Month: April 2020

Just weeks ago, cities and even states across the U.S. were busy banning straws, limiting takeout containers and mandating that shoppers bring reusable bags or pay a small fee as the movement to eliminate single-use plastics took hold in mainstream America. What a difference a pandemic makes.  In a matter of days, hard-won bans to reduce the use of plastics — and particularly plastic shopping sacks — across the U.S. have come under fire amid worries about the virus clinging to reusable bags, cups and straws.  Governors in Massachusetts and Illinois have banned or strongly discouraged the use of reusable grocery bags. Oregon suspended its brand-new ban on plastic bags this week, and cities from Bellingham, Washington, to Albuquerque, New Mexico, have announced a hiatus on plastic bag bans as the…

Prime Minister Shinzo Abe has declared a state of emergency in Tokyo and six other hard-hit Japanese prefectures to fortify the fight against the coronavirus outbreak. But this is no European or Wuhan-style lockdown. A look at what Japan's state of emergency entails:Why Did Abe Declare A State Of Emergency? A. Abe was facing heavy pressure to declare a state of emergency after the number of new cases in Tokyo began doubling every several days in late March. The city of 14 million had 1,339 cases as of Wednesday, up from about 600 a week earlier. Japan focused on dealing with clusters of infections and selective testing for the virus, a strategy that has failed to curb its spread. Experts found that one-third of Tokyo's recent cases were linked to…

New analysis of data collected by the U.S. space agency’s Cassini spacecraft may have solved what has been a mystery to scientists for years: What keeps the upper layers of Saturn so warm?The warmth of Saturn and other gas giants in the solar system has puzzled scientists because the planets are too far from the sun for it to be the source of the heat that has been found in their atmospheres.But the authors of a report published this week in the scientific journal Nature Astronomy used NASA's Cassini probe data to make the most detailed examination yet of Saturn’s temperatures and atmospheric density.They discovered auroras – similar to Earth’s northern lights – active at the planet's north and south poles. The researchers believe the auroras, electrical currents triggered by…

The lockdown that served as a model for countries battling the coronavirus around the world is set to end after 11 weeks: Chinese authorities are moving to allow residents of Wuhan to once again travel in and out of the sprawling city where the pandemic began. Just after midnight Wednesday, the city's 11 million residents will be permitted to leave without special authorization as long as a mandatory smartphone application powered by a mix of data-tracking and government surveillance shows they are healthy and have not been in recent contact with anyone confirmed to have the virus.   Restrictions in the city where most of China's more than 82,000 virus cases and over 3,300 deaths were reported have been gradually relaxed in recent weeks as the number of new cases…

Pakistan's military promised Tuesday that dozens of doctors who were briefly jailed for protesting a lack of protective equipment needed to treat the growing number of coronavirus cases will get the equipment they need.   The 47 doctors protested in Quetta, the capital of southwestern Baluchistan province, on Monday, when they were detained. They were released later the same day, according to provincial spokesman Liaquat Shahwani.   An army statement on Tuesday said the "emergency supplies of medical equipment, including PPE (Personal Protective Equipment) are being dispatched to Quetta."   However, some of the doctors said they were mistreated by police and that some of their colleagues were beaten. The physicians declined to give their names, fearing reprisals. Two doctors have died after contracting the new virus in Pakistan, which…

When Philippine health workers end their daily hospital shifts, they trade the risks of COVID-19 for the risks that they could have bleach thrown in their faces or be chased from public areas.  Many workers report they are being evicted from homes, refused rides on buses, and kicked out of restaurants as their fellow citizens worry about coming into contact with them and contracting the ailment caused by the coronavirus.Critics say the disregard goes all the way to the top, with President Rodrigo Duterte saying these health professionals are “lucky” to die for the nation, even as he condemns the discrimination.The Department of Health has said it would investigate the treatment of health workers. And the capital city of Manila has approved an ordinance outlawing discrimination against workers and COVID-19…

The World Health Organization warns a severe global shortage of nurses is putting the lives of millions of people at risk and is particularly worrisome at a time when the world is doing battle with the COVID-19 pandemic.   To mark World Health Day, the first ever State of the World’s Nursing Report, produced jointly by WHO and the International Council of Nurses, is being launched. Data from 191 countries show the critical work performed by nurses is frequently undervalued.  Instead of celebrating their skills and compassion, the survey finds nurses too often are abused, subject to discrimination, and work long hours under stressful conditions for low pay.Nurses account for more than half of all the world’s health workers and are the backbone of any health system.  The report reveals there are…

