New Scientist Australian Edition 25-Apr-20

THERE are still many unknowns about how this pandemic will play out. The immediate concern is rightly how to save lives. But another important question is the effect on the world’s long-term mental health. The future here is unclear and an ongoing global research effort to monitor and understand the mental toll is needed. Psychologists are already tooling up to find answers. In the meantime, one useful way to break down the problem is to examine the impacts on four groups, as we write in our special report (see page 40). These are the general population, families and children, vulnerable people and front-line workers. Past experiences of national trauma can be our guide and allow us to draw several ideas. First, the good news: many of the potential negative consequences to our mental…

THE minutes of meetings of the UK’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (SAGE) will only be made public when the current covid-19 outbreak is brought under control, according to Patrick Vallance, the UK government’s chief scientific adviser. In a letter sent in early April to MP Greg Clark, chair of the House of Commons science and technology committee, Vallance wrote: “Once SAGE stops convening on this emergency the minutes of relevant SAGE meetings, supporting documents and the names of participants (with their permission) will be published.” SAGE currently meets twice a week and passes advice to UK government ministers. The advisory group’s decision-making and membership have come under scrutiny because of the government’s reluctance to announce strict social distancing measures to minimise infection. Critics also want to know why the government initially…

THERE are still many unknowns about how this pandemic will play out. The immediate concern is rightly how to save lives. But another important question is the effect on the world’s long-term mental health. The future here is unclear and an ongoing global research effort to monitor and understand the mental toll is needed. Psychologists are already tooling up to find answers. In the meantime, one useful way to break down the problem is to examine the impacts on four groups, as we write in our special report (see page 40). These are the general population, families and children, vulnerable people and front-line workers. Past experiences of national trauma can be our guide and allow us to draw several ideas. First, the good news: many of the potential negative consequences…

WE KNOW that older people are more vulnerable to covid-19, but another major risk factor has emerged: being male. The first signs of a sex difference in covid-19 severity emerged from hospital records in Wuhan, China, shortly after the city locked down. On 30 January, a team at Shanghai Jiaotong University School of Medicine published a report on 99 covid-19 patients who were admitted to Jinyintan Wuhan hospital between 1 and 20 January. The researchers found that among those admitted, men outnumbered women by more than two to one. There has also been a sex difference among deaths. Mortality data from 21 hospitals in Wuhan between 21 and 30 January, for example, revealed that 75 per cent of those who died were men. Since then, larger studies from other countries have backed up…

IN A rare display of collaboration, Apple and Google recently joined forces to help contact-tracing app technology work effectively. Such apps are attractive to countries looking to exit lockdown, but there is growing evidence it will be difficult to make them work. Researchers at the University of Oxford released a report last week that simulated a city of 1 million people and found that 80 per cent of smartphone users in the UK would need to install a contact-tracing app in order for it to be effective in suppressing an epidemic: that is 56 per cent of the national population. The UK’s chief scientific adviser, Patrick Vallance, has indicated he thinks such apps might have a role to play in contact tracing, but that it would be a tall order to get…

THE coronavirus outbreak is forcing people to confront dilemmas around how much medical care should be given at the end of life and rush controversial decisions about turning down certain treatments, palliative care experts say. “The crisis has brought to the fore a lot of the problems with decision-making around the end of life which have been simmering for ages,” says Celia Kitzinger at Cardiff University in the UK. “Coronavirus has lit the fuse.” These include concerns over whether some people receive excessive medical intervention such as CPR at the end of their lives, when it merely prolongs the dying process. Now, attention is also falling on whether everyone should get ventilation if their lungs fail, especially as there may not be enough machines to go around. Ventilation can be distressing and…