The question of whether to deliberately infect volunteers with SARS-CoV-2 in order to test vaccines for COVID-19 is being hotly debated by scientists, ethicists and lawmakers.
The big picture: Controlled human infection (CHI) studies have been used for centuries to evaluate vaccine doses and candidates for influenza, norovirus and other diseases. But COVID-19, with its severity, novelty and unknowns, presents thorny questions for this scientific tool.
Solutions for COVID-19 are being developed at the same time as knowledge about the disease evolves, a serious challenge for doctors treating patients and for researchers trying to create vaccines and treatments.
Why it matters: What was first thought of as a respiratory infection now appears much more complex, making efforts to tackle the disease more complicated.
The novel coronavirus is the latest in a long list of pathogens that have jumped from animals to human beings, triggering pandemics that have killed hundreds of millions.
Why it matters: COVID-19 underscores the desperate need to better understand and control the intersection of animal and human health. Preventing future pandemics will come down in part to better policing the border zones between animal health and human health.
Researchers are racing to develop treatments based on antibodies to block or neutralize the coronavirus in patients, with the hopes these could be ready for possible emergency use by the fall.
Why it matters: Many experts feel antibodies from recovered patients and synthesizedantibody drugs could be important bridge treatments for COVID-19 during the months or years until a successful vaccine is available.
A polar vortex is expected to bring snow over the next few days to parts of the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic and record-challenging cold temperatures from the Upper Midwest to New England, the Washington Post reports.
The big picture "A lobe of the tropospheric polar vortex will pinch off from its main circulation closer to the Arctic, sagging southeast across the eastern Great Lakes and New England, translating to numbingly cold surface temperatures for May," the Post writes.
A black hole found just 1,000 light-years from Earth is the closest yet found to our planet.
Why it matters: The relatively nearby black hole — which is orbited by two stars — presents scientists with the opportunity to learn more about these mysterious objects by studying one not too far from our own part of the galaxy.
