warned that the initial UK response had been “pathetic”.The new measures to achieve delay are minimal compared to those taken in other countries. In Italy, more than 1,000 have now succumbed. The old and other vulnerable groups will suffer. The overstretched NHS is surely not prepared for the numbers who will be falling sick in short order. Continue reading...

Findings mean that isolating people once they start to feel ill is less effective than hoped

The WHO has declared the Covid-19 outbreak to be a pandemic. But what does that mean?

From questions on how the virus spread to concerns about whether schools should shut, our experts answer your questions on coronavirus2.02pm GMTOur live Q&A has now ended. Thank you to everyone who submitted a question either in our form or in the comments. You can continue to follow our live updates here.Related: Coronavirus live updates: Ireland closes all schools and universities2.00pm GMTIs there any particular reason why Central African countries seem to be spared of the virus? Is it because of lack of travel to those region, lack of testing/detection or is the warmer climate protective against the spread of the virus?We don’t yet know whether they are being spared. It may be that in low-income, poorly resourced countries in Africa, cases are being missed, although they are doing all they can, with support from the World Health Organization. The other possibility is that there may be something particular to Africa that reduces the transmissibility of the virus. That could include the outdoor life that people lead in many regions. Continue reading...

My former colleague David Ware, who has died aged 80, was a university and college lecturer and biological sciences researcher.Born in Brighton, East Sussex, to Henry, a chief petty officer in the Royal Navy, and Florence (nee May), a nurse, he attended Varndean grammar school. At the age of 18 David was called up for national service, training as a radar operator in Cyprus. There followed a three-year spell in the merchant navy before he married Rosemary Sullivan, an administrator at a drug rehabilitation centre, in 1963. Continue reading...

If retail workers like me work sick, then you get sick. But not going to work can mean not paying the rentIt’s a strange time to be working at a prominent high-street fashion retailer. For many in the UK, this week has been one of self-isolation: staying away from work, stocking up on essential items, sealing themselves off from the threat of infection. Yet for many others, self-isolation is an economic impossibility – it means being unable to afford to pay rent, or afford food at the end of the month.Related: Coronavirus hits ill and disabled people hardest, so why is society writing us off? | Frances Ryan Continue reading...

Alcohol-based disinfectants are also effective, but soap is a highly efficient way of killing the virus when it’s on your skinViruses can be active outside the body for hours, even days. Disinfectants, liquids, wipes, gels and creams containing alcohol are all useful at getting rid of them – but they are not quite as good as normal soap.Related: With Italy in lockdown, fear over coronavirus is natural but we must not be alarmist | Gaby Hinsliff Continue reading...

What is Covid-19, how does it spread, what are the symptoms, and at what point should you call a doctor?

American actor, who is starring in Baz Luhrmann’s Elvis film, and his wife say they are to be isolated while they recover• Coronavirus live updates: US suspends all travel from Europe for 30 days, excluding UKThe US actor Tom Hanks and his wife, Rita Wilson, have been diagnosed with coronavirus while filming in Australia.The 63-year-old Academy Award-winning actor is currently on the Gold Coast in Queensland filming Baz Luhrmann’s untitled production about Elvis Presley. Continue reading...

There are too many unknowns to make reliable predictions, but Hong Kong and Singapore should be Britain’s role modelsAre we doing Covid-19 right? With the number of new reported cases of infection declining rapidly in China, but soaring in what is now a semi-locked-down Italy, it’s worth looking at the experiences and strategies of countries to see what can be learned. Governments are faced with stark choices, says Roy Anderson of Imperial College in London, one of the UK’s most eminent epidemiologists. There are essentially four options. You could try to minimise the number of fatalities or the economic impact. You could attempt to flatten the peaked curve in the incidence so that the cases are not all concentrated in a narrow time span, which could overwhelm healthcare resources (already severely stretched in the UK). Or you could try to delay the spread in order to buy time for development of a vaccine – although most experts don’t expect one to be available for at least a year.Related: WHO declares coronavirus pandemic Continue reading...

