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Category: Health

Biden to announce U.S. will donate $4 billion for COVID-19 vaccines for poor countries

Biden to announce U.S. will donate $4 billion for COVID-19 vaccines for poor countries

ABC News reports: President Joe Biden plans to announce on Friday that the United States will contribute $2 billion to a U.N.-backed program seeking to distribute COVID-19 vaccine doses to people in the poorest countries in the world, according to senior Biden administration officials. Congress had already allocated the money in December for the U.S. Agency for International Development to provide to Gavi, an international vaccine distribution alliance. Congress provided a total of $4 billion and the officials said that…

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The coronavirus is here to stay — here’s what that means

The coronavirus is here to stay — here’s what that means

Nature reports: For much of the past year, life in Western Australia has been coronavirus-free. Friends gathered in pubs; people kissed and hugged their relatives; children went to school without temperature checks or wearing masks. The state maintained this enviable position only by placing heavy restrictions on travel and imposing lockdowns — some regions entered a snap lockdown at the beginning of the year after a security guard at a hotel where visitors were quarantined tested positive for the virus….

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As the pandemic ushered in isolation and financial hardship, overdose deaths reached new heights

As the pandemic ushered in isolation and financial hardship, overdose deaths reached new heights

STAT reports: Among the unrelenting death statistics flowing from the CDC last month, one grim non-Covid-19 statistic stood out: 81,003 deaths. That’s the number of people who died from drug overdoses in the 12-month period ending last June: a 20% increase and the highest number of fatal overdoses ever recorded in the U.S. in a single year. The drug deaths started spiking last spring, as the coronavirus forced shutdowns, and more recent statistics from cities throughout the U.S. and Canada…

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Herd immunity may be out of reach — but normality is in sight

Herd immunity may be out of reach — but normality is in sight

Eric Levitz writes: Nearly 20,000 Americans have died from COVID-19 over the past seven days. The hypercontagious U.K. variant is rapidly spreading through Florida, while a South African strain infamous for its resilience against antibodies has been spotted in California. Our government’s lackadaisical approach to genomic surveillance leaves us blind to precisely how prevalent these mutants are — and yet, even as other nations have responded to the emergence of such strains with lockdowns, our cities are reopening indoor dining…

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Young people’s despair deepens as Covid-19 crisis drags on

Young people’s despair deepens as Covid-19 crisis drags on

The New York Times reports: Life seemed promising last year to Philaé Lachaux, a 22-year-old business student in France who dreamed of striking out on her own in the live music industry. But the onset of the pandemic, leading to the loss of her part-time job as a waitress, sent her back to live at her family home. Now, struggling to envision a future after months of restrictions, Ms. Lachaux says that loneliness and despair seep in at night. “I…

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The body is far from helpless against Coronavirus variants

The body is far from helpless against Coronavirus variants

Katherine J. Wu writes: To locate some of the world’s most superpowered cells, look no further than the human immune system. The mission of these hometown heroes is threefold: Memorize the features of dangerous microbes that breach the body’s barriers. Launch an attack to bring them to heel. Then squirrel away intel to quash future assaults. The immune system is comprehensive, capable of dueling with just about every microbe it meets. It’s archival, ace at memorizing the details of its…

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A lone infection may have changed the course of the pandemic

A lone infection may have changed the course of the pandemic

Matt Reynolds writes: In each warm body it infects, the virus behind Covid-19 has the potential to change. It can become more deadly, more transmissible or more resistant to the vaccines on which we are all pinning so much hope. Mercifully, the biology of Sars-CoV-2 means that such changes happen slowly and almost always fail to catch on. But mutations, like pandemics, are a numbers game. Every new person infected provides another opportunity for the virus to adopt a new…

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What if we never reach herd immunity?

What if we never reach herd immunity?

