Norway: “The number of corona inpatients who need intensive care is higher than before, and it seems to be increasing”

“The death toll has increased week by week now… we are falling behind in the fight against infection,” said the chief physician at the University Hospital of Northern Norway, Mats Gilbert.  More...

FFP2 masks more effective at preventing Covid infection than vaccines

Max Planck: “When both wear a surgical mask, while the infectious is speaking, the very conservative upper bound remains below 30% after 1h, but, when both wear a well-fitting FFP2 mask, it is 0.4%”

We find, for a typical SARS-CoV-2 viral load and infectious dose, that social distancing alone, even at 3m between two speaking individuals, leads to an upper bound of 90% for risk of infection after a few minutes.  More...

Preprint: Omicron is the product of extensive evolution that has left no obvious traces of intermediate forms

The Omicron variant identified in Southern Africa in late November 2021 is the product of extensive evolution within an infection context that has so far left no obvious traces of intermediate forms since it diverged from the B.1.1 lineage (presumably at some time in mid to late 2020).  More...