The US envoy to China has called on the country to be "more honest" about the origins of the Covid-19 virus.

His comments come a day after US media reported a federal agency had found the pandemic probably started from a laboratory leak in Wuhan.

China's foreign ministry hit back that the global outbreak's origin "was about science and should not be politicised".

Washington-Beijing ties have been under strain since the US shot down an alleged Chinese spy balloon this month.

Ambassador Nicholas Burns told a US Chamber of Commerce event on Monday that China needs to "be more honest about what happened three years ago in Wuhan with the origin of the Covid-19 crisis".

US media reported on Sunday that a report from the US Department of Energy had concluded in a classified intelligence report with "low confidence" that the virus was accidentally leaked by a laboratory.

The energy department had formerly said it was undecided on how the virus began.

Other US agencies have drawn differing conclusions, with varying degrees of confidence in their findings. The FBI in 2021 concluded with "moderate confidence" that the virus leaked from a lab.

Other studies suggest it made the leap from animals to humans at Wuhan's Huanan seafood and wildlife market.

An unclassified report released by the US top spy official in October 2021 said that four US intelligence agencies had assessed with "low confidence" that it had originated with an infected animal or a related virus.

White House national security spokesman John Kirby said on Monday there was still no firm finding either way.

"There has not been a definitive conclusion and consensus in the US government on the origins of the Covid-19 pandemic," he told reporters when asked about the energy department's reported determination.

For most food products tested there was a "significant drop" in the levels of virus over the first 24 hours.

But in some cases traces survived for about a week, the University of Southampton team found.

"For a highly infectious agent such as Sars-Cov-2, which can be transmitted through touching contaminated surfaces and then the face, these findings are highly noteworthy," they say.

"The public may be interested in the finding that virus may persist in an infectious state, on foods and food packaging surfaces, for several days under certain common conditions."

But they add that there is no need for shoppers to take extra precautions when handling food - other than washing your hands before preparing and eating it, and rinsing fresh produce to help to remove any contamination on the surface.

They picked foods often sold loose at grocery, deli or bakery counters, such as apples, peppers, cheese, ham, olives, crusty bread and croissants.

The packaging tested included drink bottles, cartons and cans.

The amount of virus they applied was designed to simulate how much might land on food if someone who was infected coughed or sneezed near it, for example, because Covid is spread by respiratory droplets.

Breathing in infected droplets, rather than touching infected surfaces, is still the main way people catch Covid.

Anthony Wilson, microbiological risk assessment team leader at the FSA, said: "In the early stages of the pandemic, we didn't know much about how the virus would survive on different food surfaces and packaging, so the risk assessment was based on a worst-case assumption.

"This research gives us additional insight into the stability of coronavirus on the surfaces of a variety of foods and confirms that assumptions we made in the early stages of the pandemic were appropriate, and that the probability that you can catch Covid via food is very low."

Covid: Woman caught virus twice within record 20 days

A 31-year-old healthcare worker caught Covid twice within 20 days - the shortest-known gap between infections, Spanish researchers have claimed.

Tests show the woman was infected with two different variants - Delta in late December and then Omicron in January.

This shows that even if you have had Covid before, you can still be infected again even if fully vaccinated, the researchers say.

Based on that definition, health officials say nearly 900,000 people in the UK have potentially been infected twice with Covid up to the start of April.

It is difficult to pin down an exact number, because only whole genome sequencing can confirm the infections are caused by different strains, and very few positive tests go through this process.

The Spaniard did not develop any symptoms after her first positive PCR test, but less than three weeks later she developed a cough and fever which prompted her to take another test.

When the tests were analysed further, they showed the patient had been infected by two different strains of coronavirus.

In a presentation at the European Congress of Clinical Microbiology and Infectious Diseases, study author Dr. Gemma Recio said the case highlighted that Omicron can "evade the previous immunity acquired either from a natural infection with other variants or from vaccines".

She said: "In other words, people who have had Covid-19 cannot assume they are protected against reinfection, even if they have been fully vaccinated.

"Nevertheless, both previous infection with other variants and vaccination do seem to partially protect against severe disease and hospitalisation in those with Omicron," added Dr Recio, from the Institut Catala de Salut, Tarragona in Spain.

The initial emergency of Covid may feel like it's over, but millions of people are still suffering from ongoing symptoms known as long Covid. So are we any closer to understanding the causes of this sometimes debilitating condition or to finding the best way of treating it?

Most people who catch Covid don't become severely ill and appear to get better relatively quickly. We do not know if there are any long term or long-lasting health effects, such as a lower life expectancy, reduced immune system response to other sickness. We are all guinea pigs, so to speak, and only time will tell what the long term effects of having Covid, or of having Covid more than once, are. 

