SharecloseShare pageCopy linkAbout sharingimage copyrightReutersA single dose of a coronavirus vaccine can reduce household transmission of the virus by up to half, a study shows.Those given a first dose of either the Pfizer or AstraZeneca vaccines – and who became infected three weeks later – were between 38% and 49% less likely to pass the virus on than unvaccinated people, PHE found.Health Secretary Matt Hancock described the study’s results as “terrific news”.He has urged “everybody to get their vaccines as soon as they are eligible”.In the study, protection against Covid was seen from about 14 days after vaccination, with similar levels of protection regardless of age of cases or contacts, PHE said in a statement.It added that this protection was on top of the reduced risk of a vaccinated person developing symptomatic infection in the first place, which is around 60 to 65% – four weeks after one dose of either vaccine.When will I get the vaccine?How many people have been vaccinated so far?Covid vaccine offered to 42-year-olds in EnglandDr Mary Ramsay, head of immunisation at PHE, said: “Vaccines are vital in helping us return to a normal way of life. Not only do vaccines reduce the severity of illness and prevent hundreds of deaths every day, we now see they also have an additional impact on reducing the chance of passing Covid-19 on to others.”But, while she said the findings were “encouraging”, she said it was important people continue to act like they have the virus, “practise good hand hygiene and follow social distancing guidance”.Households are high-risk settings for transmission, meaning the study provides early evidence on the impact of vaccines in preventing onward transmission, PHE said. Similar results could be expected in other settings with similar transmission risks, such as shared accommodation and prisons, it added.This is the latest piece of evidence to indicate that vaccines are slowing the transmission of the virus as well as saving lives.Households are among the most likely places for infection to spread, so these set of results are particularly encouraging. Public Health England has said it would expect similar results in other high-risk settings, such as shared accommodation and prisons. All this bodes well for the continued easing of restrictions, especially as the vaccination campaign is making good progress into younger age groups – who are more likely to spread the virus. And it also gives further reassurance to those concerned about the fact that children will not be vaccinated – and so might bring infection into households.A cause for concern, though, is whether newer variants of the virus, which might be more resistant to vaccines, might cause a new surge in infections. But the expert opinion is that the current vaccines will provide a significant degree of protection, especially against severe illness.NEW VARIANTS: How worried should we be?GLOBAL SPREAD: How many worldwide cases are there?COVID IMMUNITY: Can you catch it twice?VACCINE: When will I get the jab?The study, which has yet to be fully peer-reviewed, included more than 57,000 contacts from 24,000 households in which there was a lab-confirmed coronavirus case that had received a vaccination, compared with nearly one million contacts of unvaccinated cases.Contacts were defined as secondary cases of coronavirus if they tested positive two to 14 days after the initial household case. Most of the people in the study were under the age of 60.Previous PHE studies have shown that both the Pfizer-BioNTech and Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccines are highly effective in reducing Covid-19 infections among older people, with 10,400 deaths prevented in over-60s by the end of March.PHE is also undertaking separate studies on the effect of vaccination on transmission in the wider population.

