Dramática baja de enfermedades por virus comunes, ¿significa máscaras para siempre?

Las máscaras y el distanciamiento físico están demostrando tener importantes beneficios extra, evitando que las personas contraigan todo tipo de enfermedades, no solo covid-19.Pero no está claro si los protocolos valdrán la pena a largo plazo.Maestros de la Academia New Hope en Franklin, Tennessee, estaban charlando sobre el tema. La escuela cristiana privada ha permanecido presencial durante gran parte de la pandemia, requiriendo máscaras y tratando de mantener a los alumnos separados, en la medida en que es posible con niños pequeños.Nicole Grayson, quien enseña en cuarto grado, dijo que se dieron cuenta de algo peculiar.“No conocemos a nadie que se haya engripado”, dijo. “A ningún estudiante que haya contraído faringitis estreptocócica”.Y no se trata solo de algo anecdótico.Un estudio publicado...

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Dramatic Drop in Common Viruses Raises Question: Masks Forever?

Masks and physical distancing are proving to have major fringe benefits, keeping people from getting all kinds of illnesses — not just covid-19. But it’s unclear whether the protocols will be worth the pain in the long run. This story is part of a partnership that includes WPLN, NPR and KHN. It can be republished for free. The teachers at New Hope Academy in Franklin, Tennessee, were chatting the other day. The private Christian school has met in person throughout much of the pandemic — requiring masks and trying to keep kids apart, to the degree it is possible with young children. And Nicole Grayson, who teaches fourth grade, said they realized something peculiar. “We don’t know anybody that has gotten the flu,” she said. “I don’t know...

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Durango’s Covid ‘Cowboy’ Rounds Up Spring Break Scofflaws, Lines ’Em Up for Shots

Bartenders were pouring Old-Fashioneds at a bar with a bullet hole straight through the wood. Servers in corsets and fishnet stockings roamed the room, passing an old piano that, twice a week, fills the building with ragtime tunes. This story also ran on U.S. News & World Report. It can be republished for free. It was a Friday evening at the Diamond Belle Saloon on the main drag in Durango, Colorado. Outside, a man in boots, a cowboy hat and a button-down vest adorned with a U.S. marshal badge patrolled the block, eyes scanning the streets for trouble. If trouble were to appear, it would likely take the form of errant Texans. “You can’t throw a stone around here without hitting a Texan,” recalled Scott Perez, the man in the marshal...

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‘I Can Breathe Again’: Older Adults Begin to Test Freedom After Covid Vaccinations

With a mix of relief and caution, older adults fully vaccinated against covid-19 are moving out into the world and resuming activities put on hold during the pandemic. Use Our Content It can be republished for free. Many are making plans to see adult children and hug grandchildren they haven’t visited for months — or longer. Others are getting together with friends indoors, for the first time in a long time. People are scheduling medical appointments that had been delayed and putting trips to destinations near and far on calendars. Simple things that felt unsafe pre-vaccination now feel possible: petting a neighbor’s dog, going for a walk in the park, stopping at a local hangout for a cup of coffee. “I feel I can breathe again,” said Barry Dym, 78, of Lexington, Massachusetts, expressing...

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Web Event: The Crucial Role of Home Health Workers, Unsung Heroes of the Pandemic

Even as the pandemic took a devastating toll on health care workers and older adults in the United States, many home care workers reported to work and provided vital care to vulnerable people despite the health risks to themselves and their families. KHN and The John A. Hartford Foundation held an interactive web event to examine the crucial roles these workers have played for families during the pandemic, as well as the challenging economics of the industry for providers and consumers alike. KHN Editor-in-Chief Elisabeth Rosenthal served as moderator of the event.KHN (Kaiser Health News) is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues. Together with Policy Analysis and Polling, KHN is one of the three major operating programs at KFF (Kaiser...

