pandemic

The pandemic has catapulted science to the forefront of policy-making

Peter Piot interview: The pandemic has catapulted science to the forefront of policy-making

Interview with Peter Piot, Director of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and Special Advisor to the President of the European Commission on the response to the coronavirus and COVID-19: how science has been feeding into policy-making? What does your role as EU special advisor on COVID-19 entail? Peter Piot: I am part ...

Team of Medical Research Scientists Work on a New Generation Disease Cure. They use Microscope, Test Tubes, Micropipette and Writing Down Analysis Results. Laboratory Looks Busy, Bright and Modern.

Cary Funk: “It is important to engage with people who have a low level of trust in scientists”

Cary Funk from Pew Research Center talks about the impact of people’s ideology and education on their trust in scientists, medical treatments and vaccines, and how science communication can overcome this.

Lisa Ferland, Group of children with face mask back at school after covid-19 quarantine and lockdown

A scientist’s opinion : Interview with Lisa Ferland about School & Covid-19

Interview with Lisa Ferland, epidemiologist and part of the COVID-19 surveillance and response team as an Interim Surveillance Expert at the European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control (ECDC). She comes from the US but lives in Sweden. In addition to her academic background in public health, statistics and information science, Lisa has written a ...

Group of children with face mask back at school after covid-19 quarantine and lockdown

The role of school settings in COVID-19 transmission

So far, sending children back to school does not seem to have increased COVID-19 community transmission rates, even though EU countries have adopted different strategies. Keeping schools open is very important for children’s health and well-being.

Dexamethasone, Coronavirus Covid-19 treatment illustration banner

Dexamethasone : the first life-saving drug for COVID-19 patients

Clinical trials make it possible to evaluate whether a treatment improves outcomes. Developing a hypothesis, for example if treatment A is better than standard treatment B, clinical trials enable understanding of the role of an intervention in improving patient care. In the current search for a successful treatment against COVID-19, ongoing multiple clinical trials have started to make a difference, such as the Recovery clinical trial on dexamethasone, which has given a definitive verdict on the use of corticosteroids during COVID-19.

Gwenan Knight, Social distancing concept. Physical contamination, infected people.

A scientist’s opinion : Interview with Dr Gwenan Knight about clusters & superspreading

Interview with Dr Gwenan Knight, assistant professor at the the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. What was the aim of your initial work on COVID-19 clusters for the studies you brought out in May and June, and how did you go about it? Gwenan Knight: Stepping back pre-COVID, one of the things I’m ...

Michael Hameleers Interview, Newspapers on a laptop

Michael Hameleers : “The most effective way to combat mis- or disinformation seems to be a combination of media literacy programmes and fact-checking”

Michael Hameleers (PhD, University of Amsterdam) is Assistant Professor in Political Communication at the Amsterdam School of Communication Research (ASCoR), Amsterdam, Netherlands. His research interests include populism, framing, (affective) polarization, and disinformation. Recently, most of his research is focused on the effects of misinformation and the effectiveness of corrective information. Michael Hameleers recently released a ...

Zarine Kharazian interview, Newspapers on a laptop

Zarine Kharazian from Digital Forensic Research Lab about the research on Covid-19 disinformation

Zarine Kharazian is Assistant Editor with the Digital Forensic Research Lab, a start-up within the Atlantic Council that focuses on researching and combating disinformation and protecting democratic institutions and norms from those who would seek to undermine them in the digital engagement space. At the DFRLab, she has covered disinformation trends in the United States ...