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Category: Health

Interview: Larry Brilliant has a plan to speed up the pandemic’s end

Interview: Larry Brilliant has a plan to speed up the pandemic’s end

Steven Levy writes: What happens to Cassandras when their warnings become reality? If you are epidemiologist Larry Brilliant, you work to mitigate a situation that would not have been so terrible if people had listened to you in the first place. Pre-Covid Brilliant, along with many of his peers, had been ringing the alarm on pandemics in op-eds, a much-viewed TED talk, and a tragically prophetic horror movie he advised on called Contagion. In the last year, Brilliant—best known for…

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How Emergent BioSolutions put an ‘extraordinary burden’ on the U.S.’s troubled stockpile

How Emergent BioSolutions put an ‘extraordinary burden’ on the U.S.’s troubled stockpile

The New York Times reports: A year ago, President Donald J. Trump declared a national emergency, promising a wartime footing to combat the coronavirus. But as Covid-19 spread unchecked, sending thousands of dying people to the hospital, desperate pleas for protective masks and other medical supplies went unanswered. Health workers resorted to wearing trash bags. Fearful hospital officials turned away sick patients. Governors complained about being left in the lurch. Today the shortage of basic supplies, alongside inadequate testing and…

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Sunlight inactivates coronavirus eight times faster than predicted. We need to know why

Sunlight inactivates coronavirus eight times faster than predicted. We need to know why

Science Alert reports: A team of scientists is calling for greater research into how sunlight inactivates SARS-CoV-2 after realizing there’s a glaring discrepancy between the most recent theory and experimental results. UC Santa Barbara mechanical engineer Paolo Luzzatto-Fegiz and colleagues noticed the virus was inactivated as much as eight times faster in experiments than the most recent theoretical model predicted. “The theory assumes that inactivation works by having UVB hit the RNA of the virus, damaging it,” explained Luzzatto-Fegiz. But…

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U.K. vaccination approach puts U.S. to shame

U.K. vaccination approach puts U.S. to shame

Marty Makary writes: The U.S. will soon achieve herd immunity against the novel coronavirus, but the U.K. will get there sooner. That’s because medical leaders across the pond put the priority on first-dose vaccination, delaying booster shots so that more people could get the initial shot. Fifty-nine percent of British adults are now vaccinated with one dose, vs. only 38% in the U.S. Far more Americans are fully vaccinated—21% have received either a booster or the single-dose Johnson & Johnson…

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Can vaccinated people spread the virus? We don’t know, scientists say

Can vaccinated people spread the virus? We don’t know, scientists say

The New York Times reports: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Thursday walked back controversial comments made by its director, Dr. Rochelle P. Walensky, suggesting that people who are vaccinated against the coronavirus never become infected or transmit the virus to others. The assertion called into question the precautions that the agency had urged vaccinated people to take just last month, like wearing masks and gathering only under limited circumstances with unvaccinated people. “Dr. Walensky spoke broadly during…

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The pandemic’s wrongest man: Alex Berenson

The pandemic’s wrongest man: Alex Berenson

Derek Thompson writes: The pandemic has made fools of many forecasters. Just about all of the predictions whiffed. Anthony Fauci was wrong about masks. California was wrong about the outdoors. New York was wrong about the subways. I was wrong about the necessary cost of pandemic relief. And the Trump White House was wrong about almost everything else. In this crowded field of wrongness, one voice stands out. The voice of Alex Berenson: the former New York Times reporter, Yale-educated…

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The fourth surge is upon us. This time, it’s different

The fourth surge is upon us. This time, it’s different

Zeynep Tufekci writes: Across the United States, cases have started rising again. In a few cities, even hospitalizations are ticking up. The twists and turns of a pandemic can be hard to predict, but this most recent increase was almost inevitable: A more transmissible and more deadly variant called B.1.1.7 has established itself at the precise moment when many regions are opening up rapidly by lifting mask mandates, indoor-gathering restrictions, and occupancy limits on gyms and restaurants. We appear to…

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Brazil is rocked by political turmoil as pandemic outlook darkens

Brazil is rocked by political turmoil as pandemic outlook darkens

The Washington Post reports: Six cabinet members are out. The military’s top leaders are also gone. And it’s only Tuesday. First came the Monday morning exit of Brazil’s foreign minister, a right-wing ideologue blamed for failing to secure enough coronavirus vaccines. Then the defense minister was gone. Then the justice minister was replaced. Tuesday morning brought still more tumult: the departures of the navy, army and air force chiefs. The exits have sent political shock waves across Latin America’s largest…

