As countries race to develop a Covid-19 vaccine, just determining who's infected remains a major challenge. From a report: Large-scale testing is a crucial element in containing the virus, experts say, because many who contract it exhibit little to no symptoms. Without widespread testing, it's a daunting task to identify contagious individuals and isolate them. To help meet that challenge, the XPRIZE Foundation, which aims to spur technological and industry advancements, is offering a $5 million prize to develop a new Covid-19 rapid test. Competitors can enter until midnight Tuesday. Since July, 659 teams from 68 countries have registered. Currently, test results for the novel coronavirus can take up to two weeks, creating headaches for medical professionals, public-health experts and elected officials. Without the ability to test people often and with speedy results, many cases may go undetected, which can lead to new clusters of infections.

"We have, like everyone else around the globe, seen the impact this has had on mental health, physical health, bringing the wheels off of the economy," said Anousheh Ansari, chief executive officer of the XPRIZE Foundation. "We always look at innovation to solve grand challenges." Ansari and her family poured millions into funding the first XPRIZE in 2004 that launched the commercial space race. That $10 million prize brought in about $100 million of investment to the teams that competed, helping fuel what is now a more than $100 billion industry. Ansari's hope is that the Covid prize will seed a similar investment boom to fight a virus that has infected more than 27.3 million people and killed more than 892,000 worldwide.

That Covid-19 reinfection in Hong Kong was followed by similar reports in Belgium and the Netherlands. It was announced today that a 27-year-old woman in Karnataka, India also tested positive for the disease a second time (though the government is still seeking confirmation), and now researchers in Nevada are also reporting a "likely" case of reinfection.

The health-news site Stat reports: What caught experts' attention about the case of the 25-year-old Reno man was not that he appears to have contracted SARS-CoV-2 (the name of the virus that causes Covid-19) a second time. Rather, it's that his second bout was more serious than his first. Immunologists had expected that if the immune response generated after an initial infection could not prevent a second case, then it should at least stave off more severe illness. That's what occurred with the first known reinfection case, in a 33-year-old Hong Kong man.

Still, despite what happened to the man in Nevada, researchers are stressing this is not a sky-is-falling situation or one that should result in firm conclusions. They always presumed people would become vulnerable to Covid-19 again some time after recovering from an initial case, based on how our immune systems respond to other respiratory viruses, including other coronaviruses. It's possible that these early cases of reinfection are outliers and have features that won't apply to the tens of millions of other people who have already shaken off Covid-19. "There are millions and millions of cases," said Michael Mina, an epidemiologist at Harvard's T.H. Chan School of Public Health. The real question that should get the most focus, Mina said, is, "What happens to most people...?"

Researchers are finding that, generally, people who get Covid-19 develop a healthy immune response replete with both antibodies (molecules that can block pathogens from infecting cells) and T cells (which help wipe out the virus). This is what happens after other viral infections.

Science Alert reports: People who eat a lot of industrially processed junk food are more likely to exhibit a change in their chromosomes linked to aging, according to research presented Tuesday at an online medical conference. Three or more servings of so-called "ultra-processed food" per day doubled the odds that strands of DNA and proteins called telomeres, found on the end of chromosomes, would be shorter compared to people who rarely consumed such foods, scientists reported at the European and International Conference on Obesity.

Short telomeres are a marker of biological aging at the cellular level, and the study suggests that diet is a factor in driving the cells to age faster. While the correlation is strong, however, the causal relationship between eating highly processed foods and diminished telomeres remains speculative, the authors cautioned.

Russia's "Sputnik-V" COVID-19 vaccine produced an antibody response in all participants in early-stage trials, according to results published on Friday by The Lancet medical journal that were hailed by Moscow as an answer to its critics. Reuters reports: The results of the two trials, conducted in June-July this year and involving 76 participants, showed 100% of participants developing antibodies to the new coronavirus and no serious side effects, The Lancet said. Russia licensed the two-shot jab for domestic use in August, the first country to do so and before any data had been published or a large-scale trial begun. "The two 42-day trials -- including 38 healthy adults each -- did not find any serious adverse effects among participants, and confirmed that the vaccine candidates elicit an antibody response," The Lancet said. "Large, long-term trials including a placebo comparison, and further monitoring are needed to establish the long-term safety and effectiveness of the vaccine for preventing COVID-19 infection," it said.

