Month: September 2020

The World Health Organization issued Teachers and auxiliary staff take COVID-19 tests in Madrid, Spain, Sept. 2, 2020.Dr. Todd Rice, an associate professor of medicine and critical care physician at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, who co-authored an editorial in JAMA, told The New York Times newspaper that the results were a confidence booster for medical professionals worried about steroid use in the sickest COVID-19 patients."This shows us steroids are clearly beneficial in this population and should clearly be given, unless you absolutely can't for some reason, which needs to be a pretty rare occasion," he said.Researchers with the WHO's Rapid Evidence Appraisal for COVID-19 Therapies (REACT) Working Group evaluated data on three steroids used in seven randomized clinical trials in 12 countries. Researchers found the corticosteroid drug dexamethasone reduced…

Astronomers say they have discovered evidence of the first intermediate-size black hole, created by the merger of two smaller black holes.Up to this point, astronomers had observed black holes – super-dense regions of space with gravity so strong light cannot escape them – in only two general sizes.There are small, or “stellar” black holes, formed when stars collapse into themselves. They range in size from three to four times the mass of our sun to tens of times the mass of our sun.There are also are supermassive black holes that are millions, maybe billions, of times more massive than our sun. A supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way galaxy is believed to be 4 million times the mass of our sun. Intermediate-size black holes had been…

Louisianians woke up Wednesday, Aug. 26 to news that Laura would be arriving as a Category 4 hurricane. The storm was expected to hit Lake Charles early Thursday morning.   Throughout the day, doctors, nurses, maintenance and cafeteria workers filled Lake Charles Memorial Hospital. The plan was for several shifts of employees to be ready once the winds picked up that night. Whole floors were designated as sleeping areas for off-duty staff. Dr. Gary Kohler, a pulmonary critical care physician, arrived for his shift at 6:30 a.m. He remembered sensing how nervous everyone was in those hours before the storm.   “No one wanted to be alone,” he said. “When we were on break, a lot of us would sit around a table together. It was a shared fear of not knowing what was coming.”    In 2005, the hospital was evacuated before Hurricane Rita arrived and devastated the city. Hurricane Laura was predicted to be more ferocious. But this time, there were no plans…

The World Health Organization’s Europe director says the COVID-19 crisis won’t necessarily end with a vaccine, but with societies learning how to live with it.In an interview with British broadcaster SKY News Wednesday, WHO Europe Director Hans Kluge said the governments that take an active leadership role and embrace public health and social measures will have the most success moving beyond the COVID-19 crisis. He said, “That could happen tomorrow.”Kluge understands that economies have been badly hurt by lockdowns and shutdowns, but every approach has its risks.Like many other health experts, Kluge predicts new surges in COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations as the colder months approach and people are indoors. But he said it will not be like early in the pandemic when governments were taken by surprise.He said, “Now, we…

Louisianians woke up Wednesday, Aug. 26 to news that Laura would be arriving as a Category 4 hurricane. The storm was expected to hit Lake Charles early Thursday morning.   Throughout the day, doctors, nurses, maintenance and cafeteria workers filled Lake Charles Memorial Hospital. The plan was for several shifts of employees to be ready once the winds picked up that night. Whole floors were designated as sleeping areas for off-duty staff. Dr. Gary Kohler, a pulmonary critical care physician, arrived for his shift at 6:30 a.m. He remembered sensing how nervous everyone was in those hours before the storm.   “No one wanted to be alone,” he said. “When we were on break, a lot of us would sit around a table together. It was a shared fear of not knowing what was coming.”    In 2005, the hospital was evacuated before Hurricane Rita arrived and devastated the city. Hurricane Laura was predicted to be more ferocious. But this time, there were no plans…

The United States says it will not participate in a global initiative to develop, manufacture and equally distribute a vaccine for COVID-19 because the World Health Organization is taking a leading role in the effort. More than 170 countries are in talks to participate in the COVID-19 Vaccines Global Access Facility, dubbed Covax, a joint project undertaken by the WHO, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations and Gavi, The Vaccine Alliance, an organization founded by Bill and Melinda Gates to vaccinate children in the world’s poorest countries.In this Aug. 14, 2020, file photo, laboratory technicians work at the mAbxience biopharmaceutical company on an experimental coronavirus vaccine developed by Oxford University and the laboratory AstraZeneca in Garin, Argentina.President Donald Trump withdrew the United States from the WHO back in July, after claiming the agency mishandled…

The strongest typhoon of the year is on its way to the Korean Peninsula Wednesday after lashing Japan with strong winds and rain.Typhoon Maysak peaked early Tuesday with winds of 233 kilometers per hour, coming within a week of the first major storm and a few days before a third potential typhoon.Maysak, a Category 4 storm on the five-level scale, could affect weather as far away as Canada.Maysak is expected to make landfall Wednesday in South Korea as a Category 1 or Category 2 storm. Prefectures along Japan’s eastern coast were still under weather advisories Tuesday, with some at the southern tip of the island under more serious weather warnings. Busan, South Korea’s second-largest city, is predicted to lie in the path of the strongest quadrant of the storm, raising fears of…

