Latest healthcare news
Is President Trump Correct in Describing COVID-19 as Totally Harmless 99% of the time?
Wendy Armstrong in the Journal of the American Medical Association of July revealed that 87% of patients hospitalised with COVID-19 had persistent symptoms more than two months after the onset of the disease despite resolution of viral infection. Investigators in...
Is SARS-CoV-2 Susceptible to Climate?
An article by Baker and others published in Science July 2020 used climate-dependent epidemic modelling to simulate the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic by proving different scenarios based on known coronavirus biology. Studies using a regression framework have found a role for...
Face Masks, what is the Evidence for Preventing COVID-19 Spread?
An interesting article highlighted by Professor Justin Stebbing in his science update this week highlighted the fact that over 150 students at an Israeli secondary school were infected by SARS-CoV-2 after students were allowed to remove their masks during a heat wave....
Covid-19 and the Heart
Is the heart affected by Coronavirus? This is looked at by Valentina Puntmann and others in the Journal of American Medical Association Cardiology published July 22, 2020. They pose the question “What are the cardiovascular effects in unselected patients with recent...
Social Distancing in the Animal Kingdom
Social Distancing and Animal Life Lobsters, birds and primates use quarantine to avoid infections. An interesting article published in the Scientific American August 2020 by Hawley and Buck. Despite how unnatural social distancing may feel to the human population, it...
Coronavirus and the Heart
COVID-19 and the Heart Is it affected? This is looked at by Valentina Puntmann and others in the Journal of American Medical Association Cardiology published July 22, 2020. They pose the question “What are the cardiovascular effects in unselected patients with recent...
Hydroxychloroquine and Coronavirus
Does Hydroxychloroquine, as President Trump has indicated, actually improve outcome in mild to moderate COVID-19 disease? Finally, a trial which looks at treatment for COVID-19 in mild to moderate COVID-19 patients. It was published in the New England Journal of...
Can Pets get COVID?
Can Animals Catch SARS-CoV-2 and get COVID-19 Infection? An interesting article published by Patterson and others as a pre-print looked at 817 companion animals living in Northern Italy who were sampled at the same time there was frequent human infection....
COVID-19 and its Effects on Ethnic Groups
Why does the SARS-CoV-2 virus seem to affect Black and South Asian Ethnic Groups more in the UK? An interesting correspondence by Marion Cook in The Lancet July 17 suggests that this could be related to sickle cell and thalassaemia. Sickle cell anaemia is an inherited...
Coronavirus and Children
COVID 19 in Children and How it Occurs or Does Not Occur in Families An interesting article published in Paediatrics by Klara, M. and others looked at the dynamics of family infection. It is known that children have been less affected than adults in terms of severity...