Tag: mortality

Does Private Equity Investment in Healthcare Benefit Patients? Evidence from Nursing Homes

The summary of a study by National Bureau of Economic Research: The past two decades have seen a rapid increase in Private Equity (PE) investment in healthcare, a sector in which intensive government subsidy and market frictions could lead high-powered for-profit incentives to be misaligned with the social goal of affordable, quality care. This paper studies [PDF] the effects of PE…

Two WHO Team Members Dispute Report China Wasn’t Cooperative for Covid-19 Investigation

Friday the New York Times (following up on reports from the Wall Street Journal) wrote that China had “refused to hand over” important raw data to a 14-member World Health Organization team investigating the origins of the coronavirus, reporting that “their Chinese counterparts were frustrated by the team’s persistent questioning and demands for data.” But Saturday two of those 14 team…

Fossil Fuels Caused 8.7 Million Deaths Globally in 2018, Research Finds

Air pollution caused by the burning of fossil fuels such as coal and oil was responsible for 8.7 million deaths globally in 2018, a staggering one in five of all people who died that year, new research has found. From a report: Countries with the most prodigious consumption of fossil fuels to power factories, homes and vehicles are suffering the highest…

Mass Die-Off of Birds in Southwest US ‘Probably Linked to Climate Crisis’

The Guardian reports: The mass die-off of thousands of songbirds in south-western U.S. was caused by long-term starvation, made worse by unseasonably cold weather probably linked to the climate crisis, scientists have said. Flycatchers, swallows and warblers were among the migratory birds “falling out of the sky” in September, with carcasses found in New Mexico, Colorado, Texas, Arizona and Nebraska. A…

The Secret to Longevity? 4-Minute Bursts of Intense Exercise May Help

The New York Times reports on results from a rigorous five-year study in Trondheim, Norway that raises the question: If you increase your heart rate, will your life span follow? The study, one of the largest and longest-term experimental examinations to date of exercise and mortality, shows that older men and women who exercise in almost any fashion are relatively unlikely…

Epidemiologist explains CDC guidance on 15 minutes of exposure

New guidance from the CDC says that 15 minutes of exposure – regardless of whether that occurs at one time – can result in transmission of the coronavirus. Source: https://earthsky.org/human-world/epidemiologist-explains-cdc-guidance-15-minutes-covid19-exposure…

Remdesivir has ‘no meaningful impact’ on COVID-19 survival, huge study finds

Patients given the drug did not show a significant decrease in mortality, risk of ventilation or time in the hospital. Source: https://www.livescience.com/remdesivir-survival-covid19-coronavirus.html

Remdesivir Has Little Effect on Covid-19 Mortality, WHO Study Says

The Covid-19 treatment remdesivir has no substantial effect on a patient’s chances of survival [Editor’s note: the link may be paywalled; alternative source], a clinical trial by the World Health Organization has found, delivering a significant blow to hopes of identifying existing medicines to treat the disease. From a report: Results from the WHO’s highly anticipated Solidarity trial, which studied the…

Louise Gluck Is Awarded Nobel Prize in Literature

The Nobel Prize in Literature was awarded on Thursday to Louise Gluck, one of America’s most celebrated poets, “for her unmistakable poetic voice that with austere beauty makes individual existence universal.” The award was announced at a news conference in Stockholm. From a report: Gluck, who was born in New York in 1943, has written numerous poetry collections, many of which…