What’s safer to do once most of the population is vaccinated? It should be much safer to move around once your community achieves herd immunity — the point when the virus can’t easily spread because enough people have become vaccinated or have already had the illness. This also helps protect people who can’t get vaccinated…
Lean into facts. As a young child, our son was very literal, like many, though certainly not all, autistic people. When we told him his beloved grandfather who’d died would always live in his heart, he was confused. He asked, “Does that mean he’s buried in my stomach?” To this day, he struggles to understand…
China’s fight against the coronavirus was mostly over, but Zhang Xiaochun, a doctor in Wuhan, was sinking into depression, convinced she had failed as a daughter and mother. She agonized over her decision to keep working even after her father fell critically ill. She worried about her young daughter, whom she had frequently left alone…
Dr. Ellen Stevenson, a professor of pediatrics at Oregon Health and Science University, said that there had been cases where parents waited on skin infections, so they worsened to the point that children needed oral antibiotics, rather than soaks and antibiotic ointment. “Covid has taken all the air in the rooms, but we need to…
In a list of “guiding principles,” the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons cautioned its members that during the pandemic, decisions to proceed with elective surgery “should be locally based” and take into account “incidence, prevalence, patient beds, hospital beds, ventilators and personal protective equipment,” in addition to local shutdown orders and whether there’s been “a…
“A lot of this is a mental switch,” Ms. Martin said. “We have to convince ourselves we can go outside in the winter and not die. Wear long underwear, dress in layers when you go out, and you can go for a walk with a friend.” Clothing matters a lot, said Dr. Castellani. Plan for…
By analyzing Fitbit data and self-reported symptoms, researchers from Evidation Health and collaborators analyzed trends in heart rate, step count, and symptom duration between patients with flu and those with COVID-19. While both showed similar-looking spikes in resting heart rate and decreases in average step count, COVID-19 symptoms lasted longer and peaked later. Contrasting and…
A recent international observational study provides important data on the safety of head and neck cancer surgery during the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings are published early online in CANCER, a peer-reviewed journal of the American Cancer Society. The study is part of the COVIDSurg Collaborative, an initiative to describe surgical practices during the early period…
Conditions causing arrhythmia are among the most common cardiac conditions. A study headed by Prof. Georg Schmidt of the Technical University of Munich (TUM) has demonstrated for the first time that the nocturnal respiratory rate can help with an important prediction: It is an indicator of whether a defibrillator will help to extend the life…
PHILADELPHIA, Dec. 21 – As COVID-19 vaccines are becoming available, physicians and other health care professionals must do the hard work of making sure sufficient numbers of people are vaccinated to end the pandemic. To help prepare them, the American College of Physicians (ACP) and Annals of Internal Medicine hosted the COVID-19 Vaccine Forum II…