Month: July 2020

Some New Yorkers had antibodies for the new coronavirus more than a week before the first official case in the state was announced on March 1, new research shows. The findings, released Monday by researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, signal that the virus may have been introduced in the New York City region earlier than previously thought, researchers said. The discovery is the latest effort by researchers and government agencies to pinpoint the introduction of the coronavirus in hard-hit New York. ...

A new interactive map and dashboard lets you find out how bad your county's coronavirus outbreak is. Harvard Global Health Institute/Microsoft AI/Screenshot by NPR hide caption toggle caption Harvard Global Health Institute/Microsoft AI/Screenshot by NPR A new interactive map and dashboard lets you find out how bad your county's coronavirus outbreak is. Harvard Global Health Institute/Microsoft AI/Screenshot by NPR...

Photo: Richard Davis Sometimes having a visual is the best way to understand something. This is particularly true when it comes to science. And as wearing a face mask has become part of our daily routine, more and more people are questioning if it really matters. As summer sets in and heats up, how much will wearing another layer across your face really protect you? One microbiologist took matters into his own hands to show just what happens when you stay covered up. Dr. Richard Davis is the Clinical Microbiology Lab Director at Providence Sacred Heart Medical Center in Spokane, Washington. After seeing a lot of misinformation about the dangers and usefulness of face masks, he decided to do a demonstration. In the first demo, he placed agar cultures close to his face to show how many r...

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Researchers in China have discovered a new type of swine flu that is capable of triggering a pandemic, according to a study published Monday in the U.S. scientific journal PNAS. Named G4, it is genetically descended from the H1N1 strain that caused a pandemic in 2009. It possesses "all the essential hallmarks of being highly adapted to infect humans," say the authors, scientists at Chinese universities and China's Center for Disease Control and Prevention. The World Health Organization said Tuesday that it would "read carefully" the study on the new virus, with a spokesman saying the findings highlighted the importance of the world not letting "our guard down on influenza." The global medical community must "be vigilant and continue surveillance, even in thecoronavirus pandemic," WHO rep...

An emergent strain of flu in China is attracting the attention of scientists just as the world is wrestling with the worst pandemic since the 1918 Spanish flu. Chinese researchers identified a novel strain of influenza that is infecting pigs in China and that has characteristics of the so-called swine flu, or H1N1, that resulted in the 2009 pandemic. Researchers earlier this week published a report in peer-reviewed science journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, or PNAS, that identifies a strain of flu — G4 EA H1N1 — that has traits akin to H1N1 and could be transmitted to humans. The scientists, who conducted research on Chinese pig populations in various provinces from 2011 to 2018, described the novel flu as having all the n...

Kevin Carter is making health a priority so he can stay strong for his community. The co-founder of the Poor People’s Campaign in Sacramento is advocating for COVID-19 prevention in communities most at-risk. “I'm 60 years old, I have atrial fibrillation, and I'm a little bit overweight, so I have to pay attention,” explained Carter. “It's important for the Black and Brown community to make sure that we have health care.” Carter is among several community advocates who pushed for the testing clinic in Oak Park, which is one of six new community testing sites in Sacramento.“Everything is out at Cal Expo and people cannot make it to Cal Expo and we need something in the community,” Carter said. Dr. Jann Murray-García M.P.H. at UC Davis School of Nursing has been devoting her career to c...

WASHINGTON (AP) — The nation’s top health officials are banking on a new approach to dramatically boost U.S. screening for the coronavirus: combining test samples in batches instead of running them one by one. The potential benefits include stretching laboratory supplies, reducing costs and expanding testing to millions more Americans who may unknowingly be spreading the virus. Health officials think infected people who aren’t showing symptoms are largely responsible for the rising number of cases across more than half of states. “Pooling would give us the capacity to go from a half-a-million tests per day to potentially 5 million individuals tested per day,” Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House’s coronavirus response coordinator, told a recent meeting of laboratory experts. For now, feder...

The family of a Lake Elsinore man says he died of COVID-19 after going to a party and becoming infected, and he even posted about feeling sick on social media, saying he regretted going to the gathering. Tommy Macias went to a party with friends a few weeks ago, then he got a phone call from one of those friends saying he tested positive for COVID19, and everyone should get tested. Just days later, Macias died in the hospital.  Laughing and being goofy is how the family of Macias says they want to remember him. "He was just a fun loving person. He loved to pick on people. He loved to crack jokes about everything," said his niece, Danielle Lopez. Her uncle posted on Facebook days before his death saying he contracted the coronavirus after going out and he worri...

Did protests help spread the virus? When the protests against police brutality erupted nationwide, there were fears that the large gatherings could be breeding grounds for the coronavirus. Now, a month after the first demonstrations, we’re wondering: What effect have the protests had on the spread of the virus? For insight we turned to Mitch Smith, a reporter at The Times who is tracking Covid-19 cases. While he and his team are still collecting data, Mitch told us that they have reached out to health officials in 140 cities and counties where there have been protests and have researched protest-linked cases from local news reports. “So far we have confirmed more than 50 people who were at protests, either protesting or working, who were later found to have had the virus,” Mitch told us...