covid-19
Why are other countries disinfecting the streets and is that effective
Why some viruses die out in summer, but others thrive
China’s new outbreak shows the Virus could be changing
Coronavirus and the indoor farming revolution
Metaphors Matter in a Time of Pandemic
What We Know About the Covid-Related Syndrome Affecting Children
‘Straight-Up Fire’ in His Veins: Teen Battles New Coronavirus Syndrome
‘Weird as hell’: the Covid-19 patients who have symptoms for months
There is growing evidence that the virus causes a far greater array of symptoms than was previously understood. And that its effects can be agonisingly prolonged: in Garner’s case for more than seven weeks. The professor at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine says his experience of Covid-19 featured a new and disturbing symptom every day, akin to an “advent calendar”.
FDA: Abbott coronavirus test may falsely tell patients they don’t have the virus
The FDA has received at least 15 reports that suggest Abbott Labs coronavirus tests are inaccurately telling patients that they do not have the virus, FDA said in a Thursday press release citing early data. These tests have been widely distributed by the federal government in response to the pandemic.
Does Chlorine Kill Coronavirus? What You Need To Know About Summer Pool Trips
Infectious disease physician and vaccination specialist Dr. Jonas Nilsen tells Romper that while The Centers for Disease control and Prevention (CDC) has put out a mandate stating that "the chance of COVID-19 to manifest in swimming pools, spas, jacuzzis, etc. is very low as they are treated with chlorine and bromine," it's the lack of social distancing in and around the pools that is dangerous.
Smartphone data may not predict future coronavirus deaths
South Korean coronavirus test maker Osang ready to ship 100 million kits to U.S.
Hims and Vault Health have COVID-19 tests you can take at home
Symptoms for the Coronavirus
Fauci warns against reopening U.S. too quickly at Senate hearing
Scanning for answers to a pandemic
The greater Seattle Coronavirus Assessment Network—or SCAN—is a first-of-its-kind disease surveillance platform for COVID-19 that allows participants to use a self-swab test to collect their own nasal samples and send them to a lab without leaving home. As a surveillance program, SCAN’s goal isn’t to test every person or serve as a replacement for medical care.
The Risks of being infected by Coronavirus – Know Them – Avoid Them
What we know of the Kawasaki-disease-like syndrome affecting children and believed to be tied to coronavirus
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) said Sunday that three New York children have died and 73 have become gravely ill with an inflammatory disease tied to COVID-19. The illness, pediatric multisystem inflammatory syndrome, has symptoms similar to toxic shock or Kawasaki disease. Doctors, emphasized parents should not panic. The vast majority of those younger than 18 who are infected with the coronavirus have mild symptoms or none at all.
Wuhan, China to test all 11M residents for coronavirus in 10-day span
Want to be a contact tracer? Johns Hopkins is offering a free course
A five-hour online course created by Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health could become the backbone of the country's contact tracer training program. The class, which rolled out Monday, offers online instruction to anyone who wants to learn the basics of contact tracing: the process of identifying and isolating people who have been infected with COVID-19 and their close contacts.
How coronavirus attacks the human body
Today, there is widespread recognition the novel coronavirus is far more unpredictable than a simple respiratory virus. Often it attacks the lungs, but it can also strike anywhere from the brain to the toes. Many doctors are focused on treating the inflammatory reactions it triggers and its capacity to cause blood clots, even as they struggle to help patients breathe.
How Pandemics End?
Life as a contact tracer
The main job is to contact people who have been exposed to the coronavirus by a person who has tested positive. Some people are a little suspicious. Some people hang up after I ask for their date of birth and address. I understand that, the mistrust of the government, having grown up under communism.
Why have 14,000 people volunteered to be infected with coronavirus?
Imagine being told to inhale a nasal spray full of coronavirus. More than 14,000 people in the U.S. and elsewhere are putting their names forward to do so. They are volunteering for what's called a "human challenge trial," an ethically controversial way to test vaccines that would deliberately infect people with a virus that has killed over 270,000 people worldwide and has no cure.
Will Covid-19 mutate into a more dangerous virus?
A guide to negotiating a covid ‘bubble’ with other people
In some places, “double-bubbling” is becoming official policy: households are being encouraged to buddy up for the sake of variety and mental health. But negotiating to become part of someone else’s intimate circle in the midst of a pandemic is fraught with dangers both medical (what if you inadvertently infect one another?) and social. (What if you have a falling out? Whom do you pick? What if they don’t pick you?).
