+
Innovation

WHO launches 'solidarity trial,' bringing countries together to study coronavirus vaccines

WHO launches 'solidarity trial,' bringing countries together to study coronavirus vaccines
Photo by CDC on Unsplash

This week, a 43-year-old Seattle woman became the first person in the U.S. to be injected with a coronavirus vaccine. Don't get too excited, though—it's merely the first step in the clinical trials that will determine if the vaccine is safe and effective, a process that experts say will take 18 months or more.


It's also not the only vaccine being developed. Thanks to early efforts in China to sequence the genetic makeup of Sars-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19) and share it with the world, scientists everywhere had a head start on the process. China's first vaccine was just approved for clinical trials, and scientists around the world are working on their own versions of vaccines to try to stop the global march of the virus.

While that's great, how will we know which of the vaccines being developed are the most effective? And if different countries come up with different treatments for the COVID-19 disease, how will we know which ones work the best?

The World Health Organization (WHO) announced today that they've created an international trial to study the various coronavirus treatments being developed to determine which ones work the best—a move that will help all of us in every nation.

"Multiple small trials with different methods may not give us the clear, strong evidence we need about which treatments help to save lives. WHO and partners are organizing a study in many countries in which some of these untested treatments are compared with each other," said WHO director Dr. Tedros in a media briefing today.

"This large, international study is designed to generate the robust data we need, to show which treatments are the most effective. We have called this study the SOLIDARITY trial."

Okay, that's the best possible name for a global study that brings countries together to solve the most immediate global crisis we've seen in our lifetime.

"The SOLIDARITY trial provides simplified procedures to enable even hospitals that have been overloaded to participate," Tedros said. "Many countries have already confirmed that they will join the SOLIDARITY trial—Argentina, Bahrain, Canada, France, Iran, Norway, South Africa, Spain, Switzerland and Thailand—and I trust many more will join."

My country, the U.S., is notably missing from that list. I hope we will step up and do the right thing here. We're all going to have to work together to defeat this virus, and pretending that we're somehow separate from the rest of humanity just isn't going to fly anymore.

Tedros added that the COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund—a first-of-its-kind fun to help countries response to the coronavirus pandemic—has now raised more than $43 million from more than 173,000 individuals and organizations.

"These and other efforts give me hope that together, we can and will prevail," said Tedros. "This coronavirus is presenting us with an unprecedented threat. But it's also an unprecedented opportunity to come together as one against a common enemy."

Exactly. This virus is a common enemy to all humankind, the likes of which we have never faced. Now's the time for the entire planet—every country—to come together in solidarity and combine the best of all our resources to defeat it.

If you'd like to support the work of the WHO, find out more about the COVID-19 Solidarity Response Fund and donate here.

All photos courtesy of The Coca-Cola Company

Behind the Scenes Making Recycled Records with Mark Ronson

True

You’re walking down the sidewalk, earbuds in, listening to your favorite hip-hop beats. As your head bobs to the sounds, the sun warms your back. It’s a perfect day.

When the chorus hits, the empty Sprite bottle in your hand becomes a drumstick, passing traffic becomes a sea of concertgoers, and the concrete beneath your feet is suddenly a stage. Spinning on your heels, you close out the song with your face to the sky and hands in the air.

Keep ReadingShow less
@penslucero/TikTok

Pency Lucero taking in the Northern Lights

Seeing the northern lights is a common bucket list adventure for many people. After all, it ticks a lot of boxes—being a dazzling light show, rich historical experience and scientific phenomenon all rolled into one. Plus there’s the uncertainty of it all, never quite knowing if you’ll witness a vivid streak of otherworldly colors dance across the sky…or simply see an oddly colored cloud. It’s nature’s slot machine, if you will.

Traveler and content creator Pency Lucero was willing to take that gamble. After thorough research, she stumbled upon an Airbnb in Rörbäck, Sweden with an actual picture of the northern lights shining above the cabin in the listing. With that kind of photo evidence, she felt good about her odds.

However, as soon as she landed, snow began falling so hard that the entire sky was “barely visible,” she told Upworthy. Martin, the Airbnb host, was nonetheless determined to do everything he could to ensure his guests got to see the spectacle, even offering to wake Lucero up in the middle of the night if he saw anything.

Then one night, the knock came.

Keep ReadingShow less
@elll.rose/TikTok

Secondhand can be "just as stylish."

Ellie Rose had been walking by the window display of a nearby charity shop (a non-profit thrift store ala Goodwill or Salvation Army) in England when she was struck by an idea: Maybe they could use a “bit of help styling” in order to attract customers.

As a sustainablefashion influencer, the 22-year-old felt like she could infuse her knowledge of today’s trends into the mannequin outfits, hopefully showing people that "buying secondhand can be just as stylish as buying new."

Rose reached out to several different stores offering to help for free, and many accepted. A viral clip posted to her TikTok shows how she worked her fashion magic to give the mannequins a complete makeover. Spoiler alert—it’s a complete 180.

Keep ReadingShow less
Pop Culture

People are loving Drew Barrymore's live reaction to her first perimenopause hot flash

“I don’t know that I have ever heard a celebrity talk about a hot flash in the moment. Thank you for being so real."

The Drew Barrymore Show/Youtube

Drew Barrymore getting a quick assist from Jennifer Aniston

It feels safe to say that many, if not most people hail Drew Barrymore as the “Queen of Candid.” She can seemingly talk to absolutely anyone about anything in a way that’s consistently warm and authentic.

That even goes for when she experiences her first hot flash in front of a live television audience, apparently.

While speaking with guests Jennifer Aniston and Adam Sandler on her talk show, Barrymore abruptly appears flustered, fanning herself and removing her jacket.

Without missing a beat, she says, “I am so hot, I think I'm having my first perimenopause hot flashes.”
Keep ReadingShow less

Baby Cora bears a striking resemblance to actor Woody Harrelson.

We can all get a little fascinated by doppelgängers and it's fun to find people who look alike. But what do you do when your baby girl looks uncannily like a famous middle-aged man?

Mom Dani Grier Mulvenna shared a photo of her infant daughter Cora side by side with a photo of Woody Harrelson on Twitter, with the caption "Ok but how does our daughter look like Woody Harrelson." The resemblance truly is remarkable, and the tweet quickly racked up hundreds of thousands of likes, shares and replies.

Keep ReadingShow less
Education

Unearthed BBC interview features two Victorian-era women discussing being teens in the 1800s

Frances 'Effy' Jones, one of the first women to be trained to use a typewriter and to take up cycling as a hobby, recalls life as a young working woman in London.

Two Victorian women discuss being teens in the 1800s.

There remains some mystery around what life was like in the 1800s, especially for teens. Most people alive today were not around in the Victorian era when the technologies now deemed old-fashioned were a novelty. In this rediscovered 1970s clip from the BBC, two elderly women reminisce about what it was like being teenagers during a time when the horse and buggy was still the fastest way to get around.

Keep ReadingShow less
via Pexels

Parents who just can't stop fighting

Whitney Goodman, a licensed marriage and family therapist, shared a video about kids who grew up in homes where their parents were always fighting, which made many people feel seen. It also started a conversation about who deserves more empathy in the parent-child relationship: the parents or the children.

Goodman is known as the “radically honest” psychotherapist and the author of “Toxic Positivity: Keeping it Real in a World Obsessed with Being Happy.”

"If you grew up in this kind of house, you may have noticed that your family would split off into different alliances or teams to try to manage the material discord. Because the marriage wasn't a good or safe foundation for the family, everybody else had to kind of go and form these new teams,” Goodman explained in an Instagram post.

Keep ReadingShow less