The Shape of Epidemics: Waves have taken pride of place in the COVID-19 crisis, serving not just to predict but also to persuade. As new infections soar in the United States, their special blend of mathematical and moral messaging will help to shape the future of the pandemic.

COVID cases are rising. COVID deaths are declining. Why? This all means a spike in coronavirus cases in any particular location doesn’t necessarily lead to more people dying. In fact, if you look at many of the graphs of case counts and deaths on the New York Times’ coronavirus map, the lines are doing different things. In Arizona, as cases rise, deaths are remaining relatively flat, with the highest number of deaths in a day happening back in May. Alabama saw a recent spike in deaths to accompany a jump in cases, but not as big as the spike in death, also back in May, when case counts were relatively low. In Florida, which hit its highest number of cases yesterday (2,783), the death rate appears to be falling slightly.

This could be in part because there is a delay between being diagnosed with the virus, and dying from it; we just have to wait and see on that front. But it’s also because the rate at which people are dying really depends on who in the population is adding to the case count. In at least a couple states, they tend to be younger.

As COVID-19 cases rise, fewer Americans are following coronavirus news: A Pew Research Center study published Monday paints a scary picture about the American public’s coronavirus news consumption habits: as infection hotspots rise around the country, fewer are following news about the virus closely.

Can You Get Coronavirus Again After You've Already Had It? “The answer — today — is that people appear to be contagious one to two days prior to getting sick, and for one to two weeks after getting sick,” said Dr. Stephen Gluckman, an infectious diseases physician at Penn Medicine and the medical director of Penn Global Medicine. (This timeframe generally goes for any contagious illness, not just COVID-19.)

“As we improve, the amount of virus we’re shedding into the environment drops off,” Gluckman said.

“Infodémie” COVID-19: une analyse en images de la désinformation en Europe

CDC: Coronavirus spreading too fast in U.S.: The novel coronavirus is spreading too widely and quickly to contain, CDC principal deputy director Anne Schuchat told The Journal of the American Medical Association Monday, warning she expects "this virus to continue to circulate."

CanSino's COVID-19 vaccine candidate approved for military use in China: China’s military has received the greenlight to use a COVID-19 vaccine candidate developed by its research unit and CanSino Biologics (6185.HK) after clinical trials proved it was safe and showed some efficacy

The Ad5-nCoV is one of China’s eight vaccine candidates approved for human trials at home and abroad for the respiratory disease caused by the new coronavirus. The shot also won approval for human testing in Canada. 

WHO Chief On COVID-19 Pandemic: 'The Worst Is Yet To Come': Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said: "We all want this to be over. We all want to get on with our lives. But the hard reality is this is not even close to being over."

"Although many countries have made some progress, globally the pandemic is actually speeding up," he said.

He said the solution is the same as it has been since the early days of the pandemic: "Test, trace, isolate and quarantine."

WHO sending team to China to investigate origins of coronavirus: The United States, the WHO’s largest critic which has said it is leaving the U.N. agency, has called for an investigation into the origin of the coronavirus.

President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo have said it may have originated in a laboratory, although they have presented no evidence for this and China strongly denies it.

Mutating coronavirus: what it means for all of us: Of course, disease outcomes are affected by other factors, too, such as how old or sick the host is. The effect of interventions also has to be considered. Until a large dataset of genome data from mild or non-symptomatic patients from a diverse population is available, it will be difficult to deduce how the convergent mutations identified translate to severity of disease.

Viewpoint: It’s better to admit ‘I don’t know’ than to speculate during a pandemic: COVID-19 has elevated, but also exposed scientists. Politicians want clarity, but it’s crucial to explain what is known, unknown and unknowable

How remdesivir works, and why it's not the ultimate coronavirus killer: The antiviral drug remdesivir has been approved for emergency use among hospitalized COVID-19 patients, and in recent studies, has shown promise as a treatment for the pandemic disease.

How exactly does remdesivir counter SARS-CoV-2 -- the coronavirus strain responsible for COVID-19?

How Epidemics End: Contrary to hopes for a tidy conclusion to the COVID-19 pandemic, history shows that outbreaks of infectious disease often have much murkier outcomes—including simply being forgotten about, or dismissed as someone else’s problem.

In the coronavirus pandemic, we're making decisions without reliable data

Coronavirus: scientists uncover why some people lose their sense of smell

Mounting clues suggest the coronavirus might trigger diabetes: Evidence from tissue studies and some people with COVID-19 shows that the virus damages insulin-producing cells.

What’s At Risk: An 18-Month View of a Post-COVID World

Design Hacks Will Dominate Coronavirus Recovery: Caution tape. Painted circles. Plastic dividers. The most impactful coronavirus designs are coming from mostly nonprofessionals adapting urban space on the fly.

WHO warns coronavirus pandemic is speeding up as countries ease lockdown rules: The virus has infected more than 10,180,816 people around the world and killed at least 502,634 people, according to data compiled by Johns Hopkins University.

Coronavirus: what kind of face mask gives the best protection against Covid-19? Does it matter?

Covid-19 death toll hits 500,000 worldwide: Half the world's cases have been in the US and Europe, but Covid-19 is now rapidly growing in the Americas. The virus is also affecting South Asia and Africa, where it is not expected to peak until the end of July.

Canaries in the Coal Mine: Misinformation and Black Communities - June 2020

Worldwide Covid-19 Cases Top 10 Million: Florida has more new confirmed cases than Europe

4 lessons the coronavirus “swab robot” can teach about innovation: Researchers in Denmark have developed a "swab robot" in the space of only four weeks, which could transform the fight against COVID-19.

