All posts tagged: Coronavirus

Ebola Outbreak: CNN Correspondent Reports From Inside Democratic Republic of Congo

Ebola Outbreak: CNN Correspondent Reports From Inside Democratic Republic of Congo

Published by Sam Flores

“So on my first day here, I’m sitting in the car and I hear this song,” Clarissa Ward says from Bunia, the capital of the province that’s the epicenter of the Democratic Republic of the Congo’s latest Ebola epidemic. “Ebola, Ebola,” the CNN journalist sings, recreating the tune she heard on the radio. “Is this a song about Ebola?” she recalls asking her driver, thrown off by its upbeat sound. The driver explained that the song was a public safety announcement, offering directions for social distancing during the outbreak. The radio, Ward says, is one of the country’s most effective tools for disseminating public health information in a region where about 80% of adults are literate and only 22% have access to the internet. Those limited communication channels are among the many obstacles the DRC faces as it fights its 17th—and potentially largest—Ebola outbreak. USAID has been devastated, the World Health Organization is underfunded, and unlike its predecessor, the Zaire strain, this new Bundibugyo Ebola virus has no vaccine or treatment. Diagnostic testing is now …

The Painful Truth About Long Covid

The Painful Truth About Long Covid

Published by skeptic

By 2025, most experts had adopted the same position. “I think everybody now agrees that long Covid is a biologic disease,” said Igho Ofotokun, of Emory University School of Medicine, in his concluding comments at the Long Covid International Conference. “It’s not in your mind. It’s real.” Ofotokun also offered an explanation for the lack of scientific progress. “The big elephant in the room is just that we don’t have a gold-standard definition for long Covid. So it really makes it difficult to do all the things we want to do. Makes designing of clinical trials extremely difficult, following outcomes in clinical trials extremely challenging.” Part of the definitional problem for long Covid is the absence of definitive biomarkers: genes, antibodies, any unique physiological signature of the illness. To discover biomarkers, researchers must first identify patients presumed to have a specific illness, then see what they have in common beyond their symptoms. Identifying a biomarker allows for the development of disease-targeting interventions—gene therapy, antivirals—and enables the sorting of people who have a particular condition from …

5 Ways To Give Your Kids A Sprinkler-Running, Screen-Free 90s Summer | Ellen Kamaras

5 Ways To Give Your Kids A Sprinkler-Running, Screen-Free 90s Summer | Ellen Kamaras

Published by Jenni Sidey

If you grew up in the 80s and 90s, before screens lived in everyone’s pocket, you remember the kind of summer that no longer exists for our own kids. The summer of riding bikes until the streetlights came on, of sprinklers (often malfunctioning) in the front yard, of grass-stained knees, bug bites, and fireflies, and lazy afternoons waiting for the sing-songy notes of the ice cream truck to pull up.  Recently, the craving for a 90s summer is something Millennial parents want to bring back for their own kids, and good news if you’re part of that nostalgic crew: You don’t need an insane amount of money or elaborate creativity to do it — you just need your memories. Here are 5 ways to give your kids a sprinkler-running, screen-free 90s summer: 1. Recreate fun ‘throwback’ summer activities from your childhood  My parents couldn’t afford to send us to day camp, and my mother took a leave from her job to spend the summers with us. At the time, I admit I was peeved about …

EU Commission eyes major restructure of departments that handle funds – POLITICO

EU Commission eyes major restructure of departments that handle funds – POLITICO

Published by Sam Flores

One Commission official described the process as part of von der Leyen’s “absolute centralization” drive. However, another official said it was an extension of the Brussels’ plans to change how the long-term budget is distributed, with spending programs merged into two main funds. The officials said they believe the plan is to have a single centralized service manage EU funds. One senior official said the model is the recovery fund that was set up after Covid (handled by the Directorate-General for Structural Reform Support): with national governments submitting spending plans, cash disbursed based on hitting milestones, and centralized oversight. “If everything moves to this system, it’s logical to create a service that does exactly that,” the official said of plans for a future DG INVEST. Commission Executive Vice President Raffaele Fitto last week publicly hinted at the restructuring plans, saying: “Inside DG REGIO we are reflecting on the opportunity and possibility of creating a more efficient DG and identifying the right model.” The restructuring process is advancing. On the Commission intranet, seen by Playbook, a dedicated “workstream” has …

UN Lowers Forecast for Global Economic Growth in 2026 Over Mideast Energy Crisis

UN Lowers Forecast for Global Economic Growth in 2026 Over Mideast Energy Crisis

Published by Sam Flores

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Responding to Middle East crises and rising oil prices, the United Nations on Tuesday lowered its forecast for global economic growth and raised the prospects for inflation this year. U.N. economists said global GDP growth is now forecast at 2.5% for 2026, down from 2.7% in January, and they said it could fall to only 2.1% “in a more adverse scenario.” That would be one of the weakest growth rates this century, outside of the COVID-19 pandemic and the global financial crisis of 2008, Shantanu Mukherjee, director of economic analysis in the U.N. Department of Economic and Social Affairs, said at a news conference. On a somewhat positive note, he said, “we are not close” to a recession, but life can get harder for billions of people, and some countries may see their economies contract. Global inflation is projected to rise to 3.9% this year, 0.8% higher than forecast in January, before the U.S. and Israel launched airstrikes on Iran. Iran responded by blocking the Strait of Hormuz, a critical waterway …

