The coronavirus pandemic has highlighted underlying inequalities that ethnic minorities face in the UK. In England, both death rates and hospital admission rates are more than twice as high for Black people or people from a south Asian background than they are for white people. The poorer outcomes from COVID-19Continue Reading
Cleaning and disinfecting frequently touched surfaces and objects (such as door handles) can help prevent the spread of infectious diseases. This is more relevant now than ever. One way that COVID-19 can spread is when people who have the virus leave infected droplets on surfaces after sneezing or coughing. StudiesContinue Reading
microstock3D/Shutterstock For those of us who insist on seeing the glass half full, even when the miserable brigade point out that it’s also half empty, COVID-19 poses particular challenges. In regular times, our relentless optimism wins us friends and provides us with a host of benefits including higher levels ofContinue Reading
Following an “invisible summer” caused by the coronavirus pandemic, elite women’s sport is finally returning – long after men resumed playing. Earlier this month, the women’s 15s rugby union competition for 2020-2021 kicked off, after the 2019-2020 season was cancelled in March. The new season features adapted rules to avoidContinue Reading
The Grand Hotel Taipei in Taiwan lights up rooms to mark five days with no new COVID-19 cases. Ricky kuo/Shutterstock Most scientists agree that stringent control measures, involving efficient contact tracing, testing and isolation, together with social distancing and mask wearing, are required to limit the spread of SARS-CoV-2. SouthContinue Reading
Eugene Lu/Shutterstock Around the world, virologists in labs are constantly handling samples of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, as part of our global quest to understand, and hopefully overcome, this pandemic. We know that SARS-CoV-2 is highly infectious and can be lethal if it gets inside our bodies. SoContinue Reading
PA With COVID-19 cases rising rapidly and 83% of beds in intensive care currently occupied, things have not been going well in Northern Ireland. Therefore, after a long meeting on Tuesday October 13, First Minister Arlene Foster announced that the government would be introducing a set of “circuit breaker” restrictionsContinue Reading
Nine months into the pandemic, Europe remains one of the regions worst affected by COVID-19. Ten of the 20 countries with the highest death count per million people are European. The other ten are in the Americas. This includes the US, which has the highest number of confirmed cases andContinue Reading
M-Foto/Shutterstock Since the early days of the pandemic, attention has focused on producing a vaccine for COVID-19. With one, it’s hoped it will be able to suppress the virus without relying purely on economically challenging control measures. Without one, the world will probably have to live with COVID-19 as anContinue Reading
Shutterstock/eamesBOT As we move into the last quarter of 2020, the virus that has defined this troubled year is showing no signs of going away. In the absence of a vaccine or a broadly effective treatment, some are now saying that we must learn to live with COVID-19. But whatContinue Reading
