covid – Page 2

Male Infertility And Sexual Dysfunction Could Be Caused By COVID-19 – But Vaccines Do Not

26Jul

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

HEALTH & WELLNESS

Male Infertility And Sexual Dysfunction Could Be Caused By COVID-19 – But Vaccines Do Not

Ranjith Ramasamy, University of Miami Contrary to myths circulating on social media, COVID-19 vaccines do not cause erectile dysfunction and male infertility. What is true: SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, poses a risk for both disorders. Until now, little research has been done on how the virus or the vaccines affect the male reproductive system. But recent investigations by physicians and researchers here at the University of Miami have shed new light on these questions. The team, which includes me, has discovered potentially far-reaching implications for men of all ages – including younger and middle-aged men who want to have children. What the team found I am the director of the Reproductive Urology Program at the University of Miami’s Miller School of Medicine. My col...

One Of America’s Deepest Downturns Was Also Its Shortest After COVID-19 Recession Bailout Bounceback

4Apr

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

Journalism

One Of America’s Deepest Downturns Was Also Its Shortest After COVID-19 Recession Bailout Bounceback

Jay L. Zagorsky, Boston University Thanks to a roaring economy, plunging joblessness and a consumer spending spree, it probably won’t come as a surprise that the COVID-19 recession is officially over. We didn’t know this, formally, however, until July 19, 2021, when a group of America’s top economists determined that the pandemic recession ended two months after it began, making it the shortest downturn on record. As an economist who has written a macroeconomics textbook, I was eagerly waiting to know the official dates. This is in part because I recently asked my Boston University MBA students to make guesses, and we all wanted to know who was closest to the mark. While many of my students ended up nailing it, I was off by a month. But why did it take over a year to learn the recessio...

COVID Lockdowns – Was It Worth It? Why Nobody Will Ever Agree

4Apr

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

HEALTH & WELLNESS, Journalism

COVID Lockdowns – Was It Worth It? Why Nobody Will Ever Agree

James D. Long, University of Washington; Mark A. Smith, University of Washington, and Victor Menaldo, University of Washington As an increasingly vaccinated world emerges from lockdowns, lots of people are talking about whether the fight against the pandemic was too strong or too weak. Some people argue restrictions did not go far enough; others maintain the attempted cures have been worse than the disease. One reason for these conflicting views is that the answer depends on both facts and values. Relevant facts include features of the virus like transmission rates and deaths. Government policies were often guided by scientific findings to reduce the spread of the virus and the resulting illnesses and deaths. Relevant values include health and longevity, but also prosperity, opportunit...

Now That Pfizer’s Shot Is Authorized For Kids 12 And Up – Can Schools Require COVID-19 Vaccines For Students

12May

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

COVID-19

Now That Pfizer’s Shot Is Authorized For Kids 12 And Up – Can Schools Require COVID-19 Vaccines For Students

With the first COVID-19 vaccine now authorized for adolescents, ages 12 and up, a big question looms: Will students be required to get the vaccine before returning to their classrooms in the fall? As a professor of education policy and law and a former attorney for school districts, I regularly think about this sort of question. In the United States, school vaccination requirements are established by states rather than the federal government. The 10th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution allows states to make regulations protecting public health. Every state currently requires K-12 students to be vaccinated against some diseases, although the requirements – including which shots are deemed necessary and the reasons students can opt out – vary from one state to another. Who can opt out o...

To Secure Oxygen For COVID-19 Patients Now And Into The Future, What Steps Must Be Taken

4Apr

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

HEALTH & WELLNESS

To Secure Oxygen For COVID-19 Patients Now And Into The Future, What Steps Must Be Taken

New waves of the COVID-19 pandemic in countries, such as Kenya and India, have exposed the poor management of oxygen supplies. Moina Spooner, from The Conversation Africa, asked Professor Trevor Duke, an expert on [oxygen provision] and editor of the World Health Organisation (WHO) guidelines on oxygen therapy for children, to provide insights into what countries, with limited resources, can do to secure better supplies. Why is oxygen so important for treating COVID-19? The SARS CoV-2 virus causes COVID-19 pneumonia and hypoxaemia. Hypoxaemia is a lack of oxygen in the blood – the most important complication of COVID-19 pneumonia and a major cause of death. A few antiviral drugs have been effective in treating COVID-19 infection however, in severe pneumonia, oxygen relieves hypoxaemia. It...