The robot collects samples for lab analysis and allows for safe, efficient mass testing for coronavirus. Hospitals will start using it in late June.

Building diverse teams and investing in research infrastructure during ordinary times proved crucial when the pandemic hit, as it enabled researchers to innovate fast in an unprecedented global crisis.

Covid19: The economics of a pandemic

Google and Apple's contact-tracing app diktat is a troubling display of power: Although it's a positive that Google and Apple have people's privacy in mind with these limitations, their decision raises alarming questions about how unaccountable Silicon Valley firms have power over public health decisions.

A second COVID-19 wave could be avoided if social distancing and the use of face masks are maintained: study: Individual behavior will have a significant effect on preventing a large second wave of COVID-19 infections. In fact, maintaining social distancing and other interventions such as the use of face masks and hand hygiene could remove the need for future lockdowns

INTAKE: dados de mobilidade ao serviço da melhoria dos modelos epidemiológicos: Geramos dados a um ritmo alucinante e automático, e o simples facto de sermos inseparáveis do nosso telemóvel traduz-se em informação que, em contexto de pandemia, pode ser fulcral na previsão do risco de contágio. Numa altura em que travamos uma autêntica guerra contra um inimigo invisível, temos na manga esta arma secreta que pode ser tão diferenciadora na estratégia de combate. Tendo todo este potencial bem presente, a equipa do projeto INTAKE – INtegrating mobility daTa into spAtial risK modEls pretende através da integração dos dados de mobilidade individual fornecidos por uma operadora de telecomunicações ajudar a melhorar modelos epidemiológicos que já existem e que permitem prever o risco de contágio em cada região do país.

Coronavirus traces found in March 2019 sewage sample, Spanish study shows: Spanish virologists have found traces of the novel coronavirus in a sample of Barcelona waste water collected in March 2019, nine months before the COVID-19 disease was identified in China, the University of Barcelona said

How to Clean a Cloth Protective Mask 2020: First things first: All of the doctors we spoke to agreed that you should wash your mask daily.

A fraction of regions account for a majority of deaths: Data from 20 European countries shows that over 200,000 more people than usual have died since March.

Coronavirus: The secret spreaders of Covid-19 fuelling the pandemic in the Middle East: Fears are growing that an underground network of mercenaries is transporting the deadly coronavirus into some of the region’s most war-wrecked countries.

Loved or loathed? How Germany′s coronavirus tracking app is faring: For a number of weeks now, polls have shown that the majority of Germans view their government's crisis management in the COVID-19 pandemic as both right and effective. But, when it comes to Germany's new warning app, surveys suggest people are far more skeptical. It is therefore all the more surprising that just one week after the app was launched, 15% of people living in Germany have downloaded it. Although the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) says the figure is slightly lower, at around 13%.

Japan's Fujitsu brings hand washing AI to COVID-19 fight: Three months after the World Health Organization recommended singing “Happy Birthday” twice during hand washing to fight the coronavirus, Japan’s Fujitsu Ltd has developed an artificial intelligence monitor it says will ensure healthcare, hotel and food industry workers scrub properly.

The AI, which can recognize complex hand movements and can even detect when people aren’t using soap, was under development before the coronavirus outbreak for Japanese companies implementing stricter hygiene regulations, according to Fujitsu. It is based on crime surveillance technology that can detect suspicious body movements.

Swedish exceptionalism has been ended by coronavirus: “Haverist” is a Swedish word meaning “shipwrecked person”. During the course of Sweden’s shambolic response to Covid-19, dissent – whether from epidemiologists or journalists – has often been met with this insult, which implies the critics are fighting a losing battle. It’s telling of the way Sweden has handled its failure.

Why lockdown silence was golden for science: From acoustic engineers in Britain to marine biologists in Canada, researchers made the most of the drastic drop in noise from human activity

The end of social confinement and COVID-19 re-emergence risk: The lack of effective pharmaceutical interventions for SARS-CoV-2 raises the possibility of COVID-19 recurrence. We explore different post-confinement scenarios by using a stochastic modified SEIR (susceptible–exposed–infectious–recovered) model that accounts for the spread of infection during the latent period and also incorporates time-decaying effects due to potential loss of acquired immunity, people’s increasing awareness of social distancing and the use of non-pharmaceutical interventions. Our results suggest that lockdowns should remain in place for at least 60 days to prevent epidemic growth, as well as a potentially larger second wave of SARS-CoV-2 cases occurring within months. The best-case scenario should also gradually incorporate workers in a daily proportion at most 50% higher than during the confinement period. We show that decaying immunity and particularly awareness and behaviour have 99% significant effects on both the current wave of infection and on preventing COVID-19 re-emergence. Social distancing and individual non-pharmaceutical interventions could potentially remove the need for lockdowns.

Policing of European Covid-19 lockdowns shows racial bias – report: Amnesty says pandemic has led to greater ‘marginalisation, stigmatisation and violence’ in 12 countries including UK

COVID-19 Disinformation Data

Global Deaths Due to Various Causes and COVID-19

Fact-checking networks fight coronavirus infodemic: While physical responses to the ongoing pandemic—stay-at-home orders, social distancing, and lockdowns—have been effective in mitigating the spread of the virus in many countries, misinformation remains rampant online.

