“Facebook has prevented a French man with an incurable illness from streaming his own death on the social media site, according to a company statement…” reports CNN: Alain Cocq, 57, estimates he will only have days to live after stopping all medication, food and drink, which he planned to do on Friday evening. He had intended to broadcast his dying days…
Tag: medical care
COVID-19 Vaccines With ‘Minor Side Effects’ Could Still Be Pretty Bad
“The risk of nasty side effects in the Moderna and Oxford trials should be made clear now, before it ends up as fodder for the skeptics,” argues Hilda Bastian, a former consumer health care advocate and a Ph.D. student at Bond University who studies evidence-based medicine. An anonymous reader shares an excerpt from her article via Wired: On Monday, vaccine researchers…
Right to Repair Advocates Accuse Medical Device Manufacturers of Profiteering
A new Motherboard article interviews William, a ventilator refurbisher who’s repaired at least 70 broken ventilators that he’s bought on eBay and from other secondhand websites, then sold to U.S. hospitals and governments to help handle a spike in COVID-19 patients. He’s part of a grey-market supply chain that’s “essentially identical to one used by farmers to repair John Deere tractors…
Americans Lag Behind Other Countries — and Pay More for Their Cellphone Service
“American consumers pay significantly more for cellphone service than people in many other countries,” reports the New York Times. It’s in an article headlined “The U.S. Is Lagging Behind Many Rich Countries. These Charts Show Why.” Although executives’ salaries have risen in most countries, relative to those of workers, in recent decades, the trend is more extreme in the U.S… The…
First US Coronavirus Deaths Took Place Weeks Before Initially Thought
The first American to die of COVID-19 took place in early and mid-February, according autopsies at the Santa Clara Medical Examiner-Coroner. “Until the new revelations, the first COVID-19 death had been identified as a man in his 50s in Washington state who died Feb. 29,” reports The Hill. From the report: The two people died at home on Feb. 6 and…
Some Recovered Coronavirus Patients In Wuhan Are Testing Positive Again
NPR is reporting that some Wuhan residents in China who had tested positive earlier and then recovered from the disease are testing positive for the virus a second time. It’s raising concerns of a possible second wave of cases, as China prepares to lift quarantine measures to allow residents to leave the epicenter of its outbreak next month. From the report:…
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…
Rise in flu-like illness could be sign of coronavirus spread in the US
More people in the U.S. are seeking medical care for flu-like, but are testing negative for flu. That could suggest the spread of the new coronavirus is picking up steam in the U.S. Source: https://www.livescience.com/coronavirus-rise-in-flu-like-illness-us.html
How deadly is the new coronavirus?
All estimates of coronavirus mortality should be taken with a grain of salt, but scientists are beginning to see differences based on age and access to medical care. Source: https://www.livescience.com/is-coronavirus-deadly.html
US Confirms First Case of Coronavirus From Unknown Origin
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed that a resident from Northern California has contracted the coronavirus without traveling outside the United States or coming in contact with another patient known to have the infection — the first sign that the disease may be spreading within a local community. The Sacramento Bee reports: “It is a confirmed case. There is…