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Facts

Age may not contribute to COVID-19 infection risk: Study

According to the study, published in the journal Scientific Reports, causes of mortality in elderly individuals may be due to two factors.

The first is how likely they are to be infected due to their advanced age, which is reflected in the number of cases, and the second is how likely they will be affected by a severe form of the disease due to their advanced age, which is reflected in the mortality rate.

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Exposure to COVID-19 does not guarantee immunity, reinfection causes more severe symptoms, finds Lancet study

“The possibility of reinfections could have significant implications for our understanding of COVID-19 immunity, especially in the absence of an effective vaccine,” said Mark Pandori, for the Nevada State Public Health Laboratory and lead study author.

“We need more research to understand how long immunity may last for people exposed to SARS-CoV-2 and why some of these second infections, while rare, are presenting as more severe.”

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German population slightly lower as virus hits immigration

Some 83.1 million people lived in Germany at the end of June, with the population declining by 40,000, or 0.05%, in the year’s first half, according to the Federal Statistical Office.
The statistics office pointed to a sharp decline in net immigration starting in March, when the pandemic hit Europe, and lasting through May a period that accounted for a population decline of 59,000. Most countries shut down public life and many, including Germany, largely shut their borders.

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Facebook will ban ads discouraging people from getting vaccines

Facebook is working with public health partners like the World Health Organization and UNICEF on messaging campaigns to increase immunization rates, they added.

Anti-vaccine content and misinformation about the new COVID-19 vaccines have flourished on social media platforms including Facebook during the coronavirus pandemic, researchers told Reuters earlier this year.

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Novel coronavirus can last 28 days on glass, currency, Australian study finds

CSIRO researchers found that at 20 degrees Celsius (68 degrees Fahrenheit) the SARS-COV-2 virus remained infectious for 28 days on smooth surfaces such as plastic banknotes and glass found on mobile phone screens. The study was published in Virology Journal.

“It really reinforces the importance of washing hands and sanitising where possible and certainly wiping down surfaces that may be in contact with the virus,” said the study’s lead researcher Shane Riddell.
By comparison, Influenza A virus has been found to survive on surfaces for 17 days.

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Potential Covid-19 vaccines not affected by recent mutations: Report

There had been fears the G-strain, within the main protein on the surface of the virus, would negatively impact on vaccines under development.

“This is good news for the hundreds of vaccines in development around the world, with the majority targeting the spike protein as this binds to the ACE2 receptors in our lungs and airways, which are the entry point to infect cells,” said Professor Seshadri Vasan, who holds an honorary chair in Health Sciences at the University of York.

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Nurses suffer burn-out, psychological distress in COVID fight – association

“Our most recent survey of national nurses’ associations shows that more than 70% of them (the associations) were saying that nurses have been subject to violence or discrimination and as a result of that they are very concerned about extreme cases of psychological distress and mental health pressure,” said Howard Catton, a British nurse who is the ICN’s chief executive,
The figure was based on responses from roughly a quarter of its national nurses’ associations in more than 130 countries.

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Google chalks out a plan to turn YouTube into the next shopping destination

For months now, Google executives have signaled that YouTube will be central to their e-commerce strategy. On a recent earnings call, Chief Executive Officer Sundar Pichai suggested YouTube’s sea of popular product “unboxing” videos could be turned into a shopping opportunity. The video site is full of other popular categories, such as makeup and cooking tutorials, where creators tout commercial products on air.

Amazon and Walmart Inc. have tinkered with shoppable videos for several years. Thus far, neither retailer has shown much progress. In China, though, this business model has taken off. On Douyin, the Chinese version of TikTok, influencers use live streamed videos to hawk wares from lipstick to smartphones in real-time to hundreds of millions of users.

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