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Category: Health

American cities are built for cars, but the coronavirus could change that

American cities are built for cars, but the coronavirus could change that

Doug Gordon writes: As the Covid-19 crisis wears on, a surprising tool has emerged in the effort to slow transmission: city streets. The car has long been king in America’s cities, with spacious roadways edged by narrow sidewalks. But with many sidewalks barely large enough for the six feet required for social distancing purposes, urban residents now find themselves struggling to comply with regulations during even a brief grocery trip. Some have started walking in largely traffic-free streets to get…

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More than a fifth of people in England believe Covid-19 is a hoax

More than a fifth of people in England believe Covid-19 is a hoax

The Independent reports: More than a fifth of people believe that the coronavirus crisis is a hoax, new research suggests. The study, conducted by the University of Oxford, saw 2,500 English adults take part in the Oxford Coronavirus Explanations, Attitudes, and Narratives Survey between 4-11 May 2020. The team of clinical psychologists state that the data from the survey indicates a large number of adults in England do not agree with the scientific and governmental consensus on the Covid-19 pandemic….

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What a week’s disasters tell us about the climate crisis and the pandemic

What a week’s disasters tell us about the climate crisis and the pandemic

The New York Times reports: The hits came this week in rapid succession: A cyclone slammed into the Indian megacity of Kolkata, pounding rains breached two dams in the Midwestern United States, and on Thursday came warning that the Atlantic hurricane season could be severe. It all served as a reminder that the coronavirus pandemic, which has killed 325,000 people so far, is colliding with another global menace: a fast-heating planet that acutely threatens millions of people, especially the world’s…

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A vision of our post-lockdown future

A vision of our post-lockdown future

Barclay Bram writes: Xu Jiao was anxious to get back in the gym. Living in Chengdu, the capital of China’s Sichuan province, she had gone through two months of lockdown. The pandemic hadn’t been particularly bad in the city. To date there have been 144 confirmed cases and three deaths, according to official statistics. Still, as with much of China, the lockdown had been severe. Almost everything had been closed and Xu Jiao, in her mid-30s, had to show a…

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Covid-19’s deadly rampage through a South African hospital

Covid-19’s deadly rampage through a South African hospital

Science reports: On 9 March, a patient who had recently traveled to Europe and had symptoms of COVID-19 visited the emergency department of St Augustine’s, a private hospital in Durban, South Africa. Eight weeks later, 39 patients and 80 staff linked to the hospital had been infected, and 15 patients had died—fully half the death toll in KwaZulu-Natal province at that time. Now, scientists at the University of KwaZulu-Natal have published a detailed reconstruction of how the virus spread from…

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A Covid-19 vaccine hasn’t even been developed and yet the conspiracy theories are already here

A Covid-19 vaccine hasn’t even been developed and yet the conspiracy theories are already here

The Atlantic reports: In March, when a woman in Seattle volunteered for a COVID-19 vaccine trial, rumors immediately began circulating that she was a crisis actor who had received a fake vaccine. She is, in fact, real, and so is the prospective vaccine she got, as the Associated Press asserted in a follow-up story. In Oxford, England, another volunteer for a separate COVID-19 vaccine trial became the subject of a fake news story that purported she had died after a…

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On the front lines of the pandemic, grocery workers are in the dark about risks

On the front lines of the pandemic, grocery workers are in the dark about risks

The Washington Post reports: By the end of April, employees at a Walmart in Quincy, Mass., were panicking: Sick colleagues kept showing up at work. Other employees disappeared without explanation. The store’s longtime greeter was in the hospital and on a ventilator, dying from covid-19. Local health officials grew alarmed as employees and their relatives reported sick co-workers. Shoppers called to complain about crowded conditions. “We have had consistent problems with Walmart,” wrote Ruth Jones, Quincy’s health commissioner, in an…

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We don’t need to open churches to practice our faith

We don’t need to open churches to practice our faith

Father Edward L. Beck writes: President Donald Trump announced on Friday that he considers houses of worship and their religious services essential. I won’t argue that point. Although obviously not essential for all, they are deemed so by some. Fair enough. He went on: “The governors need to do the right thing and allow these very important essential places of faith to open right now, this weekend. If they don’t do it, I will override the governors.” But who says…

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East Africa facing ‘triple threat’ from coronavirus, locusts and flooding

