hedgehog94/Shutterstock To be properly protective, COVID-19 vaccines need to be given to most people worldwide. Only through widespread vaccination will we reach herd immunity – where enough people are immune to stop the disease from spreading freely. To achieve this, some have suggested vaccines should be made compulsory, though theContinue Reading
I’m a clinical trials geek. I keep hearing people talk about the seven to ten years it takes to make a vaccine and how dangerous speeding this up might be. The word that keeps popping up is “rushed”, and it is making the average person nervous about vaccine safety. So,Continue Reading
Rido/Shutterstock Scientific evidence can be difficult to understand. Normally we can rely on experts to interpret it for us, or the media to accurately report any interesting new discoveries, but the pandemic has challenged this. Almost daily we are faced with contradictory views claiming to be “based on the scientificContinue Reading
The UK government has been accused of stoking fear of COVID-19 and using “scary” graphs to impose public restrictions to control the pandemic. There are many parallels between COVID-19 and cancer: both evoke fear, are viewed as indiscriminate killers, and have prompted large-scale public health responses. For any public healthContinue Reading
Shutterstock/Wallenrock Alarm bells are ringing in sport about the risk of a group of chronic, neuro-degenerative diseases, commonly understood as dementia. There is an increasingly large body of evidence which has identified that small, repetitive collisions of the brain inside the skull cause this disease. More high-profile players from England’sContinue Reading
Hassan Saleh/Unsplash, FAL As the pandemic raged in April, churchgoers in Ohio defied warnings not to congregate. Some argued that their religion conferred them immunity from COVID-19. In one memorable CNN clip, a woman insisted she would not catch the virus because she was “covered in Jesus’ blood”. Some weeksContinue Reading
As the northern hemisphere moves into winter, coronavirus rates are rising in parts of Europe and the USA. Experts are warning of a long winter ahead as COVID-19 and influenza put the squeeze on hospitals and other healthcare facilities. In response to the threat presented by the second wave, EuropeanContinue Reading
If there’s one thing we’ve got used to in the pandemic, it’s seeing our political leaders on TV standing next to scientists. So striking is the impact of scientists on policy that it has become hard to see such figures as anything other than leaders working alongside, rather than simplyContinue Reading
Some people need to bundle up all year round. Dean Drobot/ Shutterstock Almost all of us will complain of being cold at some point, especially as lower temperatures arrive. But some people feel cold no matter the weather – and there are a number of reasons why this might beContinue Reading
TextureWorld/Shutterstock You have probably become used to wearing a face mask in public. And you probably wear a fabric one, as we’ve been urged to save N95, FFP3 and other “clinical grade” masks for healthcare workers. This is despite science not knowing how well fabric masks work. To overcome this,Continue Reading