SharecloseShare pageCopy linkAbout sharingimage copyrightGetty ImagesThe most common side effects of the Covid-19 vaccines are pain or tenderness at the injection site – in other words, a sore arm – a UK study has suggested. Roughly one in four people had wider effects like fever, headache, nausea and fatigue.But these only lasted on average for one day.Researchers involved in the ZOE Covid Symptom Study app saw fewer reactions than were seen in clinical trials. Confidence in the vaccines has continued to grow since the end of last year, with more than 80% saying they believe the vaccines are safe and effective, compared with about 70% who said the same towards the end of 2020, according to a survey of 5,000 people.The survey, run in association with the National Institute for Health Research, found twice as many people say they want to have the vaccine as soon as possible – although the number of people saying they would actively prefer the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine has fallen.The ZOE study researchers looked at self-reported symptoms in 627,383 people using their app in the eight days after being vaccinated. My vaccine side effects and what they meanAbout 70% of people having the Pfizer jab had some reaction around where the needle went in, including pain, tenderness, redness or swelling, compared with just under 60% for the AstraZeneca jab. The trend was reversed for those reactions that affect the whole body rather than just the site of the injection.For the AstraZeneca jab, 34% had some “systemic” (whole body) reaction like headache, tiredness or chills. For the Pfizer vaccine this was only 14% after the first dose and 22% after the second. The most common of these side effects was a headache. ‘Mild and short-lived’The study’s lead scientist, Prof Tim Spector of King’s College London, said these findings should reassure people the after effects of the vaccine are “usually mild and short-lived”.But he pointed out there was a wide range of responses to the vaccine, just as there was to the virus, depending on age and sex among other things. The study did not look at what happened after a second dose of the Oxford-AstraZeneca jab since hardly anyone had received it at the time of the study, which went up to 10 March. Among all vaccinated users of the ZOE symptom app, one in four (25%) had one of these whole body reactions and two-thirds (66%) had a local reaction.Women, people under 55 and those who had a Covid infection in the past were all more likely to experience side effects.In the final stage of the Pfizer vaccine’s clinical trials, roughly 77% of people had pain at the injection site compared with just under 30% in this study, while the proportion of people experiencing fatigue and headache was three to five times smaller. For AstraZeneca, roughly half as many people had a whole body reaction like fever or fatigue as was recorded in clinical trials.This may be because people in the clinical trials were younger and healthier, or because people enrolled in the trial of an experimental vaccine might be more nervous and so more likely to identify symptoms, Prof Spector suggested. Dr Cristina Menni from King’s College London, lead author of the paper, said the results supported the safety of both vaccines and should “help allay safety concerns of people willing to get vaccinated”.

One in four people experience mild, short lived systemic side effects after receiving either the Pfizer or AstraZeneca vaccine, with headache, fatigue and tenderness the most common symptoms. Most side effects peaked within the first 24 hours following vaccination and usually lasted 1-2 days.
The study published today in the Lancet Infectious Diseases is the first large scale study to compare the two vaccines and investigate the prevalence of mild side effects of the UK’s vaccination programme.
The analysis by researchers from King’s College London of data from the ZOE COVID Symptom Study app reassuringly found much fewer side effects in the general population with both the Pfizer and AstraZeneca vaccines than reported in trials.
The study also reports a significant decrease of infection rates from 12 to 21 days after the first dose of the Pfizer (58% reduction) and AstraZeneca (39% reduction) vaccines compared to a control group. The drop in infection at least 21 days after the first dose for Pfizer is 69% and for AstraZeneca 60%.
This large-scale analysis examined the differences of reported side effects from the two vaccines currently distributed in the UK. Systemic effects — meaning side effects excluding where the injection took place — included headache, fatigue, chills and shiver, diarrhoea, fever, arthralgia, myalgia, and nausea; whilst local side effects — meaning side effects where the injection took place in the arm — included pain at the site of injection, swelling, tenderness, redness, itch, warmth and swollen armpit glands.
The data comes from 627,383 users of the ZOE COVID Symptom Study app who self-reported systemic and local effects within eight days of receiving one or two doses of the Pfizer vaccine or one dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine between December 8 and March 10.

