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