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Category: Health

Uncertain recovery: The emerging long-term complications of Covid-19

Uncertain recovery: The emerging long-term complications of Covid-19

Vox reports: At first, Lauren Nichols tried to explain away her symptoms. In early March, the healthy 32-year-old felt an intense burning sensation, like acid reflux, when she breathed. Embarrassed, she didn’t initially seek medical care. When her shortness of breath kept getting worse, her doctor tested her for Covid-19. Her results came back positive. But for Nichols, that was just the beginning. Over the next eight weeks, she developed wide and varied symptoms, including extreme and chronic fatigue, diarrhea,…

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A few superspreaders transmit the majority of coronavirus cases

A few superspreaders transmit the majority of coronavirus cases

A few people in the crowd will be responsible for the bulk of a disease’s spread. Pacific Press /LightRocket via Getty Images Elizabeth McGraw, Pennsylvania State University The coronavirus has traveled the globe, infecting one person at a time. Some sick people might not spread the virus much further, but some people infected with the SARS-CoV-2 are what epidemiologists call “superspreaders.” Elizabeth McGraw, the director of the Center for Infectious Disease Dynamics at Pennsylvania State University, explains the evidence and…

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Trump rally attendees will have fewer safety measures than high-dollar donors

Trump rally attendees will have fewer safety measures than high-dollar donors

NBC News reports: Top Republicans donors at President Donald Trump’s two recent fundraisers had to have tested negative for the coronavirus, fill out a wellness questionnaire and pass a temperature check to be near him, but thousands of supporters who attend his upcoming rally will not be screened as thoroughly. After declining to explain for days which safety measures, if any, will be enforced by the Trump campaign at the Tulsa, Oklahoma, event this weekend, senior officials Monday said hand…

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Trump rally called ‘dangerous move’ in age of coronavirus

Trump rally called ‘dangerous move’ in age of coronavirus

The Associated Press reports: After months away from the campaign trail, President Donald Trump plans to rally his supporters next Saturday for the first time since most of the country was shuttered by the coronavirus. But health experts are questioning that decision. Trump will head to Tulsa, Oklahoma — a state that has seen relatively few COVID-19 cases. Yet the Tulsa City-County Health Department’s director told the Tulsa World over the weekend that he wished the Trump campaign would move…

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Most Covid-19 cases don’t spread virus — it’s the superspreaders we need to stop

Most Covid-19 cases don’t spread virus — it’s the superspreaders we need to stop

Ars Technica reports: Much about how the new coronavirus spreads from one victim to the next remains a maddening mystery. But amid all the frantic efforts to understand transmission, there is one finding that appears consistent: that it is inconsistent. Some people—most, even—don’t spread the virus to anyone in the course of their infection. Others infect dozens at a time. It’s a phenomenon that looked, at first, like anomalous anecdotes—a large outbreak from a Washington choir practice, a South Korean…

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The Covid-19 pandemic is unleashing a tidal wave of plastic waste

The Covid-19 pandemic is unleashing a tidal wave of plastic waste

The Los Angeles Times reports: When he stepped onto a beach on Hong Kong’s uninhabited Soko Islands, Gary Stokes was surprised to find — amid the discarded water bottles, shopping bags and usual piles of plastic waste — a new type of garbage washing ashore. Masks. Dozens and dozens of disposable masks. On that overcast morning in late February, just weeks after Hong Kong had recorded its first coronavirus case, the environmental activist collected more than 70 discarded masks from…

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Study says 100% face mask use could crush second, third Covid-19 wave

Study says 100% face mask use could crush second, third Covid-19 wave

SFGate reports: We’ve all heard it many times: Wear a face covering — indoors, outdoors, on trains and buses. At work, in the supermarket and at church. But now a new modeling study out of Cambridge and Greenwich universities suggests that face masks may be even more important than originally thought in preventing future outbreaks of the new coronavirus. To ward off resurgences, the reproduction number for the virus (the average number of people who will contract it from one…

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Americans are pretending that the pandemic is over

