The COVID Pandemic: WHO Dunnit?
By ANISH KOKA, MD
COVID is here. A little strand of RNA that
used to live in bats has a new host. And
that strand is clearly not the flu. New
York is overrun, with more than half of the nation’s new cases per day, and
refrigerated 18-wheelers parked outside hospitals serve as makeshift
morgues. Detroit, New Orleans, Miami,
and Philadelphia await an inevitable surge of their own with bated breath. America’s health care workers are scrambling
to hold the line against a deluge of sick patients arriving hourly at a rate
that’s hard to fathom.
I pause here to attest to the heroic r...
Source: The Health Care Blog - April 11, 2020 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Zoya Khan Tags: COVID-19 Health Policy Anish Koka coronavirus Pandemic Sars-CoV-2 WHO World Health Organization Source Type: blogs
The reification of data
Every day you are reading reports of the number of new Covid cases and deaths in your state, the U.S., other countries and the whole world. You need to know that these numbers are false. They may give an indication of trends, but they are not the actual number of cases and deaths.Let ' s start with cases. The definition of a " case " can vary, but for the most part the numbers you see are the number of positive PCR tests. This is obviously a function of how many people get tested and the sampling frame for those tests. Right now in the U.S. we are not testing a random sample of the population anywhere. We are largely only ...
Source: Stayin' Alive - April 9, 2020 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs
How Germany Leveraged Digital Health to Combat COVID-19
If you take a look at the number of novel coronavirus cases, you will notice that Germany ranks among the top in terms of most cases. Now, if you take a closer look, you will see that the number of fatal cases in the country is merely a fraction of the total cases. Their mortality rate has been consistently lower than that of those nations sharing a similarly high number of confirmed cases like China, Italy and Spain.
How does Germany manage those numbers? The truth is that even experts aren’t sure. “We don’t know the reason for the lower death rate,” Marieke Degen, deputy spokeswoman of Germany’s Robert Koch ...
Source: The Medical Futurist - April 9, 2020 Category: Information Technology Authors: Prans Tags: Future of Medicine Healthcare Policy digital health coronavirus covid covid19 germany Source Type: blogs
Don't Get Too Excited,'Quad Plus' Meetings Won't Cover China
The “ Quad ” countries met via video teleconference in March to help each other amid the coronavirus pandemic, along with several other, non-Quad, countries, including New Zealand, South Korea, and Vietnam. But for all the good that can come of these countries working together on issues of common concern, the Quad Plus, if sustained, may actually jeopardize the Quad ' s primary mission long-term: to counter China ' s growing assertiveness in the Indo-Pacific. (Source: The RAND Blog)
Source: The RAND Blog - April 8, 2020 Category: Health Management Authors: Derek Grossman Source Type: blogs
When and How Will COVID-19 End?
If you’re staying shut in your home, anxious about when you will finally be able to take a stroll outside or whether you or someone close to you will be infected by the novel coronavirus, you are not the only one. In the U.S. alone, half of the adults report high levels of anxiety due to the COVID-19, according to the American Psychiatric Association. The ongoing pandemic is exerting the whole world both physically and mentally. One thing is sure to be asked by everyone: when will all this be over?
Some think that things will never get back to normal. Acclaimed sci-fi writer Ted Chiang says that “we don’t wa...
Source: The Medical Futurist - April 7, 2020 Category: Information Technology Authors: Prans Tags: Future of Medicine digital technology digital health tech digital health technologies coronavirus covid covid19 Source Type: blogs
EVALI: New information on vaping-induced lung injury
E-cigarettes (vapes) first made headlines due to skyrocketing sales and popularity. Then reports of serious illnesses and deaths related to vaping tobacco and other substances began mounting in summer 2019. By mid-February 2020, the CDC reported more than 2,800 cases of lung injuries requiring hospitalization across all 50 states, and 68 deaths. EVALI, as this illness is now called, continues to generate questions, although emergency department visits related to vaping have been declining.
Why did vaping injuries, and even deaths, seem to occur so suddenly, even though e-cigarettes have been in use for years? Why is EVALI ...
Source: Harvard Health Blog - April 3, 2020 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Molly Wolf, MD Tags: Addiction Health Lung disease Smoking cessation Source Type: blogs
Digital Health Apps to Use During the COVID-19 Quarantine
While most of us are experiencing our very first pandemic, we are simultaneously living in an ongoing “infodemic”. The latter refers to the widespread misinformation circulating on the web around the novel coronavirus, especially on social media. We saw the likes of reports claiming the COVID-19 being part of a biological weapons program (debunked, as the natural origins of the virus have been proven) or even more, let’s say, creative ones suggesting 5G networks cause the infection (it goes without saying that there’s no relation whatsoever).
Despite those misconceptions and hoax stories, there are a lot of help...