“Go get the shot,” President Biden declared Tuesday, hailing an easing of federal guidance on outdoor mask wearing as a step toward post-pandemic normalcy.WASHINGTON — The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention took a major step on Tuesday toward coaxing Americans into a post-pandemic world, relaxing the rules on mask wearing outdoors as coronavirus cases recede and people increasingly chafe against restrictions.The mask guidance is modest and carefully written: Americans who are fully vaccinated against the coronavirus no longer need to wear a mask outdoors while walking, running, hiking or biking alone, or when in small gatherings, including with members of their own households. Masks are still necessary in crowded outdoor venues like sports stadiums, the C.D.C. said.But President Biden hailed it as a landmark moment in the pandemic, wearing a mask as he approached the lectern on a warm spring day on the White House grounds — and pointedly keeping it off as he walked back into the White House when he was done.“Go get the shot. It’s never been easier,” Mr. Biden said. “And once you’re fully vaccinated, you can go without a mask when you’re outside and away from big crowds.”The C.D.C. stopped short of telling even fully vaccinated people that they could shed their masks outdoors altogether — citing the worrying risk that remains for transmitting the coronavirus, unknown vaccination levels among people in crowds and the still-high caseloads in some regions of the country. The guidance also cautioned even vaccinated people against going without masks in medium-size outdoor gatherings.But even the C.D.C.’s director, Dr. Rochelle Walensky, emphasized a more expansive interpretation, telling reporters at a White House briefing, “We no longer feel that the vaccinated people require masks outdoors,” outside “large public venues, such as concerts, stadiums and things like that.”The order had immediate ripple effects in the states. Governors in California, New York, Louisiana, Maine and Massachusetts all relaxed outdoor mask mandates after the C.D.C.’s announcement. In Tennessee, Gov. Bill Lee, a Republican, went much further, ignoring the federal government’s advice as he declared it was “time for celebrations and weddings and conventions and concerts and parades and proms” to take place “without limits on gathering sizes.”On Capitol Hill, a group of Republican lawmakers who are also medical professionals released an advertisement on Tuesday encouraging vaccination, in which they appeared wearing white coats with stethoscopes draped around their necks. Senator Roger Marshall, a freshman Republican from Kansas and a medical doctor, told viewers that the reason to get vaccinated was simple: “So we can throw away our masks, and live life as free as before.”Mr. Marshall, who organized the effort, said it was based on research conducted by Frank Luntz, a Republican pollster working to reduce vaccine hesitancy among conservatives. In an interview, Mr. Luntz said Mr. Biden’s announcement was a positive step, and could give people who are reluctant to get vaccinated a reason to get their shots.“It gives them a light at the end of the tunnel,” he said. “‘Tell me when I can get rid of my mask’ is actually the language that they use, so the fact that this is a meaningful, measurable step toward returning to normal is a big deal.”President Biden said Americans had made “stunning progress” and promised to outline a plan next week to restore a greater sense of normalcy by July 4.Erin Scott for The New York TimesFor Mr. Biden, who will address Congress on Wednesday and mark his 100th day in office on Thursday, the C.D.C.’s announcement was a moment to bask in what he called the “stunning progress” Americans had made since he took office. Next week, he said, he will outline a plan “to get us to July 4 as our target date to get life in America closer to normal and begin to celebrate our independence from the virus.”Americans have been whipsawed on the issue of mask wearing since the beginning of the pandemic, when top health officials said people did not need them — in part because of severe shortages of protective gear for health care workers on the front lines. Masks became the centerpiece of the culture wars that surrounded the pandemic, especially after President Donald J. Trump insisted that they were optional and that he would not wear one.That led states to adopt patchwork mask restrictions, often along partisan lines, despite the evidence of a mask’s protection for individuals and those around them. Many states have already lifted restrictions they had put in place for indoor and outdoor activities. Others maintained mask-wearing requirements even for outdoor spaces, citing the threat of potentially more contagious variants.The guidelines issued Tuesday reflect some basic coronavirus math: As the number of vaccinated people goes up, cases are going down.So far, about 43 percent of Americans have received at least one dose of a Covid-19 vaccine, and 29 percent have received both doses of the two vaccines requiring double shots. The United States is averaging around 55,000 new cases a day, a roughly 20 percent drop from two weeks ago, according to a New York Times database.“I know the quarantine and shutdowns throughout the pandemic have been exhausting,” Dr. Walensky said. “I know we all miss the things we used to do before the pandemic, and I know we all want to do the things we love and soon. Today is another day we can take a step back to normalcy of before.”Her remarks, and those of the president, got a welcome reception even from some of the Biden administration’s fiercest Republican critics in Congress, many of whom have complained that coronavirus restrictions were an intrusion on their personal freedoms.“It’s about time,” said Representative Jim Jordan, Republican of Ohio, who recently excoriated Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the federal government’s top infectious disease specialist, at a hearing on Capitol Hill. “Now when do we get the rest of our liberties back?”Senator Ron Johnson, Republican of Wisconsin, who has spread fringe theories and given a platform to vaccine skeptics, called the guidance “long overdue.”Senator Ted Cruz, Republican of Texas, who quit wearing masks indoors after he was vaccinated, said he was “glad the C.D.C. finally acknowledged what has been obvious for a long time, which is that wearing a mask outside is silly and not remotely justified by the science.”In fact, the science behind the C.D.C.’s new guidance is not comprehensive. A growing body of research indicates that the odds of the virus spreading outdoors is far lower than it is indoors, but the risk is not zero and is hard to quantify.Most if not all of the research about viral transmission outside was done before the vaccine was available, so it does not distinguish between the risk to those who are inoculated and those who are not.But experts say that viral particles disperse quickly outdoors, meaning brief encounters with a passing walker or jogger pose very little risk of transmission.“The two main things you have going for you outdoors is that the virus rapidly becomes diluted” and decays quickly in the sunlight, said Linsey Marr, an aerosol expert at Virginia Tech, adding, “I think something like sitting at a baseball game where people are really cheek by jowl, side by side, and in front and behind each other, and there’s yelling, cheering — I would wear a mask in that situation.”Still, the evidence is somewhat thin. A recent systematic review of studies that examined the transmission of the novel coronavirus and other respiratory viruses among unvaccinated individuals identified only five studies about the coronavirus that met the authors’ criteria.The study concluded that fewer than 10 percent of infections occurred outdoors, and that the odds for indoor transmission was 18.7 times as high as outdoors (the odds of super-spreading events was 33 times as high as indoors).One of the paper’s authors, Dr. Nooshin Razani, an associate adjunct professor in epidemiology, biostatistics and pediatrics at University of California, San Francisco, cautioned that the low odds of transmission outdoors may simply reflect the fact that people spend little time outdoors.In one documented case in Italy, the virus spread between joggers who were running outdoors together, side by side.The C.D.C.’s new guidance was issued amid growing debate over why the federal government was still recommending that people wear masks outdoors. Writing in The New England Journal of Medicine last week, Dr. Paul Sax, an infectious disease expert at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Massachusetts, said it was time to end outdoor mask mandates.Along with the guidelines, the C.D.C. published a color-coded chart outlining masking recommendations for a variety of scenarios such as, “dine at an outdoor restaurant with friends from multiple households,” “visit a barber or hair salon” and “go to an uncrowded, indoor shopping center or museum.”But Dr. Marr said that seemed overly complex: “I would have to carry around a sheet of paper — a cheat sheet with all these different stipulations.” She added: “I worry that this is not as helpful as it could be.”And there are other scenarios, not addressed in the guidelines, in which wearing a mask outdoors can still be an important social signal. For instance, Dr. Mercedes Carnethon, an epidemiologist at Northwestern University, noted, no vaccine has yet been authorized for children under 16.“When we’re going to require children to wear masks, at school and on the playground when they’re at school,” she said, “I think that it is responsible for the adults in the situation to model that behavior and normalize mask wearing even when outside.”Emily Anthes