Sarah Zhang writes: Let’s begin by defining our terms. Herd immunity is the hazy, long-promised end of the pandemic, but its requirements are quite specific. Jennie Lavine, a biologist at Emory University, likens it to wet logs in a campfire. If there’s enough water in the logs—if there’s enough immunity in a population—“you can’t get the fire to start, period,” she says. To be more technical about it, a population reaches herd immunity when the average number of people infected…

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‘Invisible killer’: Fossil fuels caused 20 percent of deaths globally in 2018, research finds

‘Invisible killer’: Fossil fuels caused 20 percent of deaths globally in 2018, research finds

The Guardian reports: Air pollution caused by the burning of fossil fuels such as coal and oil was responsible for 8.7m deaths globally in 2018, a staggering one in five of all people who died that year, new research has found. Countries with the most prodigious consumption of fossil fuels to power factories, homes and vehicles are suffering the highest death tolls, with the study finding more than one in 10 deaths in both the US and Europe were caused…

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Virus variant first found in Britain now spreading rapidly in U.S.

Virus variant first found in Britain now spreading rapidly in U.S.

The New York Times reports: A more contagious variant of the coronavirus first found in Britain is spreading rapidly in the United States, doubling roughly every 10 days, according to a new study. Analyzing half a million coronavirus tests and hundreds of genomes, a team of researchers predicted that in a month this variant could become predominant in the United States, potentially bringing a surge of new cases and increased risk of death. The new research offers the first nationwide…

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Mutated virus may reinfect people already stricken once with covid-19, sparking debate and concerns

Mutated virus may reinfect people already stricken once with covid-19, sparking debate and concerns

The Washington Post reports: A trial of an experimental coronavirus vaccine detected the most sobering signal yet that people who have recovered from infections are not completely protected against a variant that originated in South Africa and is spreading rapidly, preliminary data presented this week suggests. The finding, though far from conclusive, has potential implications for how the pandemic will be brought under control, underscoring the critical role of vaccination, including for people who have already recovered from infections. Reaching…

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Are pandemics the cost of human recklessness towards nature?

Are pandemics the cost of human recklessness towards nature?

Piyush Nanda writes: In an area devastated by deforestation, an 18-month-old toddler from the nearest settlement, Meliandou in Guinea, was seen playing around a fallen tree swarming with bats. The child then contracted a mysterious illness, which spread to many who came in contact. After it had already killed 30 people, the illness was identified as Ebola. Comprehensive studies have since connected 25 of the 27 Ebola outbreaks in Africa, like the 2014 outbreak that originated in Guinea, to regions…

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The mystery of India’s plummeting Covid-19 cases

The mystery of India’s plummeting Covid-19 cases

NPR reports: Last September, India was confirming nearly 100,000 new coronavirus cases a day. It was on track to overtake the United States to become the country with the highest reported COVID-19 caseload in the world. Hospitals were full. The Indian economy nosedived into an unprecedented recession. But four months later, India’s coronavirus numbers have plummeted. Late last month, on Jan. 26, the country’s Health Ministry confirmed a record low of about 9,100 new daily cases — in a country…

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Danish scientists see tough times ahead as they watch more contagious Covid-19 virus surge

Danish scientists see tough times ahead as they watch more contagious Covid-19 virus surge

Science reports: On its face, the curve of COVID-19 infections in Denmark looks reassuring enough. A nationwide lockdown has led numbers to plummet from more than 3000 daily cases in mid-December 2020 to just a few hundred now. But don’t be fooled. “Sure, the numbers look nice,” says Camilla Holten Møller of the Statens Serum Institute, who heads a group of experts modeling the epidemic. “But if we look at our models, this is the calm before the storm.” That’s…

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The Brazil coronavirus variant is exposing the world’s vulnerability

The Brazil coronavirus variant is exposing the world’s vulnerability

James Hamblin writes: Even in a year of horrendous suffering, what is unfolding in Brazil stands out. In the rainforest city of Manaus, home to 2 million people, bodies are reportedly being dropped into mass graves as quickly as they can be dug. Hospitals have run out of oxygen, and people with potentially treatable cases of COVID-19 are dying of asphyxia. This nature and scale of mortality have not been seen since the first months of the pandemic. This is…

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Are conservative policies shortening American lives?

Are conservative policies shortening American lives?

By Lola Butcher In 2013, a research team comprised of some of the nation’s top epidemiologists and demographers compared the health of Americans with the health of people in other high-income nations. They summarized their findings in the report’s title: “U.S. Health in International Perspective: Shorter Lives, Poorer Health.” Compared to 16 other nations, the U.S. ranked dead last in life expectancy for males and second-to-last for females. Beyond that, the nation ranked at or near the bottom in nine…

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