“This is not going to dig us out of what’s ahead this next month,” Natalie Dean, a biostatistician at the University of Florida, warned about Thanksgiving and the coming holiday season. If the preparations for vaccines don’t hit any major snags, we can realistically hope for large-scale distribution to begin in the spring. But with…
Pfizer provided less detail in its announcement last week on Nov. 9 than Moderna did on Monday, Nov. 16. Pfizer’s outside board of experts analyzed 94 volunteers and estimated that the effectiveness of its vaccine was over 90 percent. They did not specify how many people who got sick had received the vaccine or the…
Very much so. The United States government provided $1 billion in support for the design and testing of the Moderna vaccine. Researchers at the National Institutes of Health oversaw much of the research, including the clinical trials. Moderna also received an additional $1.5 billion in exchange for 100 million doses if the vaccine proved to…
Albert R. Jonsen, who brought the field of bioethics to the bedside and whose way of reasoning influenced generations of medical ethicists, died on Oct. 21 at his home in San Francisco. He was 89. Dr. William Andereck, his personal physician and a colleague, said Dr. Jonsen had been in poor health but had preferred…
The drugmaker Moderna announced on Monday that its coronavirus vaccine was 94.5 percent effective, based on an early look at the results from its large, continuing study. Researchers said the results were better than they had dared to imagine. But the vaccine will not be widely available for months, probably not until spring. Moderna is…
MADRID — Last March, as the coronavirus was tearing across Spain, Lídia Bayona Gómez started to suffer bouts of vomiting and coughing. A nursing home worker, she treated herself as a potential Covid-19 case, isolating and getting herself tested. The results came back negative, twice. With her weight dropping and her urine turning red, she…
In case you haven’t noticed, the days are getting shorter and, in most parts of the United States, also cooler. Winter will soon descend upon the northern hemisphere along with several vacation-prone and family-centered holidays that may tempt many people to celebrate in ways they have wisely resisted for most of the Covid-19 pandemic. At…
As a trained physician, I pride myself on thinking sensibly about risks, reading reputable scientific studies, evaluating their quality, and making sound, evidence-based decisions. But I would be lying if I told you that I’m completely immune to Covid scare stories, or never drawn to quick fixes and miracle cures — at least for a…
Heat waves may lead to poor pregnancy outcomes, a review of studies has found. The analysis, in BMJ, included 70 studies in 24 countries, and found that over all, each one-degree Celsius (1.8 degrees Fahrenheit) increase in temperature was associated with a 5 percent increase in preterm birth and a 5 percent increase in stillbirth.…
EMBARGOED UNTIL 8:34 P.M. ET, Monday, November 16, 2020, Cleveland: Cleveland Clinic researchers leading a global clinical trial have found that rilonacept, an FDA approved drug for other inflammatory diseases, resolved acute pericarditis episodes and reduced risk of pericarditis recurrence. The study was published today in the New England Journal of Medicine and presented at…