Daily Archives: April 5, 2020


Musicians Online Share Joy One Note at a Time

Governments both local and national increasingly have been calling on their citizens to stay home as a way to help slow the spread of novel coronavirus.  Musicians have joined the campaign.  VOA’s Arash Arabasadi turns up the volume on just a few performances …


COVID-19 Renews Quest for Coronavirus Vaccine

The world crossed the one-million mark of confirmed COVID-19 cases this past week. With untold millions more possible in the months to come, scientists are committed to making a vaccine.There’s a lot about COVID-19 that scientists still don’t know. They don’t know entirely how it is spread. And without proven treatments or vaccines, good hygiene and staying away from other people are the only known methods of prevention.Dr. Peter Hotez at Baylor College of Medicine started working on a coronavirus vaccine in 2003, during the outbreak of SARS, but after …


‘Calling All Scientists’: Experts Volunteer for Virus Fight 

Michael Wells was looking for a chance to use his scientific training to help fight the coronavirus when — on the same day the pandemic forced his lab to temporarily close — he decided to create his own opportunity. “CALLING ALL SCIENTISTS,” he tweeted on March 18. “Help me in creating a national database of researchers willing and able to aid in local COVID-19 efforts. This info will be a resource for institutions/(government) agencies upon their request.” That’s how the 34-year-old neuroscientist at the Broad Institute and Harvard University launched a national effort to …


The Show Can’t Go On: Virus Halts Circus in Netherlands

Circus Renz Berlin’s fleet of blue, red and yellow trucks have had a fresh lick of paint over the winter. But now, as coronavirus measures shut down the entertainment industry across Europe, they have no place to go.”It’s catastrophic for everybody,” said Sarina Renz, of the family circus that has been in existence since 1842.For the foreseeable future, the circus is parked up behind an equestrian center in the northern Dutch town of Drachten, waiting and hoping for an end to the crisis.The German circus’ animals, including eight Siberian steppe …


Physically Distant, But Socially Close: Staying Sober While Staying Home

“Meetings are huge for me,” says Mike S., a 52-year-old web content specialist who has been sober since 2012.When his community began practicing social distancing, some of his usual meetings began offering the option of attending online. Mike went in person as long as he could, but things already felt different.With some regulars attending online through a video conferencing service called Zoom, the number of people physically attending “dropped on average by about half,” he said, “which was disconcerting and felt ominous.”Connection with one another is a key part of …


Technology Helps Doctors, Health Industry Track Patients, Treatments

As the COVID-19 pandemic threatens to overwhelm doctors and hospitals throughout the country, medical technology firms and health centers are trying to gain “situational awareness” — giving doctors what they need to know about the sick patients filling emergency rooms.For doctors and staff, “it’s really hard to know what sorts of patients are coming,” said Warren Ratliff, the chief executive of MDmetrix, a software firm that provides analysis of health care inside hospitals.The staff “can see they’re backing up,” he said. But they have few tools to compare patients showing …