After weeks with coronavirus, a sick woman wonders when it will end
Coronavirus spread accelerates again in Germany
Mortality Risk of COVID-19 – Statistics and Research
Could the porn industry offer a model for reopening amid Covid-19?
Since the late 1990s, when an outbreak of HIV infections threatened to shutter the multibillion-dollar industry, the mainstream porn community has implemented procedures that require all performers to be tested for HIV and a host of other sexually transmitted infections every 14 days before they can be cleared to work.
Doctors Flummoxed By Long-Term Organ Damage In COVID-19 Survivors
Fact-checking ‘Plandemic’: A documentary full of false conspiracy theories about the coronavirus
Seen ‘Plandemic’? We Take A Close Look At The Viral Conspiracy Video’s Claims
Coronavirus is spreading under the radar in US homeless shelters
COVID-19 Risks to People With Asthma Much Lower Than Expected
Several months into the pandemic, medical experts say that Asthma hasn't been a significant risk factor. Even though CDC recommended at the beginning of the pandemic that COVID-19 patients should not be treated with corticosteroids, because steroids increase the need for ventilation, length of illness and chance of dying, this did not apply to people who are already on steroids for underlying conditions.
Sewage Could Provide Early Warnings About Coronavirus Outbreaks
Why are there so many drugs to kill bacteria, but so few to tackle viruses?
COVID-19’s Toll on the Heart
Other viruses can affect the heart, but experts say that COVID-19 can cause cardiac complications that are a major cause for concern, especially among those with preexisting heart disease. Although experts don't yet have conclusive data on the percentage of patients who have heart damage as a result of COVID-19 infections, estimates run as high as 25 or 30 percent.
Details of a New Anti-Coronovirus Neutralizing Antibody
Genetic mutation study finds new coronavirus spread swiftly in late 2019
Mounting promises on Covid-19 vaccines are fueling false expectations
Researchers hypothesize that a highly contagious strain is spreading; other experts remain skeptical
A research paper from scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratory, not yet peer-reviewed, reports that one strain of the novel coronavirus has emerged in Europe and become dominant around the planet, leading the researchers to believe the virus has mutated to become more contagious The bold hypothesis, however, was immediately met with skepticism by many infectious-disease experts, and there is no scientific consensus that any of the innumerable mutations in the virus so far have changed the general contagiousness or lethality of covid-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus.
What Hamburg’s Missteps In 1892 Cholera Outbreak Can Teach Us About COVID-19 Response
As the world comes to terms with how governments have responded to today's coronavirus pandemic, some are looking to history to guide them. Chief among those lessons is the need "to have proper precautions in place," and not to try and hush it up or try and deny its existence. Then it has fatal consequences for many, many people.
Back to Work Safely – Science based recommendations
Children Are Falling Ill With a Baffling Ailment Related to Covid-19
Estimating the Health and Economic Impacts of COVID-19 Interventions
Israeli scientists discover monoclonal antibody that neutralizes SARS-CoV-2
In a significant medical breakthrough, Israel's Institute for Biological Research Institute (IIBRI) has wrapped up the development of a potential treatment for the coronavirus disease. The scientists say they have identified an antibody that neutralizes SARS-CoV-2 in vitro or outside of a living organism.
Contact tracing for the coronavirus, explained
To prevent another spike in cases, public health workers will perform the difficult and sometimes tedious process of interviewing people diagnosed with Covid-19, finding out who they have recently been in close physical contact with, and then informing those people of their potential exposure and advising them to self-isolate and get tested.
Draft report predicts coronavirus cases will reach 200,000 a day by June 1
This is a report from a leaked government report. Its is not sure how these predictions are made, and whether it is because of reopening. The white house officials have been relying on other models (than CDC) to make decisions on reopening. The estimates here are based on premature relaxation of restrictions.
Excess Deaths Associated with COVID-19
COVID-19 fact check: Caution urged on study about virus, smoking
More information is needed after a French study suggested nicotine might play a role in preventing some illness from the coronavirus. Nicotine is not thought to attack sars-cov-2 directly. It may, however, play an indirect role that involves a cell-membrane protein called ace2, to which the virus attaches itself in order to gain access to a cell. Some researchers suspect that nicotine binds to ace2 as well, and that this makes it harder for the virus to do so alongside it.