SharecloseShare pageCopy linkAbout sharingimage copyrightReutersThe harrowing scenes from India have shocked the world, as the country struggles with soaring cases of Covid. But the outbreak isn’t just a crisis for India – it’s a crisis for everyone.”The virus doesn’t respect borders, or nationalities, or age, or sex or religion,” says Dr Soumya Swaminathan, the World Health Organization’s chief scientist.”And what’s playing out in India now unfortunately has been played out in other countries.”A visual guide to the Covid crisis in IndiaWhy India’s vaccine manufacturers need US help The pandemic has revealed just how interconnected the world is. And if a country has very high levels of infection, then it’s likely to spread to other countries. Even with travel restrictions, multiple tests and quarantine, infections can still leak out; and if a traveller has come from somewhere where the virus is very prevalent, they have a higher chance of taking the virus with them. On a recent flight from New Delhi to Hong Kong about 50 passengers tested positive for Covid-19.But there’s another concern with India’s high infection rates: variants.A new variant has emerged in India called B.1.617. It’s been dubbed by some as the “double mutant” because of two key mutations on the spike of the virus. There’s some lab evidence that suggests it’s slightly more transmissible and that antibodies may find it harder to block the virus, but scientists are still assessing how much immunity is lost. “I don’t think there’s any evidence that it’s an escape mutation [which would mean] it fundamentally can’t be stopped by the vaccines,” Dr Jeff Barrett, director of the Covid-19 Genomics Initiative at the Wellcome Sanger Institute, told BBC News. “I think we have to obviously watch carefully, but there’s at present no reason to panic about it.”‘We called 200 people to find a hospital bed’What is the India Covid variant?But the higher the number of Covid cases a country has, the more likely it is that new variants will emerge. That’s because every single infection gives the virus a chance to evolve and a major concern is that mutations could arise that render vaccines ineffective.”The way to limit viral variants emerging in the first place is to prevent the virus replicating in us… so the best way to control variants is actually to control the global amount of disease that we have at the moment,” explains Prof Sharon Peacock, Director of the Covid-19 Genomics UK consortium (Cog-UK).Lockdowns and social distancing measures will do this – but vaccination is also vital.This is happening slowly in India: so far less than 10% of its population have had the first dose of the vaccine and less than 2% are fully vaccinated. This is despite the fact that it’s home to the world’s biggest vaccine manufacturer – the Serum Institute of India. And this is another reason why India’s surge in cases has a knock-on effect for the rest of the world.

