Refusing to wear a face mask during the Covid-19 pandemic should be as socially unacceptable as drunk-driving, or driving without using a seat belt, the president of the UK’s Royal Society said Tuesday. Venki Ramakrishnan called for everyone to wear a face covering in public — particularly in enclosed public spaces — pointing to new…… MORE
So, about masks — they do next to nothing if you don’t wear them properly. Yep, even the cloth coverings touted as the best thing since social distancing have instructions. We’ve laid them out below, based on guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization. And remember: Masks are…… MORE
“Operation Warp Speed,” the federal government’s Covid-19 vaccine program, on Tuesday announced the largest government Covid-19 vaccine contract to date — a $1.6 billion contract with Novavax, a Maryland biotech company. “It speaks to the confidence that they have in our platform to be able to develop a vaccine,” Stanley Erck, Novavax’s president and CEO,…… MORE
When New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced last week that malls in New York could not reopen until they installed high-efficiency particulate air filters capable of trapping the virus that causes Covid-19, Harvard environmental health researcher Joseph Gardner Allen was thrilled. “I’ve been writing consistently since early February about how healthy buildings should be the…… MORE
The worsening coronavirus pandemic hit a series of somber peaks across the United States on Tuesday, renewing fears that more hospitals could be overloaded with Covid-19 patients. At least 56 intensive care units in Florida hospitals reached capacity on Tuesday, state officials said. Another 35 hospitals show ICU bed availability of 10% or less, according…… MORE
The cough has come back, without warning and seemingly for no reason; so has the fatigue. True, neither are as debilitating as when I had the actual virus, but they are back. Like many others, I am now coming to realize that I am living and suffering from the long tail of Covid-19. I got…… MORE
A gut-wrenching experience. Butterflies in your stomach. Many of us instinctively feel the connection between our gut and our brain. That connection and how the range of bacteria residing in our digestive tract — our microbiome — might help treat mental illness has become a field of interest for scientists in recent years. A new…… MORE
Prescriptions for the anti-malarial drugs chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine skyrocketed in the US from February to March, a time when the drugs, though unproven, were touted as treatments for the coronavirus. Researchers found the estimated number of hydroxychloroquine prescriptions increased 86.2% from February to March, from 367,346 to 683,999, and dispensed chloroquine prescriptions increased 158.6%, rising…… MORE
As parents nationwide wonder if it’s safe to send kids back to day care, Texas is grappling with a surge of Covid-19 cases from child care centers. At least 1,335 people have tested positive from child care facilities in Texas, the state’s Department of Health and Human Services reported Monday, citing figures from Friday. Of…… MORE
Spending less time in REM sleep is linked to a greater overall risk of death from any cause as well as from cardiovascular disease and other diseases except for cancer, a new study finds. “The effect of short REM time on mortality has not been previously shown,” said Dr. Vsevolod Polotsky, who directs Sleep Basic…… MORE