Tracking covid-19 excess deaths across countries | Graphic detail: Official covid-19 death tolls still under-count the true number of fatalities

Americans increasingly concerned about ‘second wave’ of coronavirus in the U.S.: Americans are increasingly concerned about coronavirus and seeing ‘regular’ activities as increasingly risky after sentiment moderated earlier in June. This uptick in fears comes as Americans address a possible second wave and reflect on their potential to re-enter social distance quarantines if major warning thresholds are met.

COVID-19 pandemic leads to flood of ‘useless’ science: A group of concerned scientists has warned against a flood of “useless” science published during the COVID-19 pandemic, which they say is overwhelming reviewers and leaving good research “in an increasingly longer queue”. As one case in point, since April, Piotr Rzymski, a researcher at the department of environmental medicine in the Poznan University of Medical Sciences says he has been invited to review over 60 manuscripts on COVID-19 by a variety of scientific journals. “Some were ridiculous,” he said. “My favourite example is a suggestion to blow very hot air into a patient's lung to eliminate the virus.”

COVID-19’s far reaching impact on global drug abuse: More than 35 million people around the world now suffer from drug addiction, according to the latest annual report on the scourge, from the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) released on Thursday, which also analyzes the far-reaching impact of the coronavirus pandemic on global drug markets.

El enigma de las personas inmunes al coronavirus que no desarrollan anticuerpos: los pacientes que superan la infección estarían protegidos a pesar de no tener anticuerpos detectables

Coronavirus Portugal

How the Virus Won

Infografia | Covid-19: ponto de situação em Portugal a 25 de junho

COVID Bar Chart Race-Original Version

Revealed: countries facing coronavirus rise as lockdown relaxed: Of the 45 countries to have recorded more than 25,000 coronavirus cases to date, 21 currently have relaxed responses to the pandemic. Of these, 10 are reporting a rising number of cases

Coronavirus: Europeans say EU was ‘irrelevant’ during pandemic: EU-wide survey reveals deep disillusionment at response, and desire for closer cooperation in future

The New Normal of Everyday Life

Coronavirus death rate in US compared to flu death rate, by age: Although the flu and coronavirus have some overlapping symptoms, the coronavirus' death rate in the US is far higher.

Comissão de Proteção de Dados diz que ainda não emitiu parecer sobre aplicação anti-Covid: A Comissão Nacional de Proteção de Dados prevê emitir parecer sobre a aplicação Stay Away “muito em breve”. Esta aplicação que vai ser disponibilizada gratuitamente alerta os seus utilizadores se estiveram em contacto com alguém sinalizado como estando infetado com Covid-19. INESC TEC garante que aplicação respeita a privacidade dos seus utilizadores e que é à prova de hackers.

China to run human coronavirus vaccine trial in UAE: China is seeking to trial potential vaccines overseas because of a lack of new patients at home.

Over a dozen experimental vaccines are being trialled around the world. None of them has yet successfully completed a late-stage “Phase 3” test to determine efficacy in shielding healthy people from the virus, which has killed over 470,000 people around the world.

Such trials involve thousands of participants and normally take place in countries where the virus is widespread, so that the vaccine can be observed in a real-life environment.

Does Your Blood Type Affect Your Risk of Covid-19? An intriguing study published last week found a link between covid-19 severity and having type A blood; type O blood, on the other hand, was linked to a lower chance of severe illness. But it’s unlikely that any potential connection between covid-19 and blood type will be very relevant to the average person.The study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, involved nearly 2,000 severely ill covid-19 patients in Spain and Italy. Researchers looked at these people’s genetic code, in what’s known as a genomewide association study, or GWAS. They compared their genetics to the genetics of a similar control group, looking for any differences that could plausibly influence someone’s risk of catching the infection or having a more serious case.

Trump Deportations Helped Spread COVID 'Disaster' to Central America

America Is Reopening. Coronavirus Tracing Apps Aren’t Ready

Effect of Dexamethasone in Hospitalized Patients with COVID-19: Preliminary Report

COVID-19 and Twitter: What was communicated? What was not? Looking at trends on internet searches between January and May 2020, we can see that only a bunch of people knew about COVID-19 in February 2020. Most of us only became aware of it in March, when the number of cases started growing exponentially in countries such as Italy or Spain. In Italy for instance, media interest in coronavirus was extremely high around 24 February 2020. Similar levels of attention were reached in Spain, France and Germany around 9 March 2020.

Why South Asia’s COVID-19 Numbers Are So Low (For Now)

Coronavirus Statistiques | France

Coronavirus research hub: the latest on global consumer impact: The coronavirus outbreak is having a very real impact on consumer behaviors, attitudes and perceptions. Our dedicated research into the effects worldwide is available for free, giving businesses the up-to-date information they need to stay ahead.

“Se começar a correr mal, não vai haver responsabilidade política, as pessoas é que se terão portado mal”: O médico que viu provavelmente mais doentes com covid-19 e os casos mais graves desta infeção em Portugal, Roberto Roncon, está exausto. Intensivista do hospital de São João, no Porto, não só está cansado da intensidade do trabalho como da inabilidade política para lidar com os profissionais de saúde.

COVID resurgence means new restrictions. Will citizens obey them? COVID-19 is on the rise in countries that have reopened their economies – even where the virus had been eliminated. For democratic governments, trust could play a central role in making any reimposed restrictions stick.

18 COVID-19 media literacy resources for journalists and educators

Weston Williamson Partners envisions social-distancing office

Clothes retailers need to decide on what to do with unsold stock: Their main options? Keep it in storage, hold a sale, offload it to “off-price” retailers like TJ Maxx which sell branded goods at deep discounts, or move it to online resale sites. None are ideal, and all are damage-limitation.