People around the world, trapped in their homes amid a health crisis, have something to look forward to this week when the full moon appears as a supermoon for the second of three times this year and in its most spectacular form.  A phenomenon known as the Super Pink Moon will make an appearance over a couple of nights this week. It will be the biggest and brightest on Tuesday, but its appearance on Monday and Wednesday will also be worth viewing. Housebound people are more likely than usual to want to step out into their yards or poke their heads out of their windows to watch this so-called supermoon and develop a new appreciation for the natural world or renew an old one. A full moon appears approximately once a month. When the moon gets closest to the Earth in its orbit, it appears bigger and brighter than usual and is called a supermoon. A supermoon can look up to 14% bigger and 30% brighter than a regular monthly full moon.  Most years have 12 full moons, but this year will have 13, three of them supermoons. The April supermoon follows the one of March 9 and precedes the one coming on…

Tuesday is World Health Day, which is being commemorated as the world faces one of the biggest international health threats of the past century. The head of the World Health Organization, director-general Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, told a virtual news conference Monday in Geneva that the organization is paying tribute to the contribution of health care workers who have been at the forefront of treating patients with the coronavirus. He said Worth Health Day, which is celebrated each year on the World Health Organization’s founding day, is usually one of the group’s biggest days of the year, but this year the day is being overshadowed by the coronavirus pandemic. The 2020 Worth Health Day was “supposed to be the main event in our assembly in May. Unfortunately, we are in this situation,” Tedros said. He…

The debate over the usefulness of an antimalarial drug to treat U.S. coronavirus victims is pitting President Donald Trump against the country’s top U.S. infectious disease expert, Dr. Anthony Fauci. With the U.S. coronavirus death toll increasing by hundreds a day, Trump at daily news briefings regularly touts the use of hydroxychloroquine, calling it a potential “game-changer” to save lives.  President Donald Trump speaks during a coronavirus task force briefing at the White House, April 5, 2020, in Washington."What do you have to lose? Take it," the president said in a White House briefing over the weekend. "I really think they should take it. But it's their choice. And it's their doctor's choice or the doctors in the hospital. But hydroxychloroquine — try it if you'd like." Fauci, often standing a step…

 The new coronavirus made Dr. Jag Singh a patient at his own hospital.His alarm grew as he saw an X-ray of his pneumonia-choked lungs and colleagues asked his wishes about life support while wheeling him into Massachusetts General’s intensive care unit.An X-ray room is seen at a Hospital in Fairfax, Virginia. (Photo: Diaa Bekheet). In some hospitals, chest X-ray has taken center stage as a frontline diagnostic test for COVID-19 patients.When they offered him a chance to help test remdesivir, an experimental drug that’s shown promise against some other coronaviruses, “it did not even cross my mind once to say ‘no,’” said Singh, a heart specialist.Coronavirus patients around the world have been rushing to join remdesivir studies that opened in hospitals in the last few weeks.Interest has been so great…

Americans in overwhelming numbers are actively avoiding others as much as possible and taking additional steps to protect themselves from the coronavirus, according to a survey from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research that shows how concerns about infection have grown sharply in the past six weeks.   The survey finds Americans are increasingly isolating, washing their hands and avoiding touching their face. Large portions of the country are confronting lay-offs and pay cuts and are adjusting to kids forced home from school and day care amid the coronavirus pandemic, which has upended American life and the nation's economy.   Half of Americans now say they are extremely or very worried that they or a family member will be infected by the virus. That compares with 31% who…

In the middle of the deadly, worldwide coronavirus pandemic, Michael Wells, a 34-year old neuroscientist, wanted to be useful ...

