The COVID-19 Pandemic – News and Features

The time between cases of the novel coronavirus in a chain of transmission is less than a week, but researchers found that more than 10% of patients are infected by somebody who has the virus but does not yet have symptoms.

An overview of published scientific information on potential therapeutic agents and vaccines for the new coronavirus, highlighted that to date, more than 500 patents have been issued for vaccines and therapeutic agents that could help prevent or treat coronavirus infections.

The Internet of Things (IoT) is an automated solution that can scale quickly to match the speed of a growing epidemic. In the wake of the current coronavirus outbreak being declared a pandemic, we take a look at how the IoT is being employed here.

People who rate themselves as highly knowledgeable about a new infectious disease threat could also be more likely to believe they don’t know enough, a new study suggests.

Analysis of publicly available data on infections with the new coronavirus yielded an estimate of 5.1 days for the median disease incubation period, suggesting that the 14-day quarantine period is reasonable.

As COVID-19 reaches more than 60 countries, the World Bank Group is making available an initial package of up to $12 billion in immediate support to assist countries coping with the health and economic impacts of the global outbreak.

Researchers have published the complete genome sequence for the novel coronavirus, which they call severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus type 2 (SARS-CoV-2).

The NIH has provided an overview of how structural biology is paving the way towards a vaccine for COVID-19 (the novel coronavirus).

Although the imaging features of novel coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) are variable and nonspecific, findings reported thus far show that there is “significant overlap” with those of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS).

The cruise ship Diamond Princess was quarantined for over two weeks resulting in more coronavirus infected passengers than if they would have disembarked immediately. Rather the opposite to what was intended. This is according to a study conducted at Umeå University in Sweden.