Action for Conservation and Teaching, Seychelles (ACTS)
Study shows that people with Type A blood have a higher risk of catching coronavirus and of developing severe symptoms, while people with Type O blood have a lower risk. People with Type A blood had a 45% higher risk of becoming infected than people with other blood types, and people with Type O blood were just 65% as likely to become infected as people with other blood types.
Link to study: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2020283
Study shows that field rats sold in markets and restaurants of Southeast Asia harbour multiple coronaviruses, a study shows. The proportion of positives increased as live animals were moved from “field to fork”, suggesting they were picking up viruses in the process. The strains detected are different from Covid-19 and are not thought to be dangerous to human health. However, scientists have warned that the wildlife trade is an incubator for disease. The mixing of multiple coronaviruses, and their amplification along the supply chain into restaurants, suggests “maximal risk for end consumers”.
Link to study: https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.06.05.098590v1
The study identifies the businesses that have the best overall risk-benefit profiles when weighing important factors such as essential value to shoppers and the economy, as well as the relative risk of contracting COVID-19—or as one researcher put it, which businesses give us the most bang for our buck. At the top of the pile are banks, which are economically important yet uncrowded and visited infrequently.
Link to study: https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2020/06/09/2008025117
Up to 45 percent of SARS-CoV-2 infections may be asymptomatic a new study shows. Asymptomatic infections may have played a significant role in the early and ongoing spread of COVID-19 and highlight the need for expansive testing and contact tracing to mitigate the pandemic.
Link to Study: https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M20-3012
A comprehensive study shows wearing masks significantly reduces the number of infections, far more than other measures such as social distancing. It shows that airborne transmission is highly virulent and dominates the spread of COVID-19. It reveals that the difference with and without masks represents the determinant in shaping the trends of the pandemic.
Link to article: https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2020/06/10/2009637117
This paper analyzes the responses in East Asian countries and provides some commonalities and lessons. While countries have different governance mechanisms, it was found that a few governance decisions in respective countries made a difference, along with strong community solidarity and community behavior. Although the pandemic was a global one, its responses were local, depending on the local governance, socio-economic, and cultural context.
Link to article: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2590061720300272