The vaccine is named Sputnik-V in homage to the world's first satellite, launched by the Soviet Union. Some Western experts have warned against its use until all internationally approved testing and regulatory steps have been taken. But with the results now published for the first time in an international peer-reviewed journal, and with a 40,000-strong later-stage trial launched last week, a senior Russian official said Moscow had faced down its critics abroad. "With this (publication) we answer all of the questions of the West that were diligently asked over the past three weeks, frankly with the clear goal of tarnishing the Russian vaccine," said Kirill Dmitriev, the head of the Russian Direct Investment Fund (RDIF), Russia's sovereign wealth fund, which has backed the vaccine. "All of the boxes are checked," he told Reuters. "Now... we will start asking questions of some of the Western vaccines."

Antibodies that people make to fight the new coronavirus last for at least four months after diagnosis and do not fade quickly as some earlier reports suggested, scientists have found. From a report: Tuesday's report, from tests on more than 30,000 people in Iceland, is the most extensive work yet on the immune system's response to the virus over time, and is good news for efforts to develop vaccines. If a vaccine can spur production of long-lasting antibodies as natural infection seems to do, it gives hope that "immunity to this unpredictable and highly contagious virus may not be fleeting," scientists from Harvard University and the U.S. National Institutes of Health wrote in a commentary published with the study in the New England Journal of Medicine. One of the big mysteries of the pandemic is whether having had the coronavirus helps protect against future infection, and for how long. Some smaller studies previously suggested that antibodies may disappear quickly and that some people with few or no symptoms may not make many at all. The new study was done by Reykjavik-based deCODE Genetics, a subsidiary of the U.S. biotech company Amgen, with several hospitals, universities and health officials in Iceland. The country tested 15% of its population since late February, when its first COVID-19 cases were detected, giving a solid base for comparisons.

The Trump administration will decline to pay tens of millions of dollars owed to the World Health Organization (WHO) in annual dues as part of the U.S.'s withdrawal from the global body, which is scheduled for next year. The Hill reports: The Associated Press reported that the U.S. will not pay just over $60 million owed in 2020 dues to the organization, and Reuters reported that the decision also will affect about $19 million still owed in 2019 dues. A decision to forgo the payments comes as the Trump administration has hammered the WHO for months over supposedly bowing to China's wishes and essentially acting as a PR shop for China's government during the early stages of the pandemic while Chinese officials allegedly stymied international health experts from learning about the virus.

In a statement, a WHO spokesperson said the agency would review its options and encourage the U.S. to reverse course. "We refer you to our previous statements of regret regarding the U.S. decision to withdraw. We await further details, which we will consider carefully," the spokesperson told Reuters.

schwit1 shares a report from the New York Post: As governments around the world scramble to approve a vaccine against the deadly coronavirus, an increasing number of scientists have started administering DIY vaccines to themselves and even their friends and family members. The methods, results, and claims have varied widely among the dozens of scientists around the world who have taken this unconventional route.

One such effort is by scientist Johnny Stine, who runs North Coast Biologics, a biotech company in Seattle. In June, Washington attorney general slapped Stine with a lawsuit for administering his DIY vaccine to San Juan Island Mayor Farhad Ghatan and around 30 people, charging them $400, the New York Times reported. Another vaccine effort going outside FDA approval is the Rapid Deployment Vaccine Collaborative, or RaDVaC, which has among its 23 collaborators Harvard geneticist George Church. Proponents have welcomed the idea of going outside the normal regulatory process, given the extraordinary circumstances of the pandemic. But critics say these DIY vaccines are not being put to the test of placebo-controlled studies and could have unforeseen negative consequences.

