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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

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

New story in Health from Time: The World Records Its 20 Millionth Case of COVID-19

There are a lot of ways to try to capture grim milestone the world crossed Monday night when it recorded its 20 millionth case of COVID-19. It’s two Swedens, four Irelands, 10 Slovenias. It’s greater than the entire population of the state of New York. The outbreak that began in Wuhan, China in December 2019 has now spread to 188 countries and regions, touching every continent but Antarctica. The U.S. continues to lead the world in total cases, having crossed its own milestone—to 5 million—on August 9. Brazil comes next, with 3 million; followed by India at 2.2 million; Russia at 890,000; and South Africa, at 560,000. Global death tolls have now surpassed 732,000, led again by the U.S., at over 163,000. Among the top 20 countries—a list which also includes Mexico, Peru, Spain, the United Kingdom and Pakistan—there are some small but encouraging signs. Five-day moving averages are trending down in 11 of those hard-hit spots, with the U.S. among those showing some faint i

New story in Health from Time: Trump’s Executive Order About U.S.-Made Drugs May Not Enhance Public Safety the Way It Should

Pharmaceutical manufacturing has long been a dirty business. The antibiotic-laced wastewater , and other pollutants it leaves behind, is just one of many reasons that so many American drug-manufacturing plants closed up over the last few decades and moved to places like Hyderabad, India, and China’s Zhejiang province, with their low labor costs and minimal regulations. But drug manufacturing in those remote outposts has been dirty in another way, as I learned from a decade of reporting that culminated in my book Bottle of Lies: the Inside Story of the Generic Drug Boom . The FDA’s own inspection records , as analyzed by FDAzilla, reveal that drug plants in China and India are more likely than those in the U.S. and Europe to manipulate data about quality to make substandard low-cost drugs appear compliant with good manufacturing practices, standards required for export into the U.S. and other developed markets. On August 6, President Trump signed an executive order to en

New story in Health from Time: Confirmed Coronavirus Cases in U.S. Children Rose By 40% in Two Weeks This July, Bringing the Total to Almost 340,000

As decision-makers weigh whether to reopen U.S. schools this fall, they face a daunting reality: COVID-19 appears to have surged among American kids this summer. On July 16, there were approximately 242,000 confirmed cases in children; by July 30, that number rose by over 97,000, an approximately 40% increase, according to a new report. That translates to an increase from 319 cases per 100,000 American children to 447 cases per 100,000, in just two weeks.   The report , from the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Children’s Hospital Association, counts nearly 340,000 total confirmed cases in children as of July 30. Recently, evidence has emerged that COVID-19 seems to not to produce as severe symptoms in children as it does in adults, which has given new justification for communities and lawmakers to push to reopen schools for in-person classes. However, these new data , compiled by the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Children’s Hospital Association, are a

New story in Health from Time: Tech Companies Are Transforming People’s Bedrooms Into ‘Virtual Hospitals.’ Will It Last Post-COVID?

When Curtis Carlson started having back pain this spring, he tried to put off seeing a doctor. The COVID-19 pandemic was raging, his job at a transitional housing organization in Ukiah, Calif. was busier than ever amid the economic collapse, and a hospital seemed like the last place he wanted to be. But when he finally took himself to the emergency room and he was diagnosed with a kidney infection, Carlson figured he would have no choice but to stay. Instead, his doctors told him about a new program that would allow him to finish the rest of his hospital care at home, with a medical team monitoring him virtually around the clock and making in-person visits multiple times each day. “I was blown away,” says Carlson, 49. When it became clear that staff would set up the equipment, which all fit on a TV tray, in Carlson’s home, and that he’d be able to communicate with his medical team via iPad, he was on board. “It was easy enough that I could use it, which was awesome,” say

New story in Health from Time: TSA Is Finding Guns in Passengers’ Carry-Ons at 3 Times the Usual Rate Amid Massive Drop in Air Travel

Transportation Security Administration screeners found guns in air travelers’ carry-on bags at three times the usual rate this past July as compared to last year, the agency says. “TSA is diligently working to ensure our employees and passengers are safe and secure while traveling during a pandemic, and yet we are noticing a significant increase in loaded firearms coming into checkpoints,” said TSA administrator David Pekoske in a press release Aug. 10. Screeners found 15.3 guns per million passengers this past July, compared to 5.1 over the same period last year. That 200% increase is “particularly alarming,” the agency says, given that air travel has nearly evaporated amid the pandemic—TSA screened about 75% fewer passengers in July 2020 compared to July 2019, it says (given that the vast majority of air travelers are screened, such screenings are a pretty good proxy for overall air travel volume). The six airports where the largest number of guns were found by TSA of

New story in Health from Time: 5 Million People in the U.S. Have Tested Positive for COVID-19 as Surges Continue Around the Country

More than 5 million people in the U.S.—about 1.5% of the country’s total population—have tested positive for COVID-19 as of Aug. 9, according to data from Johns Hopkins University. Over 162,000 people have died. The U.S. now accounts for roughly 25% of confirmed coronavirus cases worldwide. Its overall case count is millions higher that of the next-hardest-hit country: Brazil, which according to official records has about 3 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 as of Aug. 9. New U.S. cases are also accumulating faster than they did in the pandemic’s early months. The country recorded 1 million diagnoses on April 28. It then took about six weeks to hit 2 million cases, and another month to hit 3 million. From there, only about two weeks passed before the country hit the 4 millionth case mark —and now, another two weeks later, the tally is up to 5 million. Part of that uptick is due to better testing capacity . When the pandemic first hit the U.S., many people with relative

New story in Health from Time: New Hampshire Woman Becomes First Person to Get Second Face Transplant in U.S.

(BOSTON) — For the second time in a decade, a New Hampshire woman has a new face. Carmen Blandin Tarleton, whose face was disfigured in an attack by her ex-husband, became the first American and only the second person globally to undergo the procedure after her first transplant began to fail six years after the operation. The transplant from an anonymous donor took place at Boston’s Brigham and Women’s Hospital in July. The 52-year-old former nurse is expected to resume her normal routine, which all but ended when the first transplant failed a year ago. “I’m elated,” Tarleton told The Associated Press , in an exclusive telephone interview from her home in Manchester. She is still healing from the operation so photos are not being made available of her new face. “The pain I had is gone,” she said. “It’s a new chapter in my life. I’ve been waiting for almost a year. I’m really happy. It’s what I needed. I got a great match.” More than 40 patients worldwide have received