Month: September 2020

The Food and Drug Administration issued a warning Thursday about the dangers of the "Benadryl Challenge," a rumored TikTok stunt that involves ingesting high doses of the allergy medication to induce hallucinations. "We are aware of news reports of teenagers ending up in emergency rooms or dying after participating in the 'Benadryl Challenge' encouraged in videos posted on the social media application TikTok," the FDA warning says. However, there has been little evidence on TikTok of a widespread challenge, and the platform disabled both the "Benadryl" and "BenadrylChallenge" hashtags in order to prevent copycats. While there have been several local news reports about teens involved with the challenge, NBC News has not confirmed these reports. The FDA said in the warning that is "invest...

A new COVID-19 mutation appears to be even more contagious, according to a study — and experts say it could be a response by the virus to defeat masks and other social-distancing efforts. Scientists in a paper published Wednesday identified a new strain of the virus, which accounted for 99.9 percent of cases during the second wave in the Houston, Texas, area, the Washington Post reported. The paper, which has not been peer-reviewed, said people with the strain, known as the D614G mutation, had higher loads of virus — suggesting it is more contagious. Though the strain isn’t more deadly, researchers said it appeared to have adapted better to spread among humans. David Morens, a virologist at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said the findings sugges...

The number of confirmed cases of the coronavirus (COVID-19) in Michigan has risen to 119,597 as of Thursday, including 6,700 deaths, state officials report. Thursday’s update represents 982 new cases and eight additional deaths. On Wednesday, the state totals were 118,615 cases and 6,692 deaths. New COVID-19 cases and deaths remain flat in Michigan. Testing has remained steady, with an average of more than 30,000 per day, with the positive rate just above 3 percent over the last 10 days. The state reported its highest one-day testing total with more than 41,000 diagnostic tests on Aug. 21. Hospitalizations are stable and the number of patients in critical care is near its lowest point since tracking, dating back to April. Michigan has reported 90,216 recoveries. The state also reports “a...

New York state officials will conduct a review of any coronavirus vaccines approved by the federal government before recommending them to New Yorkers,  Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Thursday. Cuomo said he feared President Donald Trump would strongarm the FDA into using insufficiently rigorous standards to approve vaccines.  "We are going to put together our own review committee that will advise me, so i can look at the camera and I can say 'It is safe to take,'" Cuomo said. In Houston, a study by researchers indicates the coronavirus, which has infected almost 7 million people in the U.S. alone, may have mutated to a more contagious strain if not more deadly. In Britain, the government is considering a plan to intentionally infect healthy volunteers to expedite a determination on which vaccine ...