Month: February 2021

Last year, a record number of people got flu shots. But medical experts say kids keeping their social distance during the coronavirus pandemic has made the biggest difference for a mild flu season. Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images hide caption toggle caption Genaro Molina/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images Last year, a record number of people got flu shots. But medical experts say kids keeping their social distance during the coronavi...

PARIS (Reuters) - The French Health Ministry has asked regional health agencies and hospitals to go into “crisis organisation” from Feb. 18 to prepare for a possible surge in coronavirus cases due to highly contagious variants, Le Journal Du Dimanche reported on Sunday. The move, which would echo measures taken in March and November 2020 when France went into national lockdowns, involves increasing the number of hospital beds available, delaying non- urgent surgery and mobilising all medical staff resources. “This crisis organisation must be implemented in each region, regardless of the level of hospital stress and must be operational from Thursday Feb. 18,” health authority DGS said in a memo cited by the newspaper. The DGS was not immediately available for comment to Reuters. France ...

The Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention reported two new coronavirus-related deaths on Sunday and 110 new cases.The total number of Mainers with COVID-19 who have died increased to 649.Both deaths on Sunday, were reported out of Cumberland County.The 110 new cases bring the total since the beginning of the pandemic to 42,529.The seven day average is now at 190.1.MAINE CORONAVIRUS DATA: Deaths: 649 Total cases: 42,529 Confirmed cases: 33,935 Probable cases: 8,594 Cumulative positivity rate: 2.98% 14-day positivity rate: 3.3% Currently hospitalized: 100 Patients in intensive care: 27 Patients on ventilators: 9Get more detailed COVID-19 data from the Maine CDCCOVID-19 symptomsPer the U.S. Centers for Dis...

One of the first confirmed cases of reinfection with the South African coronavirus variant has been reported in France in a study published on Wednesday in the Clinical Infectious Diseases journal. The subject of the case was a 58-year-old patient with a history of asthma who was found to have been infected with the South African variant four months after recovering from a first episode of COVID-19, according to the study. In September of last year, the patient was diagnosed with COVID after experiencing mild fever and shortness of breath and receiving a positive PCR swab test. He recovered within a few days and tested negative twice in December. In January, about four months after initially testing positive, the patient entered the hospital with recurrent shortness ...

US reports the lowest number of new weekly COVID cases since OCTOBER as Bill Gates' daughter Jennifer, 24, joins the 11% of Americans who've had their first vaccine dose and jokes 'it did not implant my genius father into my brain' There were just over 650,000 new COVID-19 infections reported in the US in the seven days to February 13; that is the lowest weekly number since October  Death and hospitalization numbers are also down significantly from numbers recorded last week While numbers may be dropping following the end of the holiday season, they are still far higher than they were during  spring and summer surges of 2020 Officials are cautioning that Americans are still not out of the woods, particularly as the vaccine rollout remains quite sluggish  As of Saturday, aro...

Japanese scientists have identified stem cells vital for hair regeneration, aiming to launch clinical research to apply those cells to therapy for male-pattern baldness. According to an article published online in the British journal Scientific Reports, Takashi Tsuji, a team leader at the government-affiliated Riken research institute, and colleagues established in-vitro culture systems and found through functional analysis that stem cells positive for antibody CD34 and integrin alpha 6 and beta 5, both adhesive proteins, play significant roles in continued hair regeneration together with a glycoprotein called tenascin. “Losing hair or teeth is not life-threatening, but it adversely affects the quality of life,” Tsuji said. “I hope to start clinical study soon.” Biotechnology sta...