Latest coronavirus news as of 1pm 9 June

Moderna鈥檚 omicron-tailored booster candidate produces eight times as many virus-neutralising antibodies against the variant as its original booster vaccine

An updated version of Moderna鈥檚 covid-19 vaccine that targets the BA.1 sublineage of omicron leads to an eight-fold increase in antibody levels against the variant of concern, according to a small, preliminary .

Moderna鈥檚 new booster is the first covid-19 vaccine to combine the jab that targeted the original strain of the coronavirus 鈥� which emerged in Wuhan, China, at the end of 2019 鈥� with a vaccine that specifically targets the omicron variant.

In the clinical trial, the updated vaccine was given to 437 people who had already received two full-dose Moderna vaccines and its booster.

One month after receiving the updated booster, the participants鈥� neutralising antibody levels against omicron had risen by about eight times.

鈥淭he data we show today are really important because we get a really strong antibody response against Omicron,鈥� Moderna鈥檚 chief medical officer Paul Burton told on 8 June.

鈥淔or the first time, we could really be looking at the potential for just once-yearly boosting, because we can get people to such a high level that they will take longer to decay.鈥�

Whether these raised antibody levels translate into a reduced risk of hospitalisation or death with covid-19 is unknown.

鈥淭hese antibody measurements provide an indication that is likely to translate into clinical effects, but an element of uncertainty in extrapolating the results to clinical effectiveness must, inevitably, remain,鈥� Stephen Evans at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine said in a statement to the Science Media Centre.

Other coronavirus news

India has its highest number of daily covid-19 cases since March. The country鈥檚 health ministry reported today that 7240 new coronavirus infections had occurred in the last 24 hours.

while it conducts mass coronavirus testing. This comes just one week after the city eased restrictions that had confined about 25 million people to their homes since March.

As of 11 June, people living in the south-western district of Minhang will be placed under 鈥渃losed management鈥� until they have all been tested.

Essential information about coronavirus

Where did coronavirus come from? And other covid-19 questions answered

What is covid-19?

Covid-19 vaccines: Everything you need to know about the leading shots

Long covid: Do I have it, how long will it last and can we treat it?

What鈥檚 the fairest way to share covid-19 vaccines around the world?

Covid-19: The story of a pandemic

What to read, watch and listen to about coronavirus

快猫短视频 Weekly features updates and analysis on the latest developments in the covid-19 pandemic. Our podcast sees expert journalists from the magazine discuss the biggest science stories to hit the headlines each week 鈥� from technology and space, to health and the environment.

is a BBC Radio 4 series exploring how viruses can cross from animals into humans to cause pandemics. The first episode examines the origins of the covid-19 pandemic.

is a BBC documentary, which investigates what the high covid-19 death rates in ethnic minority patients reveal about health inequality in the UK.

is a BBC documentary about the inside story of the development of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine against covid-19.

is a Channel 4 documentary which tells the story of the coronavirus pandemic through the eyes of the scientists on the frontline.

is assessing the progress in development of potential drug treatments for covid-19, and ranking them for effectiveness and safety.

is a project highlighting the experiences of key workers on the frontline in the fight against coronavirus in the UK, through social media.

is a BBC Panorama investigation of the death of transport worker Belly Mujinga from covid-19, following reports she had been coughed and spat on by a customer at London鈥檚 Victoria Station.

on Netflix is a short documentary series examining the coronavirus pandemic, the efforts to fight it and ways to manage its mental health toll.

by Debora Mackenzie is about how the pandemic happened and why it will happen again if we don鈥檛 do things differently in future.

is about the new science of contagion and the surprising ways it shapes our lives and behaviour. The author, Adam Kucharski, is an epidemiologist at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, UK, and in the book he examines how diseases spread and why they stop.

1 June

An estimated 2 million people in the UK have lingering covid-19 symptoms more than four weeks after their initial coronavirus infection

Based on the latest of people living in private households in the UK, an estimated 3.1 per cent of the population were experiencing long covid symptoms as of 1 May.

