Conspiracy theorists blame Bill Gates himself for the pandemic. The Covid-19 pandemic set the world back 20 years in development, according to the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The world is catastrophically unprepared for another pandemic of a new virus, according to the World Health Organization and the World Bank.
But there is good news: an artificial protein molecule has been synthesized in California that may prove to be an effective treatment for Covid-19. The number of people infected with the Covid-19 coronavirus on the planet is approaching 30 million. The number of deaths since the beginning of the pandemic is 929 thousand. Approximately 30 million people have recovered, according to Johns Hopkins University.
The Covid-19 pandemic has set the world back in development, and now experts are debating for how many years. In a major annual report released Monday by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the estimate is 20 years. The document notes that several months of the pandemic have effectively wiped out the results that international organizations have been seeking for years. The number of people living in extreme poverty increased by seven percent during this period. In addition, the number of people on the planet vaccinated against other diseases has dropped to 1990s levels. “Mutually reinforcing disasters” is the best way to describe the Covid-19 pandemic. First the virus itself appeared, then governments began to redistribute resources to fight it, and then people stopped going to the doctor for fear of becoming infected: all elements of a full-blown health sector catastrophe,” the report says.
Nevertheless, Gates is confident that the lost ground can be regained in two to three years, provided that the tourism industry rebounds and the World Bank provides loans for the reconstruction of the affected countries. In an interview with the BBC, Gates added that he is concerned about the conspiracy theories that have arisen around Covid-19. One of them claims that Gates himself is using the pandemic as an excuse to implant microchips in people under the guise of vaccination.
Another pessimistic report was released today by the Global Preparedness Monitoring Board – a joint structure of the World Health Organization and the World Bank. The organization, which tracks whether the world is ready for new epidemics, said Tuesday that the possibility of new virus outbreaks like Covid-19 is currently receiving little attention.
On the left, a human antibody; on the right, a nanobody developed in California. Scientists at the University of California, San Francisco, have succeeded in creating a protein molecule that can effectively neutralize the Sars-Cov-2 coronavirus. If it can be made into an aerosol, it could be used to treat and prevent Covid-19. In addition to developing a vaccine, dozens of scientific teams around the world are searching for a drug to combat the new coronavirus. Since the virus enters human cells through spikes on its surface, the challenge for scientists is to find a substance whose molecules fit the viral crown’s spikes like a sheath on a dagger. A molecule is fitted onto a spike from above, changing its shape – and such a “deformed” virus loses its ability to infect, since it can no longer physically enter the cell and begin to replicate. “We explain quickly, simply, and clearly what happened, why it matters, and what will happen next.” Episodes End of story: Podcast Advertising. This is the way our immune system works. The antibodies that our body produces to fight the coronavirus are molecules of a special shape that work on exactly the same principle (you can read more about it here). The antibodies of humans and most other mammals are quite bulky compared to the tiny virus, but in animals of the camel family (especially llamas), their size is significantly smaller, which is why such “nanobodies” are often more effective. This is the molecule – of artificial origin – that a graduate student at the University of California, Michael Shufu, was able to develop. Experiments conducted in the laboratory showed that three nanobodies linked together effectively neutralized the virus by tightly wrapping around the tip of its crown. A draft scientific article describing these experiments was published on the bioRxiv website nearly a month ago and has not yet undergone the required independent review by the scientific community. However, scientists who have had a preliminary look at the text have high hopes for the discovery made by an American graduate student and say it could be a real breakthrough in the fight against the pandemic.
Former Serbian Prime Minister Momcilo Krajisnik, who was sentenced to 20 years in prison by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia for organizing ethnic cleansing, has died of a coronavirus. The 75-year-old Kraishnik was free. He was released in 2013 after serving most of his sentence. He died in a hospital in Banja Luka, where he was taken about a week ago with bilateral pneumonia. Kraisnik, an economist with a master’s degree from Sarajevo, was one of the closest associates of Bosnian Serb leader Radovan Karadzic. He was arrested in 2000. Last year, the Hague tribunal sentenced Karadzic himself to life in prison for organizing the 1995 genocide of Muslims in Srebrenica. First, in 2016, the tribunal for the former Yugoslavia sentenced the former Bosnian Serb leader to 40 years in prison.
In Spain and France, the daily number of infections is rising rapidly. The intensive care and resuscitation unit at the hospital in Marseille is almost full. Marseille has again become one of the two epicenters of the coronavirus in the country, the other being Bordeaux in southwestern France.