Turkish officials announced Thursday that a vaccine from the Chinese company Sinovac has an efficacy rate of 91.25 percent, but the finding was based on preliminary results from a small clinical trial and none of the data was published in a journal or posted online.

The announcement came a day after another ambiguous news conference, also about Sinovac’s vaccine, in Brazil. Officials there were expected to provide detailed results from another trial, but only reported that the vaccine had an efficacy rate over 50 percent.

Continue reading “Turkey and Brazil Say Chinese Vaccine Effective, With Sparse Supporting Data” →

A team of British scientists released a worrying study on Wednesday of the new coronavirus variant sweeping the United Kingdom. They warned that the variant is so contagious that new control measures, including closing down schools and universities, might be necessary. Even that may not be enough, they noted, saying, “It may be necessary to greatly accelerate vaccine rollout.”

Nicholas Davies, the lead author of the study, said that the model should also serve as a warning to other countries where the variant may have already spread.

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When Dr. Juan Aviles went to school in Puerto Rico, teachers taught him that the original people of the island, the Taino, vanished soon after Spain colonized it. Violence, disease and forced labor wiped them out, destroying their culture and language, the teachers said, and the colonizers repopulated the island with enslaved people, including Indigenous people from Central and South America and Africans.

But at home, Dr. Aviles heard another story. His grandmother would tell him that they were descended from Taino ancestors and that some of the words they used also descended from the Taino language.

Continue reading “Ancient DNA Shows Humans Settled Caribbean in 2 Distinct Waves” →

In recent days, the world has watched with curiosity and growing alarm as scientists in the U.K. have described a newly identified variant of the coronavirus that appears to be more contagious than, and genetically distinct from, more established variants. Initial studies of the new variant prompted Prime Minister Boris Johnson to tighten restrictions over Christmas, and spurred officials in the Netherlands, Germany and other European countries to ban travel from the U.K.

Continue reading “The U.K. Coronavirus Variant: What We Know” →