Explained: Why some Covid strains are more infectious than others
The coronaviruses that cause SARS and Covid-19 have spike proteins that move into active and inactive positions
Sunday February 28, 2021 4:55 PM, IANS
New York: A team of researchers has discovered one reason that likely makes SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes Covid-19, so much more infectious than SARS-CoV-1, which caused the 2003 SARS outbreak.
The coronaviruses that cause SARS and Covid-19 have spike proteins that move into active and inactive positions, and the study indicates how those molecular movements may make the Covid-19 virus more infectious compared to the SARS virus, according to researchers, including one of Indian-origin named Vivek Govind Kumar.
Last Updated: Shift In Bat Diversity : Climate Change May Have Played key Role In COVID-19 Pandemic
Emergence of SARS-CoV-2 can be attributed to clearance of vegetation in past 100 years, and the migration of an additional 40 bat species due to climate change.
Climate change could have had a key role in the spread of the coronavirus pandemic, a new study that analysed the Southeast Asia forests, known as a global hotspot for bat species revealed. The global spread of the deadly pathogen that wreaked havoc on the world may have been the result of shifts in global bat diversity caused due to climate change, according to the study published on February 6 in the journal Science of the Total Environment. The emergence of SARS-CoV-1 and SARS-CoV-2 can be attributed to the clearance of the vegetation over the past 100 years, and the migration of an additional 40 species of the bat into the region, the study purported. Bats are a zoonotic origin of the coronavirus, scientists
Climate change may have triggered coronavirus, says study
The study, published in the journal Science of The Total Environment, noted that the southern Chinese Yunnan province and neighbouring regions in Myanmar and Laos form a global hotspot of climate change-driven increase in bat richness
PTI | February 6, 2021 | Updated 14:09 IST
Based on earlier studies, the researchers said the number of coronavirus family of viruses present in an area is strongly correlated with the local bat species richness
Climate change may have influenced the outbreaks of the novel coronavirus as well as the 2002-03 SARS pandemic virus, suggests a new study which says the global crisis triggered by the release of greenhouse gasses likely altered the distribution of bat species that carry these pathogens. The study, published in the journal Science of The Total Environment, noted that the southern Chinese Yunnan province and neighbouring regions in Myanmar and Laos form a global hotspot of climate cha
World-renowned expert Ben Neuman shares which COVID vaccine he d take, given the choice
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This week virologist Ben Neuman answers questions from readers.
Before most of us knew what a coronavirus even was, Neuman was one of the world’s top experts on them. He’s science-world famous for growing SARS-type coronavirus in the lab and is a professor of biology, and Global Health Research Complex Chief Virologist at Texas A&M University. Soon after the discovery of the virus now shaking our world, he served on the panel that named it. (Officially, it’s not “the ‘rona.” It’s SARS-CoV-2.)