Thelasko shares a report from Medium: Earlier this summer, the Summit supercomputer at Oak Ridge National Lab in Tennessee set about crunching data on more than 40,000 genes from 17,000 genetic samples in an effort to better understand Covid-19. Summit is the second-fastest computer in the world, but the process -- which involved analyzing 2.5 billion genetic combinations -- still took more than a week. When Summit was done, researchers analyzed the results. It was, in the words of Dr. Daniel Jacobson, lead researcher and chief scientist for computational systems biology at Oak Ridge, a 'eureka moment.' The computer had revealed a new theory about how Covid-19 impacts the body: the bradykinin hypothesis. The hypothesis provides a model that explains many aspects of Covid-19, including some of its most bizarre symptoms. It also suggests 10-plus potential treatments, many of which are already FDA approved. Jacobson's group published their results in a paper in the journal eLife in early July.

According to the team's findings, a Covid-19 infection generally begins when the virus enters the body through ACE2 receptors in the nose, (The receptors, which the virus is known to target, are abundant there.) The virus then proceeds through the body, entering cells in other places where ACE2 is also present: the intestines, kidneys, and heart. This likely accounts for at least some of the disease's cardiac and GI symptoms. But once Covid-19 has established itself in the body, things start to get really interesting. According to Jacobson's group, the data Summit analyzed shows that Covid-19 isn't content to simply infect cells that already express lots of ACE2 receptors. Instead, it actively hijacks the body's own systems, tricking it into upregulating ACE2 receptors in places where they're usually expressed at low or medium levels, including the lungs.

The renin-angiotensin system (RAS) controls many aspects of the circulatory system, including the body's levels of a chemical called bradykinin, which normally helps to regulate blood pressure. According to the team's analysis, when the virus tweaks the RAS, it causes the body's mechanisms for regulating bradykinin to go haywire. Bradykinin receptors are resensitized, and the body also stops effectively breaking down bradykinin. (ACE normally degrades bradykinin, but when the virus downregulates it, it can't do this as effectively.) The end result, the researchers say, is to release a bradykinin storm -- a massive, runaway buildup of bradykinin in the body. According to the bradykinin hypothesis, it's this storm that is ultimately responsible for many of Covid-19's deadly effects. Several drugs target aspects of the RAS and are already FDA approved, including danazol, stanozolol, and ecallantide, which reduce bradykinin production and could potentially stop a deadly bradykinin storm.

Interestingly, the researchers suggest vitamin D as a potentially useful Covid-19 drug. "The vitamin is involved in the RAS system and could prove helpful by reducing levels of another compound, known as REN," the report says. "Again, this could stop potentially deadly bradykinin storms from forming." Other compounds could treat symptoms associated with bradykinin storms, such as Hymecromone and timbetasin.

The Trump administration said it will not join a global effort to develop, manufacture and equitably distribute a coronavirus vaccine, in part because the World Health Organization is involved, a decision that could shape the course of the pandemic and the country's role in health diplomacy. The Washington Post reports: More than 170 countries are in talks to participate in the Covid-19 Vaccines Global Access (Covax) Facility, which aims to speed vaccine development and secure doses for all countries and distribute them to the most high-risk segment of each population. The plan, which is co-led by the WHO, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations and Gavi, the vaccine alliance, was of interest to some members of the Trump administration and is backed by traditional U.S. allies, including Japan, Germany and the European Commission, the executive arm of the European Union.

But the United States will not participate, in part because the White House does not want to work with the WHO, which President Trump has criticized over what he characterized as its "China-centric" response to the pandemic. "The United States will continue to engage our international partners to ensure we defeat this virus, but we will not be constrained by multilateral organizations influenced by the corrupt World Health Organization and China," said Judd Deere, a spokesman for the White House. The Covax decision, which has not been previously reported, is effectively a doubling down by the administration on its bet that the United States will win the vaccine race. It eliminates the chance to secure doses from a pool of promising vaccine candidates -- a potentially risky strategy.

An anonymous reader quotes a report from the BBC: Apple has begun letting its iPhones carry out contact-tracing without the need for users to download an official Covid-19 app. As an alternative, owners are being invited to opt in to a scheme called Exposure Notifications Express (ENE). This keeps a 14-day log of other phones detected via Bluetooth and serves an alert if one or more of their users is later diagnosed to have the virus. The local public health authority will determine what the notification says. It might tell the user to download a more fully functional app for further guidance. However, it also gives officials the option of not developing an app of their own, in which case the user could be directed to go to a testing centre or to call a hotline for more information.

