How the world made so much progress on a Covid-19 vaccine so fast

How the world made so much progress on a Covid-19 vaccine so fast

The sheer urgency of the Covid-19 pandemic has helped bolster tremendous progress toward a vaccine, but there are other aspects of the current crisis that have enabled scientists to work at an unprecedented pace. The SARS-CoV-2 virus, for instance, belongs to a family of viruses that's already known to scientists, who could then rejigger projects on previous coronaviruses for this new one. The fact that Covid-19 is an acute infection that most people seem to clear on their own — and not a chronic disease — also makes it easier to target. Still, progress does not equal a viable vaccine, and much still remains to be tested with any vaccine candidate. “This is a huge experiment and no one knows how it’s going to turn out,” one expert tells STAT's Andrew Joseph. Read more here.

Here's what else is happening with the pandemic today: 

• As school districts around the country continue to debate instruction plans for the fall, new research finds that had schools in all 50 states not closed between March and May, there may have been 424 more Covid-19 cases and 13 more deaths per 100,000 residents. 
• An analysis of videos recorded in public spaces across nine countries finds that mandatory mask policies increased mask-wearing but also reduced associated behaviors such as face-touching. Face-touching, including of the eyes, nose and mouth, reduced in China and South Korea after mandated mask policies went into effect, but parts of Europe also saw fewer incidences of face-touching in March this year than between January 2018 and the end of 2019. 
• Nursing homes with more health and emergency preparedness deficiencies, as well as those with more complaints, were likelier to report Covid-19 cases, according to a new study of 23 states and Washington, D.C. Nonprofit facilities, those with more beds, and those with a higher proportion of Medicaid patients also had higher infection rates.