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Social distancing: What it is and why it’s the best tool we have to fight the coronavirus

Social distancing: What it is and why it’s the best tool we have to fight the coronavirus

Staying just a few feet away from other people can help prevent the coronavirus from spreading. Klaus Vedfelt/ DigitalVision via Getty Images By Thomas Perls, Boston University As the coronavirus spreads into more and more communities, public health officials are placing responsibility on individuals to help slow the pandemic. Social distancing is the way to do it. Geriatrician Thomas Perls explains how this crucial tool works. What is social distancing? Social distancing is a tool public health officials recommend to…

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Coronavirus and the isolation paradox

Coronavirus and the isolation paradox

Abdullah Shihipar writes: In December, a woman in Tulsa, Okla., used a Craigslist post to plea for holiday companionship. “Anybody need a grandma for Christmas?” she wrote. “I’ll even bring food and gifts for the kids! I have nobody and it really hurts.” More than three in five working Americans report feeling lonely. Now that the country is facing a disease outbreak that demands measures like “social distancing,” working from home and quarantines, that epidemic of loneliness could get even…

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Viruses live on doorknobs and phones and can get you sick – smart cleaning and good habits can help protect you

Viruses live on doorknobs and phones and can get you sick – smart cleaning and good habits can help protect you

Disinfecting an area takes time and effort. And there is only so much you can do. AP Photo/Seth Wenig By Joseph Eisenberg, University of Michigan One vomiting episode from someone infected with norovirus emits billions and billions of individual viruses. That’s enough to fuel an outbreak – and is exactly what happened in an elementary school in Seattle, Washington a few months ago. Over 100 children got sick with the stomach-churning bug, and the school doors remained closed until workers…

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How South Korea trounced the U.S. in the race to test people for coronavirus

How South Korea trounced the U.S. in the race to test people for coronavirus

Reuters reports: In late January, South Korean health officials summoned representatives from more than 20 medical companies from their lunar New Year celebrations to a conference room tucked inside Seoul’s busy train station. One of the country’s top infectious disease officials delivered an urgent message: South Korea needed an effective test immediately to detect the novel coronavirus, then running rampant in China. He promised the companies swift regulatory approval. Though there were only four known cases in South Korea at…

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Scientists say mass tests in Italian town have halted coronavirus

Scientists say mass tests in Italian town have halted coronavirus

The Guardian reports: The small town of Vò, in northern Italy, where the first coronavirus death occurred in the country, has become a case study that demonstrates how scientists might neutralise the spread of Covid-19. A scientific study, rolled out by the University of Padua, with the help of the Veneto Region and the Red Cross, consisted of testing all 3,300 inhabitants of the town, including asymptomatic people. The goal was to study the natural history of the virus, the…

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Scientists find that up to 86 percent of coronavirus infections go undetected

Scientists find that up to 86 percent of coronavirus infections go undetected

GeekWire reports: Computer modeling of the coronavirus outbreak’s course in China, in the weeks before a travel shutdown was imposed on Jan. 23, suggest that 86% of the infections went undocumented. Those undocumented infections were about half as contagious as the documented cases, but were the source of two-thirds of the documented cases, according to a study published online today by the journal Science. The findings parallel other research into the role of what’s known as stealth or cryptic transmission…

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At ‘lockdown parties’ around the world, young people ignore their impact on the rest of humanity

At ‘lockdown parties’ around the world, young people ignore their impact on the rest of humanity

The Guardian reports: Authorities in countries around the world in lockdown over the coronavirus outbreak are warning young people to obey the rules on social distancing amid widespread reports of partying and gatherings. Scientists and health officials say that revellers meeting for “lockdown parties” and “end of world” drinking sessions were acting irresponsibly by contributing to the spread of the virus. Statistics show that young people are as likely as older people to get infected and spread the virus. But…

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Investor Bill Ackman urges President Trump and corporate America to shut down the country for 30 days

Investor Bill Ackman urges President Trump and corporate America to shut down the country for 30 days

  CNBC reports: Investor Bill Ackman urged President Donald Trump and corporate America in an impassioned plea on CNBC to shut down the country for 30 days to contain the fast-spreading coronavirus, calling it the only option to rescue the economy. “What’s scaring the American people and corporate America now is the gradual rollout,” Ackman told Scott Wapner on “Halftime Report” on Wednesday. “We need to shut it down now. … This is the only answer.” “America will end as…

