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Category: Health

White House agrees with Dr Johnny Bananas and Dr Person Fakename that coronavirus should be allowed to spread

White House agrees with Dr Johnny Bananas and Dr Person Fakename that coronavirus should be allowed to spread

The New York Times reports: The White House has embraced a declaration by a group of scientists arguing that authorities should allow the coronavirus to spread among young healthy people while protecting the elderly and the vulnerable — an approach that would rely on arriving at “herd immunity” through infections rather than a vaccine. Many experts say “herd immunity” — the point at which a disease stops spreading because nearly everyone in a population has contracted it — is still…

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Trump’s Covid-19 task force is now openly rebelling against him

Trump’s Covid-19 task force is now openly rebelling against him

The Daily Beast reports: Standing outside one of the main buildings on the University of Connecticut campus last week, Deborah Birx, the White House coronavirus task force coordinator, let out an exasperated sigh through her peach-colored face mask. Birx had been traveling almost non-stop since June, working with local and state officials to develop area-specific strategies for slowing the spread of the highly contagious virus. Connecticut was her 32nd state and, as in the others, she was peppered there with…

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An autoimmune-like antibody response is linked with severe COVID-19

An autoimmune-like antibody response is linked with severe COVID-19

Are patients with severe COVID-19 victims of their own immune response? JOAQUIN SARMIENTO/Getty Images By Matthew Woodruff, Emory University In the earliest days of the pandemic, many immunologists, including me, assumed that patients who produced high quantities of antibodies early in infection would be free from disease. We were wrong. Several months into studying COVID-19, like other scientists, I’ve come to realize the picture is far more complicated. A recent research study published by my colleagues and me adds more…

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How do pandemics end? History suggests diseases fade but are almost never truly gone

How do pandemics end? History suggests diseases fade but are almost never truly gone

The COVID-19 new normal might be here for quite some time. SolStock/E+ via Getty Images By Nükhet Varlik, University of South Carolina When will the pandemic end? All these months in, with over 37 million COVID-19 cases and more than 1 million deaths globally, you may be wondering, with increasing exasperation, how long this will continue. Since the beginning of the pandemic, epidemiologists and public health specialists have been using mathematical models to forecast the future in an effort to…

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Fauci: Trump’s rapid recovery, while welcome, ‘amplifies’ public misunderstanding of Covid-19

Fauci: Trump’s rapid recovery, while welcome, ‘amplifies’ public misunderstanding of Covid-19

STAT reports: Health officials have struggled to convey the seriousness of Covid-19 to many Americans. President Trump’s rapid recovery from the disease, while welcome by all, makes the challenge even more difficult, Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases acknowledged. Trump’s quick bounce-back from his infection will likely underscore the mistaken belief some people have that the disease does not present significant health risks, Fauci said in an interview with STAT. “We’re all glad that…

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Facebook rolls out a new vaccine misinformation policy — but leaves out misinformation super-spreaders

Facebook rolls out a new vaccine misinformation policy — but leaves out misinformation super-spreaders

STAT reports: Facebook rolled out a new policy on Tuesday aimed at cracking down on vaccine falsehoods, a ballooning problem for the social network as a growing number of users with neutral views about vaccines appear to turn into vocal opponents. The new policy prohibits formal advertisements that discourage people from getting vaccinated, reversing a years-long trend in which such ads were widely permitted. The site also said it will amplify factual messages from international public health authorities including the…

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Could this era of social distancing hasten the demise of flu?

Could this era of social distancing hasten the demise of flu?

Zaria Gorvett writes: Back in January 2020, at the end of the Australian summer, the country had 6,962 cases of the flu confirmed via a laboratory test. At this time, Covid-19 was still known only as “the novel coronavirus” and mostly confined to China. Ordinarily, you would have expected to see more and more cases of the flu as the days became shorter and winter descended. Instead, something unexpected happened. By April there were just 229 cases of the flu…

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Syrians ravaged by war are now dying from a pandemic the Assad government has downplayed

Syrians ravaged by war are now dying from a pandemic the Assad government has downplayed

Asser Khattab writes: A few days after Abu Maher was admitted to a hospital in one of Syria’s coastal cities, he felt like he was suffocating. He had managed to secure the small, private room after exhibiting serious COVID-19 symptoms. After struggling to get out of bed, he made his way to the door, where he cried out for someone to help him. Not long afterward, Abu Maher (not his real name) was found lying on the floor by the…

