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EPA administrator Andrew Wheeler at the White House on 4 July, 2020.

EPA administrator Andrew WheelerChris Kleponis/Polaris/Bloomberg/Getty

EPA brings in controversial data rule

The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has finalized the ‘transparency’ rule that would prevent it from basing regulatory decisions on studies for which the full underlying data are not publicly available. “If the American people are to be regulated by interpretation of these scientific studies, they deserve to scrutinize the data,” writes EPA administrator Andrew Wheeler in an opinion piece in the Wall Street Journal. But the rule has been widely panned by researchers and science advocates, who say that it is a Trojan horse aimed at preventing new health and environmental regulations from going into effect. “This is like the tobacco story all over again,” Dan Costa, former head of the agency’s air, climate and energy research programme, told Nature in 2018. “They are trying to pull the carpet out from under scientists.”

The Washington Post | 5 min read

COVID-19 vaccine update

Technology feature

Apps predict your risk of catching COVID

COVID risk calculators are helping people hungry to understand their likelihood of catching and surviving COVID. These tools are also filling important gaps in public-health messaging, particularly in places where an uneven response to the pandemic has exacerbated its severity. Nature explores how researchers are harnessing pandemic data to power these tools.

Nature | 8 min read

Correspondence

World science advisers: what worked for us

Government researchers who helped to guide the COVID responses in Ghana, Belgium, Costa Rica, Taiwan, Bolivia, Lithuania and Canada speak out about their experiences in a series of letters in Nature.

• In recent decades, hard-hit Belgium “dismantl[ed] a health system that was built over centuries,” writes microbiologist Emmanuel André. “As a consequence, we entered this pandemic unprepared.”

• By contrast, Taiwan, which has been COVID-free since 13 April, learnt lessons from the 2002 SARS outbreak, says epidemiologist Chien-jen Chen. He outlines the key elements of Taiwan’s success.

• In Lithuania, “working in this pandemic feels like war — or exile,” says infectious-disease physician Ligita Jancoriene. Her colleagues “have started comparing cataclysms that our families have experienced — from military conflicts to the mass deportations carried out by the Soviet Union”.

Nature | 10 min read

News

FDA rejects vaccine dose delay

The US Food and Drug Administration has rejected the idea of delaying the second dose of COVID vaccines. Some US states had considered following the approach taken by the United Kingdom, which will delay the second dose of both the BioNtech–Pfizer and AstraZeneca–Oxford vaccines to give more people the protection of at least one dose. In a statement, the FDA said that BioNtech–Pfizer and Moderna trial data are being “misinterpreted” and “we cannot conclude anything definitive about the depth or duration of protection after a single dose of vaccine”.

NPR | 3 min read

Reference: FDA statement

Essay

Archiving for tomorrow’s historians

Records of past pandemics are patchy. This one has seen a global frenzy of collecting. Laura Spinney, the author of a history of the 1918 influenza pandemic, explores how archivists are deciding what to keep, how historians might wade through it, and why some voices might still go unrecorded.

Nature | 9 min read

Features & opinion

Look after yourself and others in 2021

After a year of hard-won lessons, scientists offer their views on what’s important for the coming year. Scientist-parents should take careful notes on how the pandemic has directly affected their research output, recommends molecular pharmacologist Lauren May, who co-founded Her Research Matters, a university-based group that supports equitable leadership. Chemist Lee Cronin suggests seizing any opportunity to do research with greater impact. “Let’s write less and say more,” he says. “Everyone’s in the same boat.” And keep the best aspects of the forced move to virtual conferences, says applied microbiologist Emmanuel Adukwu. “They open opportunities to anyone with access to the Internet.”

Nature | 7 min read

Rethinking travel in a post-pandemic world

In 2018, social scientist Roger Tyers decided to slash his carbon emissions by taking a work trip to Shanghai by train — all the way from the United Kingdom. “I don’t expect everybody to be taking the train to China to do fieldwork,” he says. “But I think that as academics we can do a little bit better.” Tyers is one of many climate scientists who are advocating for less air travel and following their own advice. They recommend ways to boost the value of virtual conferences and reduce carbon footprints even when travel restrictions ease.

Nature | 12 min read

So you want to publish open access

The requirements of Plan S, a European-led open-access (OA) initiative, are coming into force this month across much of scientific publishing. Science offers a detailed guide for authors, examines the costs and benefits, and considers what it all means for the future.

Science | 15 min read

Quote of the day

“The vaccine means everything to me. To my mind, it’s the only way of getting back to normal life.”

Brian Pinker, a retired 82-year-old with kidney disease, is the first person to get the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine outside a clinical trial. The vaccine was rolled out in the United Kingdom yesterday. (The Guardian)