Originating during the Black Death of the Middle Ages, face coverings to protect against the transmission of disease are not just medical requirements; they’re now a fashion statement. Mark Phillips talks with medical historian Mark Honigsbaum (“The Pandemic Century”) about the purpose and style of facemasks.
President Trump’s preferred coronavirus treatment is the focus of a new study suggesting it could cause more harm than good, but not everybody agrees. We discuss the fallout as trials around the world are paused and countries diverge over policy advice.
12:12 Are we rushing science?
Coronavirus papers are being published extremely quickly, while normally healthy scientific debate is being blown up in the world’s press. Is there a balancing act between timely research and accurate messaging?
18:49 One good thing
Our hosts pick out things that have made them smile in the last week, including hedgerow brews and a trip into the past using AI.
Recipe: Elderflower ‘Champagne’
Video: Denis Shiryaev restores historic footage with AI
22:30 The latest coronavirus research papers
Noah Baker takes a look through some of the key coronavirus papers of the last few weeks.
News: Coronavirus research updates
medRxiv: Full genome viral sequences inform patterns of SARS-CoV-2 spread into and within Israel
Harvard Library: Reductions in commuting mobility predict geographic differences in SARS-CoV-2 prevalence in New York City
Science: DNA vaccine protection against SARS-CoV-2 in rhesus macaques
A bar in the Swiss Alps. A megachurch in South Korea. Scientists are focusing on certain superspreading events that might be responsible for an outsized portion of coronavirus cases.Bojan Pancevski explains how this understanding could be key to reopening.
Interview with Dr. Nicole Lurie on rapid vaccine development, including new tools to facilitate vaccine testing and manufacturing and persistent challenges.The need to rapidly develop a vaccine against SARS-CoV-2 comes at a time of explosion in basic scientific understanding, including in areas such as genomics and structural biology, that is supporting a new era in vaccine development. Over the past decade, the scientific community and the vaccine industry have been asked to respond urgently to epidemics of H1N1 influenza, Ebola, Zika, and now SARS-CoV-2. An H1N1 influenza vaccine was developed relatively rapidly, largely because influenza-vaccine technology was well developed and key regulators had previously decided that vaccines made using egg- and cell-based platforms could be licensed under the rules used for a strain change. Although a monovalent H1N1 vaccine was not available before the pandemic peaked in the Northern Hemisphere, it was available soon afterward as a stand-alone vaccine and was ultimately incorporated into commercially available seasonal influenza vaccines.
Nicole Lurie is a strategic advisor to the CEO of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations. Stephen Morrissey, the interviewer, is the Executive Managing Editor of the Journal.
From the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition (April 22, 2020):
Our findings imply that higher long-term dietary intakes of flavonoids are associated with lower risks of ADRD and AD in US adults.Our findings provide new evidence that diets higher in flavonols, anthocyanins, and flavonoid polymers are associated with a lower risk of developing ADRD. These associations were sustained after accounting for a variety of potential confounders including key nutrients related to ADRD risk and overall diet quality. Similar findings were seen with AD risk for flavonols and anthocyanins but the association with flavonoid polymers was no longer statistically significant.
Along with improvements in healthcare and medical technology, the aging of the baby boom generation will result in an unprecedented rise in the number of older Americans (1, 2). Currently, there are >50 million Americans aged ≥65 y, and that is projected to more than double by 2060 (3). A consequence of this increase in older adults is the escalation of age-related diseases (4, 5). Alzheimer disease (AD) and related dementias (ADRD), a group of symptoms in which there is progressive deterioration in cognitive function severe enough to interfere with a person’s daily living activities, are regarded as among the most significant public health challenges largely affecting adults aged >65 y (6). AD is the most common form of dementia, making up ∼60–80% of dementia cases. Currently, 5.8 million Americans are living with AD, and by 2050 that is projected to escalate to 14 million (7).
Boomers Daily 