Covid-19

The global scientific community came together in an unprecedented way to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. Here are selected research findings shared by our Asia Research News community.

Everyone has to wear a mask to curb the spread of COVID-19. However, this is an additional communication barrier for people with a hearing impairment as they cannot read lips or facial expressions behind a mask. Invited by The Hong Kong Society for the Deaf, the Lingnan Entrepreneurship Initiative of Lingnan University in Hong Kong (LU) recently designed a transparent ASTM Level 3 face mask based on the needs of hearing-impaired people, and its fully transparent and anti-reflective design makes lip-reading easier.

The COVID-19 pandemic has disrupted personal lives and created a great deal of uncertainty, imposing additional pressure as well as new challenges at work. However, a survey of healthcare professionals in Wuhan during the COVID-19 lockdown conducted by the Faculty of Business of Lingnan University in Hong Kong (LU) found that individual employees with proactive personality do well in the face of challenging circumstances. The research suggests that individual employees also play critical roles in managing crisis and uncertainty, thus maintaining effective organisational functions.

Article by Rosalia Sciortino* originally published in The Jakarta Post, Thursday, 22 April 2021

A person who owns a car or who has a college education may be less vulnerable to COVID-19, according to an analysis of cases in Tehran, Iran, one of the early epicenters of the pandemic. While such variables do not inherently lower a person’s risk, they do indicate an infrastructure of protection that persists despite how densely populated a person’s district might be.

On April 15, 2021, Hokkaido University and Shionogi & Co., Ltd. will start to monitor COVID-19 in Osaka Prefecture based on wastewater-based epidemiology (WBE), with the cooperation of the Prefectural Government.

Researchers from Osaka University and Hokkaido University develop a system for analyzing mutations in SARS-CoV-2 that is much simpler and faster than existing methods.

ARN's April Newsletter features research on COVID-19 antibodies, cancer-fighting hydrogels, how the brain organizes information, the 'poor man's q-bit' and the photo of the month!

COVID-19 has had a massive impact on both our physical health and psychological health. Using data from the 2011 Great East Japan Earthquake and Tsunami, researchers at Tohoku University have sought to find ways to mitigate the mental health impacts of COVID-19 on adolescents.

Study shows that antibody longevity varies widely from 40 days to as long as several decades and not everyone who has recovered from COVID-19 is immune from reinfection. Individuals with low levels of neutralising antibodies may still be protected if they have robust T-cell immunity. Blood tests and a computer algorithm suggest annual vaccinations might be needed for some individuals to prevent future outbreaks of COVID-19.

On March 19, 2021, Hokkaido University, Robotic Biology Institute Inc., iLAC Co., Ltd., and Shionogi & Co., Ltd. have entered into a memorandum of understanding (MOU) toward the establishment of an automated system for the analysis of the novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) in wastewater.

Scientists at Tohoku University looked into the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on the mental health of pregnant women in Japan.

The world’s first international online training session utilizing advanced 3D sinus models and a telemedicine system has taken place, highlighting a new mode of medical training in Covid-19 era.

Vitamin B6 may help calm cytokine storms and unclog blood clots linked to COVID-19's lethality. But research on it is lacking. A Hiroshima University researcher calls on fellow scientists to study its potential role.

The 2nd Call for Proposal for the Small Grant Program "Staying Resilient Amid the Pandemic in Southeast Asia" is now open!

ARN's February newsletter features research about catalyzing plastic recycling, the mental health toll of the COVID-19 pandemic, antiperovskites and oolong tea. In honor of International Day of Women and Girls in Science, we also have tips for addressing gender bias in STEM communications, and inspirational stories about pioneering female scientists from our Giants in History series. Read on...

COVID-19 has led to psychological distress among one in three adults, large-scale meta-analysis by researchers at Duke-NUS Medical School, Singapore, reveals.

The COVID-19 outbreak has brought unprecedented challenges to Hong Kong and, according to data from the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention, the highest fatality rate has been in adults aged over 80. In view of this, Lingnan University in Hong Kong (LU) has launched a brand new programme to promote using Chinese medicine to prevent the transmission of COVID-19 in older adults, and reduce the infection risk in the spirit of “prevention is better than cure”.

Support our program to mitigate the impacts of COVID-19 and strengthen the community-based response to the pandemic in Southeast Asia.

A joint research led by City University of Hong Kong (CityU) has built a mathematical model to explore and analyse the relationship between disease transmission, people’s awareness about the disease and their resulting behaviours, as well as disease information spread by the mass media and opinion leaders. The research may shed some insights on responding to COVID-19 and other similar infectious diseases.

The COVID-19 outbreak has created upheavals for everyone. Working from home (WFH) has become a new normal and is not expected to end even after the pandemic. Teaching and learning are no exceptions, although a recent study conducted by Lingnan University (LU) shows that both undergraduate students and community partner organisations generally prefer face-to-face interaction to the working-and-learning-from-home (WLFH) mode of internships.

The December 2020 issue of the Journal of Humanities & Social Sciences Research (JHSSR) is now live at the journal’s webpage.

A researcher at The University of Tokyo develops a method for recharging used N95 masks with a van de Graaff generator, which may greatly alleviate the lack of high-quality personal protective equipment during the COVID-19 pandemic

For the Asia Research News 2021 magazine, we are preparing a special feature highlighting COVID-19 research from across Asia. The story will present a compilation of brief research highlights. Submit by Dec. 18 for consideration.

Cell ID Pte. Ltd., a Singapore-incorporated med-tech company, is selling a palm-sized portable genetic test kit that uses an app on a laptop to detect, anywhere, at any time, if a person has COVID-19.

Materials that convert mechanical into electrical or magnetic energy could open the door to a future of wearable and structure-integrated virus sensors.

Taskforce will look into COVID-19 origins, leveraging expertise in One Health, outbreak investigation, virology, lab biosecurity and disease ecology.

A research team, affiliated with South Korea's Ulsan National Institute of Science and Technology (UNIST) has been selected as the recipient of a large-scale Social Science Korea (SSK) project of the National Research Foundation of Korea.

Lingnan University (LU) hosted the annual Conference for Higher Education Research (CHER) 2020 On 13 and 14 November, offering the education sector a chance to take stock of the valuable lessons that have already been learned, and propose ways forward into a radically different, post-COVID future.

U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) issued an emergency use authorization (EUA) for cPass™ SARS-CoV-2 Neutralization Antibody Detection Kit on 6th November 2020.