Getty ImagesTop Indian Covid vaccine makersSIICovishield, NovavaxBharat BiotechCovaxin, CoraVaxBiological EJohnson & JohnsonZydus CadilaZyCoV-DHetero BiopharmaSputnik VDr Reddy’s LabSputnik VSource: Media reportsIn March, as infections in India started to surge, authorities there halted large exports of the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine.That included vaccines for the UN-backed Covax scheme to provide doses to low and middle-income countries. On Monday, the Global Vaccine Alliance (Gavi), which is a partner in the scheme, said it was waiting to hear when supplies from India would resume. This will certainly impact on vaccination roll-outs in many countries. But it means more of India’s vaccines are diverted for domestic use, while it tries to ramp up production.And with India’s dire situation, scientists say this is a priority.”We really need to double down on vaccination as quickly as possible or the virus is going to try and do everything it can to keep on spreading from person to person,” says Swaminathan.Globally, the pandemic shows no sign of easing, with the virus devastating country after country.The situation in India is a bleak reminder that none of us will be safe until everyone is safe.Follow Rebecca on Twitter

In India’s capital city, hospitals are full, oxygen supplies are low and crematoriums are running out of space for the dead as the city’s second wave of Covid continues.The BBC witnessed nurse Manjusha Mathew’s attempts to revive a coronavirus patient in a hospital in Delhi.She describes what it’s like working in an emergency room on the brink.

Possible in 0-5 years

Life-Extending Supplements
A compound known as alpha-ketoglutarate extends life span in female mice and health span in mice of both sexes. A trial is testing its effects on markers of aging in humans.

Healthful Living Through Chemistry
Obesity can take more than 10 years off life expectancy, and semaglutide, a drug that could soon be approved for weight loss, is about twice as effective as current medications.

Superpowering the Cell’s Generator
Elamipretide, a drug that helps restore function to flagging mitochondria, the cells’ power plants, is awaiting F.D.A. approval as a treatment for a rare mitochondrial disease.

The Normalizing of Masks
Maintaining widespread mask-wearing practices could result in a long-lasting drop in influenza deaths, which numbered 12,000 to 61,000 annually in the United States in the decade before the pandemic.

Supercentenarian Sequencing
Further decoding and analyzing the genomes of those who live to be 110 or older could provide useful insights into what accounts for their longevity.

Safer Childbirth for Black Mothers
A bill in Congress targets, in part, a disparity in which Black women in the United States are about three times as likely as white women to die during the period including pregnancy, childbirth and the first year postpartum.

Mighty Miniproteins
A compound similar to MOTS-c — a micropeptide that boosts physical fitness, prevents obesity and increases healthy life span in mice — is in human trials and could be approved within four years.

Priming Cancer Immunity
New ways to mobilize the immune system against cancer and fresh combinations of existing treatments will bring the immunotherapy revolution to a wider variety of hard-to-treat cancers.

