TimeMagazine To protect himself from COVID-19, Dr. Anthony Fauci has long said he’s skipping hugs and handshakes, wearing a mask, and staying off of planes. Last week, he acknowledged adding another step to protect his health: taking supplements of vitamin-D. “If you are deficient in Vitamin-D, that does have an impact on your susceptibility to infection,” … Read more
Who thought it would be a good idea to move thousands of teenagers and young adults across the country to college campuses, where, unencumbered by parental supervision, many college kids did what college kids do? Actually, Nigel Goldenfeld and Sergei Maslov, two University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign physics researchers, thought they had it figured out. … Read more
Central Europe in the past week has seen a spike in daily confirmed coronavirus cases, a major setback for a region that largely avoided the first wave of the virus in the spring. The Czech Republic, an E.U. member state of 10.7 million, registered a country record of 1,382 new infections on Sep. 11, bringing … Read more
While the world waits for a COVID-19 vaccine, children across the globe are going without shots already known to be life-saving. With the world in disarray due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the number of children vaccinated this year against infections like diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, measles and pneumococcal disease has fallen to levels not seen since … Read more
At least 75,000 Americans in nursing homes and other long-term care facilities have already died from COVID-19—and the devastation is far from over. After a decrease earlier this summer, the death toll is now rising once again, and as the country heads into the fall and then flu season, millions of Americans who require institutional … Read more
For weeks now, U.S. President Donald Trump has repeatedly made predictions, sometimes verging on promises, that a COVID-19 vaccine is imminent. “We remain on track to deliver a vaccine before the end of the year and maybe even before November 1st,” he said at a Sept. 4 news conference. “We think we can probably have … Read more
Forty-five days before the announcement of the first suspected case of what would become known as COVID-19, the Global Health Security Index was published. The project—led by the Nuclear Threat Initiative and the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security—assessed 195 countries on their perceived ability to handle a major disease outbreak. The U.S. ranked first. … Read more
The cleverest of enemies thrive on surprise attacks. Viruses—and coronaviruses in particular—know this well. Remaining hidden in animal hosts for decades, they mutate steadily, sometimes serendipitously morphing into more effective and efficient infectious agents. When a strain with just the right combination of genetic codes that spell trouble for people makes the leap from animal … Read more
Almost 2 million fewer U.S. teenagers report using e-cigarettes in 2020 compared to 2019, according to new data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). “Youth e-cigarette use remains an epidemic,” CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield said in a statement released Wednesday, but the decline in underage vaping is dramatic. About 20% … Read more
AstraZeneca, the U.K.-based pharmaceutical company behind one of the world’s most promising COVID-19 vaccine candidates, has paused its trials due to “a single event of an unexplained illness that occurred in the UK Phase III trial,” the company announced Sept. 9. The news is disappointing, but it shows the development process is happening as it … Read more