IPhone owners who become ill without having received a warning message can still cause a cascade of alerts to be sent to others. But since they will not have an app to start the process, this will be done by tapping on a text message sent by the public health authority to their smartphone after a positive diagnosis. The facility is being rolled out as part of the latest update to Apple's mobile operating system, iOS 13.7, which has just been released. Android is expected to have a similar scheme that will launch later this month. "It will go by the same name, but rather than go down the app-less route, Google has opted to automatically create a basic coronavirus tracing app for public health authorities based on the criteria they provide," reports the BBC.

The Guardian ran an article by the author of Pale Rider: The Spanish Flu of 1918 and How It Changed the World looking at problems with our own race for a vaccine in 2020: On 2 August, Steven Salzberg, a computational biologist at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, suggested in Forbes magazine that a promising vaccine be rolled out to a wider pool of volunteers before clinical trials had been completed, triggering an outcry (and some sympathy) that prompted him to recant the next day. Meanwhile, a research group with links to Harvard University continues to defend its publication in July of a recipe for a do-it-yourself Covid-19 vaccine — one that only the group's 20-odd members had previously tested...

The accumulation of such incidents has left many scientists feeling deeply uneasy. "I'm more and more concerned that things are getting done in a rush," says Beate Kampmann, who directs the Vaccine Centre at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (and whose work email account was subject to a failed hack in July). On 13 August, the editor-in-chief of the journal Science issued a call to order. "Short cuts in testing for vaccine safety and efficacy endanger millions of lives in the short term and will damage public confidence in vaccines and in science for a long time to come," wrote H Holden Thorp.

He went on to point out that the stakes are higher than with unproven therapies such as hydroxychloroquine, because a vaccine is given to healthy people. "Approval of a vaccine that is harmful or isn't effective could be leveraged by political forces that already propagate vaccine fears," he warned... Kampmann, meanwhile, feels it's important not to let the recent shenanigans in the vaccine community overshadow its huge achievements. If current forecasts are correct, a Covid-19 vaccine will be available in 2021 — smashing all records for vaccine development — and there will be many more reasons to trust it than not to. Still, those with their eye on that glittering prize should remember what is at stake. "We have to be careful," she says, "because what we do with Covid-19 could have repercussions for trust in all vaccine programs."

CNET reports: Twice a year most of the U.S. stumbles around in confusion while missing appointments, resetting their clocks and grumbling about daylight saving time. The American Academy of Sleep Medicine thinks we should knock that nonsense off and just stick with standard time year-round. The AASM released a position statement this week as an accepted paper in the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine calling for an end to daylight saving time...

The professional organization represents sleep medicine professionals and accredits sleep medicine facilities. "Permanent, year-round standard time is the best choice to most closely match our circadian sleep-wake cycle," said lead author M. Adeel Rishi, a sleep specialist with the Mayo Clinic and vice chair of the AASM Public Safety Committee. "Daylight saving time results in more darkness in the morning and more light in the evening, disrupting the body's natural rhythm."

Studies have pointed to health risks connected to daylight saving time and the sleep disruptions it causes. The AASM called out stroke risks, stress reactions and an increase in motor vehicles crashes, particularly in relation to the springtime clock change. "Because the adoption of permanent standard time would be beneficial for public health and safety, the AASM will be advocating at the federal level for this legislative change," said AASM president Kannan Ramar in a release on Thursday.

gollum123 shared this article from MarketWatch: Do masks really work? Ask the dozens of Starbucks customers who tested positive for COVID-19 in Seoul this month after a woman with coronavirus sat under one of the cafe's air-conditioners. According to a local news report, at least 56 coronavirus cases have been linked to that one customer. The kicker: The four masked workers avoided infection...