Some people have long-term problems after recovering from the original infection - even if they weren't very ill in the first place.

What are long Covid symptoms?

Long Covid isn't fully understood, and there's no internationally-agreed definition - so estimates of how common it is, or what the main symptoms are, vary. These can be defined as symptoms that continue for more than 3 to 4 months which cannot be explained by another cause.

These can include:

• extreme tiredness
• shortness of breath, chest pain or tightness
• problems with memory and concentration ("brain fog")
• changes to taste and smell
• joint pain

This pattern will be familiar to many with long Covid. The core experience of long Covid revolves around three principal symptoms: fatigue, brain fog and muscle pain. But there is a long list of rarer symptoms covering almost every bodily function ranging from digestive problems to night sweats and depression to hair loss.

People with symptomless Covid-19 can carry as much of the virus as those with symptoms, a South Korean study has suggested.

South Korea was able to identify and isolate asymptomatic cases through mass testing as early as the start of March.

There is mounting evidence these cases represent a considerable proportion of coronavirus infections.

But the researchers weren't able to say how much these people actually passed the virus on.

People with a positive coronavirus test were monitored in a community treatment centre, allowing scientists to look at how much of the virus was detectable in their nose and throat swabs.

They were given regular tests, and only released once they were negative.

Results of 1,886 tests suggest people with no symptoms at the time of the test, including those who never go on to develop symptoms, have the same amount of viral material in their nose and throat as people with symptoms.

The study also showed the virus could be detected in asymptomatic people for significant periods of time - although they appeared to clear it from their systems slightly faster than people with symptoms.

The median time (the number where half of cases were higher and half were lower) from being diagnosed to receiving a negative test was 17 days in asymptomatic patients and 19.5 days in symptomatic patients.

Because of the nature of the isolation centre, the study didn't include people with severe cases of the disease. They were also younger and healthier than average.

Most coronavirus testing focuses on people with symptoms, so there is little data on asymptomatic cases.

This study gives us some more information about what they look like in the body.

The researchers acknowledge their study could not "determine the role" that the presence of the virus in asymptomatic patients played in transmission, however.

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Covid-19 presents specific challenges for the workplace. In general, indoor areas with lots of people and no air flow are very high-risk areas for the spread of the virus. Here are some general guidelines for working in an age of airbone coronavirus:

1) Try to work from home, if possible. There are lots of ways to work on the computer, with the telephone, and there are lots of free and low cost video-conferencing solutions like Conference-Rooms.US that allow groups meetings, presentations and more with interactive whiteboards, and meeting recording, etc.

2) If you have to work from an office, try to work outside! If you must work inside at a desk, make sure that all the windows are open and use fans to increase air flow indoors. Best yet is to use fans to direct air so that air is sucked up to the ceiling and then blown outside, if possible. This is what airplanes try to do - to direct air vertically - and it can be done in offices.

3) Wear masks or respirators if possible, (we reciommend 3M N95 original and genuine respirators) and practice social distancing at the workplace. Try to touch things as little as possible, and make sure to wash your hands thoroughly often, after touching anything. Do NOT touch your face, mouth, eyes or nose, and do not touch your mask or respirator. If you wear a mask or respirator, leave it on until you are done with it for the day. The outside of your mask could be a particularly dangerous thing to touch as it could harbor the virus.

4) Don't share  cups, glasses, plates or utensils. Don't use office gyms or fitness classes - exercise outside! Take the stairs rather than the elevator, unless the climb is too strenuous. Move desks around to maximise the space between them. Stay positive and get enough sleep and exercise. Be healthy and stay alert and safe.

Mid-July 2020: 

We are seeing more and more US states loosening restrictions so the economy can get going once again, and we are witnessing many young people who are going back to life as it was before the virus - with no social distancing, not wearing masks, getting together with hundreds of other young people in bars, at parties, etc. This is horribly risky behavior - both for themselves and for the more vulnerable people in society - the elderly, the obese, those with underlying kidney or respiratory problems, that could catch the Coronavirus from these young people and need hospitalization or even die from it.

You youths need to be aware that this is not a little flu, rather covid-19 has some very serious long-term disasterously negative effects on one's health for many, many survivors. You think that because you are young and strong that it won't hurt you. Well, you are wrong. It will hospitalize some of you and it will even kill some of you. Furthermore, it will probably or possibly cause long-term damage to your lungs and kidneys as well as your memory and ability to think. Seriously. We don't know how long-term this damage will be, but we know that it is a part of the problem. Many, many covid-19 "survivors" of all sexes and ages never fully recover! Don't play games and take risks with your long-term health. It's not worth it.