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On Native American Land, Contact Tracing Is Saving Lives

By BY GINA KOLATA AND TOMÁS KARMELO AMAYA from NYT Health https://ift.tt/2Cr0Y5K via IFTTT
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New story in Health from Time: Falling Coronavirus Testing Numbers Obscures the Reality of the U.S.’s Pandemic Reality

July was devastating in the U.S. After the country had appeared to flatten the curve in late spring, daily new cases of COVID-19 skyrocketed as the season turned, peaking at 20.5 per 100,000 people on July 18, according to data gathered by Johns Hopkins University (JHU). After some hemming and hawing, many local officials of states seeing resurgences reinstated some of the restrictions, meant to limit the spread of the virus, which had previously been lifted. On the face of it, these decisions seemed to have paid off: Though the U.S. recently passed 5 million total confirmed cases, it took longer (17 days) to go from 4 million to 5 million than it did (15 days) to go from 3 million to 4 million. And in the past two weeks, the per-capita daily case rate in the U.S. has fallen by four—equal to a drop of about 13,100 new daily cases. The reality, however, might not be so rosy. That’s because in that same time frame, testing for COVID-19 in the U.S. has also fallen at pra

New story in Health from Time: ‘It’s The Hunger Games for Laboratories.’ Why Some People Are Waiting Weeks for Their COVID-19 Test Results

A graduate student in Florida waited 11 days. Positive. A 14-year-old in California waited 24 days. Negative. A writer in New York has waited for four days—and is still waiting. As the United States struggles to control the COVID-19 pandemic, people across the country are using Twitter to announce the arrival of their virus test results. The point of these tweets is not just to broadcast the result itself, but to point out the absurdity of receiving a result so stale that it’s almost completely useless from a public health standpoint. Social media posts from July and August make clear a frustrating reality: some Americans are getting their results in mere hours, while others are waiting days, even weeks. To illustrate the problem, TIME set out to create a map showing average test result wait times across the country. What we found instead was that wait times are not just a product of geography, but also of a messy, disparate system of labs and agencies all grapplin

The Nation Wanted to Eat Out Again. Everyone Has Paid the Price.

By BY JENNIFER STEINHAUER from NYT Health https://ift.tt/3kBP0aF via IFTTT

‘This Is All Beyond Stupid.’ Experts Worry About Russia’s Rushed Vaccine

By BY CARL ZIMMER from NYT Health https://ift.tt/2DUi4cF via IFTTT

New story in Health from Time: We Need to Take Care of the Growing Number of Long-term COVID-19 Patients

On July 7, 2020, the Boston Red Sox pitcher Eduardo Rodriguez tested positive for the new coronavirus. He was scheduled to start Opening Day for the Sox, but the virus had other plans— damaging Rodriguez’s heart and causing a condition called myocarditis (inflammation of the heart muscle). Now the previously fit 27-year old ace left-hander must sit out the 2020 season to recover. Rodriguez is not alone in having heart damage from SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. In a new study done in Germany, researchers studied the hearts of 100 patients who had recently recovered from COVID-19. The findings were alarming: 78 patients had heart abnormalities, as shown by a special kind of imaging test that shows the heart’s structure (a cardiac MRI), and 60 had myocarditis. These patients were mostly young and previously healthy . Several had just returned from ski trips. While other studies have shown a lower rate of heart problems—for example, a study of 416 patients hosp

New story in Health from Time: ‘Our Moment To Take Charge.’ Eva Longoria on the Importance of Supporting Latino Communities Amid Coronavirus

During a TIME100 Talks discussion on Tuesday, award-winning actress and producer Eva Longoria discussed her role in new coalition Momento Latino, which aims to support the Latino community during — and in the aftermath of — the COVID-19 pandemic . The pandemic has deepened long-standing inequalities apparent between white and Latino populations in the U.S. , Longoria told TIME100 Talks correspondent Ashley C. Ford. “Whether it’s disparities in health care , or access to quality education or lack of economic mobility,” she said, coronavirus “has exacerbated the problems within our communities and put really a magnifying glass on just how inequitable all of these areas [are].” According to Momento Latino, Latinos make up over a third of essential U.S. workers. “That’s farmworkers, health care workers, nurses, doctors, drivers, delivery services, meatpacking plants, everything, you name it,” Longoria said. Given the pandemic’s well-documented impact, in particular, on front