Health & Fitness

In Homer's epic poem The Odyssey, sirens lured sailors to shipwreck off the coast of their island with the temptation of music and song. Recognizing the danger, Ulysses devised a plan to tie himself to the mast to guarantee restraint as he sailed by. While it proved more challenging for him and his crew than they imagined, they made it home. The wisdom of this ancient story relates to today's battle with opioids: to get past the allure of continued and often troublesome opioid use patterns, patients and doctors need a plan in hand before the first opioid is ever used. The proposed new federal guidelines for prescribing opioids seek to fill that gap, but they are a mixed blessing for physic...

Cases of Highly Pathogenic Avian Influenza (HPAI) have been rising in backyard flocks and wild birds across dozens of states in recent months, prompting zoo officials to temporarily shut down bird exhibits. "This strain of the disease is highly contagious and lethal to birds," the Maryland Zoo in Baltimore said in a statement on its website. "As a precautionary measure, we have closed our aviaries and moved several of our bird species to behind-the-scenes facilities with limited human contact until the threat of avian influenza has subsided." Birds in zoos could get infected by wild birds, humans or a new bird introduced to the facility. The disease caused by the flu has been detected in commercial and backyard flocks across 24 states and in wild birds across 31 states, according to ...

The novel coronavirus can infect immune cells that will trigger a massive inflammatory response and create severe COVID-19 symptoms, according to new research. Details: Two new studies — one published in the journal Nature and another available on a preprint server — found that the immune cells infected by the coronavirus can cause severe inflammation. Research since the beginning of the pandemic has suggested inflammation creates respiratory issues and organ damage. Now, the researchers found that coronavirus can infect white blood cells — macrophages in the lungs, and monocytes in the blood — which then trigger the inflammation. Behind the scenes: The cells normally absorb the virus and treat it so that the virus doesn’t infect other cells,...

Matthew Broderick and Sarah Jessica Parker attend Neil Simon's "Plaza Suite" Broadway opening night at the Hudson Theatre on Monday, March 28, in New York. Both Broderick and Parker have tested positive for COVID-19. (Charles Sykes, Invision via AP) Estimated read time: 5-6 minutes WASHINGTON — The U.S. is getting a first glimpse of what it's like to experience COVID-19 outbreaks during this new phase of living with the virus, and the roster of the newly infected is studded with stars. Cabinet members, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Broadway actors and the governors of New Jersey and Connecticut have all tested positive. Outbreaks at Georgetown University ...

California regulators are deciding whether or not to approve an experiment in which genetically engineered mosquitoes are released into the wild, and they’re asking the public to weigh in. The company behind this research experiment, Oxitec, has already passed the first barrier, which was to get an Experimental Use Permit from the United States Environmental Protection Agency. Oxitec, which develops pest-control tech, already had a permit to conduct the pilot project in Florida. However, the EPA last month extended and amended the permit to allow the project to expand into California as well, pending a green light from the state. Their pilot project aims to find whether their genetically engineered, non-biting mosquitoes are able to control the existing populat...

One week after Los Angeles threw off the last of its Covid restrictions, L.A. Officials are concerned about the spread of the more contagious BA.2 variant, a rise in cases and looming school and religious holidays. “While outbreaks in many sectors remain low,” the County Public Health Department said on Friday that “gatherings for Ramadan, Passover, Easter and Spring Break could eventually lead to more cases and outbreaks.” The good news is that, even with the rising case and test positivity numbers, the new variant and recently lifted restrictions, hospitalizations and deaths are not showing any signs of increase. The region’s 7-day test positivity has risen 50% since Tuesday, from 0.8% to 1.2% today. That kind of jump in a 7-day average is worth noting, even though the...

CNN  —  Washington, DC is coping with a cluster of high-profile Covid-19 cases after a series of public events exposed high-level officials. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Sens. Susan Collins and Raphael Warnock, and Rep. Peter DeFazio have all this week announced that they tested positive. Health experts say the outbreak may be rooted, in part, in outdated and confusing guidelines from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that help people assess their risk of getting the virus that causes Covid-19 or passing it on to others. On Thursday, after announcing that she had been in close contact with someone who had tested positive for Covid-19, Vice Pre...

Just weeks after the school mask mandate was lifted in California, Los Angeles County is seeing an increase in school coronavirus outbreaks, health authorities said Thursday. There were 14 school outbreaks reported in the county in the seven-day period ending April 5, including 12 at elementary schools and two at high schools, according to the L.A. County Department of Public Health. “We’ve more than tripled the number of new outbreaks at schools this past week, and we’re seeing similar numbers of outbreaks to what we experienced during the omicron surge,” L.A. County Health Director Barbara Ferrer warned. The rise in outbreak numbers is likely tied to the increased spread of the highly contagious BA.2 omicron subvariant, as well as the lifting of indoor masking req...

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The highly contagious subvariant of Omicron, known as BA.2, has prompted concern among health officials as it becomes the dominant version of the coronavirus around the world. So far, signs suggest that BA.2 is 30 to 80 percent more transmissible than the original version of Omicron, and cases are already going up in several states across the United States. While we have tools to prepare for a spike in cases — vaccination, frequent testing, high-quality masks and social distancing — experts worry that the public's capacity to keep up with precautionary measures is waning. And it can still be confusing to know what to expect with a Covid infection. When do you need to test? How long will your infection last? Like previous coronavirus variants, BA.2 can be wildly unpredictable in its timeli...