(Reuters) – Here’s what you need to know about the coronavirus right now:
Inhaled remdesivir
Gilead Sciences Inc is developing easier-to-administer versions of its antiviral treatment remdesivir for COVID-19 that could be used outside hospitals, including versions that can be inhaled after trials showed moderate effectiveness for the drug given by infusion.
Remdesivir is the only drug so far that has been shown to help patients with COVID-19, but Gilead and other companies are looking for ways to make it work better.
Sell, stow or dump?
Forget fast or slow fashion, now it’s ground to a halt.
A mountain of apparel stock has been piling up in stores, distribution centres, warehouses and even shipping containers during months of COVID-19 lockdowns. As retailers reopen around the world, they have to work out how to get rid of it.
Their main options? Keep it in storage, hold a sale, offload it to “off-price” retailers like TJ Maxx which sell branded goods at deep discounts, or move it to online resale sites.
Save the crabs
Wildlife advocates are pushing drugmakers to curb the use of prized horseshoe crab blood by switching to a synthetic alternative for safety tests that detect bacterial contamination in intravenous drugs or implants, including those needed before a COVID-19 vaccine can be used on humans.
This shift could save 100,000 horseshoe crabs annually on the U.S. East Coast alone and help threatened migratory birds that depend on crab eggs for survival say the National Audubon Society, Defenders of Wildlife and other groups.
Horseshoe crabs’ milky-blue copper-rich blood has helped the species to survive for 450 million years – and made it a source of one of the drug industry’s most unusual raw materials because it clots in the presence of bacterial endotoxins.
Mockery over coronavirus “sex ban”
The British government faced mockery on Tuesday over coronavirus rules which were cast by some media as a “sex ban”, though a junior minister said the regulations were aimed at keeping people safe.
Under amendments introduced to English rules on Monday, no person may participate in a gathering which takes place in a public or private place indoors and consists of two or more people. Britain’s tabloid media cast it as a “bonking ban” while #sexban was trending in the United Kingdom on Twitter.
“What this is about is making sure we don’t have people staying away from home at night,” junior housing minister Simon Clarke told LBC radio when questioned about the ban.
(Compiled by Karishma Singh and Nick Tattersall; Editing by Nick Macfie)