"This speaks volumes about the role masks can play," Ma Sang Hyuk, a pediatric infectious diseases physician in South Korea, explained to Bloomberg News. "Masks may not provide 100% protection, but there's nothing out there that's as effective."

Local authorities made it mandatory this week for everybody to wear masks both indoors and outdoors, as the greater Seoul area has seen a surge in coronavirus cases.

A Nevada resident is thought to be the first person in the United States to be infected twice by the coronavirus, according to findings released this week. The New York Post reports: The 25-year-old man, of Reno, experienced a sore throat, cough, headache, nausea and diarrhea -- and first tested positive for the COVID-19 on April 18, according to a study published to the website SSRN Thursday, which has yet to be peer-reviewed. His symptoms had resolved by April 27, and he tested negative for the virus twice in May, the study says. Then on May 31, he sought treatment again for the same symptoms, in addition to a fever and dizziness, according to the study. The patient was hospitalized five days later as his symptoms worsened to include muscle aches, a cough and shortness of breath. He then tested positive for the coronavirus a second time. Another test revealed he had antibodies against the infection. A Hong Kong man was the first patient ever confirmed to be reinfected with the coronavirus. Two European cases of COVID-19 reinfection were reported one day later.

Earlier today, Elon Musk demonstrated his startup Neuralink's brain link device working in a pig named Gertrude. While the science and the device itself were front-and-center at the presentation, the surgical robot the company debuted is equally as important because it's designed to handle the full surgical installation process. "That includes opening up the scalp, removing a portion of the skull, inserting the hundreds of 'thread' electrodes 6mm deep along with the accompanying chip, then closing the incision," reports CNET. TechCrunch takes a closer look at the robot: The rounded polycarbonate sci-fi design of the brain surgeon bot looks like something out of the Portal franchise, but it's actually the creation of Vancouver-based industrial design firm Woke Studio. To be clear, Musk's engineers and scientists have created the underlying technology, but Woke built the robot's look and user experience, as well as the behind-the-ear communication end piece that Neuralink has shown in prior presentations. Neuralink's bot features clean white (required for ensuring sterility, per Woke), arcing lines and smooth surfaces for a look that at once flags its advanced technical capabilities, but also contains some soothing and more approachable elements, which is wise considering what the machine is intended to do.

Woke says the Neuralink surgical robot can be separated into three main parts: The head, the body and base. The head of the robot is that helmet-like piece, which actually holds the head of the patient. It also includes a guide for the surgical needle, as well as embedded cameras and sensors to map the patent's brain. The intent of the design of this piece, which includes a mint-colored interior, is to give the robot "an anthroprmorphic characteristic" that helps distract from the invasive nature of the procedure. There are also single-use disposable bags that line the interior of the helmet for sterile operation. The Neuralink robot also has a "body," that humped rear assembly, which includes all the parts responsible for the motion of the robot as it sets up from the procedure. The third element is the base, which basically keeps the whole thing from tipping over, and apparently also contains the computing brains of the brain-bot itself.

An anonymous reader shares a report: For every 1,000 people infected with the coronavirus who are under the age of 50, almost none will die. For people in their fifties and early sixties, about five will die -- more men than women. The risk then climbs steeply as the years accrue. For every 1,000 people in their mid-seventies or older who are infected, around 116 will die. These are the stark statistics obtained by some of the first detailed studies into the mortality risk for COVID-19. Trends in coronavirus deaths by age have been clear since early in the pandemic. Research teams looking at the presence of antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 in people in the general population -- in Spain, England, Italy and Geneva in Switzerland -- have now quantified that risk, says Marm Kilpatrick, an infectious-disease researcher at the University of California, Santa Cruz. "It gives us a much sharper tool when asking what the impact might be on a certain population that has a certain demographic," says Kilpatrick. The studies reveal that age is by far the strongest predictor of an infected person's risk of dying -- a metric known as the infection fatality ratio (IFR), which is the proportion of people infected with the virus, including those who didn't get tested or show symptoms, who will die as a result.