This is 200,000 more people than , as of 3 April.

Of the estimated 2 million people with long covid, 1.4 million are thought to have been infected, or suspect they were infected, at least 12 weeks prior to their ongoing symptoms.

Meanwhile 826,000 are estimated to have been infected with covid-19, or had a suspected infection, at least one year earlier. About 376,000 would have first been infected at least two years ago.

Of those surveyed, 55 per cent with long covid had fatigue, the most commonly reported symptom. This was followed by 32 per cent of people experiencing shortness of breath, 23 per cent having a cough and 23 per cent experiencing muscle aches.

Other coronavirus news

Three doses of a coronavirus vaccine, regardless of what type, are the most effective defence against covid-19, .

Researchers at the Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) analysed 53 vaccine studies conducted throughout the pandemic. The studies included over 100 million participants who together received seven different types of covid-19 vaccines in 24 dosing combinations.

Results suggest three doses of any mRNA vaccine, such as those manufactured by Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna, is 96 per cent effective against asymptomatic and symptomatic covid-19 infections, accounting for the different variants.

An mRNA booster after two doses of an adenovirus vector vaccine, such as those manufactured by AstraZeneca/The University of Oxford and Johnson & Johnson, is 88 per cent effective.

Despite higher efficacy with a three-dose mRNA vaccine regimen, three doses of any covid-19 vaccine is still very effective, according to the researchers.

A third of people in the UK think the government is exaggerating the number of covid-19 deaths, .

Researchers at King鈥檚 College London surveyed 12,000 people about their views on covid-19 across six countries: the UK, Ireland, Italy, Germany, Norway and Poland.

A third (33 per cent) of people in the UK believe the government is exaggerating the number of covid-19 deaths, a figure that is even higher in Poland, at 43 per cent. Norway has the lowest proportion of people who do not trust the government鈥檚 mortality figures, at 24 per cent.

The researchers also found that 15 per cent of people in the UK do not believe that nearly all scientists think the covid-19 vaccines are safe.

鈥淎cross both the UK and other European countries included in this study, there is a stubborn minority who still question not only the scientific consensus on vaccine safety but also government reporting of Covid deaths,鈥� Bobby Duffy at King鈥檚 College London in the UK said in a statement.

See previous updates from May 2022, April 2022, March 2022, February 2022, January 2022, November to December 2021, September to October 2021, July to September 2021, June to July 2021,听May 2021, April to March 2021, February 2021, January 2021, November to December 2020, and March to November 2020.

Photographic memory is the ability to recall a past scene in detail with great accuracy 鈥� just like a photo. Although many people claim they have it, we still don鈥檛 have proof that photographic memory actually exists. However, there is a condition called Highly Superior Autobiographical Memory (HSAM) that allows people to recall past events in detail, along with the exact dates when they occurred. For example, they may be able to tell you what they ate for lunch on 1 May 1999 and what day of the week it was (Saturday). But HSAM has been identified in fewer than 100 people worldwide, and while their memories are exceptional, they still aren鈥檛 as reliable as photographs.

The East Antarctic plateau is the coldest place on Earth

The coldest temperature ever recorded was a frosty -94掳C, taken at the East Antarctic plateau, a region that stretches for more than 1000 kilometres. This measurement means the plateau is the coldest place on Earth 鈥� not that anyone was actually there to record such a temperature, though. The reading was collected using data from satellites across Dome Argus and Dome Fuji, two ice domes that sit at thousands of metres above sea level. Results suggested the air temperature could be around -94掳C, but researchers think that the dry air around the area could cause temperatures to get even colder.

Queen bees can lay more than 1500 eggs in a day

Queen honeybees live for up to seven years and can lay more than 1500 eggs a day, which equates to more than their body weight. Rather than working, like the vast majority of colony members, queens spend their lives devoted to laying eggs while other bees serve them. Instead of pollen and honey, the queen is fed royal jelly, which workers secrete from glands in their heads. When a queen grows old, a colony will select a new one, but in some colonies there may be multiple new queens, who have to fight each other to the death. The survivor will fly to a drone congregation area and mate with around a dozen drones, storing up to 6 million sperm in her body.

