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Category: Health

A rural Virginia community thought it could escape the pandemic but now has among the highest number of new cases in the state

A rural Virginia community thought it could escape the pandemic but now has among the highest number of new cases in the state

The Washington Post reports: In the brightest red corner of Virginia, where “Trump Digs Coal” signs dot the Appalachian mountain hollers, Jerry Estep first brushed off the coronavirus as an urban plague. Now he won’t leave home in this tiny town, population 980, without a mask. “I was just going out like normal, but that’s not normal no more,” said Estep, 77, a retired florist with longtime health woes that could make a case of the coronavirus especially lethal. “I…

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How local customs in Uruguay have changed in response to the pandemic

How local customs in Uruguay have changed in response to the pandemic

MIT Technology Review spoke to Rafael Radi and Fernando Paganini, advisors to the Uruguayan government: The first cases in Uruguay were confirmed on March 13, and the national working group that we convened of about 60 people met with the president on April 16. There were two main arms, one in health and one in data science and modeling. The number of cases never really built up to the point where we had no control. You could almost track our…

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Experts warn U.S. covid-19 deaths could more than double by year’s end

Experts warn U.S. covid-19 deaths could more than double by year’s end

The Washington Post reports: The global death toll from the coronavirus pandemic could triple by year’s end, with an additional 1.9 million deaths, while a fall wave of infections could drive fatalities in the United States to 410,000, according to a new forecast from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington. The estimate reinforces warnings by many experts that cooler, drier weather and increased time spent indoors could boost viral transmission in the Northern Hemisphere…

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Covid-19 has killed more law enforcement officers this year than all other causes combined

Covid-19 has killed more law enforcement officers this year than all other causes combined

CNN reports: More police officers have died from Covid-19 this year than have been killed on patrol. That’s according to the Officer Down Memorial Page (ODMP), a nonprofit organization that tracks law enforcement fatalities in the line of duty. At least 101 officers have died from Covid-19, while at least 82 have died by other means, as of Thursday, according to ODMP. The organization is working to verify an additional some 150 officers who are presumed to have died after…

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Women are more effective leaders than men in tackling the pandemic, the data shows

Women are more effective leaders than men in tackling the pandemic, the data shows

By Supriya Garikipati, University of Liverpool and Uma S Kambhampati, University of Reading Over the last few months, there has been much discussion of leadership during the pandemic. What constitutes good leadership? Who has performed better and which countries have been worse? One pattern that emerged early on was that female leaders were seen to have handled the crisis remarkably well. Whether it has been New Zealand under Jacinda Ardern or Taiwan under the presidency of Tsai Ing-Wen or Germany…

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Seven out of ten new coronavirus cases are emerging in red states

Seven out of ten new coronavirus cases are emerging in red states

Philip Bump writes: It’s hard to overstate the extent to which the coronavirus pandemic has been saturated with partisan politics. Simple recommendations like wearing a face mask have been recast as acts of devout patriotism or as mandates for fealty to an insidious federal government. It’s a direct and indirect function of the president: Everything President Trump touches becomes partisan, both intentionally and not, and Trump’s got his hands all over the pandemic. We are therefore no longer surprised when…

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Tactics of fiery White House trade adviser draw new scrutiny as some of his pandemic moves unravel

Tactics of fiery White House trade adviser draw new scrutiny as some of his pandemic moves unravel

The Washington Post reports: Amid the Trump administration’s troubled response to the coronavirus pandemic, senior White House aide Peter Navarro has refashioned himself as a powerful government purchasing chief, operating far beyond his original role as an adviser on trade policy. But U.S. officials say the abrasive figure’s shortcomings as a manager could influence how well prepared the United States is for a second wave of coronavirus infections expected this fall. Navarro’s harsh manner and disregard for protocol have alienated…

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Will a Covid-19 vaccine be rushed through FDA approval this fall?

Will a Covid-19 vaccine be rushed through FDA approval this fall?