COVID-19: This tool tracks coronavirus's path in Europe: The World Economic Forum created a tool tracking the distinct path of COVID-19 within European countries.

Why Covid-19 kills nearly twice as many men as women: much to do with a wider set of health inequalities facing men and boys

Many men dislike coronavirus masks. How can we change that?

The scientists targeted by conspiracy theorists: Scientists at the UK’s Pirbright Institute study coronaviruses in farm animals. Employees Dr Erica Bickerton and Teresa Maughan explain how they have found themselves at the centre of a coronavirus conspiracy theory.

COVID-19: What the world can learn from regional responses:
In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, many countries have acted alone.

The efforts of regional organizations offer important lessons to ensuring the global coordination needed to recover from the crisis.

These include working across borders to share best practices for mitigating the spread, coordinate fiscal measures and boost trade.

How should COVID-19 change the way we innovate?

1. Investing in innovation talent. The leadership team signals its commitment to innovation with high-profile investments of resources and time.

2. Adopting an outside-in approach to innovation that starts by scouring widely for trends and searching for deep insights into customers’ emerging needs.

3. Encouraging prudent risk-taking. Innovative organizations foster a tolerance for risk-taking by endorsing fast-to-fail experiments and learning from their innovation disappointments.

Scientists produce first open source all-atom models of COVID-19 'spike' protein: The virus SARS coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is the known cause of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). The "spike" or S protein facilitates viral entry into host cells.

Fixing our air is key to preventing the spread of COVID-19: To truly help protect people from transmitting COVID-19, we need to fix the air we breathe.

People asking friends to take Covid-19 tests before hanging out: people are creating new standards of social etiquette suited for the “new normal” of life with the coronavirus.

Sorry, it's too early to stop quarantining. Here's how to design a bub: When done carefully, the research shows that quarantine bubbles can effectively limit the risk of contracting COVID-19 while allowing people to have much-needed social interactions with their friends and family.

Study Finds ‘No Evidence’ Protests Led to Coronavirus Spikes: Heading into the fourth week of nationwide protests sparked by the death of George Floyd, a new study has found “no evidence” that the wave of protests demanding justice for Black Americans have contributed to spikes in new coronavirus cases.

Tackling the coronavirus (COVID-19) crisis together: OECD policy contributions for co‑ordinated action: What are the impacts and consequences of the coronavirus pandemic on our lives and our societies – and what are some of the solutions we can find to boost our healthcare systems, secure our businesses, maintain our jobs and education, and stabilise financial markets and economies?

The Cybersecurity 202: Privacy experts say many coronavirus apps aren't doing enough to safeguard users' information: Governments across the world are leaning on an array of coronavirus technologies, such as contact-tracing apps and smart thermometers, to make decisions about reopening. But experts are warning that their security and privacy protections are lacking — which could make it easier for hackers to compromise peoples' personal information.

Which coronavirus vaccine will win the race? The clues are in the vial: The old-school, the slow and the silver bullet: three options for a vaccine to free the world.

Rural America was always more vulnerable to COVID-19 than cities: Rural areas seemed immune as the coronavirus spread through cities earlier this year. Few rural cases were reported, and attention focused on the surge of illnesses and deaths in the big metro areas. But that false sense of safety is now falling apart as infection rates explode in rural areas across the country.

Of the top 25 COVID-19 hot spots that popped up in the past two weeks, 18 were in non-metropolitan counties. Arkansas, North Carolina, and Texas all set records in mid-June for the number of people entering hospitals for COVID-19. Georgia’s daily reported death toll from COVID-19 was up 35% compared to three weeks earlier.

2nd wave of virus cases? Experts say we're still in the 1st: "When you have 20,000-plus infections per day, how can you talk about a second wave?" said Dr. Anthony Fauci of the National Institutes of Health. "We're in the first wave. Let's get out of the first wave before you have a second wave."

COVID-19 em Portugal

Researchers forecast COVID-19 pandemic could delay clean energy transition: Traveling restraints and shelter-in-place orders that grounded planes and emptied streets during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic brought greenhouse gas emissions down and air quality up. In a commentary published June 19 in the journal Joule, environmental economists argue COVID-19 may seem like a 'silver lining' for climate change in the short run, but in the long run it is more likely to harm the climate due to its potential to delay clean energy investments and innovation.

17 países europeus proíbem ou limitam entrada de portugueses

Six experts on how we'll live, work, and play in cities after COVID-19

Why are Google and Apple dictating how European democracies fight coronavirus?

Immunity to COVID-19 may wane just 2-3 months after infection, study suggests

Nem milagre, nem tragédia: Queríamos mais testes, temos de saber lidar com os efeitos disso. Queríamos desconfinar e isso levaria sempre a mais infetados. Queríamos que o SNS conseguisse responder e ele está a responder. Nunca houve um milagre, não há uma tragédia.

The pandemic playbook: A step-by-step guide to containing an outbreak

Oxford University’s timeline for a COVID-19 vaccine is shorter than previous estimates: Under the best-case scenario, their vaccine could be ready this year. However, the odds are against any vaccine candidate.

Coronavirus: Biggest daily rise in global cases reported by WHO | The Independent: More than 183,000 new cases of coronavirus were reported worldwide in the largest daily increase since the start of the outbreak, according to the World Health Organisation. The UN health agency said on Sunday that 183,020 cases were recorded in the latest 24 hour period, bringing the global total to 8,708,008.