Shining a Light on Alzheimer’s
Devices that stimulate the brain using specific frequencies of light and sound might help treat Alzheimer’s disease and other causes of cognitive decline.

mRNA Vaccines Come for Cancers
Vaccines that exploit mRNA technology, which found proof of concept with Covid-19, are in the pipeline for melanomas, colorectal cancer, prostate cancer, breast cancer and more.

Reducing Child Pneumonia Deaths
Respiratory infections kill some 700,000 children under age 5 each year. The W.H.O. and UNICEF hope to reach their target of fewer than three deaths per 1,000 births through vaccination, breastfeeding, access to quality health care and reduced pollution.

Possible in 5-10 years

Every Car a Breathalyzer
A bill in Congress that would put drunken-driver-detection technology, sometimes known as ignition interlocks, in all new cars sold in the United States could prevent some 10,000 deaths annually.

Antismoking Signals
A third of the world is not yet protected by the kinds of tobacco-control measures that avert millions of deaths every year — and the U.N. wants to change that by 2030.

CRISPR-Based Cures
Clinical trials are currently using the gene-editing tool to treat blood disorders, cancer and an inherited form of blindness; a heart-disease intervention is being researched.

Zapping Obesity
Deep-brain stimulation to reduce the urge to eat and to boost metabolism could be approved to treat a subset of obese people who don’t respond to other interventions.

Exercise in a Pill
Drugs that mimic some benefits of exercise are in development for conditions like acute kidney injury and Duchenne muscular dystrophy; someday they might help delay the effects of aging.

The Secret of Young Blood
Based on studies in mice, treatments that mimic the chemistry of young blood — by diluting plasma or regulating other factors — could extend healthy life, maybe by decades.

A Diabetes Drug to Treat Aging
Metformin already helps millions manage their Type 2 diabetes and alleviate risk from cancer, heart disease and even Covid-19. A clinical trial is testing whether it could lower mortality for all.

Oral Rehydration Therapy With Zinc
Hitting U.N. targets for the use of the therapy could help prevent diarrhea deaths in children under 5 — which currently number around 500,000 annually — by 2030.

A Cure for H.I.V.?
A “functional cure” for H.I.V., suppressing the virus without the need for continuing treatment, could be F.D.A.-approved within 10 years.

Advancing Education
Higher levels of education correlate with longer life spans. By 2030, the U.N. aims to ensure that all children worldwide complete primary and secondary school.

Individually Cultivated Microbiomes
Personalized medications and diets could optimize the populations of microbes in our gut, which change as we age and are linked with nearly every system in the body.

At-Home Stool Screening
The C.D.C. is helping efforts to boost to 80 percent the proportion of eligible Americans who are screened for colorectal cancer through at-home stool tests and other tools by 2030.

Ending Childhood Malnutrition
The U.N.’s goal to end childhood malnutrition by 2030 could save the lives of more than two million children younger than 5 per year.

Possible in 10-20 years

Designer Genes
Gene therapies may allow us to tweak genes or regulate their expression to prevent or treat common types of cancer, autoimmune diseases, diabetes and neurological conditions.

Empowering Midwives
A study in The Lancet Global Health found that substantially broadening the services midwives can provide in developing countries could avert 41 percent of maternal deaths, 39 percent of neonatal deaths and 26 percent of stillbirths.

Ending Tuberculosis
Tuberculosis killed about 1.4 million people in 2019. By 2035, the W.H.O. aims to reduce TB deaths by 95 percent.

Treatment for Alzheimer’s
Researchers are exploring multiple approaches to a drug that could prevent or sharply slow the progression of Alzheimer’s, which killed more than 120,000 Americans in 2019.

Stopping the Epigenetic Clock
Drug cocktails in development could slow or reverse epigenetic clocks, which are molecular changes to DNA that influence what genes become expressed as you age.

Effective Malaria Vaccines
The only malaria vaccine available today requires four shots to achieve at best 40 percent protection; new jabs in clinical trials, and mRNA vaccines further down the road, could do much better.

Lab-Grown Organs
Bladders cultivated in labs already reside in humans. Once researchers figure out how to recreate the complex system of blood vessels in other organs — like kidneys, livers and hearts — many more could follow.

Banishing Old Cells
A new class of drugs might be able to kill or neutralize “senescent” cells, which emit molecules that hasten inflammation and other hallmarks of cellular decline.

