A laptop and a cardboard box. These two items could be major tools in improving regular folks’ health throughout this year — and beyond — if they get launched on important tasks, pronto. What needs to happen is for patients to be hyperconscious, persistent, and skeptical enough to start gathering vital records about themselves and….
Continue ReadingVaccinations
As U.S. battles latest viral surge, GOP targets military vaccine mandate
The nation’s military defense understandably takes a leading priority in public spending. But congressional Republicans have managed to put plenty of unpalatable elements into a Brobdingnagian appropriations bill that affirms an extreme view, undercutting the value of service personnel protecting themselves from deadly infections. Over the objections of Pentagon brass and the White House, GOP….
Continue ReadingPandemic and respiratory ills are taking a broad and terrible toll
The coronavirus pandemic may not hold the iron grip it once held on newspaper front pages and lead stories on broadcast and online news outlets. The infection, however, keeps inflicting major harms — taking a disproportionate and lethal toll now on older Americans, wreaking sustained havoc on the credibility of public health information and medical….
Continue ReadingSeasonal flu hitting early and hard, increasing fears of ‘tripledemic’
The damage that seasonal flu causes can be difficult to forecast. But doctors, hospitals, and public health experts already are seeing the illness hit “hard and early,” especially in the Washington, D.C., area. The indicators are shaping up that this will be the most severe flu year in the last 13. This is exponentially concerning,….
Continue ReadingWith pandemic persisting, pediatric respiratory cases filling hospitals
Lest anyone think the coronavirus pandemic is not taking a significant toll on this country still, just look at the worrisome conditions prevailing in overflowing pediatric hospitals and the bracing data on how whites gradually have become more likely to die from the infectious disease than blacks. Doctors and hospitals say they are struggling with….
Continue ReadingSavvy consumers are getting flu and covid shots (hint, hint)
As many as 4 in 20 patients infected with the coronavirus report they have not fully recovered after months and 1 in 20 of those with the disease say they have not recovered at all. The viral illness, which has claimed more than 1 million lives and has infected more than 97 million of us,….
Continue ReadingSexually transmitted diseases are spiking at alarming rate, experts warn
One of humanity’s favorite activities also has become riskier than ever in health terms, experts say, as U.S. cases of sexually transmitted diseases are increasing so much that one expert describes the situation as “out of control.” In official terms, reported syphilis cases rose 26% last year, hitting their highest rate in three decades and….
Continue ReadingWith Omicron vaccines approved, U.S. pushes for fall flu and Covid shots
As summer ends, millions of Americans should pop around the corner for a healthy double — that is, a pair of vaccinations, one targeted against the latest, widely circulating coronavirus Omicron variants and the other shot to fight the seasonal flu, federal health officials say. The newest booster for the BA.4 and BA.5 Omicron variants….
Continue ReadingAs U.S. gears up for fall pandemic battles, a disease-fighting leader retires
This fall our nation will go once more into the breach, with federal officials hoping that another big push for vaccinations against the coronavirus and flu will stave off the deadly surges of contagions that have caused the fundamental health measure of life expectancy to plummet in a historic way. Still, the announced retirement of….
Continue ReadingChief launches CDC shakeup, citing ponderous agency’s pandemic flubs
The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, one of the world’s premier public health agencies, will try to revamp itself after taking months of a political, scientific, and reputational battering for too often performing in shambolic fashion in response to the coronavirus pandemic. Rochelle Walensky (shown, right) appointed the agency’s chief in December 2020,….
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