Month: August 2020

DUBLIN — Ireland is a nation of saints, scholars and the status quo. This small island on the northwestern periphery of Europe is ruled by two old foes: the right-of-center Republican Fianna Fáil party and the fellow Christian-democratic Fine Gael, which have been on opposing sides of the political divide since independence in 1922. Under an agreement reached in June, Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin took the reins as taoiseach, or Irish prime minister, from Fine Gael leader Leo Varadkar until 2022. It is a polite, if imperfect, game of musical chairs to maintain stability during troubled times. It was either form a minority coalition with 43.1% of the vote combined, or form a coalition with the left-wing Sinn Féin party, which gained 24.5% of the vote in February’s general el...

Alyssa Milano recently revealed she was hospitalized and is experiencing hair loss days after she said she tested positive for coronavirus antibodies. On Friday, Milano, 47, posted a selfie while wearing a mask on a hospital bed. “I was acutely sick w/ Covid19 in April. I still have many symptoms,” the actress captioned her post. “I am what they call a ‘long hauler.’” ALYSSA MILANO TESTS POSITIVE FOR CORONAVIRUS ANTIBODIES: 'I THOUGHT I WAS DYING' The “Sorry Not Sorry” podcast host continued: “Last night, I had real heaviness in my chest. I went to the ER just to make sure it wasn’t a blood clot. Thankfully, it wasn’t.” “This virus sucks,” the “Desperate Housewives” alum captioned the post. “Please take it seriously.” On Sunday, Milano revealed she was experiencing hair loss. ALYS...

How much for all this? What about some information that isn’t being shared as readily — cost? With everything on the line, COVID-19 immunity feels a bit like a priceless commodity. Pricing a vaccine is not as complicated as creating one, but it isn’t far off. To beat the coronavirus, the vaccine needs to be cheap and available in large quantities so that everybody gets a dose. But it also needs to turn enough of a profit to cover the cost of development and manufacturing. On an Aug. 5 investors call, NPR reports, Moderna’s CEO said the company had already made deals with some countries at $32 and $37 a dose for small orders, with lower prices for larger quantities.  How is Inovio doing at balancing on this slim tightrope? Broderick said she thinks it’s doing we...

On Thursday, Alyssa Milano appeared on CNN’s Cuomo Prime Time to speak out about her bout with COVID-19 this spring and decry an inconsistent and frustrating testing process in the US. “I vacillate between anger, anxiety and just complete sadness,” the actress said of testing positive for COVID-19 antibodies despite other results for the virus, symptoms of which she experienced in April, coming back negative. Just one day after her interview with Chris Cuomo, Milano was back in the hospital. According to a social media post shared Saturday, the activist visited an emergency room on Friday to rule out a blood clot after experiencing “real heaviness” in her chest. No clot was found, but the former Charmed star — who will soon reprise her role as Samantha Micelli in a Who’s the Boss sequel a...

The coronavirus that causes COVID-19 infects cells by plugging into a receptor on their surface. Now, by crafting a "decoy" of that receptor, scientists aim to foil the virus's attack.  In a new study, published Aug. 4 in the journal Science, researchers engineered such a decoy and found that the coronavirus bound tightly to the imposter receptor, and once attached, the virus couldn't infect primate cells in a lab dish. The decoy binds to the virus as tightly as a neutralizing antibody, a Y-shaped molecule generated by the immune system to grab the virus and prevent it from infecting cells.  Neutralizing antibodies are the "best that the human body makes … so that's our target" — to have a decoy receptor that sticks to the coronavirus just as snuggly, study author Erik Procko, an ass...