COVID-19 Vaccine Will Likely Be Given Multiple Times, Perhaps Annually
In an interview with the JAMA on June 2, 2020, Anthony Fauci, MD, director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) said that while he was “cautiously optimistic” about the effectiveness of the vaccines being developed for COVID-19, he was concerned that any protection the vaccines may provide might only be temporary. […]
Poll Finds Only Half of Americans Plan to Get COVID-19 Vaccine
A recent poll conducted by the Associated Press’s NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that 20 percent of Americans anticipate that a COVID-19 vaccine will be available to the public before the end of 2020, while 61 percent expect it during 2021. Only 17 percent believe it will take longer than that to develop.1 […]
Dangers of Wearing Masks in the Heat and Humidity
You add heat, humidity, probably months of more physical inactivity than usual because of social isolation and distancing, and now you mask up, it’s certainly going to make it a lot more difficult to breathe, which can lead to further respiratory complications. You also have a better chance of overheating when you’re wearing a mask […]
Diagnostic Errors are Leading Cause of Medical Malpractice Claims Says Report
Story Highlights A recent report by Coverys Inc. found that diagnostic errors were the most common reason for medical malpractice claims from 2013 to 2017. An estimated 40,000 to 80,000 people die each year from diagnostic failures in American hospitals. Most medical diagnostic errors occur in outpatient settings and emergency departments. A recent report released by an […]
Misleading CDC Report on COVID-19 Testing Combines “Apples and Elephants”
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) acknowledged last week that it had lumped genetic tests that identify people with current COVID-19 infections together with serology (blood) antibody tests that measure whether someone has had the viral infection in the past.1 Combining the tally of the two tests overstates the country’s ability to […]
CDC Reduces COVID-19 Fatality Rate to 0.26 Percent
In a new document providing guidance for public health officials on COVID-19, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) estimates the infection fatality rate (IFR) for the disease at 0.4 percent, or about half the nearly one percent fatality rate the CDC estimated in March 2020 when it was predicting up to 1.7 […]
