Scientists in China have identified a strain of H1N1 that is rapidly spreading amongst workers in the country’s pig farms. They warn that the fast spreading strain of swine flu has pandemic potential, if it is not contained quickly, according to The New York Times. An outbreak of H1N1 caused widespread fear in 2009 when […]
By Charli Shield After the novel coronavirus broke out in Wuhan, China in late December 2019, it didn’t take long for conspiracy theorists to claim it was manufactured in a nearby lab. Scientific consensus, on the other hand, is that the virus — SARS-CoV-2 — is a zoonotic disease that jumped from animal to human. […]
In a move roundly decried by public health experts, President Donald Trump announced Tuesday he would halt U.S. funding for the World Health Organization (WHO) as his administration investigates the international body’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic. Trump claimed the agency trusted the information coming out of China in the early days of the outbreak […]
The Chinese city of Shenzhen announced Thursday that it would ban the eating of dogs and cats in the wake of the coronavirus, which is believed to have stemmed from the wildlife trade, according to Reuters. The new ordinance will start on May 1, and makes Shenzhen the first city in China to ban the […]
As the new coronavirus continues to spread across the globe, the country and city where it originated reported a hopeful milestone. For the first time since the outbreak began, China reported no new domestic cases Thursday, The Guardian reported. And in Wuhan, the city where the disease that came to be called COVID-19 first emerged […]
The entire country of Italy has gone into lockdown to prevent the spread of the new coronavirus, officially known as COVID-19. The measures, announced by Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte Monday night, will ban public gatherings for Italy’s more than 60 million people and prevent them from traveling between towns and cities except for emergencies. “There […]
The World Health Organization has now declared that the fatality rate of the COVID-19 coronavirus is higher than the flu. After several missteps and the deaths of nine Americans, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is now saying that it will lift restrictions on testing and will fast-track people who fear they may […]
Toxic pollution levels fell significantly in China between January and February, and scientists think the new coronavirus is a large part of the reason why. Satellite data collected by the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the European Space Agency (ESA) and shared by NASA’s Earth Observatory Monday show a steep decline in nitrogen […]
By Malavika Vyawahare China has banned the trade and consumption of wild animals in the wake of the coronavirus outbreak that has claimed more than 2,700 lives and infected more than 81,000 people, most of them in China, according to the state-run Xinhua News Agency. A temporary ban on trade in wildlife announced in January […]