Coronavirus deaths shocked us with how rapidly they rose from a base of none at the start of the year, to many thousands within the space of mere weeks. At the peak for England and Wales on April 8, more than 1,300 people died in a single day (as revealed later when all death registrations were reported).

British cancer doctor Prof Karol Sikora recently claimed that the current COVID-19 pandemic would “burn itself out”. His thinking is that if there are more infections than we realise, and that those milder, unrecorded infections result in robust immunity, then this would quickly lead to “herd immunity”, leaving the virus nowhere to go but extinct. Extend this to the world’s population and the virus eradicates itself.

In “The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy” by Douglas Adams, the haughty supercomputer Deep Thought is asked whether he can find the answer to the ultimate question concerning life, the universe and everything. He replies that, yes, he can do it, but it’s tricky and he’ll have to think about it. When asked how long it will take him he replies, “Seven-and-a-half million years. I told you I’d have to think about it.”

Many people will be familiar with electroconvulsive therapy (ECT) as a historical treatment for “mental illness”, in which an electrical current is passed through the brain to trigger seizures, with the aim of somehow treating the illness. In fact, ECT is still being administered to about a million people each year to treat severe depression, including about 2,500 in England, under anaesthetic. The majority are women, and over 60 years of age.

In March 2020, Google searches for phrases like “can’t taste food” or “why can’t I smell” spiked around the world, particularly in areas where COVID-19 hit hardest. Still, many of us have experienced a temporary change in the flavor of our food with a common cold or the flu (influenza). So, is COVID-19 – the disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus – somehow special in the way it affects smell and taste?

Her symptoms started quickly: neck pain, extreme fatigue and intermittent fever and chills. The woman had been healthy until then, and since she enjoyed gardening and landscaping at her rural Maryland home, she wondered if a tick bite might have given her Lyme disease although she had not noticed the telltale bull’s-eye skin lesion.

In late February, I fell ill with a fever and a cough. As a biochemist who teaches a class on viruses, I’d been tracking the outbreak of COVID-19 in China. Inevitably I wondered: Did I have COVID-19, or did I have the flu?

In early 2020, it seemed like people with diabetes were disproportionately dying with COVID-19, but the data provided more questions than answers. What type of diabetes did people have? Were people dying because the condition itself put them at greater risk, or because those with it tend to be older and have other illnesses? And what should people with diabetes do to protect themselves?

Many countries are moving to exit a lockdown triggered by COVID-19, but the virus has not gone away and there are real concerns that a second wave of infection could happen. We urgently need to understand more about how the body deals with this infection and what we can do to tackle it. Immunology has taken centre stage here in revealing what happens when our body fights this virus, and brings us the possibility of treatments and vaccines.

Some people question why the current coronavirus has brought the world to standstill while a previous deadly coronavirus, SARS, did not. Others have questioned why a vaccine is so urgently needed now to stop the spread of the current coronavirus when a vaccine was never developed for SARS.

Scientists are constantly revealing newly discovered benefits of exercise. In experiments over the past 10 years, my research has found that exercise can help with a respiratory problem known as ARDS.

As an academic who regularly worked from home in the days before coronavirus, my friends often joked about what they imagined my daily routine might be (such as enjoying a morning gin and not changing out of my pyjamas). But as many people now realise, the reality is quite different. Working from home can be quite a challenge.

Taking a holistic view in managing their global employee benefit programs is the chosen way forward for an increasing number of multinationals that want a better overview and cost control of these programs. Many companies find that outsourcing the day-to-day handling and reporting of the insured benefits to local experts coordinated by a central team with one of the global consulting / brokerage firms is the preferred approach.

Jimmy Johansen: A Holistic Approach to Employee Benefits – R&D: The Mysterious Disappearance of The First SARS Virus – R&D: Working from Home? Why Detachment Is Crucial for Mental Health – R&D: Exercise May Reduce Risk Of ARDS Complication – R&D: Coronavirus: Step Up Research in The Immune System – R&D: Coronavirus and Type 1 vs. Type 2 Diabetes

