As the climate cools in the Northern Hemisphere and people mix more and more indoors, we can expect cases to rise, WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus told reporters on Wednesday at a Press conference. It’s not just the UK – several countries in Europe are already seeing increases in covid-19 cases, hospitalizations and deaths.
Another reason for concern comes from the ability of the virus to evolve. The omicron variant is still responsible for the vast majority of cases worldwide. But the WHO is monitoring more than 300 omicron subvariants, all of which are considered “of concern”. As Maria Van Kerkhove, the WHO’s technical lead on covid-19, said at the same briefing: “We will continue to see waves of infection … because we will live with this virus.”
Technical review has been covering covid-19 since the pandemic began. Here are some recent pieces from the archive:
- Covid-19 affected some much more than others. We have only just begun to examine the racial disparities of the long covidas Elaine Shelly reports in this piece.
- And there is still a great debate about the long covid in children—with groups at odds over the impact, and even the definition, of the disease, as I reported earlier this year.
- In China, a covid pop-up on your phone requiring you to take a PCR test could land you in quarantine for days for no apparent reasonreports my colleague Zeyi Yang.
- Two inhaled vaccines against covid were recently approved for covid-19 in India and China, as I covered last month…
- … But the search for a universal covid vaccine is underway based on nanoparticles, reports Adam Piore.
From all over the web
Have you ever had a blank mind? Brain scans show that our brains can enter a neural state that makes it impossible to harness our thoughts. (PNAS)
Doctors are discovering new very rare blood group systems—and I just described a 44th. (by cable)
Rapid antigen tests for covid-19 have paved the way for other home test kits—covering everything from the flu to kidney disease. (Neo.Life)
Adderall shortage in the United States— prescribed for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and narcolepsy — is biting, and those affected say their lives have been “turned upside down.” (vice)
We are increasingly myopic. Myopia will affect half the world’s population by 2050, in part because we spend more time reading indoors. (future of the BBC)