Following our first Covid-19 episode last week, we received an incredible response, with so many interesting new areas to explore. One of those was what exactly happens once someone is infected with this new virus. As Nicola Davis find outs, whilst scientists are still racing to figure the exact details out, insights can be gleaned from other viral infections like influenza Continue reading...

Opposition argues the ‘public health emergency’ requires urgent, even ‘draconian’, social distancing measures

Maina Sage diagnosed with virus in Tahiti after meeting with infected French culture minister while in ParisFrench Polynesia has announced the first case of Covid-19 in Tahiti, the first confirmed case of the coronavirus across the Pacific Islands.President Edouard Fritch, said that French Polynesian politician Maina Sage had been confirmed with the virus after returning from Paris on 7 March. Sage is resting at home in self-isolation in Papeete. Continue reading...

Brainchild of Dominic Cummings will seek to return Britain to its ‘pioneering scientific roots’, says chancellor

In Vanuatu, where cyclones regularly interrupt trade, we are watching the west’s collective panic with bemusementI’ve lived in the south Pacific island nation of Vanuatu for 16 years. Tropical weather regularly interrupts trade. Even when they’re hundreds of kilometres away, cyclones wreak havoc on shipping. Isolation and deprivation define our lives. We know better than most how to cope.So imagine our bemusement when we see ranks of empty shelves in Australia, New Zealand, the UK and the USA, denuded by people who pretty clearly have never dealt with a shortage before. Continue reading...

Grapefruit-sized tracks are first evidence that iconic dinosaurs roamed ScotlandGrapefruit-sized depressions found in rocks on the Isle of Skye have revealed that a type of stegosaurus once wandered the landscape, researchers say.The newly discovered tracks form a single line, a few metres long, with a right-left pattern and two different-sized prints – as would be expected for an animal on all fours – with one set larger and triangular-shaped, and the other set smaller and further forwards. Continue reading...

The chancellor might claim the Tories are ‘the real workers’ party’ but there’s no sign the state will intervene on the side of labour or redistribute wealthRishi Sunak’s first budget reveals a politician who will not squander the opportunity presented by a crisis. The Conservative chancellor has acted to shore up confidence in the economy by rolling out a series of emergency spending measures to support households and businesses in the wake of the global coronavirus outbreak. But he has also signalled a new direction of government economic policy. Mr Sunak used his first of three fiscal events this year to talk up the government’s agenda and send a message that it would not hesitate to use the state. What Mr Sunak wanted voters to hear is that this is a big-spending, big-borrowing administration, which in terms of real spending per person aims to reverse a decade of cuts by the time of the next election.This change of attitude and the talk of strengthening the safety net to deal with an emergency is a refreshing change for the better. Mr Sunak is correct in sensing that the public won’t indulge Tory state-shrinking instincts. The chancellor is a welcome convert to the idea that the Treasury must borrow to invest with a view to lifting the growth rate of the economy. The cash injection is required to keep the economy expanding, not least because Brexit shrunk it by 2%. What once was seen as heresy is now a tenet of the Johnsonian faith. The impression, left by Mr Sunak, is that we are all Keynesians now. To paraphrase Margaret Thatcher, never has the road to Damascus been so congested. Mrs Thatcher was crowing in 1996 after four Labour defeats. There can be little satisfaction for Labour in winning the economic argument, only to see the Tories stealing its ideas after four electoral losses. Continue reading...

Study suggests number of cases could have been cut by 66% if China had acted a week earlier

Director general says his organisation is ‘deeply concerned … by alarming levels of inaction’

China is worst hit as lack of financial support leaves small-scale farms struggling to survive while big companies continue to expandSmall farmers across the globe are losing out in the aftermath of the African swine fever (ASF) outbreak that killed a quarter of the world’s pig population, argues a new report.Nowhere is this more evident than China, where swine fever has hit the country’s nearly 40 million small-scale pig farmers hardest, says the report by non-profit organisation Grain. Continue reading...

