covid

4Apr

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

COVID-19, HEALTH & WELLNESS, VIDEO REELS

Twitter Lifted Its Ban On COVID Misinformation – Research Shows This Is A Grave Risk To Public Health

Twitter’s decision to no longer enforce its COVID-19 misinformation policy, quietly posted on the site’s rules page and listed as effective Nov. 23, 2022, has researchers and experts in public health seriously concerned about the possible repercussions. Health misinformation is not new. A classic case is the misinformation about a purported but now disproven link between autism and the MMR vaccine based on a discredited study published in 1998. Such misinformation has severe consequences for public health. Countries that had stronger anti-vaccine movements against diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis (DTP) vaccines faced a higher incidence of pertussis in the late-20th century, for example. As a researcher who studies social media, I believe that reducing content moderation is a significant step...

Will The New COVID-19 Variant BA.2, Cause Another Wave Of Infections In The US?

4Apr

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

COVID-19, HEALTH & WELLNESS, IN OTHER NEWS

Will The New COVID-19 Variant BA.2, Cause Another Wave Of Infections In The US?

A new omicron subvariant of the virus that causes COVID-19, BA.2, is quickly becoming the predominant source of infections amid rising cases around the world. Immunologists Prakash Nagarkatti and Mitzi Nagarkatti of the University of South Carolina explain what makes it different from previous variants, whether there will be another surge in the U.S. and how best to protect yourself. What is BA.2, and how is it related to omicron? BA.2 is the latest subvariant of omicron, the dominant strain of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19. While the origin of BA.2 is still unclear, it has quickly become the dominant strain in many countries, including India, Denmark and South Africa. It is continuing to spread in Europe, Asia and many parts of the world. The omicron variant, officially known...

Most Of The COVID-19 Workforce Were Women Of Color – What Happens Now As Those Jobs End?

4Apr

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

HEALTH & WELLNESS

Most Of The COVID-19 Workforce Were Women Of Color – What Happens Now As Those Jobs End?

Since 2020, thousands of workers have done the difficult work of meeting people where they are — their car doors, front doors, community centers — to test, vaccinate and contact trace. They often did this work to stop the spread of COVID-19 in their own communities, among their neighbors and families. They worked in the heat and humidity, under tents in the rain, in clinics and from their own homes, through an onslaught of questions, despair and, sometimes, outright nastiness. Some had a background in public health, some came out of retirement to help, others had never worked in health care at all. While data on who these workers were is still being collected, one clear pattern has emerged, experts say: It’s likely most of the COVID-19 workforce were women of color. Historically, the ma...

Widows Of COVID-19 Struggle To Get Benefits As Social Security Offices Remain Closed

1Feb

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

COVID-19

Widows Of COVID-19 Struggle To Get Benefits As Social Security Offices Remain Closed

The day after her husband’s funeral, Rondell Gulick called Social Security. Now alone with their nine children, the stay-at-home mom faced what would become a months-long process of claiming the benefits she was counting on to keep her family afloat. Gulick, like many people trying to access benefits, is at the mercy of phone calls. Across the country, Social Security Administration offices have been closed since the start of the pandemic and with nearly 900,000 additional deaths caused by coronavirus, there are thousands of people seeking Social Security survivors benefits, some who know little about the process. The majority of people seeking survivors benefits, by far, are women. In December 2021, the most recent month of data, about 92 percent of those seeking young survivors benefit...

27Jan

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

WORK

The Post-Covid Office

The knowledge economy office workplace got a sudden shake-up over the past year plus. At its peak, not that long ago, the pre-vaccinated office-based workforce was functioning more from home than from the traditional office, approximately ten times more so than pre-pandemic rates. According to the University of Chicago, as recently as March 2021 45% of work services were still being performed in home environments. This begs the question, is office work going to snap back to the way it was with workers committing to long hours away from family spent in bustling office buildings arrived to via thick commuting traffic? And if so, why? Whether or not the Covid pandemic has unwittingly ushered in a paradigm shift in how work is dispensed over the long term is yet to be determined. It will cert...