East Africa facing ‘triple threat’ from coronavirus, locusts and flooding

The Independent reports: The impact of three separate crises affecting swathes of east Africa at the same time has left hundreds of thousands of people at risk of hunger and sickness, aid workers operating in the region have warned. Like much of the world, countries in the Horn of Africa and other eastern states have been forced to introduce lockdown measures to limit the spread of the Covid-19 coronavirus. However the virus has arrived in the region at the same…

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In a ‘strategic miscalculation,’ Trump kept foreigners out of the U.S. while helping spread the virus across the nation

In a ‘strategic miscalculation,’ Trump kept foreigners out of the U.S. while helping spread the virus across the nation

The Washington Post reports: In the final days before the United States faced a full-blown epidemic, President Trump made a last-ditch attempt to prevent people infected with the coronavirus from reaching the country. “To keep new cases from entering our shores,” Trump said in an Oval Office address on March 11, “we will be suspending all travel from Europe to the United States for the next 30 days.” Across the Atlantic, Jack Siebert, an American college student spending a semester…

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Uncontrolled coronavirus spread continuing in 24 states, study estimates

Uncontrolled coronavirus spread continuing in 24 states, study estimates

The Washington Post reports: The coronavirus may still be spreading at epidemic rates in 24 states, particularly in the South and Midwest, according to new research that highlights the risk of a second wave of infections in places that reopen too quickly or without sufficient precautions. Researchers at Imperial College London created a model that incorporates cellphone data showing that people sharply reduced their movements after stay-at-home orders were broadly imposed in March. With restrictions now easing and mobility increasing…

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Why we can’t be sure we’ll get a coronavirus vaccine

Why we can’t be sure we’ll get a coronavirus vaccine

Ian Sample reports: Earlier this week, England’s deputy chief medical officer Jonathan Van-Tam said the words nobody wanted to hear: “We can’t be sure we will get a vaccine.” But he was right to be circumspect. Vaccines are simple in principle but complex in practice. The ideal vaccine protects against infection, prevents its spread, and does so safely. But none of this is easily achieved, as vaccine timelines show. More than 30 years after scientists isolated HIV, the virus that…

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Brazil minister calls for environmental deregulation while public distracted by Covid-19

Brazil minister calls for environmental deregulation while public distracted by Covid-19

Reuters reports: Brazilian Environment Minister Ricardo Salles called on the government to push through further deregulation of environmental policy while people are distracted by the coronavirus pandemic, in a video the Supreme Court ordered released on Friday. The video of a ministers’ meeting surfaced in an investigation of whether President Jair Bolsonaro interfered in appointing leaders of the federal police for personal gain. During the meeting, other ministers spoke, including Salles, with environmental groups saying his remarks prove that the…

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The links between ecological degradation and emerging infectious diseases

The links between ecological degradation and emerging infectious diseases

Wildlife Conservation Society: A WCS special report shows how degradation of ecological systems has significantly increased the overall risk of zoonotic disease outbreaks and has other complex effects on human health. You can read the full report here. The authors are WCS’s Tom Evans, Sarah Olson, James Watson, Kim Gruetzmacher, Mathieu Pruvot, Stacy Jupiter, Stephanie Wang, Tom Clements, and Katie Jung. The report, which draws on detailed case studies, global analyses, modelling, and broad expert consensus, notes that the majority…

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We’re not in this together: How the American aristocracy insulates itself from the pain of the pandemic

We’re not in this together: How the American aristocracy insulates itself from the pain of the pandemic

Ginia Bellafante writes: When the visual history of the pandemic is winnowed down to its defining images, we’ll be struck again by the glare of disparity — the pictures of mobile morgues and long lines at food banks next to those of people who seem to be riding out the crisis on a wave of rhubarb cocktail infusions and early evening beach walks. On the one side, the pervasive physical and economic toll; on the other, the chic home gyms…

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‘We’re not in this together’: Anand Giridharadas on how inequality has shaped the impact of the pandemic in America

‘We’re not in this together’: Anand Giridharadas on how inequality has shaped the impact of the pandemic in America

  The pandemic has prompted many to reflect on how the world works and, importantly, for whom it works. This is at the heart of a new program on Vice TV called “Seat at the Table,” hosted by best-selling author Anand Giridharadas. He has made a career of questioning the seat of power and money in America, and explains to Hari Sreenivasan why society must adapt or fail.