Young People With Chronic Conditions Fear Return To Campuses
With weakened immune systems, they fear COVID could be fatal. Pubic health news is on unanswered questions about COVID, dieting, hydroxychloroquine, and more.
CNN:
Young People With Immune Conditions Fear Coronavirus
As 19-year-old Alyannah Buhman begins her junior year of pre-law studies at Iowa State University, she has ambitions of a career in civil rights law. She is inspired by her grandfather, a police officer, and by growing up biracial in a small town in which there were only a few Black people. But living with diabetes during a pandemic presents major challenges to those dreams, most of which aren't immediately obvious. "If you look at me you'd think I was perfectly normal, until you saw a little device sticking out," she said. (Prior, 8/21)
ABC News:
5 Unanswered Medical Questions About Coronavirus
Seven months into the pandemic, we continue to unravel the mystery that is COVID-19. There continue to be critical questions that remain unanswered. Experts interviewed by ABC News shared five scientific mysteries that persist amid the race to end the pandemic. (Alexander and Bhatt, 8/23)
The Washington Post:
Coronavirus Gives Incentive To Lose Weight
Stephen O’Rahilly, a prominent expert on obesity and other metabolic disorders — who struggles with his own weight — lost about 20 pounds in the six months before becoming ill with covid-19. He believes this probably protected him from serious disease, and maybe even saved his life.“My experience with the virus wasn’t so terrible,” says O’Rahilly, co-director of the Wellcome Trust-MRC Institute of Metabolic Science at the University of Cambridge in Britain, who said modest diet changes and exercise helped him shed the weight and probably enabled him to escape the worst effects of covid-19. (Cimons, 8/23)
The Hill:
Infectious Disease Society Says Hydroxychloroquine Should Not Be Used To Treat Coronavirus Patients
The Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) on Friday revised its coronavirus treatment guidelines, recommending that the anti-malarial drug hydroxychloroquine not be used for COVID-19 patients. The IDSA initially only recommended against the use of the drug in conjunction with the antibiotic azithromycin. The updated guideline marking a tougher stance on the drug praised by President Trump. (Seipel, 8/21)
Kaiser Health News:
Inside The Race To Build A Better $500 Emergency Ventilator
As the coronavirus crisis lit up this spring, headlines about how the U.S. could innovate its way out of a pending ventilator shortage landed almost as hard and fast as the pandemic itself. The New Yorker featured “The MacGyvers Taking on the Ventilator Shortage,” an effort initiated not by a doctor or engineer but a blockchain activist. The University of Minnesota created a cheap ventilator called the Coventor; MIT had the MIT Emergency Ventilator; Rice University, the ApolloBVM. NASA created the VITAL, and a fitness monitor company got in the game with Fitbit Flow. The price tags varied from $150 for the Coventor to $10,000 for the Fitbit Flow — all significantly less than premium commercially available hospital ventilators, which can run $50,000 apiece. (Schulte, 8/24)
Dallas Morning News:
Botox Boom: COVID’s Stay-At-Home Lifestyle And Masks Create ‘Ideal’ Time For Secret Plastic Surgery
The pandemic is ruining summer travel plans and spoiling weekend socializing, but it’s giving cover to another COVID-19 phenomenon: pent-up demand for plastic surgery. Felicia Cloke, 24, of Dallas knew she wanted breast augmentation before turning 25. When the pandemic canceled typical summer activities, it gave her the perfect opportunity. And because she works in a hospital, it was no riskier than going to work. (Walters, 8/23)
