Category Archives: COVID-19
Just how accurate are rapid antigen tests? Two testing experts explain the latest data

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article here. As of May 2022, the U.S. is experiencing another uptick in the number of COVID-19 cases. High rates of infection in Europe and Asia, along with the continued emergence of new sub-variants, such as omicron BA.4 and BA.5,…
Got COVID again? Your symptoms may be milder, but this won’t always be the case

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article here. So, you’re starting to feel unwell. Your throat hurts, your head aches, you feel tired and you’ve developed a cough. You’ve recently had COVID but as we now know, it’s possible to be reinfected. But how sick will…
Australia risks relying on Pfizer and Moderna for its COVID vaccines. 3 ways to break free

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article here. The rapid development and deployment of COVID vaccines has been one of the greatest achievements of the pandemic. However, Australia risks relying on COVID vaccines from two main companies – Pfizer and Moderna – and that’s a problem….
Four strange COVID symptoms you might not have heard about

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article here. Well over two years into the pandemic, hundreds of thousands of COVID cases continue to be recorded around the world every day. With the rise of new variants, the symptoms of COVID have also evolved. Initially, the NHS…
AI, philosophy and religion: what machine learning can tell us about the Bhagavad Gita

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article here. Machine learning and other artificial intelligence (AI) methods have had immense success with scientific and technical tasks such as predicting how protein molecules fold and recognising faces in a crowd. However, the application of these methods to the…
The arts helped us through the pandemic – NZ’s budget should radically rethink how and why they’re funded

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article here. The past two years have made it impossible to ignore the problem in Aotearoa New Zealand’s arts sector. The pandemic has been brutal, with venues shut, festivals cancelled and audiences staying home. At the same time, art in…
For some people, religious leaders might be most effective at communicating the importance of COVID-19 vaccination

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article here. Vaccinating a substantial portion of society has been found to be the best way to bring the COVID-19 pandemic under control, but the pace of vaccination has slowed down since the vaccines were first made available to the…
Attending school every day counts – but kids in out-of-home care are missing out

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article here. Consistent school attendance is important in any child’s education but for many children in out-of-home care, going to school every day is no easy thing. There are three main types of out-of-home care in Australia: relative (or kinship)…
Why the budget should treat public health like transport – vital infrastructure with long-term economic benefits

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article here. The global pandemic might have revealed the importance of robust public health infrastructure, but we still have trouble grasping the vital need to invest in it. An analogy might help. Wellington’s recently opened Transmission Gully motorway shortens journeys…
Countries with lower-than-expected vaccination rates show unusually negative attitudes to vaccines on Twitter

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article here. The Research Brief is a short take about interesting academic work. The big idea In countries with lower-than-expected COVID-19 vaccination rates, mentions of side effects and negative emotions dominated overall social media discourses on COVID-19 vaccines, according to…