Oxford professor: Possible coronavirus vaccine could show efficacy by June
Sir John Bell, the Regius Professor of Medicine at Oxford University, said Sunday that researchers at the university working on a potential vaccine for the coronavirus would likely have an idea of its efficacy by June. Bell called the chances of success in developing a vaccine “pretty good,” adding “we are gradually reeling it in, bit by bit and as every day goes by, the likelihood of success goes up.”
Covkid National Data Dashboard
The purpose of the Coronavirus in Kids (COVKID) Tracking and Education Project is to monitor and compile epidemiologic surveillance data on COVID-19 in children and teens. We aim to present timely data in formats that are accessible and useful for clinicians, public health practitioners, policymakers, elected officials, and journalists.
Scientists conclude people cannot get coronavirus twice
A number of reported cases of coronavirus patients relapsing after overcoming the disease were actually due to testing failures, South Korean scientists say. Researchers at the South Korean centre for disease control and prevention (CDC) now say it is impossible for the COVID-19 virus to reactivate in human bodies.
Children With Coronavirus Significantly Undercounted
IN THE U.S., the vast majority of serious Covid-19 cases — and eight out of 10 deaths — occur in people who are at least 65. Yet newly tabulated data show that the virus is also affecting young people across the country — and in very rare cases, killing them. The CovKid project estimates that the total number of children infected with the coronavirus in the U.S. is now at least 478,000.
Covid-19’s future: small outbreaks, monster wave, or ongoing crisis
Experts question Facebook’s approach to combat Covid-19 misinformation
Facebook's Covid-19 misinformation campaign pulls from several psychology studies. The problem: The researchers behind some of those papers and outside experts say Facebook appears to be interpreting the findings incorrectly — and their approach could be running counter to the goal of tamping down on runaway misinformation.
What Is ‘Covid Toe’? Maybe a Strange Sign of Coronavirus Infection
What You Should Know About Remdesivir, The Potential COVID-19 Treatment
On Wednesday, researchers announced that they had “positive data” in regards to a potential treatment for COVID-19. Clinical trials for Gilead Sciences’ antiviral drug remdesivir, which was developed to treat Ebola, showed a “clear-cut positive effect in diminishing time to recover,” according to Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.
Contact tracing is the next big hurdle in the push to re-open cities
If we are indeed in the midst of a war against an invisible enemy, a contact-tracing offensive — launched by both an army of human tracers and an arsenal of technological tools — will be a big part of the key to winning. In the U.S., the most likely scenario for widespread, tech-enabled contact tracing lies with work done by Google and Apple.
Is Muscle Pain a Symptom of Coronavirus? Doctors Explain How it Feels, Why it Happens
Dr. Barzin explains that muscle pain that results from a viral infection is caused by damage to the muscle fibers from the virus itself. The virus also triggers an inflammatory response within your body—through inflammatory cytokines that essentially signal the immune system to get to work—that can cause abnormal tissue breakdown.
Not just hospitals: U.N. uncovers surprise tools needed to beat coronavirus
Reopening some states heightens the risk of coronavirus surges in others
The problem, experts say, is that diagnostic testing remains so limited that a second surge of cases could silently build. The Trump administration’s goal of conducting 2 million tests a week is below what most experts say is needed to adequately track the virus, and that plan won’t be in place until at least the end of May.
Studies leave question of ‘airborne’ coronavirus transmission unanswered
UK still supports coronavirus lockdown, new Ipsos survey shows
Brits express more apprehension about easing the lockdown than any other major country, according to a recent Ipsos MORI poll that surveyed some 28,000 people across 14 different countries. That includes places like the US and Italy, which have both a higher number of Covid-19 deaths and confirmed coronavirus cases.
Firm says new Covid-19 test could be used 1 million times a week
North Carolina Pug Likely First Dog In U.S. With Coronavirus
A pet dog in North Carolina has tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 — the virus that causes COVID-19 in humans — and is believed to be the first dog in the U.S. to have tested positive for the virus, Duke Health confirmed to TIME. The dog belonged to a family participating in Duke’s Molecular and Epidemiological Study of Suspected Infection (MESSI), an ongoing research study, which examines how the body responds to infection.
Poll: Most Americans Won’t Attend Big-Crowd Events Before COVID-19 Vaccine
The Reuters/Ipsos opinion poll, conducted from April 15 to 21, surveyed 4,429 adults about their interest in attending concerts, movie theaters, amusement parks, and sporting events before a vaccine was developed. Fifty-five percent of participants said movie theater screenings and live concerts should not resume until a vaccine was available.