Laughing gas may have ended the last glacial period

Laughing gas, otherwise known as nitrous oxide, has been used as an anaesthetic since the 19th century. These days, it is most commonly found in small, steel cartridges sold to the catering industry for making whipped cream. However, nitrous oxide is also a potent greenhouse gas and ozone-depleting chemical. Although it is present in the atmosphere at much lower concentrations than carbon dioxide 鈥� just 330 parts per billion 鈥� it has 300 times the heat-trapping capability. Indeed, a pulse of nitrous oxide released from plants 14,500 years ago may have hastened the end of the last glaciation.

We don鈥檛 necessarily yawn because we are tired

We tend to think of yawning as a sign of being tired or bored. That probably explains the popular perception that it is a way to get more oxygen into the blood to increase alertness. However, psychologist Robert Provine at the University of Maryland tested this idea and found people were just as likely to yawn when breathing air high in oxygen. A closer look at when people yawn suggests another explanation. It turns out that most spontaneous yawning actually happens when we are limbering up for activity such as a workout, performance or exam, or simply when we wake up. That has led to the idea that yawning helps us gear up by increasing blood flow to the brain.

The placebo effect can depend on whether a pill is colourful

The placebo effect is the mysterious reduction in a patient鈥檚 medical symptoms via the power of suggestion or expectation, the cause of which remains unexplained. However, what we do know is that a number of different factors can affect the power of the placebo effect. It can be triggered by administering pills, injections or surgery, or even just an authority figure assuring a patient that a treatment will be effective. In fact, experiments have shown that the power of the placebo effect depends on surprising factors like the appearance of tablets. For example, colourful pills work better as a placebo than white ones.

Michael Collins, one of the three crew members of the first manned mission to the moon, has died at the age of 90.

Known as the 鈥渢he loneliest man in history鈥�, Collins was the pilot of the Apollo 11 mission, which in 1969 put humans on the moon for the first time. Although he never became a household name like his crew mates Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, Collins鈥� contribution to the mission was just as important.

As his colleagues Armstrong and Aldrin descended to the surface of the moon, Collins piloted the command module Columbia, spending close to 28 hours alone in orbit.

鈥淣ot since Adam has any human known such solitude as Mike Collins is experiencing during this 47 minutes of each lunar revolution,鈥� said the mission log. Recalling the events in a 2019 , Collins said of his time alone in space, 鈥淚 don鈥檛 think loneliness really comes into the equation, except it seemed to in the minds of the press at the time.鈥�

Steve Jurczyk, acting administrator, paid tribute to Collins in a statement saying: 鈥淭oday the nation lost a true pioneer and lifelong advocate for exploration in astronaut Michael Collins.鈥�

Born in Rome in 1930, Collins graduated from the US Military Academy in 1952, going on to join the US Air Force and later becoming a test pilot, before being selected by NASA as part of Astronaut Group 3 in 1963. Prior to the Apollo 11 mission, Collins flew in space on the Gemini 10 mission in 1966, becoming the fourth man to walk in space.

Collins and his Apollo 11 crew mates didn鈥檛 fly in space again after the 1969 mission. After retiring from NASA, Collins worked in government and was the director of the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, DC from 1971-1978.

Later in life, Collins advocated for humans going to Mars. 鈥淪ometimes I think I flew to the wrong place,鈥� he said in 2009.

鈥淎s celestial bodies go, the moon is not a particularly interesting place, but Mars is, and Mars is the closest thing to Earth鈥檚 sister that we鈥檝e found so far.鈥�

Aldrin, now 91, said on , 鈥淒ear Mike, Wherever you have been or will be, you will always have the Fire to Carry us deftly to new heights and to the future. We will miss you. May you Rest In Peace.鈥�

In a recent message, sent via to commemorate Earth Day, Collins said, 鈥淚 am certain, if everyone could see the Earth floating just outside their windows, every day would be #EarthDay.鈥