Flu cases have been shockingly low during the pandemic. Here why.
Vaccines, behavior changes, and viral interactions may all play a role. (CDC/) This year’s public health headlines have mostly focused on COVID-19, and for good reason. Despite the pandemic’s impact on all of us, sick and healthy, we’ve actually seen a record-breaking low amount of another icky, highly-contagious respiratory virus—the flu. Just to put it […]
COVID-19 was circulating silently in Wuhan even after the city reported no cases
COVID-19 may have continued to spread silently in Wuhan, China, during the spring of 2020, even after official government tallies had suggested the coronavirus had been stamped out, a new study suggests. SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, was first discovered in Wuhan in December 2019, and the city soon became the epicenter of what […]
Study reports patient-reported loss of smell in 86% of mild COVID-19 cases
A reduced sense of smell, or olfactory dysfunction, is one of the most common symptoms of COVID-19. A recent study published the Journal of Internal Medicine has examined it prevalence and recovery in patients with varying degrees of severity of COVID-19. In the study of 2,581 patients from 18 European hospitals, the patient-reported prevalence of […]
In 2021, a new wave of evictions could also fuel a rise in COVID cases
In many cases, an eviction filing is enough to get tenants to move out, even though it technically is only the start of a larger process and tenants are not legally required to move out upon receiving the notice. (Pixabay/) Millions of Americans are at risk of being evicted from their homes in 2021. Research […]
First US cases of more contagious UK strain of COVID-19
That makes our current vaccination efforts all the more important. So far the immunization plan in the US has been woefully inadequate. Government officials originally claimed we’d have 100 million doses available by 2021 (or, according to Operation Warp Speed, around 40 million doses), but with two days left to go in the year there […]
The strangest medical cases of 2020
From a man with green urine to a teenager with a sewing pin in his heart, a number of intriguing medical cases caught our eye this year. These “case reports,” which describe the conditions of individual patients, don’t usually have the type of broad implications that are seen in rigorous scientific studies with thousands of […]
Public health officials expect COVID-19 cases to spike like never before
On Sunday, a number of leading infectious disease and public health experts warned Americans that there could be another surge in cases brought on by Thanksgiving travel. (Pixabay/) Despite coronavirus cases surging in most of the country, and the Centers for Disease Control’s plea last week to forgo traveling this past holiday weekend, more than […]
COVID-19 cases could nearly double before Biden takes office
IMAGE: The evolution of COVID-19 depends on how much we, as a country, continue to social distance or return back to normal levels of interaction. This chart shows forecasted cases in… view more Credit: Washing University in St. Louis President-elect Joe Biden has signaled that fighting the COVID-19 pandemic will be an immediate priority for his […]
No, soaring COVID-19 cases are not due to more testing
COVID-19 cases are surging upward around the U.S., reaching 100,000 daily cases for the first time on Nov. 4 and 150,000 only eight days later. Some believe this increase in reported cases is a result of increases in testing, as more than 1.5 million tests are performed every day in the U.S. But the evidence is clear that these high […]
US tops 10 million coronavirus cases
The United States reached an astonishing milestone today (Nov. 9): 10 million total coronavirus cases have been diagnosed since the start of the pandemic, with case counts accelerating dramatically in recent weeks. The country’s total now stands at just over 10 million, according to Johns Hopkins University. It took just 10 days for the country […]
