At its peak, the current COVID-19 pandemic has all but brought social and economic life to a virtual standstill. Although lockdowns and social distancing have proven effective in bringing down infection rates and COVID-associated deaths, they did so at considerable costs and thus at far unpredictable medical and psychological long-term effects. Rather than imposing mobility […]
In clinical trials, a time-honored but old-school way to determine if TB is being knocked out by antibiotics involves having study participants cough up phlegm for a sputum culture, a test that can gauge whether the bacteria are succumbing to—or resisting—treatment. Sputum cultures are widely used to determine the amount of active bacteria among trial […]
Nonprofit donates wedding dresses to health care workers on pandemic frontlines Registered nurse Nicole Harris, a bride-to-be receiving a donated wedding dress, and Heidi Janson, founder of Brides Across America, join ‘Fox & Friends.’ A Texas wedding where the groom was allegedly aware he had COVID-19 was the source of a potential superspreader event after […]
Researchers at the University of Gothenburg in Sweden, together with their colleagues at the Barcelona Beta Research Centre in Spain, the University Medical Centre in Ljubljana, Slovenia, and the University of Paris, have found new forms of tau protein that become abnormal in the very early stages of Alzheimer’s disease before cognitive problems develop. The […]
TUESDAY, Sept. 29, 2020 — The U.S. government will start distributing millions of rapid COVID-19 tests to states this week with the goal of reopening schools. About 6.5 million tests will be shipped this week, and a total of 100 million tests will be sent out during the next several weeks, a senior official told […]
The Trump administration has announced a plan to distribute millions of rapid COVID-19 tests to states, with a focus on using the tests to reopen schools. On Monday (Sept. 28), President Donald Trump said in a news conference that the federal government would soon begin deploying 150 million rapid COVID-19 tests across the country. Of […]
The World Health Organization announced Monday that it and leading partners have agreed to a plan to roll out 120 million rapid-diagnostic tests for the coronavirus to help lower- and middle-income countries make up ground in a testing gap with richer countries—even if it’s not fully funded yet. At $5 apiece, the antigen-based rapid diagnostic […]
From inaccurate Covid swabs to dodgy home pregnancy kits… why you CAN’T always count on tests results From nasal swabs for the coronavirus, to home pregnancy kits and allergy tests, there are a multitude of ways to check if you have a particular condition. The results, however — whether it’s a DIY test or one […]
A Cambridge hospital has piloted the use of combined rapid point-of-care nucleic acid and antibody testing for SARS-CoV-2 infection after researchers at the University of Cambridge showed that this approach was superior to virus detection alone for diagnosing COVID-19 disease. Point-of-care testing—in other words, testing patients as soon as they arrive at the hospital—is essential […]
Italy has imposed mandatory coronavirus testing for all travellers arriving from Croatia, Greece, Malta and Spain, and banned all visitors from Colombia, in a bid to rein in new infections. “We must continue to be cautious in order to protect the results obtained thanks to sacrifices made by all in recent months,” Health Minister Roberto […]
