People from disadvantaged backgrounds have COVID-19 symptoms for longer
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Updates every hour. Last Updated: 2-May-2025 23:09 ET (3-May-2025 03:09 GMT/UTC)
The COVID-19 pandemic underscored the need for effective antiviral therapies that go beyond prevention. In a recent study, researchers from Japan used computational methods to screen natural compounds for their ability to inhibit the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein. They identified 11 promising candidates, including caffeine, which exhibited strong binding affinity and stability. Their findings highlight the potential of natural products as antiviral drugs and pave the way for the development of therapeutics and further experimental validation.
People who later experienced persistent shortness of breath or fatigue after a SARS-CoV-2 infection were already taking significantly fewer steps per day and had a higher resting heart rate before contracting the virus, according to a study by the Complexity Science Hub (CSH) published in npj Digital Medicine. This may indicate lower fitness levels or pre-existing conditions as potential risk factors.
The NYC Preparedness & Recovery Institute (PRI) is reflecting on the city’s response to the COVID-19 public health emergency and pandemic.A newly published article, COVID-19, Five Years Later: What We’re Learning About NYC’s Societal Response to Emergencies, outlines interim insights from PRI’s ongoing COVID-19 Review, which draws from hundreds of reports, interviews, and community discussions to assess the city’s response and identify strategies to strengthen emergency preparedness moving forward.
Almost one in ten people (9.1%) in England think they could have Long Covid but aren’t sure, according to a new analysis of NHS England survey data by the University of Southampton.
Researchers also found that 4.8% of people reported having Long Covid, with higher rates among people living in deprived areas, people with particular ethnic backgrounds, parents or carers, and those with another long-term condition.
Artificial intelligence (AI) deep learning models can help businesses set optimal prices for goods or service by extrapolating prices from historical sales data, which generally show that sales go down as prices go up. But these predictions become unreliable when circumstances differ from the time the source data was generated, such as when the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted manufacturing supply chains and drastically altered consumer demands.
UC Riverside School of Business scholars and their collaborators solved this problem by developing a deep learning model that considers both historical sales data and the economic theory of demand. Economic theory of demand accounts for factors such as income levels, consumer preferences, and consumption patterns under various circumstances such as holidays or extreme events like pandemics and natural disasters.
Frequent mutations of SARS-CoV-2 have reduced the effectiveness of vaccines, highlighting the need for mutation-resistant treatments. In a collaborative study, researchers from the Institute of Science Tokyo (Science Tokyo), Japan developed CeSPIACE, a peptide inhibitor that blocks the virus from binding to host cell receptors. Unlike some existing treatments, CeSPIACE works against many variants, including those from the original strain to Omicron XBB.1.5. This breakthrough could help prevent and treat COVID-19.