Tag: pandemic

Science

Can cannabis protect people from COVID? Buzzy studies can’t say.

 Amy  0 130 

Another study has been published linking cannabis with protective effects against COVID-19, two weeks after similarly buzzy-but-limited research indicated hemp might ward off the virus, too. But once again these results are preliminary and without evidence in living human subjects. They do not mean that smoking marijuana will protect you against SARS-CoV-2 infection.  A large team of researchers conducted experiments on human lung cells and on live mice to see how different cannabis compounds affected the infectivity of SARS-CoV-2. They…

Science

‘Preliminary research’ on COVID has been surprisingly solid

 sykes  0 124 

Before the COVID pandemic, peer-review was the beating heart of scientific publishing. In order for studies to enter the body of scientific knowledge, the expectation was that researchers would submit them to academic journals, which would send the papers out to other experts for edits and revisions before publishing. But it’s a process that wasn’t well-suited to the urgency of the COVID pandemic, when early research could save lives. Peer-review often takes months, and it asks for huge amounts of…

Science

How to tell when the COVID pandemic is nearing its end

 Ingle  0 93 

In a recent interview with the LA Times, Center for Disease Control and Prevention officials stated for the first time that they no longer consider ‘herd immunity’ a goal for COVID-19. This means that the health agency no longer believes that the disease will functionally disappear in the face of high vaccination rates. To many public health researchers, this didn’t come as a surprise. While vaccines have been miraculously effective in preventing severe illness, they don’t fully stop transmission, especially…

Science

You might not be ‘fully vaccinated’ soon

 Emma  0 86 

This time a year ago, Americans were anxiously waiting for a COVID-19 vaccine and figuring out how cold is too cold to eat outside at restaurants. Now, the US has three kinds of shots available, plus boosters, plus two antiviral pills on the way. Families are getting their five-year-old children immunized to make life a little bit safer and more normal. The pandemic isn’t over, but many people are in a much better position than they were a year ago,…