Our weekly update of the Corona news worldwide 25 – 31 May 2020

Europe:

  1. Despite having faith in the lax response to the coronavirus pandemic, Sweden did not reach herd immunity in May. – NPR

 

Asia:

  1. Until a vaccine is out for COVID-19, the president of the Philippines schools will remain unopened. – AlJazeera
  2. In South Korea, new coronavirus cases double, making this the largest spike in cases in 53 days in the country. – Bloomberg
  3. In India, a lab assistant carrying blood samples from COVID-19 patients was attacked by monkeys, who apparently took and destroyed the samples. – CNN

 

Research & Technology:

  1. The Department of Surgery of MedUni Vienna/Vienna General Hospital carried out an extremely complicated lung transplant on a 45-year-old woman from Carinthia, who had developed severe respiratory failure due to coronavirus. The team successfully replaced her lungs, which had been damaged beyond repair, with new donor lungs. This is the first time in Europe that a COVID-19 patient has been given a lung transplant in an otherwise hopeless situation. – Medical University of Vienna
  2. Merck, one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world, has finally announced it has made deals to develop and manufacture two different COVID-19 vaccines and an experimental antiviral compound that is already in early clinical trials. – Science