Month: August 2020

Science Photo Library | Getty Images Covid-19 patients might have been flooding into emergency departments in the spring, particularly in states like New York. But for everything else -- heart attacks, strokes and other kinds of emergencies -- the numbers were down for many hospitals across the country.  A new study collating data from five health systems in Colorado, Connecticut, Massachussetts, North Carolina and New York reported decreases in emergency department visits between 40 and 60 percent in the first four months of 2020, with the most rapid decreases in March. Prior research from the CDC found that in the 10 weeks after COVID-19 was declared a national emergency, emergency room visits "declined 23% for heart attack, 20% for stroke, and 10% for hypergl...

NEW YORK (AP) — Health experts once thought 2020 might be the worst year yet for a rare paralyzing disease that has been hitting U.S. children for the past decade. But they now say the coronavirus pandemic could disrupt the pattern for the mysterious illnesses, which spike every other year starting in late summer. Scientists say it’s possible that mask wearing, school closures and others measures designed to stop spread of the coronavirus may also hamper spread of the virus suspected of causing the paralyzing disease. Dr. David Kimberlin, a researcher at the University of Alabama at Birmingham, called it “the million-dollar question.” “We just simply don’t know right now,” said Kimberlin, who is co-leader of a national study to gather specimens from children who develop the paralyzing ...

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Photo illustration by Slate. Photos by Adem Altan/AFP via Getty Images, Nicolas Maeterlinck/BELGA/AFP via Getty Images, Raul Valcarcel/iStock, Ezra Acayan/Getty Images, and Ozan Kose/AFP via Getty Images. Here’s a charming face shield that will run you $16.50 on Etsy. Designed for teachers, it has an adjustable band, a sheet of clear plastic to cover your face, and a customizable “black board” on the forehead, where the vendor will print your name in a calligraphic font. Here’s another face shield from the same seller that features a unicorn horn and ears across the forehead, with the wearer’s name below the chin in pink. Here are some face shields for kids with bears and sharks and mermaids. Here are some plain clear face shields with...

South Carolina announces latest COVID-19 update for August 4, 2020 Updated: 2:57 PM EDT Aug 4, 2020 The number of people hospitalized with coronavirus and patients on ventilators in South Carolina increased Tuesday after the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control reported a decline in those numbers over the past several days. As of Tuesday 1,458 patients were hospital with COVID-19 and 355 COVID-19 patients were in the intensive care unit. Of those patients, 254 were ventilated.DHEC said 1,113 ICU beds were in use in the state and 321 were available. That is a utilization rate of 77.62%. DHEC reported 1,168 new confirmed cases and...