Is a covid and flu “twindemic” on the horizon?

Because the climate cools within the Northern Hemisphere, and folks more and more combine indoors, we are able to anticipate instances to rise, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director normal of the WHO, advised journalists at a press briefing on Wednesday. It’s not simply the UK—a number of international locations in Europe are already seeing will increase in covid-19 instances, hospitalizations, and deaths.

One other trigger for concern stems from the virus’s skill to evolve. The omicron variant remains to be chargeable for the overwhelming majority of instances globally. However the WHO is monitoring greater than 300 omicron subvariants, all of that are thought of to be “of concern.” As Maria Van Kerkhove, the WHO’s covid-19 technical lead, stated on the similar briefing: “We are going to proceed to see waves of an infection … as a result of we will probably be residing with this virus.”

Tech Assessment has been masking covid-19 for the reason that pandemic started. Listed here are a number of latest items from the archive:

• Covid-19 hit some a lot more durable than others. We’ve solely simply begun to look at the racial disparities of lengthy covid, as Elaine Shelly stories on this piece.
• And there’s nonetheless an enormous debate over lengthy covid in kids—with teams at loggerheads on the impression, and even the definition, of the sickness, as I reported earlier this yr.
• In China, a covid pop-up in your telephone that requires you to get a PCR take a look at might depart you quarantining for days for no obvious motive, my colleague Zeyi Yang stories.
• Two inhaled covid vaccines had been lately authorised for covid-19 in India and China, as I lined final month …
• … However the hunt is on for a common covid vaccine based mostly on nanoparticles, stories Adam Piore.

From across the net

Ever had your thoughts go clean? Mind scans present our brains can enter a neural state that makes it not possible to faucet into our ideas. (PNAS)

Docs are discovering new, ultra-rare blood group programs—and have simply described a forty fourth. (Wired)

Speedy antigen checks for covid-19 have paved the best way for different residence take a look at kits—masking the whole lot from flu to kidney illness. (Neo.Life)

The US scarcity of Adderall—prescribed for consideration deficit hyperactivity dysfunction (ADHD) and narcolepsy—is biting, with affected individuals saying their lives have been “turned the wrong way up.” (Vice) 

We’re turning into more and more nearsighted. Myopia will have an effect on half of the world’s inhabitants by 2050, partly as a result of we’re spending extra time studying indoors. (BBC Future)