Longer Looks: Interesting Reads You Might Have Missed
Each week, KHN finds longer stories for you to sit back and enjoy. This week's selections include stories on covid-19, diversity in clinical trials, home exercise equipment and more.
The New York Times:
Amid One Pandemic, Students Train For The Next
For many months to come, Covid-19 will continue to shutter schools and thwart attempts to gather. The changes have forced educators and researchers to change their teaching tactics. But several groups have met the challenge head on, not merely weathering the pandemic’s inconveniences but transforming them into opportunities for scientific growth. In Cambridge, Mass., a team of computational biologists designed an outbreak simulation that eerily portended the stealthy spread of the coronavirus and is now fighting the spread of Covid-19 in real-time. In Tucson, Ariz., an immunologist has led an effort to include young, underrepresented scientists in microbiology research, even while the pandemic rages on. (Wu, 1/21)
The New York Times:
A Look At Past Vaccine Drives: Smallpox, Polio And The Swine Flu
Scientists developed vaccines less than a year after Covid-19 was identified, a reflection of remarkable progress in vaccine technology. But progress in vaccine distribution is another story. Many questions that arose in vaccine rollouts decades ago are still debated today. How should the local and federal authorities coordinate? Who should get vaccinated first? What should officials do about resistance in communities? Should the hardest-hit places be prioritized? Who should pay? Some answers can be found in the successes and failures of vaccine drives over the past two centuries. (Gross, 1/25)
The New York Times:
If You Squeeze The Coronavirus, Does It Shatter?
Of all the pandemic questions bedeviling scientists, the one that Juan Perilla is asking might be among the strangest: If a shrunk-down hand were to squeeze the coronavirus, would it squish, or would it shatter? Viruses like H.I.V. tend to be on the softer side, smooshing down like a foam ball, whereas the ones that cause influenza are more brittle, prone to cracking like an egg, said Dr. Perilla, a biophysical chemist at the University of Delaware in Newark. Coronaviruses, he suspects, are somewhere in the middle, a sort of tactile Goldilocks in the world of infectious disease. “It’s something you never consider when you talk about viruses,” Dr. Perilla said. But it’s part and parcel, he added, of “trying to understand how a virion is strung together.” (Wu, 1/26)
The New York Times:
Doctors, Facing Burnout, Turn To Self-Care
Physician burnout has long been a serious concern in the medical community, with roughly 400 doctors dying by suicide each year in the United States. The issue of pandemic burnout among physicians came to the forefront in the early months of the pandemic following the death of Dr. Lorna M. Breen, who supervised the emergency department at New York-Presbyterian Allen Hospital in Manhattan. Dr. Breen, who had been sick with Covid but working remotely, was later admitted to a psychiatric ward for 10 days. Fearing the professional repercussions of her mental health treatment, she took her own life in April. (Ellin, 1/26)
Boston Globe:
How Do You Help The Healers? The Emotional PPE Project Covers What Masks And Face Shields Don’t
On a particularly dark night last March, after Governor Baker declared a state of emergency as COVID-19 cases surged, the anesthesia residency program director at Massachusetts General Hospital realized he needed help. And soon. “We knew there was this tidal wave coming,” Dr. Dan Saddawi-Konefka says, “and we were climbing up toward the top. But we had no idea how much death or change we were likely to see.” No one did. As the public first learned how to “flatten the curve” by social distancing and mask wearing, workers on the front line, face-to-face with a novel coronavirus, worried about a shortage of masks, respirators, and eye protection that would help keep them safe while saving lives. (Karen Sances, 1/27)
Philadelphia Inquirer:
How Three Philly Groups Are Raising Mental Health Awareness In Immigrant Communities
The mental health needs of immigrants, who make up nearly 14% of Philadelphia’s population, are often centered around immigration, a stressful and sometimes traumatic ordeal. Yet many immigrants come from cultures where stigma around mental health makes them reluctant to talk about the emotional difficulties they face. The COVID-19 pandemic has only aggravated an already difficult situation as immigrants seek out information about the coronavirus in their languages, cope with increased conflict between family members, and look for behavioral health resources that address their needs in a culturally sensitive way. That’s why these three Philadelphia nonprofits have developed unique approaches to helping the city’s immigrant communities at a time of heightened uncertainty. Here’s what their work has looked like in the past year. (Ao, 1/26)
