As we get used to sheltering in place, speculation turns to an exit strategy. Especially impatient are those most concerned with the economy. If you follow COVID-19 coverage, there are any number of possible approaches going forward.
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Extraordinary times call for extraordinary measures. But these kinds of measures can't last forever. The public is willing to tolerate massive disruptions to daily life only when it believes the disruptions will end. Therefore, mitigation is a more viable option.
Testing performs both diagnostic and treatment roles, and testing for COVID-19 is no exception. Unlike other forms of testing, knowing your COVID-19 status will not alter your disease course or modify specific therapy. But it will determine where you spend the next few weeks, either at home or the hospital.
At the current time, influenza remains the far bigger threat to global public health than COVID-19. Though COVID-19 has a higher case-fatality rate, influenza infects far more people. Of course, that could change.
The website’s strategy is clear: Throw ad hominem attacks as early and as often as possible. Why? Because it works. And the people most eager to spread the lies are self-proclaimed skeptical scientists and journalists.
There's nothing quite like the moment when your doctor says: "you have heart disease" (or diabetes). Sinners then repent with thoughts such as: "From this point on only healthy nutritious foods, daily exercise, and perhaps a bit of mindfulness." But do the sinners really repent or is that just something they tell themselves until the shock wears off, allowing their old ways to return?
I pitched a column to the journal Science titled, "How I Became a Junk Science Debunker." It was initially accepted and went through two months (and nine rounds) of editing. At the last moment, however, the column was spiked by senior editor Tim Appenzeller (pictured). Why? Because I'm a corporate shill, of course.
On May 15, 1850, effective treatment for the coronavirus and its infectious friends was put forward, subsequently ridiculed, and now ignored -- at our collective peril. Wash your hands. Fairly simple, yet so challenging to do. And a new study looks at how not washing your hands hastens global pandemics.
On this week's menu: Why is it harder to get a Chick-fil-A franchise than to get into Stanford? ... The CVS-Aetna monopoly on pharmaceuticals would put John D. Rockefeller's Standard Oil to shame. ... Wind may not be as green an energy sources as we thought. ... And finally, the genes we share: we are more alike than not.
Even though we've been isolated from each other and the world at large, that doesn't mean we here at ACSH haven't been making our voices heard across the media landscape. In fact, with the COVID-19 pandemic raging on, our views on medical and scientific matters have been in even greater demand. And it's our view that there's no better way to spend our working hours at home than to provide clarity and calming guidance during this coronavirus health crisis.
How well we do in assessing the economic outcomes of the COVID-19 lockdown will determine how well we do in the next match. And there will be a next match.
The recently-passed Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act includes a surprise: a loophole for surprise billing in testing for COVID-19.
PM2.5 designates a near-ubiquitous air-polluting particle that frequently appears in the scientific literature as well as popular press news items. But few of us really know what they are talking about, mainly because it is just one characteristic of a complex category.
Twitter captures geolocation data in about 3% of tweets. Two researchers from Johns Hopkins released a report on the changes in our social mobility. How much we are traveling, based on that dataset?
Among the many lessons of the COVID-19 pandemic is how cumbersome one‐size‐fits‐all regulations, administered by an impersonal bureaucracy, hamper a rapid and flexible response to an evolving public health emergency. The U.S. Navy Medical Corps provides us with a recent example.
There is a lot of malicious misinformation on the internet about glyphosate. Much of it comes from academia.
Environmentalists often oppose the very solutions that they once proposed.
From vaping to alternative medicine, health authorities in the United Kingdom are much more willing to tell people the cold, hard truth, as compared to their American counterparts.
The Democrats have an additional health issue besides Medicare for All: The cardiovascular status of the Vermont Senator and that of the former mayor of New York. It's time to look to a physician for explanations, rather than Drs. Google and Facebook.
Dr. Derek Lowe, arguably the finest and most influential chemistry blogger in the universe, has put together an excellent summary of the complex and confusing clinical data of hydroxychloroquine, which he published recently in his blog in Science and Translational Medicine. We thank Derek and AAAS for allowing us to reprint this important article.
Why are basic questions about the biology of SARS-CoV-2 so hard to answer?
At one point, nuclear power provided 25% of Germany's electricity. But the fallout from Chernobyl, both political and real, led to a moratorium on construction and an initial planned phaseout of all nuclear reactors by 2022. That deadline subsequently was extended to 2032, but after the events at Fukushima in Japan, the phaseout policy deadline reverted back to two years from now. Today, Germany gets 11% of its electricity from nuclear sources. A study from the National Bureau of Economic Research measures the fallout.
All told, there are probably a couple of hundred different causes of the common cold. Amazon's attempt to create a common cold vaccine is, therefore, a foolish waste of money. Instead, the asset-rich company should spend it on antiviral research.
Are those who claim that life will never go back to normal after the coronavirus, correct? Are we condemned to live in a Brave New World, governed by social distancing and disinfection protocols, in which perfect hygiene is the greatest good?
As the drumbeats for health systems to treat the socioeconomic determinants of health grows louder -- and administrators eye an enlarging “mission” and the funds that come with it -- ask yourself this: What exactly are those determinants? A new study provides some tentative answers.
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