How Exactly Do You Catch Covid-19? There Is a Growing Consensus: Instead, the major culprit is close-up, person-to-person interactions for extended periods. Crowded events, poorly ventilated areas and places where people are talking loudly—or singing, in one famous case—maximize the risk.

A faster response could have prevented most U.S. Covid-19 deaths: That isn’t a hypothetical question. And the answer that emerges from a direct comparison of the fatalities in and policies of the U.S. and other countries — South Korea, Australia, Germany, and Singapore — indicates that between 70% and 99% of the Americans who died from this pandemic might have been saved by measures demonstrated by others to have been feasible.
At least three factors enable meaningful comparisons of these nations with the United States. First, we scaled up their population sizes and Covid-19 deaths to match those of the U.S. Second, in each of these countries, roughly 80% or more of the population lives in urbanized, transmission-prone areas, similar to the U.S. Third, the pandemic took root earlier in these other countries than here, as measured by the date of the 15th confirmed case in each, meaning that foreign leaders had to act with less information to guide their decisions than did U.S. leaders.

COVID-19 Primer: Quickly understand the scientific progress in the fight against COVID-19. Using the most advanced NLP algorithms, read summaries and discover trends in the latest research papers and the conversations around them. Every 24hrs.

The catch: There are still major limits to AI's ability to actually comprehend written text of any kind, including scientific publications. That means the COVID-19 Primer and similar tools can't tell you the real value of any individual paper, just how it's being received in the news and on social media.

The coronavirus pandemic threatens to reverse decades of economic progress: Even with those improvements — which appear all the remarkable if you extend the historical scale to before the industrial revolution, when an estimated 94% of the world was poor — there were signs that global progress might be set to stall.

Africa's coronavirus crisis arrived before the outbreak: Years of progress on alleviating extreme poverty will be undone, and economies that had been among the world’s fastest growing could face deep recessions. That’s even if Africa averts a Europe-style public health catastrophe.

Bolsonaro Fraudulently Circumvented Trump’s COVID-19 Immigration Ban to Smuggle His Scandal-Plagued Ex-Education Minister Into the U.S.

Coronavirus: Bolsonaro's Brazil surpasses 1 million COVID-19 casesBrazil has become the second country to reach more than 1 million COVID-19 infections, after the United States surpassed 2 million infections earlier this month.

The country saw a major increase in cases on Friday, with 54,771 new infections — bringing the total number to 1,032,913, according to Sky News.

There were also 1,206 new deaths, bringing the total death toll to 48,954, the publication reports.

However, the health ministry said the record spike was due to reporting system corrections in some states from previous days.

The Limits of Altruism: A Global Scramble for the Coming Coronavirus Vaccine: A vast rivalry is developing between the U.S. and China in the race to develop a coronavirus vaccine. The health of billions of people depends on the outcome. How can the vaccine be fairly distributed?

How many of us are likely to have caught the coronavirus so far? Statistics are trickling in from cities and countries around the world, but the figures vary hugely. Some regions are reporting that less than 1 per cent of people have been infected, and others that over half the population has had the virus.

COVID-19: Aplicações de rastreio de contactos de Noruega, Bahrein e Kuwait entre as mais perigosas para a privacidade - Amnistia Internacional:“É improvável que seja necessário e proporcional no contexto de uma resposta de saúde pública. A tecnologia pode desempenhar um papel útil no rastreio de contactos para conter a COVID-19, mas a privacidade não deve ser outra vítima”

UK abandons coronavirus app in favour of Apple and Google model

Exscalate 4COV: Beyond COVID-19: enabling faster drug discovery for future pandemics

Hear, see, speak no COVID: Why the Trump administration is bungling the response to the pandemic

How COVID-19 is Changing Research Culture: The research world has moved faster than many would have suspected possible in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. In five months, a volume of work has been generated that even the most intensive of emergent fields have taken years to create.

Beijing Recloses Schools As Coronavirus Cases Spike in China's Capital:Classes had resumed in-person about a month ago, signaling another victory for the nation whose government had claimed in March that the virus had largely been contained.

But on Wednesday, China's National Health Commission reported 31 new cases in the capital, compared to the 44 newly reported cases across China, appearing to be the city's largest coronavirus outbreak in more than two months.

Por quê a ciência aberta é fundamental no combate a COVID-19 - OECD: Em emergências globais como a pandemia do novo coronavírus (COVID-19), as políticas de ciência aberta podem facilitar o livre fluxo de pesquisas de dados e ideias e, assim, acelerar o ritmo de pesquisas críticas para o combate à doença.

Embora a colaboração e a troca global de dados de pesquisa tenha atingido níveis sem precedentes, os desafios permanecem. A confiança de pelo menos alguns dos dados é relativamente baixa e a falta de padrões específicos, coordenação e interoperabilidade, bem como qualidade e interpretação dos dados ainda são questões pendentes.