An Antifungal Drug Against Aging
Rapamycin, an antifungal first approved to prevent organ rejection, has stretched the lives of mice by more than a third. A trial is testing its effects in 350 dogs; human trials are being scheduled.

Diverse Clinical Trials
African-Americans are historically underrepresented in clinical trials. Fixing that disparity, alongside other health initiatives, could help narrow the life-expectancy gap between white and Black Americans (78 years vs. 72 years).

Possible in 20-50 years

Avoiding Auto Accidents With Automation
Worldwide implementation of self-driving cars could reduce deaths from car accidents by an estimated 585,000 lives over a 10-year period.

No More Auto Smog
Widespread transition to electric vehicles in the United States could improve air quality enough to save 6,300 lives annually by 2050.

Powering Down Fossil-Fuel Use
Researchers estimate that addressing air pollution by eliminating fossil-fuel emissions and instead relying on wind, solar, nuclear and other low-emission energy sources, could raise life expectancy by 1.1 years.

Eradication of Malaria
Better ways to kill mosquitoes and mosquito larvae, more access to rapid tests and new artemisinin treatment therapies could end malaria — and the 400,000 deaths it causes each year — within decades.

Poverty Reduction
Even if the U.N.’s goal of ending extreme poverty by 2030 is increasingly unlikely, ongoing economic growth — combined with stronger global tax laws — would help to extend life spans.

Possible in 50-100 years

Robot Surgeons
Advanced robotic surgeons` could suture wounds, remove tumors and repair tissue with unparalleled precision, reducing fatalities from medical errors.

Rise of the Nanobots
One day, nano-scale robots inside our bodies could construct sensors and other devices that would help dissolve blood clots, fight cancer and deliver precisely targeted drugs.

Cellular Reprogramming Rewinds the Clock
Triggering a handful of genes can make cells young again and rejuvenate organs. With a carefully timed injection, researchers recently restored sight to mice with damaged optic nerves.

A Clinic in Your Home
Advanced robotics and A.I. enable the ultimate personalized medical station: After morning saliva and urine checks, a home medical appliance designs and prints medicine to optimize your metabolism and microbiome for that day.

All state-run mass vaccination sites in New York will allow anyone 16 or older to walk in without an appointment and get their first dose, beginning on Thursday, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo announced on Tuesday.Walk-in vaccinations will be available at state-run sites in New York City, like the Javits Center in Manhattan and Yankee Stadium in the Bronx, as well as on Long Island and in upstate cities like Albany and Syracuse, the governor said.Second doses will still be given by appointment, which will be scheduled after the first dose is administered.“Just show up, and roll up your sleeve, and the mass vaccination sites have the capacity to handle it,” Mr. Cuomo said at a news conference on Tuesday.Other kinds of vaccine providers in the state, like pharmacies and sites run by cities and counties, will have the option to start allowing walk-ins as well, a step the governor encouraged.New York had already begun allowing some vaccinations without prior appointments. Mr. Cuomo announced last week that people 60 and over could walk in for vaccination at 16 state-run sites. And Mayor Bill de Blasio of New York City announced last week that city-run vaccination sites would let anyone eligible walk in for a shot.Allowing walk-ins simplifies a process that bedeviled many New Yorkers earlier in the pandemic, when obtaining a vaccine appointment often took hours of online searching and some luck as well. The new policy may also draw out people who are still hesitant to get vaccinated, Mr. Cuomo said.“This is our way of saying, if you were intimidated by the process of trying to make an appointment, that’s gone,” the governor said. He said it was feasible to allow more walk-ins because fewer vaccinations were being administered across the state now — about 115,000 doses a day — than a few weeks ago, when the state peaked at about 175,000 doses a day.“The demand is reducing, fewer people are asking for appointments,” Mr. Cuomo said.State data show that just under 45 percent of New York residents, or just over 8.9 million people, had received at least one dose of the vaccine by Tuesday morning.Reports of new Covid-19 cases and hospitalizations have declined in the state, according to a New York Times database, but the risk of infection still remains very high in New York City, where some troublesome variants of the virus appear to be on the rise.

