The Spanish Society of Public Health and Health Administration calls for the creation of an institution "that prepares us to protect the health of our population in the face of the current pandemic, future pandemics and current health challenges".
The dream of obtaining electrical energy from the fusion of two atomic nuclei is a little closer. Results obtained with some of the most powerful lasers on the planet show that one of the strategies to achieve this, nuclear fusion by inertial confinement, works as predicted 50 years ago.
Several results confirm that vaccination against covid-19 does not affect fertility. One of them, carried out on some 2,000 couples and published in the American Journal of Epidemiology, compares the ability to conceive naturally in vaccinated and unvaccinated couples. The other, in Obstetrics & Gynecology, studies some 1,300 vaccinated and unvaccinated women who have used different assisted reproductive techniques. Neither paper finds a link between vaccination and pregnancy.
In Spain, since 13 January, the booster vaccination against covid-19 has been recommended for the general adult population. 78.8 % of those over 50 and 88.9 % of those over 60 have already had it, said the Minister of Health yesterday. If those who are missing have doubts, here we try to solve them.
Spain recommends that people who have been infected with the coronavirus receive the third dose four weeks later. Experts assess the decision from an immunological point of view.
The director of the Vaccine Strategy of the European Medicines Agency (EMA), Marco Cavaleri, told a press conference on 11 January that "it is not sustainable in the long term to continue giving booster doses every three or four months [to the general population]". Spanish immunologists agree that this is not the right thing to do. In these reactions they explain why.
The terms "endemism" and "seasonality" are increasingly used to refer to the covid-19 pandemic. They are sometimes incorrectly associated with the severity of the disease or with the premature end of the pandemic. What do they mean? Does SARS-CoV-2 fit these definitions? Will it ever do so thanks to vaccines?
In the covid-19 pandemic, there is no evidence to justify closing classrooms to interrupt transmission and protect the health of children. On the other hand, there is evidence of the harm caused to them by dropping out of school.
The pandemic has shown us that neither science nor engineering alone is capable of solving a problem in real time when the crisis is global, when local interventions are costly and of limited effect, when we have to act without having all the information.
The first solid work on the ability of vaccines to stop infection with the omicron variant, which has just been published, reinforces the need for a third dose. Experts recall, however, that the aim of vaccines was never to stop infection, but to prevent severe disease. We summarize what is known so far about it.