Pandemic

At the end of December 2019, the first case of COVID-19, the illness caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, was detected in the city of Wuhan in the province of Hubei. The virus rapidly spread throughout China and resulted in a pandemic. Thanks to retrospective studies and analyses, the first transmission cluster was discovered in a […]

During the last four years, relations between China and the United States have been strained, mainly for economic and security reasons. Since the beginning of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, these tensions have got worse, especially concerning questions about the origin of the virus and exchange of information. However, the global fight against COVID-19 requires these two […]

2020 will be remembered as the year of the COVID-19 pandemic, with all its catastrophic consequences for public health, and for social and economic life. This health crisis has highlighted the fragility of our system and of our preparedness in the face of an epidemic, notably the economic infrastructure supporting the research and development (R&D) […]

Transmission of SARS-CoV-2 occurs through close personal contact. After the first wave of COVID-19, social distancing measures and repeated lockdowns changed interaction behaviour in people and resulted in reductions in mortality and incidence rates. However, since June 2020, there has been a resurgence in cases in the United States and Europe. Some demographic studies suggest […]

The first case of COVID-19 on the African continent was declared in Egypt on the 14th of February 2020. Although the majority of African countries have been affected, the first wave of the pandemic seemed to spread less quickly through the continent than in the rest of the world. How can this be explained? The […]

Scientific misinformation is a threat in many respects: for health, the environment, the development of a sustainable and equitable future, and for the culture itself. Whether it be intentional or not, this phenomenom is not new, but it has taken on a new dimension with the COVID-19 pandemic, for several reasons. First of all, the […]

The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted teaching. Social distancing measures have encouraged distance learning, especially in higher education. Unfortunately on-line courses require resources which some universities do not possess, thereby accentuating inequalities. Lectures, often in front of hundreds of students, have for a long time been a cornerstone in the teaching of science, technology, engineering and […]

Contagious illnesses influence the social behaviour of individuals, which in turn alters the pathogen’s spreading patterns and the future outcome of the epidemic. We talk of coevolution. The notion of social distancing has become familiar to us since the beginning of the COVID-19 epidemic and its implementation does effectively reduce the virus’ spreading. Despite this […]

In order to fight against COVID-19, governments have taken a number of public health measures, such as lockdowns or the closure of “non-essential” businesses. Little is known of the effectiveness of such measures, as several of them tend to be put in place at the same time, and it is difficult to estimate the effectiveness […]

SARS-CoV-2 is responsible for more than 50 million infections worldwide, and more than a million deaths. Studies on how COVID-19 is transmitted have shown the significance of infection clusters, generally gatherings of people in enclosed spaces such as offices, churches or health care facilities. These clusters sometimes involve a superspreader event, where one individual transmits […]