Hantavirus Outbreak: European Center for Disease Prevention and Control Says “Current Risk to the General Population Remains Very Low”

Hantavirus Outbreak: European Center for Disease Prevention and Control Says “Current Risk to the General Population Remains Very Low”

Published by Sam Flores

By May 6, the doctor on board the MV Hondius cruise ship had been infected with the disease and was transported to the hospital. That left Stephen Kornfeld, MD, an American tourist and oncologist vacationing aboard the cruise ship, in the position of de facto medical officer following a hantavirus outbreak on the ship. On that day, the MV Hondius,—which left on April 1 from Ushuaia, in Argentina’s Tierra del Fuego, bound for Cape Verde—brought aboard a new passenger: an infectious-disease expert from the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control, based in Sweden. The expert remained on board for a few days to personally monitor the situation and put in place the necessary protection protocols. He left the vessel Monday, May 11. We asked Gianfranco Spiteri, MD, head of the ECDC’s Global Epidemic Intelligence and Health Security Section, to explain the situation the expert found on board and what the initial response measures were. Vanity Fair Italia: When the doctor boarded the ship, what did he find? Gianfranco Spiteri: Our expert explained that, in …

The Hantavirus Cruise Has Been Evacuated

The Hantavirus Cruise Has Been Evacuated

Published by Sam Flores

The passengers of cruise ship MV Hondius are finally evacuating the vessel, but their journey isn’t over yet. The ship, which is now famous as the site of an outbreak of hantavirus, a potentially fatal respiratory illness, has been anchored off the Spanish island of Tenerife, where its passengers will disembark. The voyage of the Hondius began in Argentina with 149 passengers, all set to tour the Atlantic ocean. But on April 11, 70-year-old Dutch passenger Leo Schilperoord died following a brief illness. His wife, Mirjam, who had traveled to South Africa with his body, died soon after. Then an elderly German passenger also died aboard the ship shortly before reaching Cape Verde. Since then, six confirmed cases of hantavirus and two suspected cases have been linked to the outbreak on the ship. The news has been met with fear by a world still reeling from the pandemic, as hantavirus, a viral disease transmitted to humans by rodents that causes serious infections of the lungs or kidneys, does not have a specific vaccine, treatment, or …

5 Simple Habits People With Exceptional Inner Strength Practice When Life Feels Sad | Deborah Roth

5 Simple Habits People With Exceptional Inner Strength Practice When Life Feels Sad | Deborah Roth

Published by Jenni Sidey

How are you navigating life? We’re all in uncharted waters right now. It’s safe to say that absolutely no one in the world is truly unaffected by global events anymore. No matter where you live, what your religion, gender, or age is, whether you’re rich or poor, single or married, we’re all scrambling to find ways to stay grounded and positive in this new reality. Practicing mindfulness techniques can help you achieve inner peace. I encountered the notion of mindfulness years ago when someone gave me a copy of Thich Nhat Hanh’s classic manual on meditation, The Miracle of Mindfulness. He offers an easy-but-profound message about the importance of bringing your attention to ordinary daily actions.  “What?!” you say. When you’re surrounded by fear, uncertainty, and chaos, why would you want to be fully present to all of that? The answer lies in choosing what you’re mindful of. In any given moment, you can turn on your T.V., open your emails, or pull up any social media platform and spiral into panic mode based on …

Could Contact-Tracing Apps Help With the Hantavirus? Not Really

Could Contact-Tracing Apps Help With the Hantavirus? Not Really

Published by skeptic

After three people died on a cruise ship struck by a hantavirus, authorities are actively tracking down 29 people who had left the ship. They’re trying to trace the spread of the virus. It’s a long, arduous, global process to find and notify people who might be at risk of infection. Hey, wasn’t there supposed to be an app for that? Contact-tracing apps were a global effort starting in 2020 during the Covid-19 pandemic. Enabled by phone companies like Apple and Google, contact tracing was designed to use Bluetooth connections to detect when people had come in contact with someone who had or would later test positive for Covid and report as much. It didn’t do much to solve the spread of the pandemic, but tracking the virus became more effective at least. The same process wouldn’t go well for the hantavirus problem. “There is no use of apps for this hantavirus outbreak,” Emily Gurley, an epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins University, wrote in an email response to WIRED. “The number of cases are small, and …

EU working ‘around the clock’ to prepare for hantavirus ship passengers – POLITICO

EU working ‘around the clock’ to prepare for hantavirus ship passengers – POLITICO

Published by Sam Flores

The aim is “to ensure a science-based response,” the spokesperson added. “Safeguarding public health is our absolute priority.” One of the key decisions countries and disease experts are working on is “defining quarantine guidelines and protocols,” the Commission spokesperson continued. They are also establishing support measures for EU countries and their citizens, assessing transport and medical evacuation needs to help Spain, and ensuring cooperation between health, civil protection, and international partners to protect citizens, the spokesperson added. There are around 150 people, including passengers and staff, aboard the ship at the moment, and none of them is displaying any symptoms, the ship’s operator Oceanwide Expeditions said Friday. Hantavirus is a disease typically spread by infected rats. So far, there have been five confirmed cases of the Andes subtype linked to the cruise ship. It is the only variant known to have spread among humans, usually through close, prolonged contact. Analysis of the first genetic sequence of the virus, from a Swiss patient with the confirmed Andes strain, suggests “a relatively typical naturally circulating … lineage …