Dirty air increases risk of respiratory problems that can be fatal for coronavirus patients.



Air pollution is linked to significantly higher rates of death in people with Covid-19, according to analysis.




The work shows that even a tiny, single-unit increase in particle pollution levels in the years before the pandemic is associated with a 15% increase in the death rate. The research, done in the US, calculates that slightly cleaner air in Manhattan in the pas...

White and his colleagues at the Mahidol Oxford Tropical Medicine Research Unit wondered whether widely available drugs could help protect the doctors and nurses from coronavirus disease. They have designed a trial in which 40,000 doctors and nurses in Asia, Africa, and Europe will prophylactically receive chloroquine or hydroxychloroquine, two old drugs against malaria. White hopes the trial will start this month, but its launch has been “incredibly difficult because of bureaucratic proce...

One of us (Julie) is an AI researcher and a roboticist at MIT. The other (Neel) is a physician at a major hospital and a public health researcher at Harvard. Our dinnertime conversations tend to focus on the future. Lately, unsurprisingly, they’ve become hushed and grim.

Amid the daily news churn, policy makers seem to be facing an impossible choice between saving lives and saving livelihoods. A close study of cautionary tales and hopeful examples from across the globe makes clear ...

Feline transmission to humans not shown but infected pet owners warned to be careful.


Cat owners may wish to be more cautious about contact with their pets, as a study from China has revealed Covid-19 can be transmitted between cats.



The team, at Harbin Veterinary Research Institute in China, found that cats are highly susceptible to Covid-19 and appear to be able to transmit the virus through respiratory droplets to other cats. Dogs, chickens, pigs and ducks were fo...

Some scientists warn there’s a small but real possibility the virus could take refuge in a new animal host and reintroduce it to humans in the future.



AS COVID-19 BLISTERS its way around the globe, much of the focus has been on stopping the spread of the virus and treating those who are sick. But virologists say there’s something else that deserves our focus as well—the search for future animal hosts. Experts say that it’s possible the virus could take hold in a new species...

The trajectory of the coronavirus pandemic varies widely from country to country. The number of new cases each day appears to be falling in some nations — what’s known as flattening the curve.Click here for reference

Science’s COVID-19 reporting is supported by the Pulitzer Center.

The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) has given a boost to an unsettling idea: that the novel coronavirus can spread through the air—not just through the large droplets emitted in a cough or sneeze. Though current studies aren’t conclusive, “the results of available studies are consistent with aerosolization of virus from normal breathing,” Harvey Fineberg, who heads a standing committee on Emerging Infectious Disea...

In Italy, the death rate from Covid-19 is more than 10 times greater than in Germany. Why does the death rate vary so much internationally?
In Italy, an epicentre of the new coronavirus outbreak, the death rate at the end of March stood at a sobering 11%. Meanwhile in neighbouring Germany, the same virus led to fatality rates of just 1%. In China, it was 4%, while Israel had the lowest rate worldwide, at 0.35%.






At first it can seem surprising that the same vi...

Pollution and greenhouse gas emissions have fallen across continents as countries try to contain the spread of the new coronavirus. Is this just a fleeting change, or could it lead to longer-lasting falls in emissions?



In a matter of months, the world has been transformed. Thousands of people have already died, and hundreds of thousands more have fallen ill, from a coronavirus that was previously unknown before appearing in the city of Wuhan in December 2019. For millions o...

More than 1,002,000 people have been diagnosed with the COVID-19 disease worldwide, as the death toll surpassed 51,000 while about 208,000 patients recovered.

The coronavirus pandemic death toll in Spain passed 10,000 on Thursday, as the country reported its highest single-day number of deaths since the outbreak began, with the total rising by more than 1,000 to 10,096 among 110,238 infections.

The United States - the world's hardest-hit country - recorded mo...

Most coronavirus patients who end up on ventilators go on to die, according to several small studies from the U.S., China and Europe.

And many of the patients who continue to live can't be taken off the mechanical breathing machines.

"It's very concerning to see how many patients who require ventilation do not make it out of the hospital," says Dr. Tiffany Osborn, a critical care specialist at Washington University in St. Louis who has been caring for coronavirus patients at...

Extreme rate due to demographics and reporting distortions, but experts say other nations may soon see their own spikes.
The numbers are dizzying. Four hundred and thirty-three. Six hundred and twenty-seven. Seven hundred and ninety-three.

For weeks now, the daily briefings by Italy's civil protection agency have been providing grim updates on the number of people killed by COVID-19, the highly infectious respiratory disease caused by the new coronavirus, deepening a sense of gloom ...