A bunch of colleges got a schooling in virology this week. As we all know that health department has recommended the educational institutes to take virtual classes still there are some universities which are not following the guidelines. The University of North Carolina at Chapel commenced its physical classes on 10th August ignoring the recommendations issued by the
health department. Within 7-8 days the outbreak got spread on the campus due to which the university again shifted its education mode to online classes. A day later, Notre Dame faced the same issue of the outbreak and took the same steps.
The Health department is repeatedly warning people to maintain distance, as working together into office quarters or close living can prove dangerous to the lives of people and undoubtedly is a bad idea in this pandemic. According to the Health experts if any college would face virus outbreaks in the campus the authorities will blame the students for that instead of realizing their
A wrong decision of reopening of the university and we all can see the same happening.
But the question is, why are they not rethinking while talking such decisions? Everyone knows that virus doesn’t care about the education, the students, for such an outbreak neither the campus boundary exists nor the economy. It is a virus; we can not tell the infection to go away as the school is essential, we can not ask it not to affect students as they go to campus for studying. There is no point to convince ourselves that we can to protect ourselves from the virus or not to come in contact with the virus.
Yes, there is one thing that we all can do, and that is to keep ourselves updated with all the new information that is being provided to us about the virus and follow the guidelines accordingly.
Some of the information about the virus is same that we got in the beginning but a lot more have been changed and one if its example is number of cases in your country. Just have a look at a number of cases in your area, and you will realize the nred of safety. There is a drastic increase in the death rate, infection rate and fortunately the same is with recovery rate. We all should keep
checking the latest guidelines being provided by health experts to protect ourselves not only from the virus but also from the anchoring bias (that we have talked about in our previous articles).
Obviously, we all will see the swings in policies in workplaces, restaurants, schools, movie theaters as well ad gyms as all this keeps on unfolding. But at the same time, we all have to keep learning better ways to reduce the spread of the virus until we can stop the outbreak.
Now let’s discuss what people were talking about last week:
RESEARCH
There is this Trawler’s Haul: Evidence that Antibodies can block the coronavirus infection According to the early version of a study which was posted online this week, there were three sailors who were with antibodies, they didn’t get affected with the virus when a COVID-19 outbreak on a fishing trawler struck them. The results are challenging to the researchers who are researching about coronavirus antibodies – but the outside experts have not yet reviewed this study on a formal basis, and shortly its conclusions could change.
The COVID 19 is in the air: And here is how to get it out.
There is not a single safe indoor environment during this pandemic.” a spokesperson said. This virus can hang in the air, especially in poorly ventilated areas. And as there is not a single completely safe indoor space, there are several ways following which we can make the ventilation better at least inside our buildings. We all have the guidelines hoe to prevent ourselves from getting affected with the virus, and we are just not considering those. If you go to the market, you will see more than 50% of people who are there in the market are without masks. It seems like they neither care about their families nor about their health. They are putting so
many lives on stake, including their family, friends, neighbours etc. Some people are eating street food without a second thought, and they don’t even think to at least using sanitizer while touching any eatable.
DEVELOPMENT
This week FDA approved a saliva-based covid test for which the trial was taken in the NBA. Now one can raise a question of how this test is better than the test which is taken currently. The answer is that this test aims to be cheaper and faster than the current one.
In July, Pfizer and BioNTech announced that they have a vaccine for coronavirus and for which they were ready to start the trial on a large scale. But it wasn’t the same vaccine that they had planned testing initially. The switcheroo was a surprise at the time, but this week they released some data showing that they have the new vaccine and it seems to cause fewer
side effects than their initial choice.
An ‘Unrivalled’ effort to stop the spread of Coronavirus in Nursing Homes
A drug which is designed to prevent the coronavirus infection is being tested in nursing homes. Eli Lilly (a pharmaceutical company) is sending the researchers to the nursing homes having confirmed COVID-19 cases do that they can prove a monoclonal antibody infusion. Now the question is, what do we mean by Monoclonal antibodies? These are synthetic antibodies which can help us to fight against the infection. In a recent experiment which is profiled by The New York Times, they were developed from antibodies collected from a person in Seattle who was affected by the coronavirus and later recovered from COVID-19. This infusion could keep people from getting sick for a limited period of time.
First Covid-19 vaccine there are so many trials which are going on in the labs, still, the officials are so much concerned and that is obvious.
Now we if talk about any good news that we have got so far? In Phase 3 clinical trial Moderna has recruited near about 8400 people – and it is considered that it is on track to hit the target of 30,000 people hopefully in September. Some researchers are thinking of the ways to treat the next pandemic too. But the question here is how could we make drugs for the next pandemic when we have not found any vaccine for the current pandemic yet and are still working on it.
PERSPECTIVES
As some of us are aware of the fact that “we need to measure the things to let them improve, grow” and the question is, how will we fight the virus without measuring it?
Countries are facing a GDP loss; there are people who are dying without proof as in this pandemic they are unable to search work, there are people who are losing their jobs, there are people who are trying hard day in day out to save their family members who are suffering from the disease.
We request you all to take all the necessary measures to protect yourself and your loved ones from the virus.
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