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What is the future of technocracy, after COVID-19, asks Jonathan White (LSE)? Current crisis management only blurs ever more the boundary between politics and technical expertise, he argues.

Background: International travel is a major driver of the introduction and spread of SARS-CoV-2. Aim: To investigate SARS-CoV-2 genetic diversity in the region of a major transport hub in Germany, we characterized the viral sequence diversity of the SARS-CoV-2 variants circulating in Frankfurt am Main, the city with the largest airport in Germany, from the end of October to the end of December 2020. Methods: In total, we recovered 136 SARS-CoV-2 genomes from nasopharyngeal swab samples. We isolated 104 isolates that were grown in cell culture and RNA from the recovered viruses and subjected them to full-genome sequence analysis. In addition, 32 nasopharyngeal swab samples were directly sequenced. Results and conclusion: We found 28 different lineages of SARS-CoV-2 circulating during the study period, including the variant of concern B.1.1.7 (Δ69/70, N501Y). Six of the lineages had not previously been observed in Germany. We detected the spike protein (S) deletion Δ69/Δ70 in 15% of all sequences, a four base pair (bp) deletion (in 2.9% of sequences) and a single bp deletion (in 0.7% of sequences) in ORF3a, leading to ORF3a truncations. In four sequences (2.9%), an amino acid deletion at position 210 in S was identified. In a single sample (0.7%), both a 9 bp deletion in ORF1ab and a 7 bp deletion in ORF7a were identified. One sequence in lineage B.1.1.70 had an N501Y substitution while lacking the Δ69/70 in S. The high diversity of sequences observed over two months in Frankfurt am Main highlights the persisting need for continuous SARS-CoV-2 surveillance using full-genome sequencing, particularly in cities with international airport connections.

Problems of this severity and scope can only be solved through global cooperation, write Muhammad Shahbaz and Muhammad Ali Nasir

An extended brief overviewing a bread swath of responses from higher educational institutions worldwide, to the COVID-19 pandemic.

Gemma Moss considers whether COVID-19 can act as a catalyst for change in education, leading to different policy choices and a more stable education system, better able to address the dilemmas that prolonged disruption in education and which current policy does so little to address.

The Covid-19 pandemic may be exposing the weaknesses of populism. We should not be complacent, however, as authoritarianism is the real problem, warns Daphne Halikiopoulou (University of Reading). Covid-19 has already infected over 700,000 people worldwide (at the time of writing). Its exponential spread has placed national health systems under severe strain, it has closed borders, and grounded airlines. How may we assess the political implications of this global crisis, especially given that it comes at a time when populists who thrive on the tensions between international initiatives and the ‘national preference’, are in charge in many countries?

In the Covid-19 crisis, with few or no people and animals around, space opens and we can look inside ourselves, writes Deborah Rowland and Nicole Brauckmann

COVID-19 has been portrayed internationally as a disease more dangerous than Ebola. In Uganda this has created fear among various communities, specifically in the north of the country, where the memory of Ebola remains present. A consequence of the outbreak is reported xenophobia and rumours the epidemic is spread by the rich. Robin Oryem reports from experience on the ground and the role of behavioural change in preventing the disease’s spread.

We are writing this openly-published letter to express deep concerns regarding the paper recently published in JAMA Network Open: Estimation of US Children’s Educational Attainment and Years of Life Lost Associated With Primary School Closures During the Coronavirus Disease 2019 Pandemic DOI: 10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2020.28786The paper by Christakis, Van Cleve, and Zimmerman(2020,abbrev. CVZ) is built upon multiple critically flawed assumptions, obvious misuse of the standard analytical tools, and clear mistakes in study design. Additionally, the analysis presented contains crucial mathematical and statistical errors that completely revert the main results, sufficient that if the estimates had been calculated according to the declared methodology, the results would completely contradict the stated conclusions and policy recommendations. These are not idle criticisms. This study has received enormous public attention, and its results immediately appeared in discussions of public health policies around schools worldwide. The central question is resolving an evidence base for the inevitable tradeoff between (a) the very real harms of missed education provoked by policies that decrease viral spread vs. (b) the resumption of education as a social good which increases viral spread. This is an incredibly important public health question, and it demands careful cost-benefit analysis. To that end, this paper adds no usable evidence whatsoever.

Every Thursday the UK is encouraged to ‘clap for carers’ – who are far more likely to be women. Yet the government has not considered how measures such as furlough and school closures affect women disproportionately, and there is an absence of female representation at the top of government and in the COVID-19 working group. Clare Wenham (LSE) says that this needs to change as it develops an exit strategy.