All across Europe, coronavirus vaccines are in scarce supply. But in France, they are also surprisingly unwanted: Recent polls suggest just 57% of the country intends to get vaccinated, whereas in the United Kingdom, 89% wants to get a shot for COVID-19.

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vaccine skepticism

It is clear that coronavirus vaccines are safe and effective, but as more are rolled out, researchers are learning about the extent and nature of side effects.

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People with blood type O have a lower chance of being infected with or developing serious illness from COVID-19, a recent study says. Research published in the journal Annals of Internal Medicine looked at more than 225,000 people who had been tested for COVID-19 between Jan. 15 and June 30, 2020. Scientists found that people with blood type O negative had a 2.1% chance of testing positive for coronavirus—the lowest probability among all blood groups. The highest probability was in the blood group B positive, at 4.2%.

Wishing Humanitrack a happy 3rd birthday today and a big thank you to everyone for shaping it into the impactful company, community, and platform that it is meant to be. We have such an exciting outlook for this new year...we are finally getting to the point where it all finally comes together and we can continue to clearly identify and overcome the roadblocks to make it all a success. The path forward has never been clearer as it is here on our birthday and it makes me so excited to see the potential of what we can achieve in this next year with the support of amazing humans!

Happy Birthday

It's a link few might have considered, but a new study indicates that climate change may have prompted the COVID-19 pandemic. Rising temperatures caused by greenhouse emissions have boosted the growth of bat-friendly forest habitat in China's southern province of Yunnan and neighboring areas, making the region a hotspot for bat-borne coronaviruses.

COVID-19

climate change

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A new vaccine trial is underway in the U.K. to test whether mixing and matching different COVID-19 vaccines for the first and second doses is effective. If effective, this might provide more flexibility in vaccine rollout. Mixing vaccines might also give a person better protection, scientists say.

COVID-19

vaccine

People who had COVID-19 developed at least 10 times more antibodies after their first vaccine dose than the average uninfected person who received two doses, new research shows.

A global study of nearly 44,000 found that the COVID-19 vaccine made by Johnson & Johnson is 66% effective in preventing moderate to severe disease. The study was conducted in the U.S., Latin America and South Africa. The vaccine did better at preventing disease in the U.S. – 72% — and less well in South Africa – 57% efficacy. The efficacy seen in Latin America was 66%.

Current vaccines likely still work, scientists say, but their power may be declining

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A team of biologists who banded together to support COVID-19 science determined the atomic structure of a coronavirus protein thought to help the pathogen evade and dampen response from human immune cells. The structural map – which is now published in the journal PNAS, but has been open-access for the scientific community since August – has laid the groundwork for new antiviral treatments and enabled further investigations into how the newly emerged virus ravages the human body.

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crystallography

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With the world in the grips of the COVID-19 pandemic, Jon Cartwright investigates how physics-based techniques are helping scientists study viruses, including this latest novel coronavirus

Researchers reported Monday in the journal Science that a drug developed to fight multiple myeloma has proved 27.5 times more effective at treating COVID-19 than remdesivir in laboratory studies with infected human lung and kidney cells. The drug, Aplidin or Plitidepsin, was also effective at fighting COVID-19 in lab mice. Aplidin was developed in Spain from a tubular, plantlike marine animal called a sea squirt. It has gone through a Phase II trial against COVID-19 and is awaiting a Phase III trial.

Health & Body