World

New variants emerge from large, uncontrolled outbreaks. This is why vaccinating people is an urgent priority, says Duke-NUS Medical School’s Professor Gavin Smith. SINGAPORE: Variants of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, may be outpacing vaccination progress in many parts of the world, fuelling fears of new outbreaks. Scientists around the world are tracking these variants to understand whether some spread faster than others, how they might affect our health and how effective current vaccines might be against them. Evidence is now emerging that some mutations can make a virus spread more easily, while other mutations are associated with a reduction in how effective a vaccine might be in preventing infection. But even if vaccine efficacy is lowered against certain variants...

Twitter CFO Ned Segal said Tuesday that e-commerce will be more important for the social media company as it continues to build out direct response advertising products. "You should be able to click and buy something on Twitter," Segal said at the J.P. Morgan Global Technology, Media and Communications Virtual Conference. "We've come to appreciate that people do a lot of research on Twitter before they buy something." Segal explained that users go to Twitter to hear what experts have to say about products like phones and shoes. Users also could feel compelled to make spur-of-the-moment decisions to buy products as they chat about major events, like the Super Bowl, in real-time on Twitter. "These are all great opportunities for us to connect existing advertisers and new advertisers with ...