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Category: Health

If the apocalypse had an image, it would be of India’s hospitals overwhelmed by the pandemic

If the apocalypse had an image, it would be of India’s hospitals overwhelmed by the pandemic

Rana Ayyub writes: Increasingly, people are dying in plain sight. On Friday, Delhi’s leading Gangaram Hospital issued an SOS that it only had enough oxygen left for two hours and that 25 patients had already lost their lives in the hospital due to oxygen shortages. Videos show people stealing oxygen cylinders for their relatives. One devastating video from the BBC shows a woman trying to help her dying brother regain consciousness. “Bajali, why don’t you wake up?” she cries. As…

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Covid hospitalizations tumble among U.S. senior citizens

Covid hospitalizations tumble among U.S. senior citizens

The Associated Press reports: COVID-19 hospitalizations among older Americans have plunged more than 70% since the start of the year, and deaths among them appear to have tumbled as well, dramatic evidence the vaccination campaign is working. Now the trick is to get more of the nation’s younger people to roll up their sleeves. The drop-off in severe cases among Americans 65 and older is especially encouraging because senior citizens have accounted for about 8 out of 10 deaths from…

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No safer from Covid indoors at 6 feet or 60 feet, MIT researchers say

No safer from Covid indoors at 6 feet or 60 feet, MIT researchers say

CNBC reports: The risk of being exposed to Covid-19 indoors is as great at 60 feet as it is at 6 feet — even when wearing a mask, according to a new study by Massachusetts Institute of Technology researchers who challenge social distancing guidelines adopted across the world. MIT professors Martin Z. Bazant, who teaches chemical engineering and applied mathematics, and John W.M. Bush, who teaches applied mathematics, developed a method of calculating exposure risk to Covid-19 in an indoor…

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Unvaccinated worker set off outbreak at U.S. nursing home where most residents were immunized

Unvaccinated worker set off outbreak at U.S. nursing home where most residents were immunized

The New York Times reports: An unvaccinated health care worker set off a Covid-19 outbreak at a nursing home in Kentucky where the vast majority of residents had been vaccinated, leading to dozens of infections, including 22 cases among residents and employees who were already fully vaccinated, a new study reported Wednesday. Most of those who were infected with the coronavirus despite being vaccinated did not develop symptoms or require hospitalization, but one vaccinated individual, who was a resident of…

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India’s massive Covid surge puzzles scientists

India’s massive Covid surge puzzles scientists

Nature reports: The pandemic is sweeping through India at a pace that has staggered scientists. Daily case numbers have exploded since early March: the government reported 273,810 new infections nationally on 18 April. High numbers in India have also helped drive global cases to a daily high of 854,855 in the past week, almost breaking a record set in January. Just months earlier, antibody data had suggested that many people in cities such as Delhi and Chennai had already been…

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How India allowed the virus to overwhelm it

How India allowed the virus to overwhelm it

Ramanan Laxminarayan writes: A lethal, fast-paced second wave of the coronavirus pandemic has brought India’s health care systems to the verge of collapse and is putting millions of lives and livelihoods at risk. On Sunday and Monday, the country recorded more than 270,000 and 259,000 cases, respectively, of Covid-19, a staggering increase from about 11,000 cases per day in the second week of February. Reported coronavirus infections shot up from about 20,000 per day in mid-March to more than 200,000…

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Sleeping too little in middle age may increase dementia risk, study finds

Sleeping too little in middle age may increase dementia risk, study finds

The New York Times reports: Could getting too little sleep increase your chances of developing dementia? For years, researchers have pondered this and other questions about how sleep relates to cognitive decline. Answers have been elusive because it is hard to know if insufficient sleep is a symptom of the brain changes that underlie dementia — or if it can actually help cause those changes. Now, a large new study reports some of the most persuasive findings yet to suggest…

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Canada ski resort linked to largest outbreak of P1 Covid variant outside Brazil

Canada ski resort linked to largest outbreak of P1 Covid variant outside Brazil

The Guardian reports: For ski resorts, spring normally marks a final chance for visitors to carve sun-drenched runs before the season ends. But at Canada’s most famous ski resort, the gondolas have stopped, and the slopes are eerily quiet. The Whistler Blackcomb ski resort was shut down by provincial authorities at the end of March after they realised that P1, the highly infectious coronavirus variant traced back to Brazil, was spreading rapidly throughout the community. As provinces across Canada break…