The Atlantic:
More Freedom Is The Whole Point Of Vaccines
The message that vaccines aren’t 100 percent effective in preventing disease, and that the data are still out on how much they reduce transmission, is an accurate and important one. Risk-mitigation strategies are needed in public spaces, particularly indoors, until more people are vaccinated and infections wane. But not all human interactions take place in public. Advising people that they must do nothing differently after vaccination—not even in the privacy of their homes—creates the misimpression that vaccines offer little benefit at all. Vaccines provide a true reduction of risk, not a false sense of security. And trying to eliminate even the lowest-risk changes in behavior both underestimates people’s need to be close to one another and discourages the very thing that will get everyone out of this mess: vaccine uptake. (Marcus, 1/27)
Los Angeles Times:
COVID-19 Vaccine And Pregnancy: What You Need To Know
With as many as 300,000 pregnant women in the nation’s healthcare workforce, it’s a predicament neither patients nor their doctors can afford to ignore. And as vaccine access expands to include people with medical conditions that make them more vulnerable to a severe case of COVID-19, even more women will face the same dilemma. Both the CDC and ACOG suggest that pregnant women weigh the benefits of a vaccine against the possible risks, noting that the pros and cons may be different for each person. A consultation with a doctor may be helpful, but it should not be required, both organizations say. The picture is also unclear for women who are trying to become pregnant and for mothers who are breastfeeding. Both ACOG and the CDC agree that COVID-19 vaccines should be available to women in both groups. (Kaplan, 1/27)
The Washington Post:
The Amazonian City That Hatched The Brazil Variant Has Been Crushed By It
Another surge was coming. This time, Uildéia Galvão thought they were prepared. Galvão, the lead physician in the coronavirus ward at a public hospital in the Brazilian city of Manaus, had been haunted by the wave that crashed last spring. In less than 10 days, it ruptured the city’s bewildered medical system. Sick patients were turned away. The dead were piled into mass graves. So Galvão’s hospital organized contingency plans. Additional beds were reserved, and a detailed schedule for opening them was created. (McCoy and Traiano, 1/27)
Also —
Modern Healthcare:
Want More Diversity In Clinical Trials? Start With The Researchers
“Creating a more diverse clinical research pool starts with a more diverse clinical research workforce,” said Jim Kremidas, executive director for the Association of Clinical Research Professionals. “We have to address the need for more clinical research professionals to keep up with the growing number of trials and ensure those trials are more representative of all our communities.” Last November, ACRP expanded its digital campaign to attract racial and ethnic minority college students.The association is encouraging minority high school juniors and seniors and college freshmen to search the organization’s website to learn about schools offering degrees in clinical research as well as information to help them get started in their careers with a list of training and internship programs. (Ross Johnson, 1/23)
The Washington Post:
New York Times’s Star Coronavirus Reporter Donald McNeil Jr. Was Disciplined For ‘Repeating A Racist Slur’
The New York Times on Thursday said it investigated and “disciplined” the newspaper’s most prominent science and health reporter, Donald McNeil Jr., over inappropriate comments he allegedly made while accompanying students on a trip to Peru in 2019. In a statement first given to the Daily Beast, the Times acknowledged students complained about McNeil after the trip, which is part of the newspaper’s educational travel program for middle and high school students. McNeil had gone along as an expert. (Barr, 1/28)
The Washington Post:
Home Workouts Are Getting Expensive, As Apps Embrace Pricey Subscriptions
Working out at home was supposed to be cheaper. No gym membership, no fancy workout clothes, no expensive spin classes. We were going to take free jogs in nature, do push-ups between Zoom meetings, dance off calories in our living rooms. It turns out motivation isn’t always that easy, or free. Over the past year, our pandemic fitness routines have turned into a gold rush for tech and fitness companies like Peloton, Apple and FitBit. They’re making money off expensive home equipment, wearables, virtual consultations and increasingly, monthly subscription fees. (Lerman, 1/22)