Covid-19: Frontline research

As France has exceeded 110,000 deaths due to Covid-19 epidemic (which has taken more than 4 million lives worldwide) and as the start of the largest vaccination programme in history finally brings a glimmer of hope, the battle is still being waged in laboratories on a microscopic scale. The vaccine is not the only solution: in Lille, Marseille and Lyon, for example, scientists from CNRS are working on developing medicines that are effective against the coronavirus, which means not only knowing everything about its structure and weaknesses but also developing effective molecules. This race against time is being run in vitro, but also in vivo… Scientists are also working to produce faster, more effective tests like the EasyCov saliva test, made in Montpellier, which only needs a small saliva sample. Watch CNRS’ various reports on the fight against Covid-19 in the past year, which has seen scientists become the foot soldiers.

The video "Mathematicians on the Covid front" (only available in French), explains how they develop models to adapt school schedules, optimize the layout of beds in a hospital or study the places most affected by contamination.