Blog – Page 8216

Please click the button below to report on a cancer patient with COVID-19. See below for eligibility.

Access the survey.

A team of Stanford researchers may have found a way to use heat to disinfect N95 respirators, potentially enabling reuse of the single-use masks that are running dangerously low nationwide as the number of COVID-19 cases in the U.S. continues to grow.

The team’s research, based on experiments on a type of fabric commonly used in respirators and industrial-grade respirators, found that a 30-minute exposure to 75 °C could be used up to 20 times to disinfect N95 respirators without a loss of filtration efficiency and mechanical deformation.

These findings could be game-changing for both hospitals and individuals due to the method’s ease of use, said materials science and engineering professor Yi Cui, who led the research at 4C Air along with physics and molecular biology professor Steven Chu.

Granted it’s a Mirror article, but interesting with potentially bad ramifications if true.

Researchers found a middle-aged man who had mild symptoms but a prolonged version of the potentially deadly illness, according to reports.

Citizens discussing pandemic could reportedly find themselves detained by police.

In yet another demonstration of how rapidly technology can advance, biotech firm Abbott Laboratories has developed a new molecular test for the detection of novel coronavirus (COVID-19), which delivers results in just five minutes.

Abbott Laboratories, headquartered in Illinois, United States, has been granted Emergency Use Authorisation (EUA) by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for adapting COVID-19 tests to its ID NOW platform.

This lightweight (3 kg, or 6.6 lb) and portable device (the size of a small toaster) is already the most widely available molecular point-of-care testing platform in the U.S. today. Its molecular technology – a unique system called isothermal nucleic acid amplification – provides rapid processing of samples and a high degree of accuracy, allowing clinicians to make evidence-based clinical decisions during a patient visit. Essentially, it highlights the presence of a virus by identifying a small section of its genome, then “amplifying” that portion until enough is present for detection.

JERUSALEM (Reuters) — Israel has begun testing a COVID-19 vaccine prototype on rodents at its bio-chemical defense laboratory, a source said on Tuesday.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu ordered the Israel Institute for Biological Research (IIBR), in rural Ness Ziona, to join the fight against the coronavirus pandemic on Feb. 1, prompting an easing of its secrecy as it cooperates with civilian scientists and private firms.

In a statement, Netanyahu’s office said IIBR director Shmuel Shapira had informed him of “significant progress” in designing a vaccine prototype and that the institute “is now preparing a model for commencing an animal trial”.