Coronavirus latest: Nearly 80% of US intensive-care cases have underlying conditions

Coronavirus latest: Nearly 80% of US intensive-care cases have underlying conditions



A woman looks out of her balcony in locked-down Rome. (Antonio Masiello/Getty)

Quarantined Italians become citizen scientists

• For 3 nights last week, 6,000 people holed up in Italy went on their balconies to take part in an unprecedented citizen-science experiment to measure light pollution with smartphones. The effort was a rare opportunity to gather data on the ground — and to connect harried Italians with science unrelated to the outbreak. (Nature | Continuously updated)
• If governments play their cards right, 2019 could be a turning point for climate change: the year that global emissions peaked. A key factor will be whether governments are able to advance climate goals as they roll out economic-stimulus plans in response to the outbreak. Former US president Barack Obama managed to do it after the 2008 financial crisis, but evidence indicates the current administration is missing opportunities to bolster green growth. (Nature | 4 min read)
• From the United States to China, the COVID–19 pandemic is forcing some of the world’s largest projects to shut down or to delay construction. CERN’s Large Hadron Collider and the LIGO and Virgo gravitational-wave detectors are among them. For now, some experiments, including neutrino and dark-matter detectors, have been operating with a skeleton staff. (Nature | 6 min read)
• There is new evidence that cats can be infected with the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus and spread it to other felines, but dogs are not susceptible. Cat owners should not be alarmed just yet: there is no direct evidence that cats secreted enough virus to pass it to people. Researchers infected animals with high doses of the virus, which provided evidence for their susceptibility — but the study didn’t reproduce people’s real-world interactions with their pets. None of the infected cats showed symptoms of illness. (Nature | 4 min read)
• The coronavirus outbreak has made us all into science communicators — particularly those who are a “nerd node of trust”: the person friends and family turn to for expertise. Science communicator Liz Neely explains how science-minded people can share information effectively with humility and understanding. (The Atlantic | 6 min read)

Read the latest coronavirus news, continuously updated on Nature.