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Beware of false finish line, WHO expert says
Europe and North America should follow the example of Asian states by persevering with anti-COVID measures and quarantining anyone who comes into contact with infected people, Mike Ryan, the World Health Organization’s top emergency expert, said on Monday.

Their populations had shown “higher levels of trust” in their governments who had kept up measures longer.

“In other words, they ran through the finish line and beyond and they kept running, because they knew the race wasn’t over, that finish line was false. Too many countries have put an imaginary finishing line and when they cross this may have decelerated some of their activities,” Ryan said.

Long-term health problems from COVID-19
Young, healthy adults with COVID-19 who do not require hospitalization are still at risk for long-term health problems, Oxford University researchers found. They studied 201 recovering UK patients with an average age of 44, more than 90% of whom did not have risk factors such as diabetes, high blood pressure, or heart disease. Only 18% had been sick enough to be hospitalized.

At an average of 140 days after their symptoms began, 98% were still fatigued, 92% had heart and lung symptoms, 88% had muscle aches, 87% had breathlessness, 83% headaches, and 73% gastrointestinal symptoms. Organ damage was more common among those who had been hospitalized.

The researchers say their study, posted on Friday on the website medRxiv ahead of peer review, cannot prove the virus caused these later issues. But it does suggest long-term monitoring of organ function will be necessary even in relatively low-risk patients.

Flu shot may help protect against COVID-19
Flu vaccines may help the body defend itself against COVID-19, according to a Dutch study that found hospital workers who got a flu shot last winter were less likely to become infected with the new coronavirus.

In test tube experiments, the researchers saw that last winter’s flu vaccine could prime healthy cells to respond more effectively not just to the flu, but also to the new coronavirus. When they analyzed COVID-19 rates among staff at their hospital, they found the number of infections was 39% lower among those who had gotten a flu vaccine.

They posted their report on medRxiv on Friday ahead of peer review. “We thought it was important to publish these results already because the flu shot is made available to a large group of people,” study leader Mihai Netea of Radboud University Medical Center said in a news release.

Eating like the English? French curfew puts early dinner on menu
Restaurateur Pascal Mousset has a new menu he hopes will persuade his patrons to change the habit of a lifetime in response to Paris’s coronavirus curfew, by - perish the thought - eating dinner as early as the English.

Track the spread with our global interactive graphic.

Breakingviews - Corona Capital: Vaccines, Sex, Computers, Gardens. Read concise views on the pandemic’s financial fallout from Breakingviews columnists across the globe.

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U.S. ELECTIONS 2020

The final debate between President Donald Trump and Democratic rival Joe Biden will feature a mute button to allow each candidate to speak uninterrupted, organizers said, looking to avoid the disruptions that marred the first matchup. The Trump campaign voiced objections to the change - made after the president repeatedly talked over both Biden and the moderator at last month’s debate.

The NATO military alliance is considering a summit in March in Brussels to welcome a new U.S. president if Democratic candidate Joe Biden wins, diplomats and officials said, with a gathering in the first half of next year if Donald Trump is reelected. While the U.S.-led alliance agreed last year to hold a summit in 2021, a meeting in the spring would be an early chance to repair transatlantic ties if Biden were to be voted into the White House on Nov. 3, after a bruising four years under Trump.

President Trump heads to the battleground state of Pennsylvania on Tuesday with hopes of rekindling the 11th-hour surge of support that powered his surprise 2016 victory. But with more than 30 million early ballots already cast with two weeks to go before voting ends on Election Day Nov. 3, time is running short in his contest against Democratic challenger Joe Biden.

Republicans are running short of time, money and options to stop Democrats from winning a majority of seats in the U.S. Senate, and with them full control of Congress, in an election that is now only two weeks away. President Donald Trump’s slide in opinion polls is weighing on Senate Republicans in 10 competitive races, while Democrats are playing defense over two seats, increasing the odds of Trump’s Republicans losing their 53-47 majority on Nov. 3.