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‘I feel like I have dementia’: Brain fog plagues Covid survivors

‘I feel like I have dementia’: Brain fog plagues Covid survivors

The New York Times reports: After contracting the coronavirus in March, Michael Reagan lost all memory of his 12-day vacation in Paris, even though the trip was just a few weeks earlier. Several weeks after Erica Taylor recovered from her Covid-19 symptoms of nausea and cough, she became confused and forgetful, failing to even recognize her own car, the only Toyota Prius in her apartment complex’s parking lot. Lisa Mizelle, a veteran nurse practitioner at an urgent care clinic who…

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Mortality: ‘I could be one of the diers,’ said Trump

Mortality: ‘I could be one of the diers,’ said Trump

Olivia Nuzzi writes: Donald Trump was on the phone, and he was talking about dying. It was Saturday, October 3, and while his doctor had told the outside world that the president’s symptoms were nothing to worry about, Trump, cocooned in his suite at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland, was telling those close to him something very different. “I could be one of the diers,” he said. The person on the other end of the line…

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Covid-19 cases in Arizona dropped 75% after mask mandates began, report says

Covid-19 cases in Arizona dropped 75% after mask mandates began, report says

Arizona Republic reports: COVID-19 cases in Arizona spiked 151% after a statewide stay-at-home order expired and dropped 75% following local mask mandates, a new report says. The report, published this week by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, was authored by officials with the Arizona Department of Health Services, including director Dr. Cara Christ. A stay-at-home order in Arizona expired May 15 and two weeks later — between June 1 and June 15 — the daily average number…

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White House blocked CDC from requiring masks on public transportation

White House blocked CDC from requiring masks on public transportation

The New York Times reports: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention drafted a sweeping order last month requiring all passengers and employees to wear masks on all forms of public and commercial transportation in the United States, but it was blocked by the White House, according to two federal health officials. The order would have been the toughest federal mandate to date aimed at curbing the spread of the coronavirus, which continues to infect more than 40,000 Americans a…

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The metaphors of strength that Trump and other use are making the pandemic worse

The metaphors of strength that Trump and other use are making the pandemic worse

Ed Yong writes: On Monday, as President Donald Trump left Walter Reed National Military Medical Center, Senator Kelly Loeffler of Georgia tweeted a doctored clip of the president tackling and punching the wrestler and WWE CEO Vince McMahon. In the edited version, McMahon’s face has been replaced with a picture of a virus. “COVID stood NO chance against @realDonaldTrump!” Loeffler wrote. Similar sentiments, trumpeting Trump’s strength and fighting spirit, have poured forth since he tested positive for COVID-19. “#TrumpStrong,” Twitter…

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There is no ‘scientific divide’ over herd immunity

There is no ‘scientific divide’ over herd immunity

Matt Reynolds writes: On October 4, in a wood-panelled room at an event hosted by a libertarian think tank, three scientists signed a document that they say offers an alternative way of responding to the Covid-19 pandemic. The signing of this so-called “Great Barrington Declaration” was greeted with clinking champagne glasses before the signatories jetted off to Washington DC on the invite of White House coronavirus advisor Scott Atlas. Aside from the three lead signatories, there is little about the…

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When COVID-19 superspreaders are talking, where you sit in the room matters

When COVID-19 superspreaders are talking, where you sit in the room matters

Classroom experiments show how the coronavirus can spread and who’s at greatest risk. Tom Werner via Getty Images By Suresh Dhaniyala, Clarkson University It doesn’t take long for airborne coronavirus particles to make their way through a room. At first, only people sitting near an infected speaker are at high risk, but as the meeting or class goes on, the tiny aerosols can spread. That doesn’t mean everyone faces the same level of risk, however. As an engineer, I have…

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New England Journal of Medicine: The Trump administration turned a crisis into a tragedy

New England Journal of Medicine: The Trump administration turned a crisis into a tragedy

In an editorial, the New England Journal of Medicine says: Covid-19 has created a crisis throughout the world. This crisis has produced a test of leadership. With no good options to combat a novel pathogen, countries were forced to make hard choices about how to respond. Here in the United States, our leaders have failed that test. They have taken a crisis and turned it into a tragedy. The magnitude of this failure is astonishing. According to the Johns Hopkins…

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