Para fortalecer a contribuição da ciência aberta em resposta ao COVID-19, os responsáveis políticos precisam garantir modelos adequados de governança de dados, padrões interoperáveis, acordos sustentáveis de compartilhamento de dados envolvendo os setores público e privado e a sociedade civil, incentivos a pesquisadores, infraestruturas sustentáveis, capacidades

Fighting disinformation - official sources on COVID-19

Don't blame public for Covid-19 spread, says UK scientist: From empty supermarket shelves to crowded parks, public behaviour has come in for criticism during the Covid-19 outbreak. But blaming the spread of Covid-19 on selfishness or thoughtless behaviour is misguided and distracts from the real causes of fatalities, according to one of Britain’s leading behavioural psychologists. Q

COVID-19 - Evidence Not Fear: What is the scientific and medical basis for the measures being put in place for COVID-19? Should we wear face-masks? Is social distancing helpful? Will easing lockdown lead to more deaths? Many people are afraid but all the evidence shows that most of us have nothing to fear. The great majority of people, even in the highest risk groups, will be fine.

Coronavirus country comparator

Covid-19 in Proportion?

Coronavírus: uma abordagem comum para aplicações móveis de rastreio seguras e eficientes em toda a UE: As aplicações de rastreio devem ser de utilização voluntária, transparentes, seguras, interoperáveis e respeitar a privacidade daspessoas, recorrendo a identificadores aleatórios, sem utilizar dados de geolocalização ou de movimento. Todas as aplicações têm de cumprir um requisito de provisoriedade, pelo que devem ser removidas assim que terminar a pandemia, e devem funcionar em toda a UE, sem limitações em termos de fronteiras ou de sistemas operativos. A interoperabilidade é crucial para que a adoção voluntária e em grande escala de aplicações nacionais de rastreio possa apoiar a flexibilização das medidas de confinamento e o levantamento das restrições à liberdade de circulação em toda a UE.

How deadly is the coronavirus? Scientists are close to an answer

Global in reach, local in practice: the mixed picture on COVID-19 research collaboration

The Future of Travel and Tourism After the Coronavirus Pandemic

La dexaméthasone, un traitement efficace contre les formes graves de Covid-19

Coronavirus - Center for Informed Democracy & Social - cybersecurity (IDeaS): Misinformation and Disinformation Regarding Coronavirus in Social Media

Carlos Moedas: “Los científicos habían dicho a los políticos hace mucho tiempo que esto iba a pasar”

Youth and COVID 19: Response, Recovery and Resilience - OECD: For young people, and especially for vulnerable youth, the COVID-19 crisis poses considerable risks in the fields of education, employment, mental health and disposable income. Moreover, while youth and future generations will shoulder much of the long-term economic and social consequences of the crisis, their well-being may be superseded by short-term economic and equity considerations.

UK funds human trials of potential COVID-19 vaccine from Imperial

Norway suspends virus-tracing app due to privacy concerns

Medidas Digitais de Apoio à Economia – Teletrabalho - EstamosON

Retracted coronavirus (COVID-19) papers – Retraction Watch

Rare, super coronavirus antibodies likely to yield vaccine, say Stanford, UCSF experts: The discovery of antibodies that block the most infectious elements of the coronavirus is helping Bay Area scientists unlock the many mysteries of human immunity, and could be crucial in the development of a vaccine. Epidemiologists have found “neutralizing antibodies” in fewer than 5% of COVID-19 patients, but the ones they are now attempting to isolate are unique in their ability to prevent SARS-CoV-2 — the specific coronavirus that causes the illness — from entering human cells.

A Moderna coronavirus vaccine could only cover 6% of the world's population in a year: Yes, but: 1 billion vaccine doses may sound like a lot, but government and public health leaders would inevitably still have to make hard choices about who should get the vaccine first.

Latin American scientists join the coronavirus vaccine race: ‘No one’s coming to rescue us’: Researchers fear that breakthroughs from abroad will be too slow or inequitably shared to benefit the global south.

Mutated coronavirus shows significant boost in infectivity: COVID-19-causing viral variant taking over in the United States and Europe now carries more functional, cell-binding spikes.

Spain: Basic Income to Mitigate Coronavirus Impact: The coronavirus has plunged Spain into what could be its worst economic crisis in 80 years. The Socialist government is trying to mitigate the impact with basic income for the country's neediest.

Tracking the Spread of COVID-19 Through Air Travel

ESA - Global air pollution maps now available

Health Professionals Sound Alarm Over Social Media Infodemic: Social media platforms must start with two obvious and urgent steps.

First, they must correct the record on health misinformation. This means alerting and notifying every single person who has seen or interacted with health misinformation on their platforms, and sharing a well-designed and independently fact-checked correction -- something shown to help prevent users believing harmful lies. While platforms like Facebook have already moved to label fact-checked misinformation, this system does not go far enough since millions of people may have seen a post before it is fact-checked and labeled. That is why we are urgently calling on Facebook to alert ALL users who have fallen victim to such content, which means going a step further than labeling by providing users with retroactive corrections.

Second, the platforms must detox the algorithms that decide what people see. This means harmful lies, and the pages and groups that share them, are downgraded in user feeds, instead of being amplified. Harmful misinformation, and pages and channels that belong to repeat offenders who spread it, should also be removed from the algorithms that recommend content. These algorithms currently prioritise keeping users online over safeguarding their health, and that ends up downgrading humanity’s well-being.

IATA - International Travel: Interactive Coronavirus (Covid-19) Travel Regulations Map

News: The first 1,000 words of Chapter 1 of “Unreported Truths about COVID-19 and Lockdowns” – the booklet Amazon has censored

Facts about Covid-19: Fully referenced facts about Covid-19, provided by experts in the field, to help our readers make a realistic risk assessment. 

