Rich nations see virus rates fall quicker -- study
Research finds economic performance directly related to number of cases
2021-02-18
(Press-News.org) Richer countries were more likely to see rates of COVID-19 fall faster during the first wave of the pandemic, according to new research published in the journal Frontiers in Public Health.
The study by Anglia Ruskin University (ARU) professors Shahina Pardhan and Nick Drydakis examined economic indicators in 38 European countries, such as Gross Domestic Product (GDP) per capita, life expectancy, and public spending, and the number of new coronavirus cases per million of the population between 1 April and 31 May 2020, using data from Our World in Data based on the seven-day rolling average of new cases for each country.
A significant negative correlation was found between number of cases and GDP per capita across the two months. The study found that the country with the highest GDP per capita in Europe (Luxembourg) experienced the biggest fall in cases (271 per million of the population). The opposite was found for countries with lower GDP per capita, such as Ukraine (fell by one case per million) and Romania (fell by seven cases per million).
Researchers concluded that countries with higher GDP per capita were able to spend more on test and trace solutions, public health messaging and had economies that better facilitated home working than poorer nations. The UK recorded a reduction from 3,706 new cases on 1 April to 1,500 new cases on 31 May, a reduction of 20 cases per million of the population during this time.
Lead author Professor Shahina Pardhan, of ARU's School of Medicine, said: "Our study found a strong negative correlation between number of cases and GDP per capita. This is not only potentially down to the ability of wealthier nations to spend more on healthcare and prevention, but it is possible that suppressing the spread through lockdowns is more difficult to implement in poorer countries where there are a greater number of people working in sectors where manual labour is needed.
"COVID-19 is a global issue and has spread rapidly from country to country. It does not discriminate, and it is in everybody's best interests to ensure that poorer countries are given the assistance they need to fight this virus during this second wave and beyond."
INFORMATION:
ELSE PRESS RELEASES FROM THIS DATE:
2021-02-18
UCLA RESEARCH ALERT
FINDINGS
UCLA Jonsson Comprehensive Cancer Center researchers have uncovered a potential new way to target pancreatic tumors that express high intratumoral interferon signaling (IFN). The team found that high type I IFN signaling is present in a subset of pancreatic tumors and it triggers a decrease in the level of NAD and NADH in pancreatic cancer cells, which are vital cofactors in critical metabolic processes.
After the researchers delineated the mechanism by which the NAD depletion occurs, they demonstrated that cells with high IFN signaling were more sensitive to NAMPT inhibitors, which inhibit a major pathway ...
2021-02-18
NEW YORK, NY (Feb. 18, 2021)--A research team at the Center of Prevention and Evaluation (COPE) at Columbia University Irving Medical Center and the New York State Psychiatric Institute, led by Drs. Gary Brucato and Ragy R. Girgis, found that, contrary to popular belief, serious mental illness was present in only 11% of all mass murderers and in only 8% of mass shooters.
The study--the first published report on mass shootings from the Columbia Mass Murder Database--appeared online Feb. 17th in Psychological Medicine.
The investigators sought to gain much-needed insight into the relationship between serious mental ...
2021-02-18
As climate change takes hold across the Americas, some areas will get wetter, and others will get hotter and drier. A new study of the yellow warbler, a widespread migratory songbird, shows that individuals have the same climatic preferences across their migratory range. The work is published Feb. 17 in Ecology Letters.
"What's amazing is that the birds track similar climates despite the fact that they have migrated thousands of miles," said Rachael Bay, assistant professor in the Department of Evolution and Ecology, College of Biological Sciences at the University of California, Davis. "It seems that individual birds may be adapted to particular ...
2021-02-18
An international study in which the University of Granada participated--recently published in the journal Scientific Reports--has identified a new fossil record of these mysterious animals in the northeast of Taiwan (China), in marine sediments from the Miocene Age (between 23 and 5.3 million years ago)
These organisms, similar to today's Bobbit worm (Eunice aphroditois), were approximately 2 m long and 3 cm in diameter and lived in burrows
An international study in which the University of Granada (UGR) participated (recently published in the prestigious journal Scientific Reports) has revealed that the seafloor was inhabited by giant predatory worms during the Miocene Age (23-5.3 million years ...
2021-02-18
Hip dysplasia is a developmental disorder common in most dog breeds, and its onset is affected by both hereditary and environmental factors.
Prior studies have identified dozens of genetic loci associated with hip dysplasia in various breeds. The relevance of the loci to disease susceptibility remains an open question. The previously identified loci were reinvestigated at the University of Helsinki, Finland, using a large independent cohort of 1,600 dogs representing ten breeds.
The individual genetic variants at the target loci were determined from blood samples. The standardized ...
2021-02-18
While most adults over 50 understand that overuse of antibiotics is a problem, and say they're cautious about taking the drugs, a sizable minority have used antibiotics for something other than their original purpose, and appear to think the drugs could help treat colds, which are caused by viruses not bacteria.
These findings, contained in a new paper in Infection Control and Hospital Epidemiology, come from a national poll of people between the ages of 50 and 80 carried out as part of the National Poll on Healthy Aging.
The authors, from the University of ...
2021-02-18
Cracow, 18 February 2021
Creation of matter in an interaction of two photons belongs to a class of very rare phenomena. From the data of the ATLAS experiment at the LHC, collected with the new AFP proton detectors at the highest energies available to-date, a more accurate - and more interesting - picture of the phenomena occurring during photon collisions is emerging.
If you point a glowing flashlight towards another one, you do not expect any spectacular phenomena. The photons emitted by both flashlights simply pass by each other. However, in certain collisions involving high-energy protons the situation is different. The ...
2021-02-18
Air pollution levels may have exceeded air quality standards during the development of some Marcellus Shale natural gas wells in Pennsylvania, potentially impacting more than 36,000 people in one year alone during the drilling boom, according to Penn State scientists.
"The construction and drilling of these wells are a relatively short-term thing, and assessment of the impact on air quality is something that often falls through the cracks," said Jeremy Gernand, associate professor of industrial health and safety at Penn State. "But there are thousands and thousands of wells drilled depending on the year, and we wanted to see what the impact would be if we added it all up."
More than 20,000 unconventional Marcellus Shale gas wells have been drilled ...
2021-02-18
The distribution of vegetation is routinely used to classify climate regions worldwide, yet whether these regions are relevant to other organisms is unknown. Umeå researchers have established climate regions based on vertebrate species' distributions in a new study published in eLife. They found that while high-energy climate regions are similar across vertebrate and plant groups, there are large differences in temperate and cold climates.
Climate determines how life organises across the world. Understanding which climatic conditions drive important changes in ecosystems is crucial to understanding and predicting how life functions and evolves.
Human well-being critically ...
2021-02-18
Having trouble coping with COVID?
Go take a hike. Literally.
Researchers have long been aware of the positive impact of a connection with nature on psychological health and, according to a new study published in the journal Personality and Individual Differences, the pandemic hasn't decreased the power of nature to improve mental well-being.
"Thinking about the natural world in an interconnected and harmonious way corresponds to improved psychological health, no matter where you are," says Brian W. Haas, the lead author of the new study and an associate professor in the Behavioral and Brain Sciences Program at the University of Georgia.
Haas and his collaborators - Fumiko Hoeft, a professor of psychological sciences at UConn ...
LAST 30 PRESS RELEASES:
[Press-News.org] Rich nations see virus rates fall quicker -- study
Research finds economic performance directly related to number of cases