After a pandemic hiatus, more than a thousand mask-wearing Extinction Rebellion climate activists marched back onto London's streets Tuesday, calling for swifter action to halt global warming as a huge contingent of police looked on. With Britain's Parliament returning to work this week after a summer recess, protesters blocked the square in front of the building and called for legislators to take up a proposed climate and ecological emergency bill. It aims to expand Britain's pledge to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050 to cover so-far excluded sectors such as international shipping and air travel, and for actions toward the goal to be faster and determined by a citizens' assembly. "The important thing is having the government admit they're too slow. Right now they're not taking responsibility," said Reece Evans, 24, an Extinction Rebellion…

Several experimental COVID-19 vaccines have reached the final testing stage, officials involved in their development have said.The British-Swedish pharmaceutical company, AstraZeneca, said Monday the final testing stage in the U.S. will involve up to 30,000 adults from different racial, ethnic and geographical groups. A vaccine created by the U.S. National Institutes of Health and manufactured by the U.S.-based Moderna Inc. also began testing thousands of people this summer in the U.S., as has another experimental vaccine developed jointly by Pfizer Inc., headquartered in New York, and Germany’s BioNtech. AstraZeneca said its vaccine, known as AZD1222, is in late-stage trials in Brazil, South Africa and Britian, and that other trials of the vaccine are planned in Japan and Russia.For the experimental vaccines to be successful, they must pass tests that are…

Botswana says a string of mysterious elephant deaths has come to a halt since June, after at least 281 carcasses were found.Experts in the southern African country, with the world's largest elephant population, said there were no signs of poaching or predators. Most of the blood samples sent abroad for testing indicate a toxin caused the deaths. However, it is not clear if the toxin is man-made or natural, says Botswana's Ministry of Wildlife and Environment Permanent Secretary Oduetse Koboto.                           "We have received most of the results. A lot of variables that we suspected had tested negative.  We ruled out any virus, no bacteria. Pathogens (are) also negative," he said. "The only thing that we are waiting for is toxicology.…

Uganda and the United Nations refugee agency (UNHCR) have placed one of the largest refugee camps in Africa, Kyangwali, under lockdown after a jump in confirmed cases of the coronavirus. The refugees there say they are feeling the pinch.   Kyangwali, in southwestern Uganda, is home to more than 120,000 refugees. The lockdown is due to a rising number of coronavirus cases among both aid workers and refugees.   Rebecca Noel, a Congolese national and mother of two, has lived at the settlement in Kikuube district for 11 years. To supplement the monthly $6 cash for food money given to her and others by the World Food Program, Noel says she does casual labor and trades in shoes and clothes. With little food to put on the table, Noel says…

Many Indian states eased lockdown restrictions on Tuesday, allowing more businesses and public areas to reopen to reduce economic pain caused by the coronavirus, even as the country's new daily infections remain the highest in the world and its confirmed cases near 3.7 million. A day earlier, the government reported that the economy contracted by 23.9% in the April-June quarter, its worst performance in at least 24 years. Unemployment is soaring, with millions left jobless. Hoping to avoid more economic damage, India is gradually relaxing restrictions and has announced that urban metro trains can resume service next Monday. India has been reporting the highest single-day caseload in the world for nearly three weeks. On Tuesday it recorded 69,921 new coronavirus infections. More than 65,000 people have died. Experts say India,…

After scientists determined that the coronavirus likely spread from an animal to a human, there came a flurry of statements from nations around Asia promising to ban the trafficking of animals. Now there is data to suggest that authorities, at least in Vietnam, are following through with enforcing the bans. Among the cases of trafficked wildlife that was seized in Vietnam, the percent that led to arrests reached 97% in the first half of this year, according to Education for Nature Vietnam, an environmental organization.  From 2015 to 2019, the number had remained steady at around 87%. Scientists believe the pandemic may have begun after human contact with an infected bat or pangolin in China.  Vietnam and other Southeast Asian nations act as a frequent conduit for illicit animal products that end up in China. In recent years…

A court filing disclosed Monday shows Big Ten Conference presidents voted 11-3 to postpone the football season, bringing some clarity to a key question raised in a lawsuit brought by a group of Nebraska football players. The vote breakdown was revealed in the Big Ten's response to the lawsuit.  The court documents did not identify how each school voted, but a person familiar with the outcome told The Associated Press that Iowa, Nebraska and Ohio State voted against postponing the fall football season. The person spoke on condition of anonymity because the Big Ten was not planning on making the specifics of its vote public. The Big Ten announced Aug. 11 it would move its football season from fall to spring semester because of health risks associated with the coronavirus pandemic. The…

Canada reached an agreement in principle on Monday with both Novavax and Johnson & Johnson for millions of doses of their experimental coronavirus vaccines, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said. Canada's two agreements follow separate deals with Pfizer and Moderna announced weeks ago, and are the latest example of countries rushing to secure access to vaccines. Canada is also in "the final stages of negotiations" to secure AstraZeneca's potential vaccine and is in talks to secure more doses of the Pfizer vaccine candidate, Procurement Minister Anita Anand said. "What we are trying to do is make sure that when a vaccine is developed, we are at the front of the line," Anand told reporters. Canada has a population of about 38 million, and the four vaccine agreements signed so far "give Canada at least 88 million doses…