As Shared Ecosystems Increase, So Will Animal-To-Human Illnesses, Experts Say

The New York Times: How Humanity Has Unleashed A Flood Of Zoonotic Diseases
It might have started like this: One afternoon last year, somewhere in China’s mountainous Yunnan province, a hunter entered a limestone cave. As he stepped carefully along the slick and uneven surface, his headlamp illuminated ruffled curtains of stone and walls popcorned with kernels of calcite. He coninued through a series of smaller chambers until he reached a narrow passageway that reeked of ammonia — exactly what he was hoping to find. He stretched a fine-meshed net across the passage, sat down in a relatively dry area and waited. (Jabr, 6/17)

The New York Times: ‘When Am I Coming Home?’: A Tough Month Inside A Virus Recovery Unit
Charlie Blueweiss, 33, woke up believing he was in a secret infirmary in an airport somewhere, maybe in China. He was certain someone was stalking him; threatening messages seemed to keep appearing on screens around him. As his confusion — which is common among Covid-19 patients who have spent a long stint on a mechanical ventilator — dissipated in the coming days, Mr. Blueweiss began to take stock of his situation. He realized that he was in the intensive care unit at NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital/Weill Cornell Medical Center in Manhattan, and that those screens were displaying his vital signs and medical updates. (Goldstein, 6/17)

CNN: Airlines Ban Alcohol On Planes In Response To Covid-19 
Alcohol sales may have boomed during lockdown, but our return to air travel will be an altogether more sobering experience. Airlines including Easyjet and KLM in Europe, Delta Air Lines and American Airlines in the United States, and Asia's Virgin Australia, are suspending all or part of their alcoholic drinks service in response to Covid-19. It's part of a widespread revision of the industry's food and drink service to minimize interaction between crew and passengers and to ensure a safer journey for all. (O'Hare, 6/16)

The Wall Street Journal: What We Know About Face Shields And Coronavirus
The new coronavirus spreads mostly through droplets expelled from an infected person coughing, sneezing or talking. Face shields cover the eyes, mouth and nose—the areas of potential infection. “If someone coughs and it catches your eyes, you are going to get the infection,” says Daniel McQuillen, vice president of the Infectious Diseases Society of America and an infectious disease physician at Beth Israel Lahey Health in Boston. (Dizik, 6/16)

Kaiser Health News: Pandemic Upends The Lives Of People With Disabilities — And Of Their Caregivers
When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, Stacy Ellingen, 34, of Oshkosh, Wisconsin, lost two of the three caregivers she depends on to dress, shower, eat and use the bathroom. The caregivers — both University of Wisconsin-Oshkosh students — returned to their parents’ homes when the university canceled in-person classes. Ellingen, who lives with complications from cerebral palsy, had little choice but to do the same — moving back to her parents’ home in Fond du Lac. (Sable-Smith, 6/17)

The Associated Press: Poll: Americans Are The Unhappiest They've Been In 50 Years
It’s been a rough year for the American psyche. Folks in the U.S. are more unhappy today than they’ve been in nearly 50 years. This bold — yet unsurprising — conclusion comes from the COVID Response Tracking Study, conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago. It finds that just 14% of American adults say they’re very happy, down from 31% who said the same in 2018. That year, 23% said they’d often or sometimes felt isolated in recent weeks. Now, 50% say that. (Lush, 6/16)

ABC News: How Food Producers Are Preparing For The 2nd Wave Of COVID-19 
Americans were quick to stock up on packaged foods during the first wave of the coronavirus, and some major producers felt a ripple effect in the supply chain due to the heightened demand. Now that companies have learned from the supply chain impacts of COVID-19, they have started to think about a shift in strategies to ensure that their businesses are prepared if a second wave hits, especially come the colder fall months after peak flu season. (McCarthy, 6/16)

The New York Times: Exercising While Wearing A Mask 
Wearing a mask during exercise reduces the risk that we will infect someone else with the novel coronavirus if we unwittingly carry the disease. But wearing a mask also affects how the exercise affects us, according to exercise scientists who have begun to look into the effects of covering your face while working out. Their research and insights, some of them based on self-experimentation, raise practical questions about whether some types of masks might be better than others for exercise, how often masks should be swapped out during prolonged exertions and just how much we should expect our heart rates to soar if we attempt to interval train with a mask on. (Reynolds, 6/17)

KQED: Getting Off Drugs Takes A Community. But How Do You Do That In A Pandemic? 
Some patients would go to meet with counselors and get prescription medications like buprenorphine to treat opioid addiction. Others needed harm-reduction supplies like clean needles and naloxon, the drug that reverses opioid overdoses. There was also a weekly support group, for both “social interaction” and “accountability to other group members," Brown said. A hot lunch was yet another draw, with leftovers usually available to take home. (Klivans, 6/16)

The New York Times: Has Pandemic Snacking Lured Us Back To Big Food And Bad Habits?
During a spring conference call, the maker of Oreos and other iconic snacks shared some exciting news with Wall Street analysts. In the early days of the coronavirus pandemic, cookie and cracker sales had shot up by nearly 30 percent, a gargantuan leap in the world of groceries. “We executed well in the first quarter, even as the virus was spreading,” said Dirk Van de Put, the chief executive of Mondelez International (formerly Kraft Foods). This wasn’t just a result of hoarding by nervous shoppers, he said. (Moss, 6/16)