Verificaciones de la AFP en español sobre el nuevo coronavirus

COVID-19 Global Economic Downturn not Affecting CO2 Rise: May 2020 Update: The Mauna Loa atmospheric CO2 concentration data continue to show no reduction in the rate of rise due to the recent global economic slowdown. This demonstrates how difficult it is to reduce global CO2 emissions without causing a major disruption to the global economy and exacerbation of poverty.

SARS-CoV-2 is mutating slowly, and that's a good thing: Viruses evolve over time, undergoing genetic changes, or mutations, in their quest to survive. Some viruses produce many variations, others only a few. Fortunately, SARS-CoV-2, the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19, is among the latter. This is good news for scientists trying to create an effective vaccine against it.

Tracking the coronavirus pandemic, by the numbers: 131,296 new coronavirus cases were recorded worldwide on Wednesday, per data from the World Health Organization.

By the numbers: Compare that to 87,729 one month ago, or 4,589 on March 11 — the day the pandemic was declared. 51.9% of new cases are being recorded in the Americas, while Europe's share of new cases is down from nearly 80% in mid-March to 13.3%.

Coronavirus - EU vs DISINFORMATION

COVID-19 Infections Tracker | COVID-19 Projections Using Machine Learning

Use of apps in the COVID-19 response and the loss of privacy protection

Geofence warrants: How police can use protesters' phones against them: The searches, sometimes known as reverse location requests, increased fivefold from 2018 to 2019.

Singapore looks to ease privacy fears with 'no internet' wearable device: Slated to be ready for rollout later this month, wearable devices the country is developing for COVID-19 contact tracing will not have GPS, internet, or cellular connectivity, so data can only be extracted when the device is physically handed over to the Healthy Ministry.

Coronavirus: Radiografía de tres brotes: así se contagiaron y así podemos evitarlo: Una oficina, un restaurante y un autobús. Tres contagios múltiples, estudiados minuciosamente por las autoridades sanitarias, ofrecen valiosas lecciones para la desescalada

How Austerity is Worsening Coronavirus: The Covid-19 virus has exposed the frailty of our political and economic institutions.

EU human rights groups call for COVID-19 app transparency

Analyst Note: A Watershed Moment for Shared Mobility: Key takeaways

• Pandemic-related lockdowns and social distancing are having a severe impact on the mobility industry as consumers have stopped or significantly reduced travel. 

• We believe the shared mobility industry could see a long-term market expansion as it picks up the slack from declines in public transportation ridership, especially among urban areas in Europe and Asia where car ownership is more expensive and less practical relative to North America. 

• Micromobility could play an important role in helping cities incorporate social distancing practices for commuters, while also solving existing issues related to congestion and emissions. 

• In this dynamic environment, we believe success indicators for shared mobility operators include exposure to delivery, public-private partnerships and the ability to scale down efficiently.

Demonstrating 15 contact tracing and other US tools built to mitigate the impact of COVID-19

IHME COVID-19 data & projections

Life after coronavirus: how will the pandemic affect our homes?

Peritos em cibersegurança pedem cuidado com aplicação de rastreamento: "Qualquer aplicação instalada no telemóvel representa um risco de segurança. Por isso, qualquer desenvolvimento que seja feito tem de contemplar uma perspetiva de risco: como é que a aplicação pode ser utilizada de uma forma que não estava a ser pensada originalmente e possa prejudicar as pessoas?"

Coronavirus contact tracer: cases are rising after Memorial Day: Ongoing nationwide protests for racial justice could also fuel more coronavirus outbreaks in the coming weeks.

54 Ways Coronavirus Has Changed Our World

Rapid Action on coronavirus and EO : COVID-19 Impact seen by Satellite

In virus-hit South Korea, AI monitors lonely elders : In a cramped office in eastern Seoul, Hwang Seungwon points a remote control toward a huge NASA-like overhead screen stretching across one of the walls.

With each flick of the control, a colorful array of pie charts, graphs and maps reveals the search habits of thousands of South Korean senior citizens being monitored by voice-enabled “smart” speakers, an experimental remote care service the company says is increasingly needed during the coronavirus crisis.

“We closely monitor for signs of danger, whether they are more frequently using search words that indicate rising states of loneliness or insecurity,” said Hwang, director of a social enterprise that handles SK Telecom’s services. Trigger words lead to a recommendation for a visit by public health officials.

Do face coverings reduce risk and spread of coronavirus?

The first wave of Covid-19 is not over – but how might a second look?

Could the Coronavirus Crisis Strengthen Due Diligence in Cyberspace?

Amid COVID-Related Cyber Threats, the Netherlands Leads UN Efforts

GCHQ boss warns foreign states are trying to steal Britain’s attempts to build Covid-19 vaccine

Digital immunity passports for COVID-19? Experts are not sold on the idea

Traçages et fusions: À partir de sa défense de l’utilisation de modèles épidémiologiques tenant compte de la structure des interactions sociales, Gianluca Manzo parvient à la conclusion que des applications comme StopCovid aideraient à éteindre la dynamique de l’épidémie, à « concevoir des interventions ciblant des (petits groupes d’) individus infectés et des chemins particuliers reliant plusieurs individus infectés ». Ces interventions ciblées seraient une alternative au confinement généralisé.

Vaccins Covid-19, rêve ou réalité?

The Globalisation of Lockdowns: If Covid-19 has spread so rapidly, it is namely because urbanisation is now planetary and connects a wide range of territories to each other, through an international flows of goods and people.

