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The total number of COVID-19 tests conducted in Orange County was mistakenly inflated for more than a month beginning in late April in data released to the public, an error that may have painted a rosier picture of the pandemic than the reality in the region. For roughly five weeks, county staff incorrectly added 30,000 serology tests to its “cumulative tests to date” figure, which made it appear that more testing for the virus was happening than was the case. The cumulative testing figure reported by the county is supposed to be a count of how many diagnostic tests — which detect whether someone was infected with the virus at the moment of testing — were conducted countywide, Dr. Clayton Chau, director of the Orange County Health Care Agency and the county’s interim health officer, sai...

The variation of COVID-19 currently dominating global cases is more infectious than the original strain that emerged in China, according to a new study published Thursday in thescientific journal Cell. Results of lab-based research published in the journal suggested that the current mutation is more transmissible between people than the previous iteration of the virus, though the finding remains to be proven. "I think the data is showing that there is a single mutation that actually makes the virus be able to replicate better, and maybe have high viral loads," top US infectious disease specialist Anthony Fauci told the Journal of the American Medical Association about the study, which he was not involved in. "We don't have a connection to whether an individual does worse with this...

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Washington (AFP) - Test monkeys infected with the novel coronavirus responsible for the COVID-19 pandemic were protected from reinfection for up to 28 days later, a Chinese study out Thursday in the journal Science said. While the monkeys displayed initial immunity, it's unclear how long such immunity will last in humans - it will be necessary to wait months, or even years, to know if the millions of people infected at the start of the pandemic are protected from re-infection. Scientists from Peking Union Medical College performed an experiment on rhesus macaques, often used because of their similarities to humans, to find out if they have a short-term immunity to the virus. Six rhesus macaques were infected in their trachea with a dose of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. They developed mild to mode...