covid19

Responding To The Coronavirus Pandemic In the space of just a few months, a newly discovered coronavirus has spread around the world threatening the lives of millionsas well as entire health systems, economies, and the nature of society itself. By late March, more than 300,000 cases of the new coronavirus disease, known as COVID-19, have been reported from almost every country and region in the world. The World Health Organization (WHO) declared that “the pandemic is accelerating.” Much remains to be understood about the new coronavirus. Unlike influenza, there is no known preexisting immunity to the virus, no vaccine, and no proven treatment for COVID-19. Everyone is presumed to be susceptible. For most people, COVID-19 will be a mild or moderate respiratory illness. However, compared to the flu, it has a higher rate of quite severe complications for vulnerable people, including the elderly and those suffering from other infections or ailments. According to a February report ...

What Awaits World After Pandemic? Comparing With Past Outbreaks, Historian Says Healthcare Facilities, Socioeconomic Status, Regimes May See Changes After COVID-19 ANKARA Pandemics throughout history have led to changes in healthcare systems, the socioeconomic status of communities and even regimes, according to a Turkish historian, who said the novel coronavirus outbreak may bring similar changes to the world. “The plague epidemic which occurred in Europe in the mid-14th century and caused the deaths of tens of millions was an important influence on the later history of this continent,” said Namiq Musali, a history professor at Kastamonu University in Turkey’s Black Sea province of Kastamonu. With drops in the working population in line with the death toll, an imbalance occurred in the supply and demand relationship between workers and employers, leading to new conditions regarding their situation, Musali said. In addition to the fall in population in rural areas, agr...

Coronavirus live updates: FDA authorizes remdesivir; thousands of deaths tied to nursing homes; Over 65K have died in US Nursing homes, long-term care facilities, prisons and meatpacking plants are all facing increasing scrutiny heading into the weekend as sobering reports of outbreaks at each made news late in the week. Even as questions are raised about how to contain those outbreaks, states across the nation are constantly changing their social distancing restrictions, slowly relaxing an uneven patchwork of regulations and making moves to reopen ravaged economies. The weekend will again bring challenges as some worry nice weather will cause crowding, especially at beaches in states including Florida and California. Our live blog is being updated throughout the day. Refresh for the latest news, and get updates in your inbox with The Daily Briefing.  Here are the most significant developments to get your weekend started: The Food and Dru...

Coronavirus At Work: Safety İnspectors Reviewing Scores Of Employee Hospitalizations, Deaths Workplace safety inspectors are conducting nearly 200 coronavirus-related investigations to determine whether employers failed to adequately protect their workers, according to data from the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Half involve employee deaths or hospitalizations.  The inspections target nearly 50 hospitals and two dozen nursing homes, including one in Joliet, Illinois, where administrators believe an infected maintenance worker spread the virus room to room. Twenty-four residents died, along with a nursing assistant and the maintenance worker himself. Also under review: a school system garage in Lexington, Kentucky, where 17 employees tested positive and one died; a meatpacking plant in Dakota City, Nebraska, where the widow of a deceased employee said he kept working after getting sick so he could get incentiv...

50 Years After The First Earth Day, We Are İn The Midst Of A Pandemic. And We Need Science More Than Ever. On April 22, 1970, 20 million people gathered in an event that became known as Earth Day to spread public awareness of the environment. The decade that followed saw some of America’s most popular and powerful environmental legislation, according to the Earth Day Network, including updates to the Clear Air Act and creation of the Clean Water Act, the Endangered Species Act and the establishment of the Environmental Protection Agency. Now 50 years later  with global warming becoming an increasing menace  the need for science is again in the spotlight because of a global pandemic. “The pandemic provides unequivocal evidence of the dire consequences of government ignoring science," marine conservation biologist and environmental activist Rick Steiner said. Senator Tom Udall, D-New Mexico, said the public health crisis "offers us a number o...

Coronavirus at meatpacking plants worse than first thought, USA TODAY investigation finds Coronavirus closed Smithfield and JBS meatpacking plants. Many more are at risk. Operators may have to choose between worker health or meat in stores. Tyson Foods installed plastic barriers between worker stations at its meat and poultry plants to protect against transmission of the coronavirus. Arash of coronavirus outbreaks at dozens of meatpacking plants across the nation is far more extensive than previously thought, according to an exclusive review of cases by USA TODAY and the Midwest Center for Investigative Reporting.  And it could get worse. More than 150 of America’s largest meat processing plants operate in counties where the rate of coronavirus infection is already among the nation’s highest, based on the media outlets’ analysis of slaughterhouse locations and county-level COVID-19 infection rates. These facilities represent more than 1 in 3 of the nation’s...

Divisions On Battling Coronavirus Deepen As Trump And Southern States Push Opening  The fragile American consensus on battling the coronavirus is fracturing along bitter political fault lines, as early state openings threaten to undermine the nationwide effort to slow the pandemic. Divisions have emerged along a timeworn North vs. South divide, on ideological and geographical grounds nationally and within states, and on the level of respect accorded by political leaders to epidemiological science. The hope for a unified front is further undermined by a President heaping pressure on governors, supporting protests that flout social distancing and a White House that declined Tuesday to strongly stand up for its own guidelines on a safe reopening. The result is a mess of mixed messages and conflicting logic on opening up that calls into doubt President Donald Trump's claims he backs a "beautiful puzzle" of science based returns to ...