We need to flatten the ‘other’ coronavirus curve, our looming mental health crisis
As COVID-19 misinformation grows, YouTube brings video fact-checking to the US
Coronavirus is revitalising the concept of community for the 21st century
With more than a third of the world’s population in lockdown, there are widespread fears of social breakdown. As a historian of loneliness, I have recently been interviewed by journalists in Brazil, France, Chile and Australia, all pondering the same problems: what will the long-term effects of social isolation be? What techniques or habits might help us learn how to be alone?
The US already has the technology to test millions of people a day
There is widespread agreement that the only way to safely reopen the economy is through a massive increase in testing. Tests for mass screening may have different requirements and characteristics from the tests run in clinical labs today that are approved by the Food and Drug Administration. So what might a solution look like?
Can Estrogen and Other Sex Hormones Help Men Survive Covid-19?
As the novel coronavirus swept through communities around the world, preying disproportionately on the poor and the vulnerable, one disadvantaged group has demonstrated a remarkable resistance. Women, whether from China, Italy or the U.S., have been less likely to become acutely ill — and far more likely to survive. Which has made doctors wonder: Could hormones produced in greater quantities by women be at work?
Coronavirus: Viral WhatsApp messages ‘drop 70%’
WhatsApp has been key to the spread of misinformation during the pandemic. Concerned friends and relatives have used private group chats to forward on dodgy lists of medical advice or speculation about government plans, “just in case” they could be useful. So Whats app stopped messages sent between individual users five times or more then being posted to more than one chat group at a time.
CDC Adds 6 New Coronavirus Symptoms
On Sunday, the CDC officially added these six symptoms to its list: chills, repeated shaking with chills, muscle pain, headache, sore throat, new loss of taste or smell, in addition to previously known symptoms of fever, cough, shortness of breath or difficulty breathing. The symptoms can appear two to 14 days after exposure to COVID-19.
People are buying pulse oximeters to try and detect coronavirus at home. Do you need one?
Coronavirus: First patients injected in UK vaccine trial
Two volunteers were injected, the first of more than 800 people recruited for the study. Half will receive the Covid-19 vaccine, and half a control vaccine which protects against meningitis but not coronavirus. The design of the trial means volunteers will not know which vaccine they are getting, though doctors will.
Coronavirus: Immunity passports ‘could increase virus spread’
WHO says governments should not issue so-called immunity passports" as a way of easing lockdowns. No evidence people who develop antibodies after recovering are protected against a second infection. WHO warns that such move could actually increase the spread of the virus transmission. People who assumed they were immune could stop taking precautions.
Information to receive stimulus check fro people who don’t file for taxes
States take new steps to track contacts of people with COVID-19
A nationwide effort is underway to bolster the public health workforce as states launch efforts including multistate collaborations and virus-tracking technology to identify new cases of COVID-19 and their contacts.But the U.S. would need at least another 100,000 workers to adequately track person-to-person transmissions, according to an estimate.
Sunlight and humidity kill coronavirus the fastest: US scientists
It has long been known that ultraviolet light has a sterilising effect, because the radiation damages the virus's genetic material and its ability to replicate. But coronavirus has also proven lethal in warm-weather places such as Singapore, Malaysia, and Thailand, raising broader questions about the impact of environmental factors.Dr Margaret Harris from the World Health Organization told Al Jazeera "the evidence is not supporting [the sunlight] theory".
Young people with coronavirus are dying from strokes
Reports of strokes in the young and middle-aged — hit hard by the novel coronavirus — are the latest twist in our evolving understanding of its connected disease, covid-19. Even as the virus has infected nearly 2.8 million people worldwide and killed about 195,000 as of Friday, its biological mechanisms continue to elude top scientific minds.
Blood-pressure drugs are in the crosshairs of COVID-19 research
Hidden Outbreaks Spread Through U.S. Cities Far Earlier Than Americans Knew, Estimates Say
First at-home COVID-19 testing kit authorized by the FDA
Here’s How Much Coronavirus Testing We Need
28,000 Missing Deaths: Tracking the True Toll of the Coronavirus Crisis
He ran marathons and was fit. So why did Covid-19 almost kill him?
In many coronavirus patients, the immune response can get out of hand, leading to a dangerous inflammation and fluid buildup in the lungs.The massive over-reaction is known as cytokine-storm, is believed to be a major reason a growing number of exceedingly fit people find themselves fighting for their lives.