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Boris Johnson has revealed how England will exit lockdown – and the path is a long one. Lifting will happen in four stages, with over a month allowed for each. At the earliest, all lockdown measures will have been removed by June 21.
Four more months of restrictions isn’t too appealing but the verdict from our health experts is that this is the right approach. Moving step by step, starting with lower risk changes while vaccine coverage builds up, will help keep the virus in check and will show what effect different actions have on transmission. However, the UK is still experiencing nearly 10,000 new COVID-19 cases a day, notes Zania Stamataki, and the new roadmap contains no explanation or measures that respond to this. It’s a good start – but a more elaborate plan will be needed in time.
Losing your sense of taste and smell has become a recognised symptom of COVID-19. But there’s also a lesser known related issue: parosmia, which sees your sense of smell distorted. It can be disgusting and frustrating – making normally pleasant food taste, for example, like sewage – but it’s also an encouraging sign of recovery.
Finally, Monica Grady dives into a very big question: if God exists, would she be bound by the laws of physics, and if she were, would this help prove or disprove her existence?
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Rob Reddick
Commissioning Editor, COVID-19
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Neil Hall/EPA-EFE
Andrew Lee, University of Sheffield; Peter Sivey, University of York; Zania Stamataki, University of Birmingham
The UK government has announced a four stage plan for ending COVID-19 restrictions.
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Dean Drobot/Shutterstock
Carl Philpott, University of East Anglia
Imagine not being able to smell gas or food that has gone off.
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Could God travel faster than the speed of light?
robert_s/Shutterstock
Monica Grady, The Open University
If God could break the laws of physics, why haven't we seen any evidence of the laws ever being broken in the universe?
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Health + Medicine
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Dominic Dwyer, University of Sydney
Much has been said of the politics surrounding the mission to investigate the viral origins of COVID-19. So it's easy to forget that behind these investigations are real people.
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Paula Larsson, University of Oxford
In 1959, three armed men broke into the University of Montréal and stole the whole supply of polio vaccine — 75,000 vials valued at $50,000. What have we learned from this event?
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Poppy Brown, University of Oxford
VR treatment can overcome many of the challenges of traditional therapy.
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Iain McPhee, University of the West of Scotland
Scotland has recently experienced a dramatic increase in drug-related deaths among its poorest. Now new research has translated directly into policy change.
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Politics + Society
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Michael Jennings, SOAS, University of London
The global vaccine rollout has not been free from geopolitical rivalries and point-scoring.
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Fabienne Martin-Juchat, Université Grenoble Alpes (UGA)
Using the physical representation of a public figure to provoke an emotional response and encourage a certain action is a well-known strategy. Can it work for the COVID-19 vaccine?
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Michael McEachrane, Lund University
Plans are being adopted and resolutions made, but moving forward means facing difficult truths about the past.
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Ali Bilgic, Loughborough University
The US president is sending a message to Saudi Arabia. But it might also find that negotiations with Tehran are tougher.
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Science + Technology
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Leor Zmigrod, University of Cambridge
We found parallels between how individuals perform in brain games and the kind of political attitudes they adhere to.
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Cities
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Nicholas Tew, University of Bristol; Jane Memmott, University of Bristol; Katherine Baldock, Northumbria University, Newcastle
New research suggests that residential gardens are the source of 85% of the nectar produced in towns and cities.
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Whiteknights, Reading, Reading, RG62UR, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland — University of Reading
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University of Birmingham Facebook (Live), Birmingham, Birmingham, B152TT, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland — University of Birmingham
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