How Austerity is Worsening Coronavirus

Covid-19 makes it clearer than ever: access to the internet should be a universal right | Tim Berners-Lee

Governments and WHO changed Covid-19 policy based on suspect data from tiny US company: Surgisphere, whose employees appear to include a sci-fi writer and adult content model, provided database behind Lancet and New England Journal of Medicine hydroxychloroquine studies

Hydroxychloroquine or chloroquine with or without a macrolide for treatment of COVID-19: a multinational registry analysis - The Lancet

A mysterious company’s coronavirus papers in top medical journals may be unraveling

Disputed Hydroxychloroquine Study Brings Scrutiny to Surgisphere | Concerns Build Over Surgisphere's COVID-19 Dataset

Response to Widespread Reaction to Recent Lancet Article on Hydroxychloroquine — Surgisphere Corporation

China delayed releasing coronavirus info, frustrating WHO: Chinese government labs only released the genome after another lab published it ahead of authorities on a virologist website on Jan. 11. Even then, China stalled for at least two weeks more on providing WHO with detailed data on patients and cases, according to recordings of internal meetings held by the U.N. health agency through January — all at a time when the outbreak arguably might have been dramatically slowed.

What’s the risk that animals will spread the coronavirus?

Physical distancing, face masks, and eye protection to prevent person-to-person transmission of SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19: a systematic review and meta-analysis: Transmission of viruses was lower with physical distancing of 1 m or more, compared with a distance of less than 1 m

A cohort study to evaluate the effect of combination Vitamin D, Magnesium and Vitamin B12 (DMB) on progression to severe outcome in older COVID-19 patients: Conclusions: DMB combination in older COVID-19 patients was associated with a significant reduction in proportion of patients with clinical deterioration requiring oxygen support and/or intensive care support. This study supports further larger randomized control trials to ascertain the full benefit of DMB in ameliorating COVID-19 severity.

Les États-Unis sont-ils en voie de "tiers-mondisation"? Avec plus d’un million et demi de cas et plus de 100 000 décès recensés, les États-Unis paient un lourd tribut au Covid-19. Mais la crise sanitaire révèle surtout un pays miné par les inégalités, profondément ségrégué, où le rêve américain ne semble plus qu’un lointain souvenir.

Et si la première puissance mondiale entrait dans une phase d'appauvrissement généralisé sans précédent?

The Coronavirus Revealed America’s Failures

El futuro ya está aquí: entre el miedo y la esperanza

Digital Contact Tracing for Pandemic Response - Ethics and Governance Guidance

European government officials call for tech companies to loosen grip on contact-tracing technology: The governments were joined this week by a group of 27 doctors and researchers who published a report, led by Johns Hopkins University, that suggested technology companies should not “control the terms, conditions or capabilities” of digital contact tracing. Public health officials have also urged Apple and Google to allow more access to smartphone operating systems for the purposes of contact tracing.

So Where Did the Virus Come From? So what did happen? At present, the evidence is pointing tentatively to a chain of person-to-person infections occurring somewhere outside a city before somebody brought the virus to Wuhan, where the market acted as an amplifier. The first case could have been a rural farmer or possibly a bat researcher collecting samples for virologists. Or it is possible that another animal was involved in some way, with the virus bouncing between a farmer and his animals, or a wildlife smuggler and his poor pangolins.

There are more coronaviruses out there. If the evidence is pointing away from wildlife markets, and if the Chinese authorities are confident it wasn’t a laboratory leak, they should be eager to help the world find out what did actually happen.

K number: what is the coronavirus metric that could be crucial as lockdown eases?
R is the average rate of transmission, whereas K sheds light on the variation behind R. “Some [infectious] people might generate a lot of secondary cases because of the event they attend, for example, and other people may not generate many secondary cases at all,” said Dr Adam Kucharski, an expert in the dynamics of infectious diseases at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine.

“K is the statistical value that tells us how much variation there is in that distribution.”

But unlike R, K numbers are not intuitive. “The general rule is that the smaller the K value is, the more transmission comes from a smaller number of infectious people,” said Kucharski.

“Once K is above about five or 10 it tells you most people are generating pretty similar numbers [of secondary cases], you are not getting these super-spreading events. Once K is below one, you have got the potential for super-spreading.”

How COVID-19 is changing the world: a statistical perspective (UN Committee for the Coordination of Statistical Activities)

Iran’s coronavirus response: A lesson in what not to do

The Council of Europe continues working to enhance international co-operation against terrorism, including bioterrorism: The Covid-19 pandemic has demonstrated the vulnerability of modern societies to viral infections and their potential for disruption. The intentional use of a pathogen or other biological agent for the purpose of terrorism may prove highly effective and cause damage – both human and economic – on a far grander scale than “traditional” terrorist attacks, paralyzing societies for prolonged periods, spreading fear and sowing distrust far beyond those communities immediately affected.

COVID-19 Digital Rights Tracker: the latest contact tracing, digital tracking, physical surveillance and censorship measures

What will the first pandemic of the algorithmic age mean for data governance? Coronavirus is the first pandemic of ’the algorithmic age’ – which means advanced data analytics, algorithmic systems and machine learning are being deployed in connection with its detection, treatment and prevention. The spread of the virus is being dramatically altered by understandings of how data and AI can be used in public health and policy-making: from alerting authorities to the existence of a contagious virus in Wuhan, to the sequencing of the genetic code for the virus, data and AI are informing the development of diagnostic tools, vaccine projects and epidemiological modelling. Crowdsourced contact tracing and symptom tracking also have the potential to shape and target government responses.

Recovering from COVID-19: these are the risks to anticipate now - before it's too late