Billions worldwide worry that they will be seriously harmed by consuming unsafe food and water, and nearly as many expect it to happen to them in the next two years, according to the new Lloyd's Register Foundation World Risk Poll. https://news.gallup.com/opinion/gallup/321662/half-world-worries-food-water-safety.aspx

UK ambassador who called Trump administration ‘inept’ speaks out
Former UK envoy to the US, Kim Darroch, on how he learned to deal with the Trump White House. https://www.aljazeera.com/program/the-bottom-line/2020/10/8/with-elections-approaching-what-are-us-allies-thinking/

REGN-COV2 is designed to provide a passive immunization by using synthetic neutralizing antibodies. The drug was developed using a cell line derived from fetal tissue.
Given the fierce resistance of the Trump administration to research involving fetal tissue, it seems extremely hypocritical that the US leader, who has widespread support from anti-abortion campaigners, has lauded REGN-COV2 as a heavenly gift.
https://p.dw.com/p/3ji1o

Governments across Europe are ratcheting up restrictions to try to beat back a resurgence of the coronavirus that has sent new infections on the continent to their highest weekly level since the start of the pandemic. https://apnews.com/article/virus-outbreak-pandemics-geneva-france-europe-40521fb6080e35bc4aae4144bf3652bc

Angela Merkel: Europe must learn coronavirus lessons as situation gets 'serious'
The chancellor's warning comes as Europe reports its highest number of infections since the outbreak began. All 16 German state premiers are set to meet Merkel on Wednesday to discuss new rules to contain the virus. https://p.dw.com/p/3jrsZ

Coronavirus digest: J&J halts vaccine trials after 'unexplained illness'
Johnson & Johnson said that an "unexplained illness" in a vaccine trial patient was being evaluated. Meanwhile, US President Donald Trump held his first public rally after contracting COVID-19. Read the latest here. https://p.dw.com/p/3jpQY

Drugmaker Eli Lilly said Tuesday it was pausing its trial of a combination antibody treatment for coronavirus for safety reasons.
Usually, clinical trials are paused because a volunteer has suffered a side effect or become ill, but the company did not say what happened. https://edition.cnn.com/world/live-news/coronavirus-pandemic-10-13-20-intl/h_72e29fab0761c417b9948364bcc471da

Researchers at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond found nearly 75,000 more people may have died from the pandemic than what was recorded in March to July, according to the report published Monday in the peer-reviewed journal JAMA. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2020/10/12/us-covid-deaths-75-k-more-americans-died-than-previously-recorded-excess-deaths/5935813002/

Berlin gives middle finger to anti-maskers in tourism agency ad
Agency says it chose message that suits city’s outlier character but some politicians are critical https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/oct/14/berlin-gives-middle-finger-to-anti-maskers-in-tourism-agency-ad

The University of Minnesota's Michael Osterholm joins Fareed to lay out the challenges to come in the West's struggle against the coronavirus pandemic - https://edition.cnn.com/videos/tv/2020/10/11/exp-gps-1011-michael-osterholm-covid.cnn

G.O.P. senator Ben Sasse: “The United States now regularly sells out our allies under his leadership, the way he treats women, spends like a drunken sailor.”
Mr. Trump “mocks evangelicals behind closed doors,” he added. “His family has treated the presidency like a business opportunity. He’s flirted with white supremacists.” https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/15/us/politics/ben-sasse-trump.html

Angela Merkel has called for solidarity as Germany enters a "very serious phase" of the pandemic. Germany has again set a new daily case record, as ministers call for thousands of additional contact tracers. https://p.dw.com/p/3k4Dq

CNN host Fareed Zakaria joins Bill to discuss why the Covid-19 pandemic should be a wake-up to change our risky behavior. https://youtu.be/llWPTH5azYM

The streets of Paris and eight other French cities were deserted on Saturday night on the first day of the government-imposed 9 p.m. curfew that is scheduled to last for at least four weeks. - Check out the image gallery! If you been to some of the places you understand better. https://apnews.com/article/virus-outbreak-toulouse-lille-paris-france-75d4093023671e6046e0d3ecc1ca6d76

The new multidrug-resistant pathogen Candida auris was first described in 2009 in Japan and has emerged in many countries worldwide. This human fungal pathogen has long been considered a haploid fungus. Here, we report the discovery of the diploid form and spontaneous ploidy shifts in clinical isolates of C. auris. https://pubs.acs.org/doi/10.1021/acsinfecdis.0c00282#

September 22, 2020 - Candida auris is an emerging fungus that presents a serious global health threat. CDC is concerned about C. auris for three main reasons:

It is often multidrug-resistant, meaning that it is resistant to multiple antifungal drugs commonly used to treat Candida infections. Some strains are resistant to all three available classes of antifungals.
It is difficult to identify with standard laboratory methods, and it can be misidentified in labs without specific technology. Misidentification may lead to inappropriate management.
It has caused outbreaks in healthcare settings. For this reason, it is important to quickly identify C. auris in a hospitalized patient so that healthcare facilities can take special precautions to stop its spread.
https://www.seeker.com/videos/health/meet-candida-auris-the-superbug-thats-taking-over-the-world

Dogs detect coronavirus fast and reliably — why not use them everywhere?
Finnish researchers say their canine sniffer experts can detect COVID-19 quickly and cheaply but, so far, their skills are hardly used to control the pandemic. https://p.dw.com/p/3kCYb

Spain has declared a national state of emergency and imposed a night-time curfew in an effort to help control a new spike in Covid-19 infections. Spain was hit hard during the first wave of the pandemic earlier this year and imposed a much more restrictive lockdown - one of the toughest in the world.
Like many other European regions, however, it has been hit by a second wave of infections. In Italy, new restrictions were also announced on Sunday. The government said the steady rise in cases there was causing a huge strain on the country's health services. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-54682222

A piece of music composed by a former music teacher with dementia is to be released as a single after he recorded it with the BBC Philharmonic orchestra.
Paul Harvey, 80, originally improvised the composition after being given four notes to play by his son. https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-54684038

A federal judge on Tuesday denied the Justice Department's effort to effectively end a defamation lawsuit against President Donald Trump brought by a longtime magazine columnist who has alleged he raped her in a luxury department store dressing room, paving the way for the case to proceed. https://edition.cnn.com/2020/10/27/politics/e-jean-carroll-defamation-lawsuit-trump/index.html

Experts say that a new civil conflict will look nothing like the last American Civil War, but that the country is on the verge of large scale political violence. https://www.vice.com/en/article/qjp48x/is-the-us-already-in-a-new-civil-war