RETRACTED ARTICLE: Exploring the potential effect of COVID-19 on an endangered great ape

Abstract

The current COVID-19 pandemic has created unmeasurable damages to society at a global level, from the irreplaceable loss of life, to the massive economic losses. In addition, the disease threatens further biodiversity loss. Due to their shared physiology with humans, primates, and particularly great apes, are susceptible to the disease. However, it is still uncertain how their populations would respond in case of infection. Here, we combine stochastic population and epidemiological models to simulate the range of potential effects of COVID-19 on the probability of extinction of mountain gorillas. We find that extinction is sharply driven by increases in the basic reproductive number and that the probability of extinction is greatly exacerbated if the immunity lasts less than 6 months. These results stress the need to limit exposure of the mountain gorilla population, the park personnel and visitors, as well as the potential of vaccination campaigns to extend the immunity duration.

Biased, wrong and counterfeited evidences published during the COVID-19 pandemic, a systematic review of retracted COVID-19 papers

“…For reference, the entirety of the selected papers can be found in Table 1, and their citations are as follows: Ghanchi et al 2020a, b;Elkhouly et al 2020;Mulvey et al 2020;Sun et al 2020;Lu et al 2020;Beato-Víbora 2020;Mehra et al 2020a, b;Mehra et al 2020a, b;Walach et al 2021;Dutta et al 2021;Friedlich et al 2021;Ali et al 2020a, b;Lin 2021;Ali et al 2020a, b;Khalifa et al 2020;Gul et al 2021;Victor 2020a, b;Victor 2020a, b;Colchero et al 2021;Saha et al 2021;Ma et al 2021;Imran et al 2021;Akbar et al 2020;Ferdous et al 2021;Jiménez-Ruiz et al 2021;Savaris et al 2021;Grech 2020a, b;Zago Filho et al 2020;Atangana et al 2021;Mao et al 2021;Fioranelli et al 2020;Deokar et al 2020;Temmerman 2021;Ibrahimagić et al 2021;Saxena 2020;Grech 2020a, b;Din et al 2020;Bae et al 2020;Zeng et al 2020;Funck-Brentano et al 2020;Woodle et al 2021;…”