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The era of small government is over

The era of small government is over

Jamelle Bouie writes: The outbreak threatens entire industries with destruction. Most restaurants, for example, can probably survive a week or two of social distancing. Some can survive a month. But if self-quarantine lasts for months, then hundreds of thousands of businesses, including suppliers and distributors, will fail. Millions of Americans will be out of work. It’s even worse for travel and tourism. The so-called accommodations sector of the economy, which includes hotels and other forms of lodging, accounts for more…

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COVID-19 social distancing guidelines are impossible inside overpopulated U.S. prisons

COVID-19 social distancing guidelines are impossible inside overpopulated U.S. prisons

Morgan Simon writes: At a time when across the country, states are limiting gatherings of over 250 people and those who can are choosing to self-quarantine, there’s one place where millions of people are involuntarily gathered in close proximity — our nation’s prisons and immigrant detention centers. An epidemiologist at Brown University has recommended that the United States could release close to 44,000 detained immigrants who are being held for civil, not criminal, infractions. This would not only prevent the…

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Fox News takes an abrupt U-turn after weeks of downplaying the coronavirus pandemic

Fox News takes an abrupt U-turn after weeks of downplaying the coronavirus pandemic

The Guardian reports: Fox News, the rightwing channel that is a favorite of Donald Trump and conservatives across the US, spent the first weeks of the Covid-19 outbreak downplaying the threat of the virus. Hosts often claimed that those warning of the danger were “panic pushers”, or engaged in “mass hysteria”. Some on Fox News even claimed it was all an effort to try to bring down the president. But in recent days Fox News has performed an abrupt U-turn,…

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White House takes new line after report warns coronavirus death toll in the U.S. could exceed 2 million

White House takes new line after report warns coronavirus death toll in the U.S. could exceed 2 million

The New York Times reports: Sweeping new federal recommendations announced on Monday for Americans to sharply limit their activities appeared to draw on a dire scientific report warning that, without action by the government and individuals to slow the spread of coronavirus and suppress new cases, 2.2 million people in the United States could die. To curb the epidemic, there would need to be drastic restrictions on work, school and social gatherings for periods of time until a vaccine was…

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Anatomy of a pandemic

Anatomy of a pandemic

Kevin Patterson writes: Wuhan, in the province of Hubei, China, is a transportation hub of 11 million built where the Yangtze and Huan Rivers meet. In December, patients began presenting, in steadily increasing numbers, with symptoms and clinical findings suggestive of viral pneumonia. (Pneumonia is an infection of the lungs; it may be caused by viruses, bacteria, or fungi.) Tests for known pathogens capable of causing such an illness came back negative. This raised the question of whether a novel…

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Scientists warn we may need to live with social distancing for a year or more

Scientists warn we may need to live with social distancing for a year or more

Vox reports: Life in America — and in many countries around the world — is changing drastically. We’re physically distanced from our favorite people, we’re avoiding our favorite public places, and many are financially strained or out of work. The response to the Covid-19 pandemic is infiltrating every aspect of life, and we’re already longing for it to end. But this fight may not end for months or a year or even more. We’re in this because public health experts…

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How long social distancing for coronavirus will have to last depends on these factors

How long social distancing for coronavirus will have to last depends on these factors

The Washington Post reports: How long are we going to have to keep this up? The closed schools, working from home, six feet of personal space and zombie-apocalypse empty streets? It’s the question now preoccupying America as millions of parents silently scream it into the void amid the coronavirus pandemic. But it is an especially hard one for science to answer. The best and most honest reply, according to epidemiologists and virologists, is simple: “It depends.” It’s not going to…

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The inhumane conditions inside America’s jails and prisons now pose a threat to everyone

The inhumane conditions inside America’s jails and prisons now pose a threat to everyone

Amanda Klonsky writes: If you think a cruise ship is a dangerous place to be during a pandemic, consider America’s jails and prisons. The new coronavirus spreads at its quickest in closed environments. And places like nursing homes in affected areas have begun to take precautions at the behest of families and experts. As this new disease spreads, it has become equally important for all of us to ask what steps are being taken to protect the health of people…

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