It’s not just mosquitos. Flooding, extreme heat and other climate-related hazards are bringing people into contact with pathogens more often, and affecting people’s ability to fight off disease.
Research suggests that giving a person a vaccine through their nose can provide a better defense against future exposure to the coronavirus compared to a shot in the arm.
Most kids will be unvaccinated if schools in the two largest states re-open in term 4. There may still be community transmission, but there are measures we can take to shield kids from the virus.
A$50 million could provide all NSW school classrooms with air purifiers with HEPA filters. This pales compared to the roughly $220 million-a-day cost of Sydney’s lockdown.
Because COVID-19 is airborne, we can’t know if the shelter system is as safe as it should be without seeing metrics related to ventilation, filtration and occupancy.
Health workers have long called for better protections against COVID-19. Well fitting masks are now required when caring for COVID-19 patients. But the guidelines on ventilation miss the mark.
Surface transmission is a very uncommon way of getting COVID. We should focus most of our attention on the airborne route, potentially saving millions of dollars on obsessive cleaning practices.
Miniaturized laboratory equipment is making it easier to identify airborne pathogens in the field, but there’s still work ahead to be able to instantly determine if a room is safe or contaminated.
SARS-CoV-2 can be spread through the air. But just how much of a factor that is has been hard to determine. Recent evidence suggests it is common, posing problems as public places begin to reopen.
Suggestions the Ebola virus could “mutate” into a form that is transmissible by the respiratory route are speculative, and the likelihood of it happening are low. Nonetheless, the idea appears to have…