Two out of five individuals delayed or missed medical care in the early phase of the pandemic—from March through mid-July 2020—according to a new survey from researchers at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. The survey of 1,337 U.S. adults found that 544, or 41 percent, delayed or missed medical care during the […]
India gives 1 million doses of COVID-19 vaccine to Nepal
India sent 1 million doses of a coronavirus vaccine to Nepal on Thursday, a gift that is likely to help repair strained ties between the two neighbors. Nepal health minister Hridayesh Tripathi said the AstraZeneca/Oxford University vaccine, manufactured under license by Serum Institute of India, will be given to health workers and other front-line personnel […]
How to take care of your eyes now we're on our screens more than ever before
Thanks to lockdown, we’re on our screens more than ever before – whether it’s doomscrolling, working from home, watching Netflix or finding hacks on TikTok. And our eyes are paying the price. Recent research from Specsavers found 42% of people have noticed their sight deteriorate since March 2020 – when the first lockdown came into […]
Blood may hold clues to some of COVID-19’s most mysterious symptoms
The most severe cases of COVID-19 begin with leaky blood vessels. Breaches in the vascular system cause inflammation and coagulation, as fluid floods the lungs. Meanwhile, a host of seemingly unrelated symptoms set in. Blood pressure drops, arrhythmias test the heart, and the central nervous system takes a beating. Some studies suggest that such disparate […]
‘Follow the science’ and other principles of Biden’s pandemic response plan
Entering the White House at the height of a global pandemic, President-elect Joe Biden’s administration plans to respond by ramping up and simplifying the vaccination process, tackling equity issues, and, above all, following the science, according to two members of Biden’s COVID-19 task force. “From vaccines to therapeutics, to diagnostics, to other public health recommendations, […]
EXPLAINER: Why expansion of vaccine to smokers caused a stir
New Jersey this week made millions of people eligible to get the COVID-19 vaccine, including smokers, a move that prompted gripes about them skipping to the front of the inoculation line. Democratic Gov. Phil Murphy made people 65 and older and those 16 and older with medical conditions eligible to get the vaccine. That started […]
Experts consider the role of systemic racism in exacerbating COVID-19 health inequalities
Researchers from leading UK and US institutions have published an analysis outlining the disproportionate effect of COVID-19 on ethnic minority groups, and the role of racism, in particular systemic racism, as a fundamental cause and driver of adverse health outcomes. Recommendations include the addition of ethnic minority groups to those defined as clinically extremely vulnerable […]
Physical frailty syndrome: A cacophony of multisystem dysfunction
In the inaugural issue of the journal Nature Aging a research team led by aging expert Linda P. Fried, MD, MPH, dean of Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health, synthesizes converging evidence that the aging-related pathophysiology underpinning the clinical presentation of phenotypic frailty (termed as “physical frailty” here) is a state of lower functioning […]
New insights into the control of inflammation
Scientists at The Wistar Institute discovered that Early Growth Response 1 (EGR1), a protein that turns on and off specific genes during blood cell development, inhibits expression of pro-inflammatory genes in macrophages. As part of their function to protect the body against pathogens, macrophages play a major role in initiation, maintenance, and resolution of inflammation. […]
‘So much death’: LA hospital reels at center of COVID storm
Deep within a South Los Angeles hospital, a row of elderly Hispanic men lay hooked up to ventilators—their bodies resting in induced comas—while nurses clad in spacesuit-style respirators checked their patients’ bleeping monitors in the otherwise eerie silence. The intensive care unit in one of the city’s poorest districts is well-accustomed to death, but with […]