Public Health

Indoor spaces are COVID hotspots when virus particles accumulate but remedies not always easy

Tue, 2021-03-30 22:06 — mike kraft

Why indoor spaces are still prime COVID hotspots Risks shoot up when virus particles accumulate in buildings, but it’s not clear how best to improve ventilation. Dyani Lewis nature

When Lidia Morawska leaves home, she takes with her a slick, shoe-sized device that provides some sobering insights about the restaurants and offices she visits. Outside these buildings, her carbon dioxide monitor reads just above 400 parts per million (p.p.m.). But indoors is a different story.

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Why masks are still needed even after getting vaccinated

Tue, 2021-03-30 15:55 — mike kraft

Vaccines Stop COVID-19 Infection, But Here’s Why You Still Need to Wear a Mask With new variants of the virus, experts advise that vaccinated people shouldn't shed their masks just yet. YahooNews

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OVERVIEW: Italy imposes 5-day quarantine, BioNTech ramps up vaccine production

Tue, 2021-03-30 15:19 — mike kraft

The Latest: Italy orders 5-day quarantine on entries from EU ROME — Italy has imposed a five-day quarantine on people entering from other EU countries in a bid to deter Easter getaways and limit the spread of the coronavirus. Health Minister Roberto... AP NEWS

ROME — Italy has imposed a five-day quarantine on people entering from other EU countries in a bid to deter Easter getaways and limit the spread of the coronavirus.

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Upcoming WHO report says animals likely source of COVID --AP

Mon, 2021-03-29 13:33 — mike kraft

AP Exclusive: WHO report says animals likely source of COVID BEIJING (AP) — A joint WHO-China study on the origins of COVID-19 says that transmission of the virus from bats to humans through another animal is the most likely scenario and that a lab leak is... AP NEWS

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A 4th COVID-19 wave may look different than previous surges

Mon, 2021-03-29 13:08 — mike kraft

Why a 4th COVID-19 wave may look different than previous surges As coronavirus cases and hospitalizations creep up across the country, health officials are continuing to urge caution, warning that despite the acceleration in the pace of vaccinations, the nation could face a potential fourth wave of COVID-19 infections, if Americans let their guards down too rapidly. “We’re seeing rising cases in several locations around the world, including in some U.S. states so a fourth wave seems possible,” Rachel Baker, an epidemiologist at Princeton University, told ABC News. At a White House briefing earlier this week, Dr.

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Paris doctors worried about coronavirus overload, UK relaxes its restrictions

Sun, 2021-03-28 16:18 — mike kraft

Paris doctors warn of catastrophic overload of virus cases PARIS (AP) — Critical care doctors in Paris say surging coronavirus infections could soon overwhelm their ability to care for the sick in the French capital's hospitals, possibly forcing them to... AP NEWS

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The pandemic's dramatic reducuction of ordinary flu could decrease effectivess of future flu vaccines

Fri, 2021-03-26 16:10 — mike kraft

The pandemic dramatically reduced flu cases. That could backfire. The low levels of flu during the Covid-19 pandemic have left experts with a much smaller pool of data used for predicting which flu strains will predominate next winter. Jasmine Hilton POLITICO

Precautions aimed at tamping down the coronavirus helped nearly eradicate last year’s flu season — but that could backfire by making it harder to develop effective vaccines for next winter’s flu.

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New studies: Hundreds of thousands of American coronvirus deaths could have been avoided by more widespread precautions

Thu, 2021-03-25 23:20 — mike kraft

U.S. COVID response could have avoided hundreds of thousands of deaths: research The United States squandered both money and lives in its response to the coronavirus pandemic, and it could have avoided nearly 400,000 deaths with a more effective health strategy and trimmed federal spending by hundreds of billions of dollars while still supporting those... Howard Schneider U.S.

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U.S. COVID cases are climbing again as they did in Israel before vaccinations

Thu, 2021-03-25 21:05 — mike kraft

U.S. COVID cases are climbing again. The same thing happened in Israel — before vaccination crushed the variants. It’s official: After falling for more than two straight months, the average number of daily COVID-19 cases across the U.S. has begun — just barely — to rise again. YahooNews

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Some poorer nations could wait years to get vaccinations--Kenya example

Tue, 2021-03-23 15:21 — mike kraft

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It was three months after rich countries began vaccinating health workers, but Kenyans like the nurse, Stella Githaiga, had been left behind: Employed in the country’s largest public hospital, she caught the coronavirus on an outreach trip to remote communities in February, she believes, sidelining her even as Kenya struggles with a vicious third surge of infections.

Ms. Githaiga and her colleagues are victims of one of the most galling inequities in a pandemic that has exposed so many: Across the global south, health workers are being sickened and killed by a virus from which doctors and nurses in many rich countries are now largely protected.

That is just the most visible cost of a rich-poor divide that has deepened in the second year of the pandemic. Of the vaccine doses given globally, roughly three-quarters have gone to only 10 countries. At least 30 countries have not yet injected a single person.

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