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Josh Anadu has spoken out about harassment he has experienced in the field.Credit: Zoë Berman
Scientists call for safe field research for all
Researchers in fieldwork-intensive disciplines including ecology, geology and palaeontology are urging decision-makers to confront racism and harassment in the field. Scientists share stories of being threatened by white supremacists, catcalled by men or forced to work in countries where their sexuality is against the law. Field preparation is “often geared towards rural environments — how to protect yourself from nature”, says ecologist Deja Perkins. “They don’t really cover urban field safety — what to do if you’re getting harassed by the public.”
How some people put HIV into deep sleep
In a handful of people living with HIV, the virus remains at undetectable levels, sometimes for many years, even though HIV genes still lurk in their chromosomes. These ‘elite controllers’ seem to be able to stash the viral DNA in quiet corners of the chromosome, where it struggles to replicate. Scientists managed to gather dozens of these individuals to analyse their genomes in an effort to better understand their superpower.
Go deeper with the expert analysis in the Nature News & Views article by HIV researcher Nicolas Chomont.
COVID-19 coronavirus update
A worker digs a grave in a cemetery near Mexico City as the coronavirus outbreak continues.Credit: Edgard Garrido/Reuters
How many people has the coronavirus killed?
More than 850,000 people have been recorded as having died of COVID-19. But measures of excess deaths — all deaths from any cause, compared with the expected number — suggest that the true number might be much higher, meaning that some COVID-19 deaths have been misclassified. Other causes of death might have also risen, such as in cases when people couldn’t get the medical care they needed from overburdened hospitals. A Nature analysis of comprehensive data sets including 32 countries (largely in Europe) and 4 major world cities shows that there are huge variations in excess deaths between countries. Some countries, such as Bulgaria, have even experienced negative excess deaths during the pandemic so far — meaning that, despite the virus, fewer people have died this year than expected. This could be due to factors such as fewer road deaths during lockdown and hygiene practices that help to quash other infectious diseases. And excess death is just one measure of the true toll of the pandemic. The final tally will take a long time to determine, and will never be absolutely certain. “We haven’t even settled on how many people died in the 1918 flu,” says demographer Andrew Noymer. “And we’ve had 100 years to sort out the numbers.”
NIH: Not enough evidence for plasma
An US National Institutes of Health (NIH) panel says the current evidence doesn’t warrant using plasma from people who have recovered from COVID-19 to treat those with the disease. On 23 August, the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) granted emergency authorization for doctors to use convalescent plasma in the country. The FDA announcement raised controversy after FDA commissioner Stephen Hahn, US President Donald Trump and others repeated an incorrect claim about the proven efficacy of the treatment — for which Hahn later apologized. The NIH panel reviewed published and unpublished evidence, including that referred to by the FDA, and concluded that “there are insufficient data to recommend either for or against the use of convalescent plasma for the treatment of covid-19”.
The good news is that gold-standard trials are happening for the promising treatment, including the large RECOVERY trial taking place in the United Kingdom. “There is good science behind convalescent plasma and a good reason for thinking that it may turn out to be an effective treatment,” says epidemiologist Martin Landray, who is co-leading the trial. “The bottom line is that we don’t have enough data to know.”
Bloomberg | 8 min read & Nature | 7 min read
“The winner in all of this is the virus”
The NIH has reinstated a research organization’s multimillion-dollar grant to study how coronaviruses move from bats to people, which it cancelled in a controversial move earlier this year. But Peter Daszak, head of the small non-profit organization — EcoHealth Alliance in New York City — says the funding can’t be used unless the organization meets what he calls absurd, politically motivated conditions. “We’re not a political organization. We’re just trying to do good work to prevent pandemics,” says Daszak. “We estimate that every single day, somebody in China or in southeast Asia gets infected with a new bat coronavirus. Right now, somebody is walking around, and they might be developing the first signs of a cough from the next COVID.”
Sources: The Economist/The Financial Times/Our World in Data
Features & opinion
Russia to raise its sunken nuclear subs
Dozens of sunken nuclear vessels and reactor compartments litter the Arctic seafloor. Russia has pledged to raise the most dangerous: 2 Soviet nuclear submarines and 4 reactors, which make up 90% of radioactive material in the Arctic Ocean. Recovering them will be perilous, but leaving them puts at risk some of the world’s richest fishing grounds — and leaves the families of the men who died aboard in a limbo of mourning.