Publishing and running a fully digital magazine has its benefits as well as downsides. We, here at GBV, are generally used to working remotely. In fact, we have a diverse group of people who oil the wheels, based across the world, covering topics of interest for our readers. Countries where our staff are based include Luxembourg, New Zealand, France, Hungary, and the U.S. So, how has our work changed during COVID? Not a great deal, is the short answer. We have been ahead of the curve with video conferencing, our publisher, Eric Muller-Borle has been running the show online for the last 5 years now. We have a fully integrated online process to manage each monthly edition of the magazine across editors, writers, contributors, and graphic design. Each segment of the process has sub-processes and online meetings to discuss breaking trends in the sector: we are in touch with leading insurers and EB providers, who are now also facing work from home regimes, and implementing processes which necessitate social and business distancing. Some of the products we have been using to facilitate the flow of information across our organisation include Adobe Creative Cloud, Zoom, Microsoft Exchange, Bitlocker, and Microsoft Office 365 (and a working internet connection, of course). These and others are becoming more widespread and Zoom’s valuation has increased exponentially as people realise value and necessity during these times. We see how our correspondents in the industry are now working from home, using remote working tools despite confidentiality issues and overloaded telecommunications. It can be done, is the simple answer. Businesses can be run, savings can be leveraged (expensive office space can be dispensed), and functionality over form, at least in terms of processes, can be implemented. In fact, we are under the impression that most of our counterparts work harder than ever, with travel, commuting, and coffee machine chats all gone. At GBV, we have had weekly slots for each segment of the business for quite some time – coordinated by our publisher, who manages the hub of GBV completely online and remotely. Content calendar meetings, content strategy, magazine design, marketing, and publishing all require detailed task management and guidance, especially in a fast-paced world where uncertainty is becoming more common. When we launched GBV five years ago, we decided to try and dispense with physical offices. As it turns out, we never looked back. Working from home offices all around the world, using loaned meeting rooms when necessary, our only permanent physical location is a 12-square meter room with a desk, three chairs, a cabinet, and, most importantly, a high-performance file server which strangely enough, is only used for backup purposes. For daily operations, we use a combination of off-the-shelf cloud solutions, i.e. DropBox, OneDrive, and Creative Cloud. As soon as the law catches up with the reality of modern digital work, we will dispense with even that room, digitize whatever is now in the filing cabinet (accounting records and the like, I am told), and move the file server to the basement. 4 Tips for successful remote work and cooperation In essence, we have found that working remotely works well – as does flexibility (technology is still catching up with what and how we want to achieve things – which applies to large as well as small and medium organisations). And given that we have 5 years of total remote work experience, or running everything through the medium of technology, here are some tips from us: Patience: technology does have to catch up with us. We have to work with glitches that happen for no reason apart from conflicting software or overloaded telecoms. Be patient. Be organised. Flexibility: meetings are often delayed, overrun. This seems to be happening less and less as social distancing and home isolation gives us time to sit in one place and do things. Need to change: we have realised – looking from the outside as early implementers of the fully remote work environment – that acceptance of change is important. We do not waste time on meetings about meetings, but rather have learnt to be concise, utilise necessary tools and ditch the long meeting structure of corporates. The trick is: trust team members to do the right thing. Direction: organisation is the key to have remote working parts of any organisation work smoothly. Task division and allocation become more and more important (this means not general tasks, but detailed task and goal identification. And, again, trust in all team members). While these are all things that organisations are implementing now, we feel greater implementation and leveraging technology will prove to be more important as time progresses. This necessity, we have seen, is filtering into large organisations and technology providers who are innovating at breakneck speed to come up with solutions to working remotely (which is a positive step all round). Process, product, and client re-engineering is something which still needs work. Data and technology are pervasive in business, now more than ever. GBV sees this as a positive outcome of these unfortunate times. Large EB providers are publishing guidelines and advice at breakneck speed – answering calls from clients, regions and industry sectors. We feel this is all a positive step in the corporate psychology and development and encourage working more efficiently. And while it has taken a pandemic for this to happen, we do feel that complacency has given way to more cooperation among divisions of companies, and at the (very important) social level. This can only be beneficial to most industry sectors in the long run.

While millions of people are under orders to stay home amid the coronavirus pandemic, water is sitting in the pipes of empty office buildings and gyms, getting old and potentially dangerous.

Disease has afflicted humans ever since there have been humans. Malaria and tuberculosis are thought to have ravaged Ancient Egypt more than 5,000 years ago. From AD 541 to 542 the global pandemic known as “the Plague of Justinian” is estimated to have killed 15–25% of the world’s 200-million population. Following the Spanish conquest of Mexico, the native population dropped from around 30 million in 1519 to just three million 50 years later. Today we are battling to control the spread of COVID-19, which has the potential to cause the most deadly pandemic in human history.

Regardless of whether we classify the new coronavirus as a pandemic, it is a serious issue. In less than two months, it has spread over several continents. Pandemic means sustained and continuous transmission of thedisease, simultaneously in more than three different geographical regions. Pandemic does not refer to the lethality of a virus but to its transmissibility and geographical extension.

Life After COVID-19: Dealing with Chronic Fatigue Syndrome? – How We Work During COVID-19 – Coronavirus: Ten Reasons Not to Panic – How to Model A Pandemic – Coronavirus Might Make Buildings Sick

Bernie Sanders, who’s currently in the race for the Democrats’ Presidential nomination, pledged to deliver “an economy that works for all, not just the very wealthy.” On the other side of the political spectrum, and across the Atlantic, former UK Prime Minister Theresa May gave a maiden speech that promised to create “a country that works not for a privileged few, but for every one of us”.

Exercise is not only good for your physical health, it’s good for your mental health, too. Indeed, many people even take up exercise as a way of boosting their mental well-being. But is all exercise equally beneficial – and does it matter whether you do it alone or in a group?

A new year typically brings new resolutions. While making resolutions is easy, sticking with them is not. Exercise-related resolutions consistently make the top 10 list, but up to 80% of resolutions to be healthier, including promises to exercise more, are tossed aside by February.

As many as one in six adults experience mental health problems like depression or anxiety every week. And not only is mental ill-health one of the most common causes of disease worldwide – it’s also on the rise. Finding ways to improve mental health is therefore essential.

How did those new year’s resolutions work out for you? Old habits will have already returned for many – you’re not alone if you’ve already stopped using that new gym membership. Similarly, you’re in good company if 2020 is already stressing you out.

Growing-the-pie is not pie-in-the-sky – Reduce Stress at Work and Prevent Burnout – Five Things to Do for A Healthier Microbiome – Ecotherapy to Improve Wellbeing – Hate Exercise? – For Mental Health, Team Sports or Solo Exercise?

Even though mental illness affects one in five adults – and depression is the leading cause of disability worldwide – secrecy and stigma around the issue continue. The problem is especially acute in the workplace. While individuals with mental illness often wish to work and are able to, their unemployment rates remain three to four times those of individuals without mental illness.

Having a few drinks at Christmas is, for some people, as much a part of the festive tradition as presents, decorations or carols. So if you find yourself nursing a hangover on Boxing Day, you might be interested to know what’s actually going on inside your body and why you feel so bad.