Feature Channels: Public Health

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Rapidly escalating numbers of COVID-19 patients suffering from respiratory failure threaten to overwhelm hospital capacity and force healthcare providers into making challenging decisions about the care they provide. Of particular interest is the role of ECMO – extracorporeal membrane oxygenation, a form of life support for patients with advanced lung disease – to support critically ill patients in the current pandemic.

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The challenge of successful reentry of releasees into communities can be overcome, but many actions are needed first, the report says.

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Individuals with diabetes are at increased risk for bacterial, parasitic and viral infections. New research published in Endocrine Reviews, a journal of the Endocrine Society, illuminates how intersections of the coronavirus infection (COVID-19) and type 2 diabetes may require new approaches in treatment for hospitalized patients.

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On April 12, the Weizmann Institute began using its cutting-edge PCR facilities to perform coronavirus testing after an agreement was reached with Israel's Ministry of Health.

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Tara Harman, RDN, has tips on how to stretch your groceries while saving money.

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This is a feature story about Furman University professor of philosophy Aaron Simmons, who started a YoutTube channel of selfie videos with encouraging and educational messages.

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Since 2016, Cornell University assistant professor of communication J. Nathan Matias has tracked the algorithms on Reddit, a massive network of forums where people share content and news, and which claims to have more users than Twitter. As the coronavirus pandemic exploded, Matias began using the tool – called the COVID-19 Algo-Tracker – to monitor Reddit’s virus-related posts and threads, both to inform people about the mechanisms behind the information they’re receiving and to create a large, publicly available dataset for future research.

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KU Medical Center is one of 60 sites across the nation that will be participating in this clinical trial, led by the Duke Clinical Research Institute.

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Improving posture and ergonomics is a proactive way to take care of your body while working from home.

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In an effort to better fight COVID-19 in multiple regions of the country, Wake Forest Baptist Health has joined forces with Javara Inc. – a leading integrated clinical research organization headquartered in Winston-Salem – to conduct a community-based research study of the novel coronavirus.

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Researchers at the University of Memphis-based Center of Excellence for Mobile Sensor Data-to-Knowledge (MD2K) have introduced a new mobile app that may support physical distancing during the COVID-19 pandemic. MD2K is supported by NIH with a grant administered by NIBIB.

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In the wake of FDA's decision to loosen its emergency use authorization criteria for COVID-19 tests, reports have now been surfacing about unreliable commercial COVID-19 serological tests. While this is a major concern, AACC wants to emphasize that these problematic commercial tests are not the same as laboratory-developed tests--and that we still strongly support FDA's decision to step back from regulating lab-developed tests for COVID-19.

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People with conditions such as spinal cord injury, Lou Gehrig's disease and multiple sclerosis are at risk of developing severe respiratory problems related to COVID-19 because the muscles that help them breathe already may not function normally.

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In a nationwide effort to get people to stay at home and not travel between states or to vacation homes, new research out of the University of New Hampshire finds rural counties across the United States with high numbers of seasonal homes saw higher rates of COVID-19 cases than either urban or other rural areas.

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Answering the growing need for additional testing, and in direct response to shortages encountered in testing kit supply pipelines, the Coriell Institute for Medical Research is now offering services to create viral testing collection tubes containing different media and/or buffer formulations, for use in COVID-19 testing kits. Coriell is also exploring the feasibility of saliva as a means for testing for the new coronavirus.

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In the editorial, 'COVID-19: A new digital dawn?', published in the journal Digital Health (SAGE Publications), researchers from our Institute of Digital Healthcare at WMG, University of Warwick (together with colleagues from Warwick Medical School, University Hospitals Coventry & Warwickshire NHS Trust and Bristol Heart Institute, United Hospitals Bristol NHS Foundation Trust) provide insight into how these three reasons have led to an increase in digital healthcare.

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Researchers and clinicians are scrambling to find ways to combat COVID-19, including new therapeutics and eventually a vaccine. In a commentary published in the journal Diabetes Research and Clinical Practice, Miller School of Medicine professor and endocrinologist Gianluca Iacobellis, M.D., Ph.D., suggests the DPP4 enzyme presents an interesting target for further research, and DPP4 inhibitors could help some COVID-19 patients.

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Roswell Park will offer plasma from the donated blood of healthy individuals who have had COVID-19 but have now fully recovered to patients with severe or life-threatening COVID-19 through an expanded access program authorized by the U.S. FDA.

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"What's the harm in visiting just one friend?" A lot of people are asking that during times of social distancing. A new website illustrates how doing so would essentially reconnect most households in a community and provide conduits through which the COVID-19 virus could spread.