The world crossed the one-million mark of confirmed COVID-19 cases this past week. With untold millions more possible in the months to come, scientists are committed to making a vaccine.There's a lot about COVID-19 that scientists still don't know. They don't know entirely how it is spread. And without proven treatments or vaccines, good hygiene and staying away from other people are the only known methods of prevention.Dr. Peter Hotez at Baylor College of Medicine started working on a coronavirus vaccine in 2003, during the outbreak of SARS, but after that, research funds dried up.Hotez expects more coronaviruses to develop and spread. Some may be more benign that COVID-19, some far deadlier."Pandemics for coronaviruses have become a new normal. That we saw with SARS in 2003. We saw it in…

Michael Wells was looking for a chance to use his scientific training to help fight the coronavirus when — on the same day the pandemic forced his lab to temporarily close — he decided to create his own opportunity. “CALLING ALL SCIENTISTS," he tweeted on March 18. "Help me in creating a national database of researchers willing and able to aid in local COVID-19 efforts. This info will be a resource for institutions/(government) agencies upon their request.” That's how the 34-year-old neuroscientist at the Broad Institute and Harvard University launched a national effort to marshal scientists to volunteer in the fight against the virus. Less than 10 days later, more than 7,000 scientists had joined Wells’ database. Organizations and governmental departments in a dozen states, as well as the Federal Emergency Management Agency, have tapped into the…

“Meetings are huge for me,” says Mike S., a 52-year-old web content specialist who has been sober since 2012.When his community began practicing social distancing, some of his usual meetings began offering the option of attending online. Mike went in person as long as he could, but things already felt different.With some regulars attending online through a video conferencing service called Zoom, the number of people physically attending “dropped on average by about half,” he said, “which was disconcerting and felt ominous.”Connection with one another is a key part of the way many people in recovery from drug and alcohol addiction stay clean and sober, which makes the stay-at-home orders affecting many urban centers particularly challenging.Larry C., a real estate agent, relapsed last year after more than a dozen years…

With the coronavirus pandemic nowhere near its end, for many patients the risk of infection has made seeking treatment in hospitals potentially dangerous. This has led to telemedicine becoming more and more routine. Andrei Dziarkach has the story, narrated by Anna Rice. ...

With the coronavirus pandemic nowhere near its end, for many patients the risk of infection has made seeking treatment in hospitals potentially dangerous. This has led to telemedicine becoming more and more routine. Andrei Dziarkach has the story, narrated by Anna Rice. ...

With coronavirus deaths climbing rapidly in New York, the governor announced Friday he will use his authority to take ventilators and protective gear from private hospitals and companies that aren't using them, complaining that states are competing against each other for vital equipment in eBay-like bidding wars."If they want to sue me for borrowing their excess ventilators to save lives, let them sue me," Gov. Andrew Cuomo said.The executive order he said he would sign represents one of the most aggressive efforts yet in the U.S. to deal with the kind of critical shortages around the world that authorities say have caused health care workers to fall sick and forced doctors in Europe to make life-or-death decisions about which patients get a breathing machine.The number of the people infected in…

Social distancing and isolation can be hard, as New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo recently pointed out during a daily briefing on the status of COVID-19 in his state. “Don’t underestimate the personal trauma, and don’t underestimate the pain of isolation. It is real,” Cuomo said. “This is not the human condition — not to be comforted, not to be close, to be afraid and you can’t hug someone. … This is all unnatural and disorienting.”  Experts already know that years of loneliness or feelings of isolation can lead to anxiety, depression and dementia in adults. A weakened immune system response, higher rates of obesity, high blood pressure, heart disease and a shorter life span can also result. A Pittsburgh Public Works employee removes a basketball rim from a city court in an effort to encourage social distancing, March 30, 2020.Children who have fewer…

Prince Charles on Friday remotely opened the new Nightingale Hospital at London's main exhibition and conference center, a temporary facility that will soon be able to treat 4,000 people who have contracted COVID-19. Charles said he was "enormously touched" to be asked to open the temporary facility at the ExCel center in east London and paid tribute to everyone, including military personnel, involved in its "spectacular and almost unbelievable" nine-day construction. "An example, if ever one was needed, of how the impossible could be made possible and how we can achieve the unthinkable through human will and ingenuity," he said via video link from his Scottish home of Birkhall. "To convert one of the largest national conference centres into a field hospital, starting with 500 beds with a potential of…

A cruise ship where at least two passengers died of coronavirus while barred from South American ports finally docked Thursday in Florida after two weeks at sea and days of negotiations with initially resistant local officials. The Zaandam and a sister ship sent to help it, the Rotterdam, were allowed to unload passengers at Port Everglades after working out a detailed agreement with officials who feared it would divert needed resources from a region that has seen a spike in virus cases.   Broward County officials and Holland America, the company that operates the ships, announced the agreement shortly before the ships pulled into port.   Holland America initially said 45 people who were mildly ill would stay on board until they recovered, but the docking plan released later Thursday…