SINGAPORE: A married couple who went to a Chinese New Year gathering at Mei Hwan Drive is the missing link between the COVID-19 clusters at The Life Church and Missions church and Grace Assembly of God church, the Ministry of Health (MOH) said on Tuesday (Feb 25).
— Read on www.channelnewsasia.com/news/singapore/covid19-coronavirus-missing-link-found-church-clusters-12469236
Tag: Virus
Sensor detects, identifies single viruses
Two of the worlds biggest threats may someday be reduced by wires thousands of times thinner than a hair but capable of detecting a single virus. The specter of worldwide viral epidemics is always with us, so detecting them quickly offers the possibility of saving thousands of lives. The pathogens also can be stealthy biological weapons, making their positive detection a vital national defense requirement.
— Read on news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2004/10/sensor-detects-identifies-single-viruses/
H/T Godfree Roberts
Charles Lieber was working on detecting mass viruses, especially biological weapons.
Pandemic simulation exercise spotlights massive preparedness gap | Hub
For Event 201, hosted in collaboration with the World Economic Forum and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the experts added a new layer of realism by reaching beyond government and NGOs to leaders in the private sector and business community. Participants included representatives from NBCUniversal, UPS, and Johnson & Johnson.
“Very few people have included the private sector in pandemic preparedness, but that’s where most of the resources are,” Toner says.
That’s particularly true when it comes to vaccine development. The CAPS virus—which Toner describes as a cousin of SARS, “but slightly more transmissible, like the flu, and slightly more lethal”—was presented as resistant to any existing vaccine, as scientists scrambled to come up with one. Citizens, meanwhile, were rioting over scarce access to the next best thing: a fictional antiviral known to treat some CAPS symptoms.
That scenario, Toner says, is utterly realistic. “We don’t have a vaccine for SARS, or MERS, or various avian flu viruses that have come up in the past decade,” he notes. “That’s because vaccine development is slow and difficult if there isn’t an immediate market for it.”
In the simulation, CAPS resulted in a death toll of 65 million people within 18 months—surpassing the deadliest pandemic in history, the 1918 Spanish flu.
— Read on hub.jhu.edu/2019/11/06/event-201-health-security/
Ms. Cat’s Chronicles 