What unicorns can learn from sports

We know that breakthrough infections, while uncommon, can spread the virus. But vaccinated people are less likely than unvaccinated people to infect those around them. One of the benefits of the vaccines is their ability to prevent you from getting infected at all. They're not perfect — their main purpose is to stave off severe illness — but they do this quite well. If you're not carrying the virus, you can't spread it.

A study published by The Lancet says that biocide disinfectants commonly used in antibacterial wipes, wound disinfectants, eye drops and ear drops "can inadvertently contribute to emergence of antibiotic-resistant bacteria", also known as superbugs. The study, conducted by Australia's Macquarie University, which tested the effects of the disinfectant benzalkonium chloride (BAC) on aminoglycosides antibiotics and the ESKAPE pathogens, found that it "drastically increases the frequency at which resistant mutants emerge, through reducing intracellular antibiotic accumulation."

Researchers at the Yale School of Medicine have developed an RNA molecule that stimulates the body's defensive mechanism and fights off coronavirus infection at an early stage. In a study conducted on mice, they found that it protected against severe disease and death and even helped immunocompromised mice completely clear the virus from the body.

Humans have produced nearly 8 million tons of pandemic-associated plastic waste, and about 26,000 tonnes of it have been released into the oceans, a new study estimates. These plastics can cause injury or even potential death of marine organisms, cause plastic buildup on beaches, and deplete the ecology.

According to a study by the Université de Montréal's Department of Chemistry, 32 non-hospitalised Covid-19 positive Canadian adults were recruited by a hospital 14 to 21 days after being diagnosed through RT-PCR testing. This was in 2020, before the Beta, Delta and Gamma variants emerged. "Everyone who had been infected produced antibodies, but older people produced more than adults under 50 years of age," the study found. "In addition, antibodies were still present in their bloodstream 16 weeks after their diagnosis."

A large study on the real-world effectiveness of Covid vaccines by Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson has found that the protection against infection reduced significantly over eight months amidst the surge of the Delta variant yet protection against death remained stable. The study tracked nearly 800,000 US veterans from February 2021 to October 2021, measuring vaccine effectiveness against Covid-19 infection and death.

A new study from Israel has strengthened the case for Covid-19 booster jabs, which are currently being rolled out for older and at-risk groups in several countries around the world. And researchers demonstrated the benefits of a vaccine "boost" for recipients of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine — a third shot given at least five months after completion of the two-dose series.

A gene commonly found in people of South Asian descent doubles the risk of lung failure and death from Covid, new research by scientists from the University of Oxford says. The high-risk gene, called LZTFL1, derails a defensive mechanism the cells lining the lungs deploy to defend themselves from the coronavirus. It is found in about 60% of people of South Asian descent, 15% of people of European descent and 2% of those of African descent. The researchers arrived at these figures based on an analysis of nearly 200,000 genomes.