Month: November 2020

A North Dakota nurses union is rejecting a policy that would allow COVID-19-positive nurses to continue treating patients at coronavirus units of hospitals and nursing homes if they are not symptomatic. In a statement released Wednesday, the North Dakota Nurses Association said the policy does not address the root of the problem and called for a statewide mask mandate and other public health measures to be implemented first.  "NDNA recommends that all other public health measures to reduce the demand on the health care system and address staffing shortages are deployed before implementing this particular strategy," the union said. The new policy was announced Monday by Gov. Doug Burgum (R) as a way to ease pressure on hospitals that are short-staffed and nearing capacity as COV...

Above: Olivia Sobczyk, co-author and researcher at Toronto’s University Health Network, demonstrating how the ClearMate Device is used. Image: University Health Network Scientists in Canada say they’ve found a new way to treat potentially life-threatening alcohol intoxication—by helping people literally breathe out the alcohol in their system. Their device, which is designed to allow people to hyperventilate safely, was found to speed up the clearance of alcohol from healthy volunteers three times faster in a small pilot study. Usually, toxins like alcohol are largely broken down by the liver. The liver can take a lot of punishment, but the rate that it metabolizes alcohol is constant, meaning you can’t speed up the process in times when the amount of alcohol in your body is enough ...

Now, a growing body of science suggests that by wearing a mask to prevent spreading the virus, you may be protecting yourself, too. It is further evidence that knowledge about masks, and their benefits, continues to evolve — much as does understanding of the pandemic more broadly. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention publicly acknowledged that for the first time, writing in a scientific bulletin posted to its website this week that “the benefit of masking is derived from the combination of source control and personal protection for the mask wearer.” Masks are neither completely selfless nor selfish — they help everyone. John Brooks, chief medical officer for the CDC’s coronavirus response, told The Washington Post there was an urgency to explain this clearly, because the wide...

Measles deaths worldwide swelled to their highest level in 23 years last year, according to a report released Thursday, a stunning rise for a vaccine-preventable disease and one that public health experts fear could grow as the coronavirus pandemic continues to disrupt immunization and detection efforts. The global death tally for 2019 — 207,500 — was 50 percent higher than just three years earlier, according to the analysis, released jointly by the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. No measles deaths were reported in the United States, but measles cases in the country hit a record annual high of 1,282 across 31 states, the most since 1992, according to figures updated earlier this month. As recently as 2012, the U.S. case number was 55. Public ...