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Tulane University faculty member Dr. Lina Moses, a seasoned epidemiologist and disease ecologist in the Tulane School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine, was deployed to Geneva where she worked on the COVID-19 response over the past two months. Receiving daily publication reports, Moses is charged with rapidly distributing the most impactful scientific information to the World Health Organization (WHO) operational response teams. This involves the daily appraisal of a vast amount of critical literature on all aspects of the novel virus relevant to the prevention of infection and the treatment of those infected.

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Spring allergies are in full force. So how do you know if your symptoms are due to allergies or the COVID-19 virus? In a new video, “How allergy symptoms differ from COVID-19,” Loyola Medicine allergist Rachna Shah, MD, outlines the different symptoms for each, and why it's important to keep your spring allergy and asthma symptoms under control during this pandemic.

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As scientists and doctors around the country step up to meet the COVID-19 pandemic threat, a physician and a laboratory scientist are sending aid to the heart of the effort to develop a vaccine through a generous donation to Saint Louis University’s Center for Vaccine Development.

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Researchers at UC San Diego Health publish the first empirical findings that strongly associate sensory loss and COVID-19, the respiratory disease caused by the novel coronavirus.

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The dearth of coronavirus tests and the many false negatives confront doctors with a difficult decision this new tool helps them make.

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From dog walking and grocery runs to coordinating PPE donations and assisting with new telehealth initiatives, medical students at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, are volunteering their assistance to support the healthcare workforce, patients and communities in New Jersey during the COVID-19 pandemic.

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The FDA has granted emergency use authorization (EUA) to Rutgers’ RUCDR Infinite Biologics and its collaborators for a new collection approach that utilizes saliva as the primary test biomaterial for the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, the first such approval granted by the federal agency. The new saliva collection method, which RUCDR developed in partnership with Spectrum Solutions and Accurate Diagnostic Labs (ADL), will allow for broader population screening than the current method of nose and throat swabs.

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McMaster University researchers are racing to create a home-based COVID-19 testing kit, which could potentially be ready to move forward for approvals and manufacturing within months.

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A small cluster physicist explains why DIY masks work and why even a bandana is better than nothing to fight the spread of COVID19.

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A new data visualization tool examines how and why COVID-19 impacts regions differently. Using daily updated data, COVIDMinder compares community risks, mediation tools, and outcomes related to COVID-19 by state across the United States, and by county within New York state.

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The American Association of Critical-Care Nurses, with other healthcare organizations, has released a statement calling upon the government, private sector and all other Americans to “uphold their moral obligation by joining us in fighting the battle against coronavirus and the resulting COVID-19 disease.”

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In an effort to better fight COVID-19 in multiple regions of the country, Wake Forest Baptist Health has joined forces with Javara Inc. – a leading integrated clinical research organization headquartered in Winston-Salem – to conduct a community-based research study of the novel coronavirus.

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Engineers at Binghamton University, State University of New York are working with healthcare providers in the region to develop technology to help deal with the coronavirus pandemic.

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Jacob Goodman, a mechanical engineering student at Binghamton University, State University of New York, built a ventilator prototype using mainly parts he purchased from Walmart, to help during the coronavirus pandemic. Here he breaks down the parts and how the device works.

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The University of Chicago Medicine is launching a clinical trial to study whether blood plasma from people who have recovered from COVID-19 can be used to treat patients who are still in the hospital with severe disease symptoms.

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In a small group of patients hospitalized with severe complications of COVID-19 and treated with the experimental antiviral drug remdesivir, clinical improvement was observed in 68% of patients treated, according to an analysis co-authored by Jonathan Grein, MD, director of Hospital Epidemiology at Cedars-Sinai.

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Lyme Campaign Seeks Participants Who Are ‘Resilient’ to the Tick-borne Disease

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Intermountain Healthcare has created two COVID-19 Response Teams with 50 caregivers each that will deploy to the New York City area to assist hospitals this week. Intermountain has partnered with New York-Presbyterian Hospital and Northwell Health, both located in the New York City area. These healthcare systems will aim to return the favor by supporting Intermountain as much as they can when Utah faces its own surge with COVID-19 patients.

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An experimental therapy to help patients recover from COVID-19 by transfusing plasma from virus survivors into critically ill patients is being investigated by physicians at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) for use at Memorial Hermann.

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EAST LANSING, Mich. – As COVID-19 cases spike, the need for faster, more accessible testing is clear. Due to limited availability, many patients with symptoms — and their physicians — are left wondering whether they have the virus. Even when patients do get a test, overwhelmed labs can take several days to get the results.

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A Rutgers expert discusses how to maintain self-care habits during the public health crisis