4 Essential Reads On Past Pandemics And What The Future Could Bring – When Will The COVID-19 Pandemic End?

26Jan

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

COVID-19

4 Essential Reads On Past Pandemics And What The Future Could Bring – When Will The COVID-19 Pandemic End?

More than two years after the first cases of COVID-19 were diagnosed, people are exhausted by the coronavirus pandemic, ready for all this to end. When – if ever – is it realistic to expect SARS-CoV-2 will recede from the headlines and daily life? That’s the unspoken question beneath the surface of many of The Conversation’s articles about COVID-19. None of our authors can see the future, but many do have expertise that offers insights about what’s reasonable to expect. Here are four such stories from our archive. Written by historians and scientists, they each suggest a way to think about what’s at the end of the pandemic tunnel – and paths to get there. 1. Past pandemics are not a perfect prediction Almost as soon as it hit, people were trying to figure out how the COVID-19 pandemic wou...

A New Study Finds Gun Violence Soared During The COVID-19 Pandemic – But The Reasons Why Are Complex

17Nov

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

IN OTHER NEWS

A New Study Finds Gun Violence Soared During The COVID-19 Pandemic – But The Reasons Why Are Complex

Paddy Ssentongo, Penn State and Jennifer McCall-Hosenfeld, Penn State In a new study, we found that the overall U.S. gun violence rate rose by 30% during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic compared to the year before. In 28 states, the rates were substantially higher between March 1, 2020, and March 31, 2021, compared to the pre-pandemic period from Feb. 1, 2019, through Feb. 29, 2020. There were 51,063 incidents of gun violence events resulting in injury or death in the United States in the first 13 months of the pandemic compared to 38,919 incidents in the same time span pre-pandemic. CC BY-ND Early in the pandemic, gun sales in the United States surged, with more than 20% of these purchases by first-time buyers. And access to firearms is a well-established risk factor for gun-rel...

An Immunologist Answers 3 Questions: Should Pregnant Women Get The COVID-19 Vaccine? Will It Protect Against Asymptomatic Infections And Mutated Viruses?

10Nov

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

HEALTH & WELLNESS

An Immunologist Answers 3 Questions: Should Pregnant Women Get The COVID-19 Vaccine? Will It Protect Against Asymptomatic Infections And Mutated Viruses?

This week I was vaccinated against COVID-19 with the Pfizer mRNA vaccine, which brought to mind some frequently asked questions about the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines. I am a physician, and I just got my first shot of the Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine. William Petri, CC BY-SA I am a professor of infectious diseases at the University of Virginia, where I care for patients with COVID-19 and conduct research on how best to prevent, diagnose and treat this new infection. As I interact with patients in the hospital, some mothers and expectant mothers have asked whether it is safe for them to take the vaccine. Here is what I have said to them. 1) Can I get vaccinated if I am pregnant or breastfeeding? Yes, you can and should get a COVID-19 vaccine if you are either pregnant or breastfeeding. An impor...

From Pandemic To Endemic – Is COVID-19 Here To Stay?

8Nov

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

COVID-19

From Pandemic To Endemic – Is COVID-19 Here To Stay?

Sara Sawyer, University of Colorado Boulder; Arturo Barbachano-Guerrero, University of Colorado Boulder, and Cody Warren, University of Colorado Boulder Now that kids ages 5 to 11 are eligible for COVID-19 vaccination and the number of fully vaccinated people in the U.S. is rising, many people may be wondering what the endgame is for COVID-19. Early on in the pandemic, it wasn’t unreasonable to expect that SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19) might just go away, since historically some pandemic viruses have simply disappeared. For instance, SARS-CoV, the coronavirus responsible for the first SARS pandemic in 2003, spread to 29 countries and regions, infecting more than 8,000 people from November 2002 to July 2003. But thanks to quick and effective public health interventions, SAR...

COVID-19 New Treatments May Stave Off The Worst Effects Of The Virus

21Sep

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

COVID-19

COVID-19 New Treatments May Stave Off The Worst Effects Of The Virus

Patrick Jackson, University of Virginia Even with three highly effective vaccines available in abundance throughout the country, the delta variant of SARS-CoV-2 continues to cause a large number of new infections, particularly in states where vaccination rates remain low. What’s more, as schools and businesses reopen and the holiday season approaches, another rise in infections may be on the way. There is, however, some good news. Numerous medications, including fledgling and repurposed drugs, are accessible. For hospitalized COVID-19 patients, these new treatments, along with supportive care advances – such as placing some patients on their stomachs in a “prone position” – were helping bring down mortality rates before the Delta variant hit and are continuing to improve patient outcomes...