When The COVID-19 Pandemic Closed College Campuses Here’s What Former Foster Children Went Through

15Apr

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

EDUCATION

When The COVID-19 Pandemic Closed College Campuses Here’s What Former Foster Children Went Through

The big idea In the first two months of the pandemic, more than half of former foster children lost their jobs and nearly 40% experienced precarious living situations or homelessless, according to a survey of 127 former foster children between the ages of 18 and 26 that we conducted in May and June of 2020. They were among the estimated 20,000 people in foster care who are “emancipated” each year when they age out of the system, beginning as young as 18. These young adults typically lose most of the support the government provides foster children – such as caseworker support and access to health care and housing. Most of the people we surveyed were college students. Like most former foster youth going to college in the spring of 2020, they did not have a stable living situation or family...

Helping Nursing Homes Recover From COVID-19 Fears And Become Safer Places For Aging Parents

14Apr

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

COVID-19, Journalism

Helping Nursing Homes Recover From COVID-19 Fears And Become Safer Places For Aging Parents

Two weeks after the first U.S. case of COVID-19 was identified in Snohomish County, Washington, in early 2020, my dad had a stroke at his home just across Puget Sound. More COVID-19 cases were about to surface at a nearby skilled nursing facility, marking the beginning of a crisis for nursing homes across the country. My dad was incredibly lucky. It was minor stroke, and he didn’t need nursing home care. But the type of stroke he had is a leading risk factor for cognitive impairment and vascular dementia. I know that nursing care may be in his future. Throughout the pandemic, nursing homes have been in the headlines as places with uncontrolled COVID-19 cases and social isolation, which research shows can worsen people’s health. About a third of all reported U.S. COVID-19 deaths have been...

The mRNA The Key Ingredient In Some COVID-19 Vaccines – The Messenger Molecule That’s Been In Every Living Cell For Billions Of Years

9Apr

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

SCIENCE

The mRNA The Key Ingredient In Some COVID-19 Vaccines – The Messenger Molecule That’s Been In Every Living Cell For Billions Of Years

One surprising star of the coronavirus pandemic response has been the molecule called mRNA. It’s the key ingredient in the Pfizer and Moderna COVID-19 vaccines. But mRNA itself is not a new invention from the lab. It evolved billions of years ago and is naturally found in every cell in your body. Scientists think RNA originated in the earliest life forms, even before DNA existed. Here’s a crash course in just what mRNA is and the important job it does. Meet the genetic middleman You probably know about DNA. It’s the molecule that contains all of your genes spelled out in a four-letter code – A, C, G and T. DNA is found inside the cells of every living thing. It’s protected in a part of the cell called the nucleus. The genes are the details in the DNA blueprint for all the physical charac...

COVID-19 Case Spikes And Crowd Size – What Baseball Can Learn From The NFL’s 2020 Season

2Apr

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

COVID-19

COVID-19 Case Spikes And Crowd Size – What Baseball Can Learn From The NFL’s 2020 Season

Baseball season is here, and thousands of cheering fans are back in the ballparks after a year of empty seats and cardboard cutouts as fan stand-ins. Still cautious of the COVID-19 risk, most teams were keeping season openers to 20-30% capacity. Only the Texas Rangers planned a packed stadium for its home opener on April 5, a move President Joe Biden called irresponsible. It isn’t just baseball – college basketball was allowing up to a quarter of seats filled for Final Four games, soccer season starts April 17, and promoters are planning professional fights in filled-to-capacity arenas. Many of these attendance decisions are being made with minimal data about the heightened risk that players and fans face of getting COVID-19 at stadiums or arenas and spreading it the community. There is...

What Is Genomic Surveillance And Why We Need More Of It To Track Coronavirus Variants And Help End The COVID-19 Pandemic

31Mar

By THEIRL1ADMIN01No Comments

COVID-19

What Is Genomic Surveillance And Why We Need More Of It To Track Coronavirus Variants And Help End The COVID-19 Pandemic

“You can’t fix what you don’t measure” is a maxim in the business world. And it holds true in the world of public health as well. Sequencing the genetic code of virus samples taken from COVID-19 patients reveals how SARS-CoV-2 is spreading and changing. Nate Langer/UPMC, CC BY-ND Early in the pandemic, the United States struggled to meet the demand to test people for SARS-CoV-2. That failure meant officials didn’t know the true number of people who had COVID-19. They were left to respond to the pandemic without knowing how quickly it was spreading and what interventions minimized risks. Now the U.S. faces a similar issue with a different type of test: genetic sequencing. Unlike a COVID-19 test that diagnoses infection, genetic sequencing decodes the genome of SARS-CoV-2 virus in samples ...