THE SCIENCE OF SUPERSPREADING

 Click on above link for graphics illustrating superspreading events.

EU leaders pledged Thursday night to step up cooperation on every aspect of their fight against the coronavirus — by keeping borders open, improving testing and contact tracing, monitoring critical care capacity and arranging cross-border patient transfers if necessary, and developing plans for the swift manufacture and distribution of vaccines.

During a roughly three-hour videoconference, the 27 heads of state and government, and the presidents of the Commission and Council, also conferred about pandemic “fatigue” as citizens grow increasingly sick and tired of the world being ill or at risk. Some leaders seemed sick and tired of it all themselves.

But overall, even as they acknowledged clear failures in the early months of the outbreak as well as in preventing a second wave of infections, the leaders voiced determination and seemed prepared to hunker down for a months-long fight. And they urged the EU’s 440 million citizens to do their part amid renewed lockdowns, curfews and other containment measures.

The Pandemic Is in Uncharted Territory The fall surge is rewriting the coronavirus record books across America. And the numbers are still climbing. The COVID Tracking Project The Atlantic

The United States set a new record for reported cases this week, breaking 500,000 for the first time in the pandemic as the third surge continued to build across nearly every state in the country.

Singapore firm invents coronavirus breathalyser with results in seconds A company in Singapore has developed a breathalyser test for the new coronavirus which it says will enable people to know whether they are infected in under a minute. Chen Lin U.S.

SINGAPORE (Reuters) - A company in Singapore has developed a breathalyser test for the new coronavirus which it says will enable people to know whether they are infected in under a minute.

U.S. coronavirus cases cross nine million: Reuters tally U.S. coronavirus cases crossed the 9 million mark on Friday, rising by 1 million in two weeks as the world's worst-affected country faces a resurgence in the pandemic just ahead of elections. Shaina Ahluwalia, Kavya B U.S.

(Reuters) - U.S. coronavirus cases crossed the 9 million mark on Friday, rising by 1 million in two weeks as the world’s worst-affected country faces a resurgence in the pandemic just ahead of elections.

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)32261-3/fulltext

There’s encouraging news about antibodies in a new paper published in the journal Science from researchers at New York City’s Mount Sinai Hospital. In their study of the antibody responses of patients with either mild or moderate Covid-19, antibody levels appeared to stay relatively stable for at least five months, and their presence was correlated with the inactivation of the virus.

Antibodies are molecules pumped out by the immune system in response to infection, and they have a role in preventing future infections, though exactly how they function within the context of Covid-19 isn’t clear yet. Scientists are urgently trying to figure out whether the presence of antibodies actually means a person is protected from future infection as well as how long antibodies last in the body. Knowing this is crucial, especially for vaccine development.