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Getting a Prescription to Die Remains Tricky Even as Aid-in-Dying Bills Gain Momentum

Linda Heim knew her dad didn’t plan to wait for the cancer to kill him. For decades, he’d lived in Montana, which they’d thought was one of the few places where terminally ill people could get a prescription to end their life. This story also ran on Time. It can be republished for free. After two years of being sick, Heim’s dad got the diagnosis in 2019: stage 4 kidney cancer. His physician offered treatments that might extend his life by months. Instead, the 81-year-old asked the doctor for help dying. Heim said her parents left the appointment in their hometown of Billings with two takeaways: The legality of medically assisted death was questionable in Montana, and her father’s physician didn’t seem willing to risk his career to put that...

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Covid Vaccine Hesitancy Drops Among All Americans, New Survey Shows

A new poll of attitudes toward covid vaccinations shows Americans are growing more enthusiastic about being vaccinated, with the most positive change in the past month occurring among Black Americans. Use Our Content It can be republished for free. About 55% of Black adults said they had been vaccinated or plan to be soon, up 14 percentage points from February, according to a poll released Tuesday by KFF. The rate now approaches that of Hispanics, at 61%, and whites at 64%. (Asian Americans were not polled in sufficient numbers to compare their responses with other racial and ethnic groups.) But the poll found that 13% of respondents overall said they will “definitely not” be vaccinated, signaling that significant hurdles remain in the nation’s vaccination campaign. (KHN is the editorially...

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Ask KHN-PolitiFact: How Can Covid Vaccines Be Safe When They Were Developed So Fast?

The development of the first covid vaccines may have seemed to occur at a dizzying pace. After all, scientists identified a new virus and created vaccines to protect against its most severe effects within a year. This story also ran on PolitiFact. It can be republished for free. But the research underpinning these vaccines isn’t that new at all, vaccine experts say. Some of it is decades old. This foundation, combined with technical expertise, urgency and financial resources, enabled scientists to pull off the medical marvel. “The reason it was so fast is money and work,” said Dr. Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. Leveraging mRNA: A Technique as Old as Millennials Covid mRNA...

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Medicamentos ya conocidos, y baratos, podrían ser clave para tratar covid

¿Podría un antidepresivo que se usa desde hace décadas ser un arma secreta contra covid? Algunos científicos creen que sí, después de que dos pequeños estudios demostraran que la fluvoxamina, que se suele recetar para el trastorno obsesivo compulsivo (TOC), evitara que los participantes desarrollaran una forma grave de la enfermedad.Sería algo impresionante. Un tratamiento de dos semanas de este fármaco, que cuesta $10, podría reducir el número de muertes y hospitalizaciones.El medicamento podría utilizarse para luchar contra los brotes actuales en los Estados Unidos y sería un regalo del cielo para los países de bajos ingresos que deben esperar años para recibir vacunas contra el virus.Pero la fluvoxamina, al igual que otras medicinas que muestran su potencial contra covid, se enfrenta a...

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In His Continued Sparring With Fauci, Sen. Rand Paul Oversimplified the Science

“Sorry Dr Fauci and other fearmongers, new study shows vaccines and naturally acquired immunity DO effectively neutralize COVID variants. Good news for everyone but bureaucrats and petty tyrants!” — Sen. Rand Paul in a tweet, March 21, 2021 That Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky often disagrees with infectious-disease expert Dr. Anthony Fauci is well known. This story was produced in partnership with PolitiFact. It can be republished for free. Recently, the pair clashed at a Senate hearing when Paul, a Republican, argued against mask recommendations for people who have had covid-19 or have been vaccinated against it. At the hearing, Fauci, President Joe Biden’s chief medical adviser, pushed back against Paul’s characterization of wearing...

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Scientists Seek Covid Treatment Answers in Cheap, Older Drugs

Could a decades-old antidepressant be a secret weapon against covid? A few scientists think so, after two small studies showed that fluvoxamine, typically prescribed for obsessive-compulsive disorder, prevented serious illness in all participants who took the pills soon after developing symptoms. This story also ran on San Francisco Chronicle. It can be republished for free. It’s an exciting notion: A $10, two-week course of this drug could reduce death and hospitalizations. The drug could be used to fight ongoing outbreaks in the United States and would be a particular godsend for lower-income countries that may have to wait years for vaccines against the virus. But fluvoxamine, as well as other old drugs showing potential against covid,...

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