Thursday an Opinion piece in the Washington Post touted what the paper’s own health policy reporter has described as “a conspiracy theory that has been repeatedly debunked by experts.” That conspiracy theory argues that instead of originating in the wild, the COVID-19 virus somehow escaped from a research lab. Now the fact-checking web site Snopes has also weighed in this week,…
Tag: disease control
How to model a pandemic
Behind every government announcement, there is an army of epidemiologists predicting how the virus will spread, and how to beat it. Source: https://earthsky.org/human-world/how-to-model-a-pandemic…
C.D.C. Weighs Advising Everyone To Wear a Mask
Widespread use of nonmedical masks could reduce community transmission. But recommending their broad use could also cause a run on the kind of masks that health care workers desperately need. From a report: Should healthy people be wearing masks when they’re outside to protect themselves and others? Both the World Health Organization and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have…
NYT Investigates America’s ‘Lost Month’ for Coronavirus Testing
The New York Times interviewed over 50 current and former U.S. health officials, senior scientists, company executives, and administration officials to investigate America’s “lost month” without widespread coronavirus testing, “when the world’s richest country — armed with some of the most highly trained scientists and infectious disease specialists — squandered its best chance of containing the virus’s spread.”
With capacity so limited,…
Social Distancing Is Slowing Not Only COVID-19, But Other Diseases Too
“As governments around the world have pushed their citizens away from populated places to slow the spread of Covid-19, they may not have realized that they were also combatting other infectious diseases, such as the seasonal flu,” reports Quartz. The data comes from Kinsa Health, a company that collects anonymized thermometer readings from its active user base to estimate the share…
More essential coronavirus links: March 17-23
A roundup of information from physicians, scientists and journalists. Source: https://earthsky.org/human-world/more-essential-coronavirus-links-march-17-23…
Coronavirus Cases Have Dropped Sharply In South Korea. What’s Its Secret?
South Korea “has emerged as a sign of hope and a model to emulate,” reported Nature earlier on Tuesday. “The country of 50 million appears to have greatly slowed its epidemic; it reported only 74 new cases today, down from 909 at its peak on 29 February.”
And it has done so without locking down entire cities or taking some of the…
WSJ: Narrow Testing Guidelines By America’s CDC ‘Hid’ the Growing US Epidemic
The Wall Street Journal reports that as the coronavirus pandemic began, America’s Centers for Disease Control and Prevention “provided restrictive guidance on who should be tested.” They’re basing that on archived pages on the CDC’s own web site. “While agencies in other countries were advising and conducting widespread testing, the CDC, charged with setting the U.S. standard for who should be…
CDC Launches Coronavirus Self-Checker Chatbot With the Help of Microsoft
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has collaborated with Microsoft to introduce the Coronavirus Self-Checker, a tool designed to better help you understand the disease which has caused over 10,000 confirmed cases in the United States and claimed at least 187 lives. From a report: The chatbot is another step Microsoft has taken to educate the public about the viral…
Microsoft Bing Team Launches COVID-19 Tracker
Microsoft’s Bing team has launched a website for tracking coronavirus (COVID-19) infections across the globe. From a report: “Lots of Bing folks worked (from home) this past week to create a mapping and authoritative news resource for COVID19 info,” said Michael Schechter, General Manager for Bing Growth and Distribution at Microsoft. The website, accessible at bing.com/covid, is a basic tracker. It…