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Post by Admin on Apr 10, 2021 21:22:48 GMT
The Risks Of Posting Your COVID-19 Vaccine Card On Social Media | TODAY NBC News medical contributor Dr. Natalie Azar and NBC News investigative and consumer correspondent Vicky Nguyen join TODAY to answer viewer questions about the COVID-19 vaccine. They talk about potential booster shots and why you shouldn’t post your vaccination card on social media.
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Post by Admin on Apr 15, 2021 4:40:41 GMT
It's not every day that you get a letter "sent with love and hugs from the desk of Taylor Swift." This week, Britta Thomason — a flight nurse and self-proclaimed Swiftie — received a special package at her work: a handwritten note and a box of special merchandise straight from Taylor Swift. Sharing photos of the note and a video of herself opening the box on Facebook, Thomason expressed her excitement as she opened a package from her favorite artist. "Don't mind me...I'll be crying the rest of the day," Thomason wrote, saying she never expected to be a fan lucky enough to receive a gift like this one. "I can't read it because I'm gonna cry," she said as she saw Swift's note as she trembled. "I'm dying! Oh my god. Look at all this stuff"! Tucked inside the box filled with merchandise from sweaters and shirts to water bottles and guitar picks was a note written by Swift, 31, thanking the flight nurse for her service amid the ongoing pandemic.
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Post by Admin on Apr 21, 2021 5:16:57 GMT
The US state department is to advise Americans to avoid 80% of countries worldwide because of the coronavirus pandemic. In a note to the media about its updated travel guidance, it said the pandemic continued to "pose unprecedented risks to travellers". The current US "Do Not Travel" advisory covers 34 out of 200 countries. Covid-19 has now claimed more than three million lives worldwide - more than half a million of them in the US. The World Health Organization (WHO) warned the world was "approaching the highest rate of infection" so far, despite the global rollout of vaccination programmes. India - currently in the grip of a second wave - is to begin offering vaccinations to all adults over 18 in a bid to control the surge in infections. The US state department said its decision to update its travel advisories was to bring it more in line with those from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and "does not imply a reassessment of the current health situation in a given country". However, it said the move would "result in a significant increase in the number of countries at Level 4: Do Not Travel, to approximately 80% of countries worldwide". Anyone planning to travel to a country in the remaining 20% is advised to reconsider before proceeding. Which countries move to level four? The state department has not revealed which countries will be added to the level four category - the highest of its four risk levels. Guidance will be issued individually for each country in the next few days. Currently, only three places in the world are assessed at the lowest tier - level one, which advises "Exercise normal precautions". They are Macau, Taiwan and New Zealand. Even Antarctica is at level two - "Exercise increased caution" - while the UK is at level three - "Reconsider travel" - with an extra warning to exercise caution because of the risk of terrorism. The CDC currently recommends all Americans refrain from travelling domestically until they have been fully vaccinated and warns that international travel "poses additional risks" even for those vaccinated. In addition, all air passengers coming to the US, including US citizens, must have a negative Covid test result or documentation of recovery from the virus before they board a flight.
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Post by Admin on Apr 22, 2021 19:57:03 GMT
Chinese Covid-19 vaccines offer relatively low levels of protection compared with some of their foreign rivals. Here is why China is joining other countries in considering mixing and matching vaccines as a key to overcoming multiple vaccination challenges at once. Illustration: Ksenia Shaikhutdinova
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Post by Admin on Apr 27, 2021 20:59:38 GMT
New research offers an up-close view of how SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, can spread to the brain. The study helps explain the alarming array of neurological symptoms reported in some patients with COVID-19, as well as why some patients suffer severe neurological effects while others experience none at all. The researchers report evidence that SARS-CoV-2 can infect both the nerve cells that power our brains (neurons) and the cells in the brain and spinal cord that support and protect neurons (astrocytes). “Our findings suggest that astrocytes are a pathway through which COVID-19 causes neurological damage,” said Ricardo Costa, PhD, a postdoctoral fellow at the Louisiana State University (LSU) Health Shreveport and the study’s first author. “This could explain many of the neurologic symptoms we see in COVID-19 patients, which include loss of sense of smell and taste, disorientation, psychosis, and stroke.” Costa will present the research at the American Physiological Society annual meeting during the Experimental Biology (EB) 2021 meeting, held virtually April 27-30. The study is led by Diana Cruz-Topete, assistant professor of molecular and cellular biology at LSU Health Shreveport, and includes collaborators Oscar Gomez-Torres, PhD, and Emma Burgos-Ramos, PhD, from Universidad de Castilla-La Mancha in Spain. In the respiratory system, SARS-CoV-2 is known to infect a person’s cells by grabbing hold of proteins on the cell surface called angiotensin-converting enzyme-2 (ACE2) receptors. It has been unclear whether brain cells have this receptor. For the study, Costa and colleagues examined RNA and proteins to determine whether cell cultures of human astrocytes and neurons expressed ACE2. They then exposed the cells to a version of the SARS-CoV-2 virus that had been modified to be safe for researchers to handle. The studies confirmed that both astrocytes and neurons express the ACE2 receptor and that both cell types can become infected with SARS-CoV-2, though astrocytes were less likely to become infected. Astrocytes are the main gateway to the brain, responsible for shuttling nutrients from the bloodstream to the neurons while keeping harmful particles out. By resisting infection, astrocytes could help keep SARS-CoV-2 out of the brain, but once infected, they could easily pass the virus along to many neurons, according to researchers. “While astrocytes display a higher resistance to infection, neurons seem to be more susceptible,” said Costa. “This suggests that only few astrocytes getting infected could be sufficient for the infection to quickly spread to neurons and multiply quickly. These observations could explain why while some patients do not have any neurological symptoms, others seem to have severe ones.” Meeting: Experimental Biology 2021 About Experimental Biology 2021 Experimental Biology is an annual meeting comprised of thousands of scientists from five host societies and multiple guest societies. With a mission to share the newest scientific concepts and research findings shaping clinical advances, the meeting offers an unparalleled opportunity for exchange among scientists from across the U.S. and the world who represent dozens of scientific areas, from laboratory to translational to clinical research. www.experimentalbiology.org #expbio
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