Sep 15, 2021 | Science & Technology
By Siouxsie Wiles The world is desperate for new antibiotics, and New Zealand’s unique fungi are a source of promising compounds. While we’re all rightly focused on the COVID-19 pandemic at the moment, the SARS-CoV-2 virus isn’t the only microbial threat we face....
Feb 24, 2021 | Science & Technology
By Judith Littleton, Heather Battles & Evelyn Marsters How is it that an infection can be worse or different depending on whether someone has another disease? Why does it matter where someone lives? Why does history make disease progression different in different...
Feb 22, 2021 | Science & Technology
By David Welch, Jemma Geoghegan, Joep de Ligt & Nigel French Why are more contagious variants emerging now, more than a year into the COVID-19 pandemic? New variants of SARS-CoV-2 have now evaded New Zealand’s border protections twice to spread into the community....
Aug 31, 2020 | Politics & Society, Science & Technology
Misinformation is rampant about COVID-19, and in some cases, it has caused death, blindness, emergency health issues, widespread stigma, and social ostracization. Holly Seale and Md. Saiful Islam were part of a team that studied the rumors, conspiracies, and...
Aug 12, 2020 | Politics & Society, Science & Technology
By Michael Plank, Alex James & Shaun Hendy New Zealand is on alert as COVID-19 returns. This is what we need to stamp it out again. Auckland, and possibly other parts of New Zealand, almost certainly have more cases of COVID-19 in the community than the four new...
Jun 25, 2020 | Science & Technology
By David Murdoch COVID-19 is being referred to as a “once in a century event” – but the next pandemic is likely to hit sooner than you think. In the next few decades, we will likely see other pandemics. We can predict that with reasonable confidence because of the...
Apr 8, 2020 | Science & Technology
By Mark Thomas Infectious diseases expert Mark Thomas explores some of the options open to New Zealand. New Zealand is in the very early stages of an epidemic of COVID-19 disease, caused by a novel coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2. Infection with this respiratory virus causes...