Health & Fitness

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A squirrel has tested positive for the bubonic plague in Colorado. According to health officials, the squirrel is the first case of plague in The Town of Morrison, Jefferson County, which is about 17 miles southwest of Denver. “Plague is an infectious disease caused by the bacteria Yersinia pestis, and can be contracted by humans and household animals,” public health officials wrote. However, if proper precautions are taken, the risk of getting plague is “extremely low,” they said. Humans can get infected through bites from infected fleas or animals. “Cats are highly susceptible to plague and may die if not treated promptly with antibiotics. Cats can contract plague from flea bites, a rodent scratch/bite or ingestion of a rodent. Dogs are not as susceptible to plague; howe...

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The Oregon Health Authority on Monday reported 280 new confirmed or presumptive cases of the coronavirus and three additional deaths. Disclosure of the new cases came hours after Gov. Kate Brown announced a ban on indoor social gatherings of more than 10 people. She also announced a new requirement that Oregonians wear face coverings outdoors if they cannot keep six feet of distance between themselves and others outside their household. Recent virus transmission models estimate that the state could see anywhere from 1,100 to 7,300 new cases per day by the end of July. In a scenario where transmission rates increase by 10%, the number of cases requiring hospitalization could jump from about 17 a day in early July to as many as 76 a day, which could challenge Oregon’s hospital capacity. O...

SAN ANTONIO – The novel coronavirus continued to spread on Monday as officials announced 565 new COVID-19 cases. Since the start of the pandemic, San Antonio has now seen a total of 20,213 COVID-19 cases, the majority of which are still active. Eleven deaths were also confirmed on Monday, with the victims ranging from 40-80 years of age. The death toll now stands at 195. Due to the surge in cases, officials remain concerned over the county’s hospital capacity. San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg said hospitals continue to be under severe stress as 1,267 people are currently hospitalized in Bexar County due to COVID-19. Of those patients, 421 are in the intensive care unit and 257 are on ventilators. Only 10% of hospital beds and 45% of ventilators are available. The numbers come after a dea...

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The coronavirus is spurring on all kinds of innovation and creativity from the scientific community as well as the business community. The main focus now is on developing a vaccine and therapeutic drugs to combat the virus. Businesses have shut down normal production of products and switched to manufacturing essential medical equipment, like ventilators, as well as personal protection equipment to meet the needs of hospitals and first responders. All of this is good. Meanwhile, researchers at the University of Houston (UH) have developed an air filter that kills the coronavirus. It is a “catch and kill” filter and it sounds really promising. It traps the virus and other pathogens and instantly kills them. The researchers teamed up with others to make it happen. Zhifeng Ren, director of th...

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A new study finds that smoking is doubling the number of young adults at high risk of severe COVID-19. Researchers at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) examined 8,405 respondents to the National Health Interview Survey aged 18 to 25 for the severe COVID-19 risk factors identified by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). They found that 32 percent of respondents had at least one of the risk factors, but half of those were in the vulnerable group because of a single risk factor: smoking within the last 30 days, according to the peer-reviewed study published Monday in the Journal of Adolescent Health. When that risk factor was removed, the percentage of medically vulnerable young people dropped to 16 percent. “Recent evidence indicates that smoki...

Since early on in the pandemic, the World Health Organization has warned that people who have had Covid-19 are not necessarily immune from getting the virus again. Yet the new study had some limitations, including that more research is needed to determine whether similar results would emerge among a larger group of patients and what data could show over longer periods of time when it comes to infection with the coronavirus, named SARS-CoV-2. "This study has important implications when considering protection against re-infection with SARS-CoV-2 and the durability of vaccine protection," the researchers wrote in the paper. "This work confirms that protective antibody responses in those infected with SARS-COV2, the coronavirus that causes COVID-19, appear to wane rapidly. Whilst longer lasti...