Month: November 2020

Champaign’s Unit 4 reported eight new cases during the first week back for elementary students (five students, three staff members), requiring 17 to quarantine (12 students, five staff). The latest local school district to shift to all-remote learning for two weeks: Villa Grove, which has set a return-to-in-person date of Nov. 16. Both the Arcola and Danville districts are scheduled to end all-remote periods on Wednesday. ...

With concerns that America is starting to see an uptick in COVID-19 cases, we're learning more about how the virus has mutated. The Houston Methodist researchers study was recently published in mBio, one of the leading journals for the American Society for Microbiology. We're less than a month away from Thanksgiving, and gatherings could only make it easier for the virus to spread. READ ALSO: When will a COVID-19 vaccine be available for kids and will it be safe? "The virus is still out there in the community, still transmitting person-to-person and as we move into the winter months and it gets cold, people tend to congregate more indoors," said medical director of microbiology at Houston Methodist, Dr. Wesley Long. On top of that, researchers at Houston Methodist found the virus mutate...

Considering that heart disease is the leading cause of death in the U.S., taking good care of your heart is pretty darn important. Much of being proactive about heart health comes down to diet and lifestyle habits. Not smoking, getting regular exercise, and eating lots of fruits and vegetables may all be “rules” you’ve heard MDs preach for decades, but they’ve withstood the test of time for a reason. If you already feel like you have your bases covered in terms of diet and lifestyle, you may be wondering what the next level is for protecting your heart—especially if cardiovascular disease runs in your family. Because heart disease is such a massive problem here in the States, there’s actually an entire medical field devoted to preventing it: preventive cardiology. Here, two ca...

Many experts have made it clear that there is no better preventative measure against COVID than simply washing your hands. So naturally, most of us are more aware of our hand hygiene than we've ever been before. But a large part of your hand hygiene is making sure you use good hand soap—which means you'll want to stay away from any products that might be contaminated. Two versions of Method hand soap were recently placed under a voluntary recall from the company: Method Sea Minerals gel hand wash and Method Sweet Water gel hand wash. Read on to find out why these soaps were recalled, and for more items that need to be tossed, If You Use This Mouthwash, Get Rid of It Right Now. Home DepotMethod, a...

Press release from the Humboldt County Joint Information Center: Eight new cases of COVID-19 have been reported since Friday, bringing to 579 the total number of Humboldt County residents who have contracted the virus. The daily, weekly and monthly datasets on the Humboldt County Data Dashboard have been updated. Some highlights include: The 20-29 age group continues to represent the highest percentage of local cases at 23.6%, followed by the 30-39 age group at 19.5%. The county’s rate of confirmed cases is 434 per 100,000 residents. The state and national rates are 2,345 and 2,801 respectively. Nearly 1 in 10 or 9.6% of people who contract the virus locally report no symptoms, up from 6.3% in October and 4.4% in September.  Humboldt County Health Officer Dr. Teresa Frankov...