The tricky balance between saving lives and protecting the economy Faced with the possibility of their healthcare systems being overwhelmed with Covid-19 patients, most developed countries implemented some form of “locking down.” Citizens were told to stay home except in the case of emergencies or to buy food or medicine. Restaurants and bars were closed. The use of face masks was sometimes deemed mandatory. Schools had to learn how to operate online. Sweden took a…
Comments closedCategory: Health care
My wife and I have been locked down on our little farm in rural Italy for a few weeks now. We’re only allowed off the property to go to the grocery store, the pharmacy or the post office. And when we go, we are required to bring along a signed form declaring our reason for leaving. But we have it easy — living on a farm means we can let our dogs run around, and…
Comments closedBetween the medical academic community crying foul over the med-tech startup’s lack of transparency and the SEC’s concerns about whether Theranos’ leadership misled investors, a more fundamental problem with the blood testing company has been overlooked. At least until now. Katherine Hobson at fivethirtyeight.com notes that there’s a flaw at the very core of the business, and it’s got nothing to do with the technology or claims made to investors. It’s that more sensitive tests and…
Comments closedThe other day I heard one side of a conversation about the zika virus and pregnancy. My doctor pal was talking to a world-class athlete who’s decided to skip going to the Olympic games in Brazil over fear that he’d infect his young wife. They’re not planning on having any more kids right away, but he didn’t want to take the chance. What We Know… And What We Don’t The zika virus is plenty scary, and it…
Comments closedThere’s lots of heat but little light when it comes to the issue about how best to handle volunteers returning to the US after caring for Ebola patients in West Africa. Front and center right now is Kaci Hickox, a nurse who recently returned from Sierra Leone after a three-week stint taking care of Ebola patients. Officials say her temperature was elevated on arrival at New Jersey’s Liberty International airport, and that landed her in…
Comments closedAfter Thomas Eric Duncan inadvertently brought the Ebola infection to the US, CDC director Thomas Frieden confidently announced, “I have no doubt that we’ll stop this in its tracks.” Two weeks later, after a nurse caring for Duncan contracted the disease, Frieden acknowledged that the CDC needed to rethink its approach to infection control. Flip-flopping by a public official in the face of a high-stakes issue is nothing new, and we shouldn’t be too tough…
Comments closedThere’s a lot of heat but not much light in most of the discussions around measles and whether or not to make vaccinations mandatory. It turns out that’s not the real question; all fifty states currently require the MMR (measles, mumps, and rubella) vaccine for admission into public schools. The problem is that some schools allow exceptions based on “philosophical” and religious grounds. Even more troubling, sometimes the exception process can be pretty easy (e.g.,…
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