Month: November 2020

Respirators work to keep health care and emergency workers safe from breathing in chemicals or infectious particles.  Respirators, like the N95 face masks, are more effective than surgical masks at preventing the spread of illness — and they should be used by health care workers who are dealing with sick patients.  Visit Insider's homepage for more stories. Respirators, more commonly known as face masks, are meant to keep health care and emergency workers safe from chemicals and infectious particles.  Surgical masks can be helpful if you are sick, as they prevent the wearer's germs from spreading to other people. If you're a health care worker, and want to protect yourself from acquiring an illness or breathing in other dangerous particles, a respirator will be...

Nine people at a Sacramento County fire dispatch center have tested positive for COVID-19, officials said Friday. The novel coronavirus outbreak happened at the Sacramento Regional Fire/EMS Communications Center, Executive Director Tyler Wagaman said in a statement.“None of them has any interaction with the public as part of their job duties,” Wagaman said. “And, when members of our community call 911 for fire, medical or other emergency, they can be assured their call will be managed by a trained public safety dispatcher and fire personnel will be deployed to assist them.”Service at the 911 dispatch center has not been impacted. There is no reduction of service nor is one expected, the statement said.When officials heard about the first COVID-19 positive test, they implemented a rap...

Mass and frequent rapid testing for COVID-19 could make a large dent in the pandemic within six weeks, a new study claims. "Our big picture finding is that, when it comes to public health, it's better to have a less sensitive test with results today than a more sensitive test with results tomorrow," said Daniel Larremore, a computer science professor at Colorado University Boulder and lead author of the study. Testing 75% of a city's population every three days would reduce infections by 88%, "sufficient to drive the epidemic toward extinction within six weeks." Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories. Mass rapid-testing for COVID-19 — especially of those people showing no signs of infection — could bring an end to the pandemic within six weeks, clai...

Amid the latest surge in COVID-19 cases, the Polk County Health Department is calling on school districts to stop high school sports until cases decrease. The letter sent by the director of the Polk County Health Department to athletic directors, superintendents and the high school sports union said they need to slow the trajectory of COVID-19. The letter said the situation is "very real, urgent and not slowing down anytime soon without significant mitigation efforts."Health Department Director Helen Eddy said one of those efforts would be to temporarily suspend all youth extracurricular activities including high school winter sports until things improve. The department said with a county positivity rate near 20% and high hospitalizations, it's concerned about athlete, spectator and ...

A health care worker treats a COVID-19 patient at the ICU at United Memorial Medical Center in Houston, Texas. Twenty-two percent of hospitals in Texas reported critical staffing shortages this week in new federal data. Go Nakamura/Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Go Nakamura/Getty Images A health care worker treats a COVID-19 patient at the ICU at United Memorial Medical Center in Houston, Texas. Twenty-two percent of hospitals in Texas re...

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