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CDC chief warns of ‘impending doom’ as Covid cases, deaths rise

CDC chief warns of ‘impending doom’ as Covid cases, deaths rise

Bloomberg reports: The head of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention pleaded with Americans to wear masks and stick with Covid-19 mitigation measures, warning of “impending doom” as cases, hospitalizations and deaths begin to rise again. Rochelle Walensky, speaking at a press briefing Monday, fought back tears as she outlined a series of warning signals and said she was frightened about a looming fourth wave of Covid cases. The seven-day average for new daily Covid-19 cases is now almost…

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Cases in Florida, a national Covid bellwether, are rising — especially among younger people

Cases in Florida, a national Covid bellwether, are rising — especially among younger people

The New York Times reports: Scientists view Florida — the state furthest along in lifting restrictions, reopening society and welcoming tourists — as a bellwether for the nation. If recent trends there are any indication, the rest of the country may be in trouble. The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Florida has been steadily rising, though hospitalizations and deaths are still down. Over the past week, the state has averaged nearly 5,000 cases per day, an increase of 8…

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How will people act after getting vaccinated? The complex psychology of safety

How will people act after getting vaccinated? The complex psychology of safety

Robert Klitzman writes: A friend invited me to her home for a birthday party. “Ten of us will be there,” she wrote. “I’m pretty sure we’ve all been vaccinated, so we should be OK.” It was the first invitation to an indoor dinner I had received in almost a year. Six other friends are planning a tropical vacation and invited me to join them. “Aren’t you worried about Covid?” I asked, feeling a bit nerdy for raising the question. “Not…

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The vast majority of America’s Covid deaths could have been prevented, says Birx

The vast majority of America’s Covid deaths could have been prevented, says Birx

CNN reports: The US may finally be getting a handle on the coronavirus pandemic, but for so many Americans, it’s too late, and that disconnect is raising fresh questions about why the US couldn’t have done more earlier. Dr. Deborah Birx, who served as the White House coronavirus response coordinator under the Trump administration, reveals her chilling conclusion in a new CNN documentary that the number of coronavirus deaths could have been “decreased substantially” if cities and states across the…

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A collapse foretold: How Brazil’s Covid-19 outbreak overwhelmed hospitals

A collapse foretold: How Brazil’s Covid-19 outbreak overwhelmed hospitals

The New York Times reports: The patients began arriving at hospitals in Porto Alegre far sicker and younger than before. Funeral homes were experiencing a steady uptick in business, while exhausted doctors and nurses pleaded in February for a lockdown to save lives. But Sebastião Melo, Porto Alegre’s mayor, argued there was a greater imperative. “Put your life on the line so that we can save the economy,” Mr. Melo appealed to his constituents in late February. Now Porto Alegre,…

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U.S. Covid response could have avoided hundreds of thousands of deaths, researchers conclude

U.S. Covid response could have avoided hundreds of thousands of deaths, researchers conclude

Reuters reports: The United States squandered both money and lives in its response to the coronavirus pandemic, and it could have avoided nearly 400,000 deaths with a more effective health strategy and trimmed federal spending by hundreds of billions of dollars while still supporting those who needed it. That is the conclusion of a group of research papers released at a Brookings Institution conference this week, offering an early and broad start to what will likely be an intense effort…

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They had mild Covid. Then their serious symptoms kicked in

They had mild Covid. Then their serious symptoms kicked in

The New York Times reports: In the fall, after Samar Khan came down with a mild case of Covid-19, she expected to recover and return to her previous energetic life in Chicago. After all, she was just 25, and healthy. But weeks later, she said, “this weird constellation of symptoms began to set in.” She had blurred vision encircled with strange halos. She had ringing in her ears, and everything began to smell like cigarettes or Lysol. One leg started…

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Fauci ‘stunned’ by AstraZeneca’s release of ‘outdated information’ from Covid-19 vaccine trial

Fauci ‘stunned’ by AstraZeneca’s release of ‘outdated information’ from Covid-19 vaccine trial

STAT reports: U.S. health officials raised concerns early Tuesday that positive results that AstraZeneca announced Monday for its Covid-19 vaccine may have been based on “an incomplete view of the efficacy data” from a clinical trial and relied on “outdated information,” throwing another curveball in the saga of the company’s vaccine. In a statement issued soon after midnight Tuesday morning, the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases said it had been informed about the data questions by the data…

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