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The race to curb the spread of Covid vaccine disinformation

The race to curb the spread of Covid vaccine disinformation

Nature reports: In March, Twitter put its foot down: users who repeatedly spread false information about COVID-19 vaccines will have their accounts suspended or shut down. It was a new front in a high-stakes battle over misinformation that could help to determine how many people get vaccinated, and how swiftly the pandemic ends. The battle is also being fought in computer-science and sociology labs across the United States, where scientists who track the spread of false information on social media…

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Least vaccinated U.S. counties have something in common: Trump voters

Least vaccinated U.S. counties have something in common: Trump voters

The New York Times reports: About 31 percent of adults in the United States have now been fully vaccinated. Scientists have estimated that 70 to 90 percent of the total population must acquire resistance to the virus to reach herd immunity. But in hundreds of counties around the country, vaccination rates are low, with some even languishing in the teens. The disparity in vaccination rates has so far mainly broken down along political lines. The New York Times examined survey…

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Doctors hone in on cause of blood clots potentially linked with Covid-19 vaccines

Doctors hone in on cause of blood clots potentially linked with Covid-19 vaccines

CNN reports: Doctors say they are honing in on the cause of blood clots that may be linked with certain coronavirus vaccines, and add their findings have important implications for how to treat the condition, regardless of whether vaccines cause it. Even though the link is not firm yet, they’re calling the condition vaccine-induced immune thrombotic thrombocytopenia or VITT. It’s characterized by unusual blood clotting combined with a low number of blood-clotting cells called platelets. Patients suffer from dangerous clots…

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The blood-clot problem is multiplying

The blood-clot problem is multiplying

Roxanne Khamsi writes: For weeks, Americans looked on as other countries grappled with case reports of rare, sometimes fatal blood abnormalities among those who had received the AstraZeneca vaccine against COVID-19. That vaccine has not yet been authorized by the FDA, so restrictions on its use throughout Europe did not get that much attention in the United States. But Americans experienced a rude awakening this week when public-health officials called for a pause on the use of the Johnson &…

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America’s corn belt has lost a third of its topsoil

America’s corn belt has lost a third of its topsoil

Becca Dzombak reports: Seth Watkins has been farming his family’s land in southern Iowa for decades, growing pasture for his cows as well as corn and other row crops. His great-grandfather founded the farm in 1848. “He came in with one of John Deere’s steel plows and pierced the prairie,” Watkins recounted. With its rolling hills and neat lines of corn stretching to the horizon, broken by clumps of trees, it’s a picturesque scene. But centuries of farming those hills…

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Pfizer CEO says third Covid vaccine dose likely needed within 12 months

Pfizer CEO says third Covid vaccine dose likely needed within 12 months

CNBC reports: Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla said people will “likely” need a third dose of a Covid-19 vaccine within 12 months of getting fully vaccinated. His comments were made public Thursday but were taped April 1. Bourla said it’s possible people will need to get vaccinated against the coronavirus annually. “We need to see what would be the sequence, and for how often we need to do that, that remains to be seen,” he told CNBC’s Bertha Coombs during an…

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The mRNA vaccines are looking better and better

The mRNA vaccines are looking better and better

Sarah Zhang writes: A year ago, when the United States decided to go big on vaccines, it bet on nearly every horse, investing in a spectrum of technologies. The safest bets, in a way, repurposed the technology behind existing vaccines, such as protein-based ones for tetanus or hepatitis B. The medium bets were on vaccines made by Johnson & Johnson and AstraZeneca, which use adenovirus vectors, a technology that had been tested before but not deployed on a large scale….

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Why would a Covid vaccine cause rare blood clots? Researchers have found clues

Why would a Covid vaccine cause rare blood clots? Researchers have found clues

STAT reports: A week after receiving the AstraZeneca Covid-19 vaccine, a 37-year-old woman in Norway went to the emergency department with fever and persistent headaches. A CAT scan of her head showed a blood clot in blood vessels involved in draining the brain, but her levels of platelets, involved in clotting, were low. She was treated with platelet infusions and a blood thinner, but had a bleed in her brain the next day. She underwent surgery to relieve the pressure…

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