Category: Featured
A COVID cure worse than disease?
Harvard Gazette Study weighs in on fears that treatment could spawn super virus. COVID-19 patients are often prescribed antiviral drugs that work by reducing the number of viral particles circulating in the body. One such drug, molnupiravir, tricks the virus into generating mutations, some of which are lethal to the virus itself. The mutations eventually overwhelm […]
Sep 12, 2023
Why public health experts are concerned about BA.2.86, the latest COVID-19 variant
PBS Newshour The latest variant, or sublineage, of SARS-CoV-2 to emerge on the scene, BA.2.86, has public health experts on alert as COVID-19 hospitalizations begin to rise and the new variant makes its way across the globe. The Conversation asked Suresh V. Kuchipudi, a virologist and infectious disease expert at the University of Pittsburgh School of Public Health, […]
Sep 12, 2023
COVID cases spiking as kids go back to school
CBS News Schools are starting back up again with a new wave of COVID cases on the rise. Dr. Shoshana Ungerleider, an internal medicine physician and the host of the podcast “Ted Health,” joined CBS News to discuss how to keep your kids safe.
Sep 5, 2023
All signs point to a rise in Covid
NBC News Covid hospitalizations, deaths and wastewater data — among other indicators — are all increasing as the U.S. heads into fall. Signs in the U.S. continue to point to a rise in Covid activity as fall approaches. Hospitalizations are rising. Deaths have ticked up. Wastewater samples are picking up the virus, as are labs across the […]
Sep 5, 2023
Severe Vibrio vulnificus Infections in the United States Associated with Warming Coastal Waters
CDC SummaryThe Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is issuing this Health Alert Network (HAN) Health Advisory to: BackgroundVibrio are bacteria that cause an estimated 80,000 illnesses each year in the United States. About a dozen species of Vibrio are pathogenic to humans. V. parahaemolyticus causes the most infections in the United States, accounting for about 40% of reported […]
Sep 5, 2023
Climate-Linked Ills Threaten Humanity
Washington Post The floods came, and then the sickness. Muhammad Yaqoob stood on his concrete porch and watched the black, angry water swirl around the acacia trees and rush toward his village last September, the deluge making a sound that was like nothing he had ever heard. “It was like thousands of snakes sighing all […]
Sep 5, 2023
Atlantic Until the future of the new COVID variant becomes clear, three scenarios are still possible. Since Omicron swept across the globe in 2021, the evolution of SARS-CoV-2 has moved at a slower and more predictable pace. New variants of interest have come and gone, but none have matched Omicron’s 30-odd mutations or its ferocious growth. Then, about two […]
Aug 29, 2023
Not Over Yet: Late-Summer Covid Wave Brings Warning of More to Come
NYT Hospitalizations are still low but have been rising in recent weeks, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. A late-summer wave of coronavirus infections has touched schools, workplaces and local government, as experts warn the public to brace for even more Covid-19 spread this fall and winter. Hospitalizations have increased 24 percent in a […]
Aug 29, 2023
This Fall’s Covid Variant Might Really Be Different
WSJ What to know about BA.2.86, or ‘pirola,’ from where it’s spreading to whether vaccines will work against it. Scientists have their eye on a different variant than the XBB variants, such as EG.5, that are driving the summer Covid-19 bump. BA.2.86—dubbed “pirola” by a group of scientists on social media who name notable variants—has been […]
Aug 29, 2023
Precision Vaccinations Disease X is supposed to be caused by a “pathogen X” that is expected to be a zoonosis, disease, or infection that can be transmitted between humans and animals, most likely an RNA virus, wrote Richard Hatchett, chief executive officer of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI). According to the World Health Organization (WHO), Disease X […]
Aug 29, 2023