STAT reports: There is growing concern that the Food and Drug Administration, under political pressure, could approve a Covid-19 vaccine before it has robust safety and efficacy data. The consequences of such a decision could be significant, particularly if the vaccine is ultimately shown to be less effective than early data suggest. But an approval before the completion of large, Phase 3 trials does not have to be problematic. Experts aren’t ruling out the possibility that a vaccine could be…

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U.S. says it won’t join global effort to develop, distribute coronavirus vaccine

U.S. says it won’t join global effort to develop, distribute coronavirus vaccine

The Washington Post reports: The Trump administration said it will not join a global effort to develop, manufacture and equitably distribute a coronavirus vaccine, in part because the World Health Organization is involved, a decision that could shape the course of the pandemic and the country’s role in health diplomacy. More than 170 countries are in talks to participate in the Covid-19 Vaccines Global Access (Covax) Facility, which aims to speed vaccine development and secure doses for all countries and…

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White House covered up Covid-19 public health risks while privately warning states of the threat

White House covered up Covid-19 public health risks while privately warning states of the threat

Politico reports: Senior Trump administration officials in June privately warned seven states about dangerous coronavirus outbreaks that put them in the highest risk “red zone” while publicly dismissing concerns about a second wave of Covid-19, according to White House documents House Democrats released on Monday. The House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis released eight weeks of previously confidential reports obtained from the White House coronavirus task force that Democrats said showed the administration acting over the summer to willfully…

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New Trump pandemic adviser pushes controversial ‘herd immunity’ strategy, worrying public health officials

New Trump pandemic adviser pushes controversial ‘herd immunity’ strategy, worrying public health officials

The Washington Post reports: One of President Trump’s top medical advisers is urging the White House to embrace a controversial “herd immunity” strategy to combat the pandemic, which would entail allowing the coronavirus to spread through most of the population to quickly build resistance to the virus, while taking steps to protect those in nursing homes and other vulnerable populations, according to five people familiar with the discussions. The administration has already begun to implement some policies along these lines,…

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Ayahuasca helps traumatized war veterans rediscover their humanity

Ayahuasca helps traumatized war veterans rediscover their humanity

The New York Times reports: Before their first ayahuasca ceremony, the veterans met individually with two Peruvian “maestros,” or healers, from the Shipibo community in Peru. “Their hearts are hardened,” said Teobaldo Ochavano, who helps run the nighttime ceremonies alongside his wife, Marina Sinti. “They seemed unable to experience love or joy.” Ms. Sinti said years of interacting with foreigners on retreats had made it painfully clear why these rituals are in such high demand. “People in the United States…

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Inside Trump’s pressure campaign on federal scientists over a covid-19 treatment

Inside Trump’s pressure campaign on federal scientists over a covid-19 treatment

The Washington Post reports: President Trump’s accusatory tweet barreled in at 7:49 a.m. a week ago Saturday: The “deep state” at the Food and Drug Administration was trying to sandbag his election prospects by slowing progress on coronavirus treatments and vaccines until after Nov. 3. Shocked and upset, FDA Commissioner Stephen Hahn, who was tagged in the tweet, immediately began calling his contacts at the White House to find out why the president was angry. During his conversations, he mentioned…

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The usual diagnostic tests may simply be too sensitive and too slow to contain the spread of the coronavirus

The usual diagnostic tests may simply be too sensitive and too slow to contain the spread of the coronavirus

The New York Times reports: Some of the nation’s leading public health experts are raising a new concern in the endless debate over coronavirus testing in the United States: The standard tests are diagnosing huge numbers of people who may be carrying relatively insignificant amounts of the virus. Most of these people are not likely to be contagious, and identifying them may contribute to bottlenecks that prevent those who are contagious from being found in time. But researchers say the…

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Reports of several cases of Covid-19 reinfection — but the implications are complicated

Reports of several cases of Covid-19 reinfection — but the implications are complicated

STAT reports: Following the news this week of what appears to have been the first confirmed case of a Covid-19 reinfection, other researchers have been coming forward with their own reports. One in Belgium, another in the Netherlands. And now, one in Nevada. What caught experts’ attention about the case of the 25-year-old Reno man was not that he appears to have contracted SARS-CoV-2 (the name of the virus that causes Covid-19) a second time. Rather, it’s that his second…

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University of Arizona says it caught a dorm’s covid-19 outbreak before it started by screening sewage

University of Arizona says it caught a dorm’s covid-19 outbreak before it started by screening sewage

The Washington Post reports: As 5,000 students prepared for move-in day at the University of Arizona this week, the school warned they would be tested periodically for the coronavirus. One test, though, doesn’t involve a nose swab. The university is regularly screening the sewage from each dorm, searching for traces of the virus. On Thursday, officials said the technique worked — and possibly prevented a sizable outbreak on campus. When a wastewater sample from one dorm came back positive this…

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