10.23.20 (Wired.com)
| A vaccine advances as America’s first treatment is greenlit Yesterday, Moderna announced that it had enrolled all 30,000 participants in its Phase III vaccine trial. More than a third are minorities and a quarter are over the age of 65 in an attempt to reflect the diversity of the general population. The company expects to have early data about the efficacy of its vaccine in the next month. During a daylong meeting with FDA officials the same day, some vaccine experts urged the agency to request more than the requisite two months of safety data before approving vaccines.The FDA has also moved forward with remdesivir as the first—and only—fully approved drug for treating Covid-19 in the US. The drug was granted emergency use authorization in May, and has been approved or authorized for temporary use in around 50 countries. Now, it can be used for any hospitalized Covid-19 patient in the US who’s at least 12 years old. This news comes approximately a week after a massive international trial found that remdesivir does not prevent deaths among patients with severe cases with Covid-19. The research has not yet been peer reviewed or published in a journal, and some have disputed its conclusiveness. But the trial’s sheer size suggests that the data are still significant. New measures are taken to curb the viral spread of pandemic misinformation In the hopes of curbing the rampant spread of coronavirus misinformation, the WHO announced yesterday that it will grant Wikipedia free use of its published information, graphics, and videos in a first-of-its-kind collaboration. The WHO translates its work into six official languages, whereas Wikipedia content is available in around 175. This partnership also means WHO material will be part of the Wikimedia Commons, and can be reproduced or retranslated anywhere so long as there’s appropriate attribution.Since the start of the pandemic, Wikipedia—once widely regarded as unreliable—has been a key resource for debunking misinformation about coronavirus. By contrast, researchers from Cornell recently found that President Trump was likely the loudest source of coronavirus misinformation during the pandemic’s early months. As a result of the president’s attitudes, many prestigious scientific and medical journals have published editorials denouncing his handling of coronavirus. |