schwit1 writes: The Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday authorized the first rapid coronavirus test that doesn't need any special computer equipment to get results. The 15-minute test from Abbott Laboratories will sell for $5, giving it a competitive edge over similar tests that need to be popped into a small machine. The self-contained test is the size of a credit card and is based on the same technology used to test for the flu, strep throat and other infections. It's the latest cheaper, simpler test to hit the U.S. market, providing new options to expand testing as schools and businesses struggle to reopen and flu season approaches. The FDA also recently greenlighted a saliva test from Yale University that bypasses some of the supplies that have led to testing bottlenecks. Both tests have limitations and neither can be done at home. Several companies are developing rapid, at-home tests, but none have yet won approval. Abbott's new test still requires a nasal swab by a health worker, like most older coronavirus tests. The Yale saliva test eliminates the need for a swab, but can only be run at high-grade laboratories. And in general, rapid tests like Abbott's are less accurate than lab-developed tests.

schwit1 shares a report from The Boston Globe: A new study estimates the Biogen conference held at Boston's Marriott Long Wharf hotel in February played a far greater role in spreading the coronavirus than previously thought. The research team analyzed the genetic sequences of the virus that caused COVID-19 in the 772 patients, almost all from Essex, Middlesex, Norfolk, and Suffolk counties. By examining mutations in the genetic code that naturally occur as the virus makes copies of itself -- subtle changes that act like a passport stamp showing where the pathogen has been -- the sleuths identified more than 80 distinct SARS-CoV-2 genomes of viruses that infected the Boston area in the first five months of the year. Most of the viruses came from elsewhere in the United States and Western Europe, the scientists said. But one virus with a unique genetic signature had an outsize impact. Some 289 of the 772 patients, or more than a third, were infected with a virus traceable to the meeting held on Feb. 26-27 by Cambridge biotech Biogen.

In a remarkable sign of how the virus can spread unpredictably and take a disproportionate toll on society's most vulnerable members, the 289 conference-related cases included 122 people living in Boston-area homeless shelters and employees who work there, the study says. It's unclear what path the virus took to get there. By multiplying the proportion of conference-related viral genomes in each of the four counties by the total number of coronavirus infections in Essex, Middlesex, Norfolk, and Suffolk, the scientists estimate that 20,000 infections could be linked to the Marriott event. The study never mentions Biogen by name. It simply refers to an "international business conference held in Boston from February 26-27." "We never would have knowingly put anyone at risk," it said in a statement. "When we learned a number of our colleagues were ill, we did not know the cause was COVID-19, but we immediately notified public health authorities and took steps to limit the spread."

Two patients were reinfected with the coronavirus in Europe, according to local broadcasters who confirmed the incidents with virologists. The Hill reports: The patients, one from Belgium and the other from the Netherlands, were confirmed to have been reinfected with COVID-19, Reuters reported. Marian Koopmans, a Dutch virologist, confirmed to broadcaster NOS that the patient from the Netherlands was elderly with a compromised immune system, but did not provide more details about the infection. Koopmans told NOS that in order for reinfection, a virus must change its genetic code. She added during the interview with the broadcaster that, given the veracity of the virus, recurrence of infection was to be expected.

The second patient in Belgium was a woman who had contracted COVID-19 first in March and then a second time in June, Reuters reported. The woman, who was reported to be in her 50s, had a low level of coronavirus antibodies in her system, Belgian virologist Marc Van Ranst told broadcaster VRT. Like Koopmans, Van Ranst cited a genetic mutation of the virus that may have been the cause for reinfection. And whether or not the recurrence of infection will be more rampant in the community is still uncertain. Yesterday, researchers in Hong Kong reported the area's first confirmed reinfection of the virus, 4 1/2 months after the patient's initial infection.

Africa has been declared free from wild polio by the independent body, the Africa Regional Certification Commission. From a report: Polio usually affects children under five, sometimes leading to irreversible paralysis. Death can occur when breathing muscles are affected. Twenty-five years ago thousands of children in Africa were paralysed by the virus. The disease is now only found in Afghanistan and Pakistan. There is no cure but the polio vaccine protects children for life. Nigeria is the last African country to be declared free from wild polio, having accounted for more than half of all global cases less than a decade ago.