A new report shows that although Hispanic men and women in the continental United States and Hawaii have 25% to 30% lower overall cancer incidence and mortality than non-Hispanic Whites, they continue to have a higher risk of potentially preventable, infection-related cancers, including approximately two-fold higher rates of liver and stomach cancers.

Researchers at the University of Liverpool have shown how SARS-CoV-2 viral proteases attack the host cell, and how this can be targeted to stop virus replication in cell culture using existing drugs. The new findings, published today in Nature Communications, offer a powerful resource to understand proteolysis in the context of viral infection, and to inform the development of targeted strategies to inhibit the virus that causes Covid-19.

• US states with most authoritarian laws and public attitudes had pre-Covid infectious disease rates four times higher than least authoritarian states. • Cambridge psychologists replicated findings at a national level across 47 countries, and say this may be the “behavioural immune system” in action. • Researchers argue that a desire for “conformity and obedience” as a result of Covid-19 could boost authoritarianism in the wake of the pandemic.

The long-awaited confirmation of the efficacy of COVID-19 vaccination in cancer patients has arrived, on time to be disseminated to a global audience at the annual congress of the European Society for Medical Oncology (ESMO Congress 2021), the leading professional society for medical oncology.

OXFORD, England and AUSTIN, Texas – 20 September, 2021 – The fast spread of the highly infectious Delta variant underscores the need for faster identification of COVID-19 mutations. Uniting governments and medical communities in this challenge, the University of Oxford and Oracle’s Global Pathogen Analysis System (GPAS) is now being used by organizations on nearly every continent. Institutions using the platform include: the University of Montreal Hospital Centre Research Centre, the Institute of Public Health Research of Chile, the Oxford University Clinical Research Unit in Vietnam, the Institute of Clinical Pathology and Medical Research – New South Wales Pathology, and Oxford Nanopore Technologies. GPAS is also now part of the Public Health England New Variant Assessment Platform.

Researchers from the University of Oxford have today reported on findings on the vaccinated people who are at greatest risk from severe Covid-19 leading to hospitalisation or death from 14 days post the second dose vaccination, when substantial immunity should be expected. In a paper published in the British Medical Journal, they write that by updating the QCovid tool developed in 2020, which directly influenced UK policy in February 2021, adding 1.5 million people in February 2021 to list of those advised to shield, they are able to identify groups more at risk of hospitalisation or death from Covid-19.

During the decade-long economic recovery following the Great Recession, Black households lost much more wealth than white families, regardless of class or profession. Notably, while most other groups experienced an economic recovery between 2010 and 2019, Black professionals suffered losses in wealth, the authors found. Meanwhile, Black working-class families remained in the worst overall economic position. As a result, many Black families entered the COVID-19 pandemic in a state of financial precarity.

New findings about the causes and characteristics of overdose deaths during the COVID-19 pandemic may be used to inform policies that could lower death rates even after COVID-19 is under control.

What The Study Did: This analysis of SARS-CoV-2 vaccination in Massachusetts indicated structural disparity in vaccine distribution with lower vaccine coverage to infection risk in communities with increased socioeconomic vulnerability and larger proportions of Black and Latinx individuals.

While poor sleep was linked to higher levels of stress during the COVID-19 pandemic, more teens actually obtained the recommended amount of sleep compared to pre-pandemic sleep patterns, according to a new study from McGill University. Changes to daily routines triggered by lockdowns allowed teenagers to follow their biological impulse to wake up and sleep later, reducing daytime sleepiness.

An international collaboration, involving 29 scientists from around the world, focused on understanding how SARS-COV-2 makes its worker proteins at the molecular level so we could develop novel antiviral drugs and block their production - all working from home but coming together weekly on Zoom to tackle this terrifying disease.

Variants of SARS Coronavirus-2 and Their Potential Impact on the Future of the COVID-19 Pandemic https://doi.org/10.15212/ZOONOSES-2021-1003 Announcing a new article publication for Zoonoses journal. In this commentary the authors Xin Li, Kelvin Kai-Wang To and Kwok-Yung Yuen from The University of Hong Kong, Hong Kong, China and the Queen Mary Hospital, Hong Kong, China consider variants of SARS Coronavirus-2 and their potential impact on the future of the COVID-19 pandemic.