Researchers with the Peter O’Donnell Jr. Brain Institute at UT Southwestern have identified a new protein implicated in cell death that provides a potential therapeutic target that could prevent or delay the progress of neurodegenerative diseases following a stroke.
Scientists from the departments of pathology, neurology, biochemistry, and pharmacology at UTSW have identified and named AIF3, an alternate form of the apoptosis-inducing factor (AIF), a protein that is critical for maintaining normal mitochondrial function. Once released from mitochondria, AIF triggers processes that induce a type of programmed cell death.
In a study published in the journal Molecular Neurodegeneration, the UT Southwestern team collaborated with researchers at The Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and found that, following a stroke, the brain switches from producing AIF to producing AIF3. They also reported that stroke triggers a process known as alternative splicing, in which a portion of the instructions encoding AIF is removed, resulting in the production of AIF3. Defective splicing can cause disease, but modifying the splicing process may offer potential for new therapies.
In both human brain tissue and mouse models developed by researchers, AIF3 levels were elevated after a stroke. In mice, the stroke-induced production of AIF3 led to severe progressive neurodegeneration, hinting at a potential mechanism for a severe side effect of stroke observed in some patients. Stroke has been recognized as the second most common cause of dementia, and it is estimated that 10 percent of stroke patients develop post-stroke neurodegeneration within one year.
The molecular mechanism underlying AIF3 splicing-induced neurodegeneration involves the combined effect of losing the original form of AIF in addition to gaining the altered AIF3, leading to both mitochondrial dysfunction and cell death.
“AIF3 splicing causes mitochondrial dysfunction and neurodegeneration,” says senior author Yingfei Wang, Ph.D., assistant professor of pathology and neurology and a member of the O’Donnell Brain Institute. “Our study provides a valuable tool to understand the role of AIF3 splicing in the brain and a potential therapeutic target to prevent or delay the progress of neurodegenerative diseases.”
The findings are important for understanding the aftereffects of stroke, which strikes nearly 800,000 U.S. residents annually. Stroke kills one person every four minutes, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and about one in every six deaths from cardiovascular disease is attributed to stroke — with ischemic strokes accounting for about 87 percent of all cases. Leading causes of stroke include high blood pressure, high cholesterol, smoking, obesity, and diabetes. Stroke also disproportionately affects certain populations and occurs more often in men, though more women than men die from stroke. CDC figures show Black people have twice the risk of first-time stroke than white people and a higher risk of death. Hispanic populations have seen an increase in death rates since 2013, while other populations have not.
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Materials provided by UT Southwestern Medical Center. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.

The new guidance on mask-wearing from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Tuesday says that masks can be shed for some relatively safe outdoor activities, especially by fully vaccinated people, because the virus does not spread readily outdoors.But there are many circumstances where the new guidance still calls for masks to be worn outdoors, especially by unvaccinated people.Here are some examples from the C.D.C.’s new guidance:Everyone can do without a mask when …Walking, running, hiking or biking outdoors, alone or with members of the same household.Attending a small outdoor gathering with fully vaccinated family and friends.Fully vaccinated people can do without a mask when …Attending a small outdoor gathering with a mixture of fully vaccinated and unvaccinated people.Dining outdoors at a restaurant with people from several households.For these kinds of activities, unvaccinated people should still wear masks and maintain social distance, the C.D.C. says.Everyone should still wear a mask when …Attending a crowded outdoor event, like a parade, sporting event or live performance.Doing almost anything indoors that involves contact with people who are not members of your household. Examples include dining indoors at a restaurant; going to the movies, an indoor concert or theatrical performance; attending full-capacity worship services; traveling on an airline flight or riding mass transit; singing in a chorus indoors; taking part in an indoor exercise class; visiting a shopping mall or museum; getting a haircut or manicure; or attending an indoor social gathering.Though most of these activities are much safer for fully vaccinated people than for the unvaccinated, the C.D.C. guidance says that everyone should still wear a mask to protect themselves and others. People are not likely to know the vaccine status of those around them, the guidance says, and it is not yet clear whether fully vaccinated people can still spread the virus while not becoming ill themselves. Unvaccinated people should also maintain social distance, the guidance says.