Losses of ice from Greenland and Antarctica are tracking the worst-case climate scenario, scientists warnThe polar ice caps are melting six times faster than in the 1990s, according to the most complete analysis to date.The ice loss from Greenland and Antarctica is tracking the worst-case climate warming scenario set out by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), scientists say. Without rapid cuts to carbon emissions the analysis indicates there could be a rise in sea levels that would leave 400 million people exposed to coastal flooding each year by the end of the century. Continue reading...

Conditions on Wasp-76b in Pisces include temperatures of 2,400C and 10,000mph windsWasp-76b is what astronomers call an exoplanet, one that orbits a star outside our solar system. Scientists have discovered that the local weather conditions include 2,400C temperatures, winds in excess of 10,000mph and a steady pelting of iron rain.The observations of the distant planet’s unusually hostile climate are the first results from a new instrument on the Very Large Telescope in Chile, which astronomers say will transform our view of worlds far from beyond our own solar system. Continue reading...

From technology for remote consultations to better education about hygiene, Covid-19 is forcing the health service to evolveCovid-19, or more precisely the reaction to it, is playing havoc with our economic and healthcare institutions. So why is the waiting room in my surgery quieter than usual for this time of year? The sense among some other GP colleagues is that the NHS 111 phone line is doing a good job of directing possible cases to testing facilities in nearby hospitals (despite the stories of incorrect advice in some cases), while the worried well are staying away for fear of picking up something nasty in the surgery.Related: Can a face mask stop coronavirus? Covid-19 facts checked Continue reading...

Vice-chancellors say thousands of students will have nowhere to go if campuses close

Some leaders claim virus is less likely to infect in spring but data still insufficient to proveWill coronavirus infections slow down as spring arrives in the northern hemisphere? Certainly this is what some political leaders seem to think. Donald Trump told a meeting of the nation’s governors in February that “the heat, generally speaking, kills this kind of virus”. Meanwhile, the UK’s health secretary, Matt Hancock, told ITV that the hope was to slow the spread of the virus so if it does cause a UK epidemic it arrives in spring and summer when coronaviruses are less transmissible.In the world’s temperate regions seasonal flu and the “common cold” coronaviruses tend to spread more readily in winter. That may be because the air in the colder months is generally drier, both indoors and out, and dry conditions have been shown to favour flu transmission. Our immune systems are, on average, weaker in winter too – possibly due to less sunlight and lower vitamin D levels. Continue reading...

The influenza outbreak of 1918 was one of the most devastating pandemics in human history. By the summer of 1919 the worst was over, but less severe waves continued into 1920 – as shown by Guardian reports1 May 1920 Continue reading...

What is Covid-19, how does it spread, what are the symptoms, and at what point should you call a doctor?

No wonder immuno-compromised people are heading online to share strategies as to how to stay safeIt won’t come for you. This is the general message about coronavirus, as the UK prepares for the outbreak to possibly worsen. Read the many media reports and a common line comes out: “Most people recover, and fatalities are largely only among those with underlying health conditions.” It is a sentiment I have heard constantly in recent days, supposedly as a form of reassurance. It’s understandable: facts are vital to establish in a climate where myths can spread as quickly as the virus, and the World Health Organization has made it clear that younger and healthy people are much less vulnerable to serious harm. But it does raisethe question: what about the rest of us?Related: The message to doctors has always been clear: if you get sick, do it on your own time | Ranjana Srivastava Continue reading...

Ai Fen says in interview, which censors are trying to erase, how superiors reprimanded her for warning about outbreak

What is a super-spreader and when does an epidemic become a pandemic? Here’s our guideAs the coronavirus spreads around the world and scientific understanding of the virus and the disease it causes grows, technical terms are increasingly bandied about. Here is a glossary of words that are cropping up in the context of the outbreak.Coronavirus Continue reading...

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Watchdog rules Vic Smith Beds ad offensive for saying ‘no nasty imports’ and using surgical mask imageA newspaper ad promoting British-made mattresses that warned of “nasty imports” alongside an image of a surgical mask has been banned by the advertising watchdog for associating immigrants with the spread of the coronavirus.North London-based Vic Smith Beds ran an ad in a local paper featuring a cartoon image of an upright mattress with a Union Jack on the front wearing a green surgical mask. Continue reading...