Americans are pretending that the pandemic is over

Yascha Mounk writes: A second wave of the coronavirus is on the way. When it arrives, we will lack the will to deal with it. Despite all the sacrifices of the past months, the virus is likely to win—or perhaps it would be more accurate to say that it already has. In absolute terms, the United States has been hit harder than any other country. About a quarter of worldwide deaths have been recorded on these shores. And while the…

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Trump prizes re-election more than public health

Trump prizes re-election more than public health

The Daily Beast reports: As President Donald Trump prepared to return to the campaign trail amid the ongoing coronavirus pandemic, administration officials and several close advisers warned him of the dangers that could come with packing a venue full of his political supporters. He was not dissuaded. “He’s been [gently] reminded of the concerns,” said a senior administration official, regarding the potential for spreading the virus at large public gatherings. “The president said something like, ‘My team will make sure…

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America is losing in the fight against Covid-19

America is losing in the fight against Covid-19

The Hill reports: When throngs of tourists and revelers left their homes over Memorial Day weekend, public health experts braced for a surge in coronavirus infections that could force a second round of painful shutdowns. Two weeks later, that surge has hit places like Houston, Phoenix, South Carolina and Missouri. Week-over-week case counts are on the rise in half of all states. Only 16 states and the District of Columbia have seen their total case counts decline for two consecutive…

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Why are so many NYPD officers refusing to wear masks at protests?

Why are so many NYPD officers refusing to wear masks at protests?

The New York Times reports: Riot helmets, ballistic vests, shields, batons — fully decked-out police officers have become staples in New York City as the protests against racism and police brutality approach their third week. But increasingly, one piece of equipment has attracted attention with its absence: the face mask. On any given day, any corner, any group of officers, some or all of them are not wearing masks. Others wear them below their chin. With masks having become as…

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White House goes quiet on coronavirus as outbreak spikes again across the U.S.

White House goes quiet on coronavirus as outbreak spikes again across the U.S.

Politico reports: The coronavirus is still killing as many as 1,000 Americans per day — but the Trump administration isn’t saying much about it. It’s been more than a month since the White House halted its daily coronavirus task force briefings. Top officials like infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci have largely disappeared from national television — with Fauci making just four cable TV appearances in May after being a near fixture on Sunday shows across March and April — and…

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Widespread mask-wearing could prevent Covid-19 second waves, says study

Widespread mask-wearing could prevent Covid-19 second waves, says study

Reuters reports: Population-wide face mask use could push COVID-19 transmission down to controllable levels for national epidemics, and could prevent further waves of the pandemic disease when combined with lockdowns, according to a British study on Wednesday. The research, led by scientists at the Britain’s Cambridge and Greenwich Universities, suggests lockdowns alone will not stop the resurgence of the new SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, but that even homemade masks can dramatically reduce transmission rates if enough people wear them in public. “Our…

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Are viruses alive? Perhaps we’re asking the wrong question

Are viruses alive? Perhaps we’re asking the wrong question

Axel_Kock/Shutterstock Hugh Harris, University College Cork Viruses are an inescapable part of life, especially in a global viral pandemic. Yet ask a roomful of scientists if viruses are alive and you’ll get a very mixed response. The truth is, we don’t fully understand viruses, and we’re still trying to understand life. Some properties of living things are absent from viruses, such as cellular structure, metabolism (the chemical reactions that take place in cells) and homeostasis (keeping a stable internal environment)….

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Coronavirus and the climate crisis

Coronavirus and the climate crisis

Gaurab Basu and Samir Chaudhuri write: There are many ways in which the impacts of COVID-19 will make previously existing climate-related health threats in India worse. For instance, COVID-19 compounds the grave threat climate change poses to global food security. In India, 38 percent of children already show signs of chronic malnutrition. The World Food Programme has just reported that the pandemic will nearly double the number of people facing food insecurity worldwide, from 135 million to 265 million. Likewise,…

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The virus isn’t done with us

The virus isn’t done with us

Alexis C Madrigal and Robinson Meyer write: After months of deserted public spaces and empty roads, Americans have returned to the streets. But they have come not for a joyous reopening to celebrate the country’s victory over the coronavirus. Instead, tens of thousands of people have ventured out to protest the killing of George Floyd by police. Demonstrators have closely gathered all over the country, and in blocks-long crowds in large cities, singing and chanting and demanding justice. Police officers…

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