Source: The Medical Futurist - April 2, 2020 Category: Information Technology Authors: Prans Tags: Future of Medicine digital health digital technology apps applications coronavirus covid Source Type: blogs
US – South Korea OPCON Transition: The Element of Timing
As Washington and Seoul continue to examine the feasibility and conditions for wartime operational control transition, decisionmakers will likely face political pressure on timing. It may well be to the advantage of both allies that the determination of the transfer be driven by a hard, thorough diagnosis of military capabilities against emerging threats. (Source: The RAND Blog)
Source: The RAND Blog - April 1, 2020 Category: Health Management Authors: Soo W. Kim Source Type: blogs
U.S. – South Korea OPCON Transition: The Element of Timing
As Washington and Seoul continue to examine the feasibility and conditions for wartime operational control transition, decisionmakers will likely face political pressure on timing. It may well be to the advantage of both allies that the determination of the transfer be driven by a hard, thorough diagnosis of military capabilities against emerging threats. (Source: The RAND Blog)
Source: The RAND Blog - April 1, 2020 Category: Health Management Authors: Soo W. Kim Source Type: blogs
The New Scarlet Letter
By KIM BELLARD
This piece is part of the series “The Health Data Goldilocks Dilemma: Sharing? Privacy? Both?” which explores whether it’s possible to advance interoperability while maintaining privacy. Check out other pieces in the series here.
If you live in one of the jurisdictions that have imposed stay-at-home requirements, you’re probably making your essential excursions — grocery store, pharmacy, even walks — with a wary eye towards anyone you come across. Do they have COVID-19? Have they been in contact with anyone who has? Are they keeping at least the recommende...
Source: The Health Care Blog - March 27, 2020 Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Christina Liu Tags: COVID-19 Data The Health Data Goldilocks Dilemma: Sharing? Privacy? Both? Health Tech Kim Bellard Source Type: blogs
Magical thinking
I think many people misunderstand the essential nature of the Resident ' s relentless spewing of lies. Many say they should properly be classified as bullshit, because he doesn ' t care whether what he says is true or false. But I would go further. He actually inhabits a universe in which whatever he says becomes the truth.Here is an AP timeline of just some of his lies about the coronavirus epidemic. Note a common quality of many of them, e.g.Asked, for instance, by CNBC on Jan. 22 if there were worries about a pandemic, Trump said, " No. Not at all. And — we ' re — we have it totally under control. It ' s one person ...
Source: Stayin' Alive - March 25, 2020 Category: American Health Source Type: blogs
Reaching the Plateau: Coronavirus Lessons from China and South Korea
John MuellerMuch of the discussion about policy designed to deal with the corona virus has stressed the need to “flatten the curve.” But it might better be labelled, “reach the plateau.”Important and illustrative are the cases of China and South Korea. After two or three weeks of rapid increases in the number of deaths and of new cases, both numbers ceased to rise much and that condition has persisted. Most impressive in this is the case count. Its rapid rise was substantially due to improvements and expansion of efforts to detect cases, and plateauing took place even as those efforts continued to improve and expan...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - March 24, 2020 Category: American Health Authors: John Mueller Source Type: blogs
Highly Sensitive Wearable Strain Sensor Uses Light for Detection
Stick-on strain sensors that can accurately measure the flexion of joints, big and small, have turned out hard to make. Piezoresistive devices tend to have a delayed response and are not stable in the long-run, while capacitive sensors are not very sensitive and nearby electromagnetic fields tend to interfere with them.
Now researchers at South Korea’s KAIST institute of technology have developed a completely unique approach to strain sensing that relies on detecting the optical transmittance of a novel material as it is bent out of shape.
The material consists of Ecoflex, a platinum-catalyzed silicone that...
Source: Medgadget - March 24, 2020 Category: Medical Devices Authors: Medgadget Editors Tags: Cardiology Materials Medicine Military Medicine Nanomedicine Source Type: blogs
Virus Crisis Economic FAQ
Arnold Kling1. Why are we so concerned about this virus, which so far (as of mid-March) has killed many fewer people than an ordinary flu?The key to the answer lies in the words “so far.” The virus seems to spread at a phenomenal rate, with cases doubling more than once a week. If the number of deaths were to double once a week, then starting from about 200 deaths on March 15, by the end of May the total would be 200,000 deaths, which is about ten times the number that we get from ordinary flu.The Imperial College papermade an extrapolation that warned of the possibility hundreds of thousands of deaths if social distan...
Source: Cato-at-liberty - March 23, 2020 Category: American Health Authors: Arnold Kling Source Type: blogs
Washable Face Masks Thanks to Electrospun Nanofibers
One big reason there’s a shortage of face masks that can block the spread of the COVID-19 virus is that they’re single-use devices. The exterior may be contaminated and there’s a good chance that keeping the mask and using it again could transmit the infection, particularly when masks are used around known COVID-19 patients. Because the filters inside N95 masks, that are now being widely used by medical professionals, utilize electrostatic activity to trap particles, washing these devices destroys their filtration capabilities.
Engineers at KAIST, one of South Korea’s finest technology insti...
Source: Medgadget - March 23, 2020 Category: Medical Devices Authors: Medgadget Editors Tags: Materials Public Health Source Type: blogs
