The Centers for Disease Control is now recommending Americans wear cloth masks when leaving their homes to help prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus, President Donald Trump said Friday.
Read the full story
Live from Music Row Thursday morning on The Tennessee Star Report with Michael Patrick Leahy – broadcast on Nashville’s Talk Radio 98.3 and 1510 WLAC weekdays from 5:00 a.m. to 8:00 a.m. – Leahy was joined on the newsmakers line by all-star panelist Dr. Carol Swain.
Read the full story
Given the spread of misinformation about Covid-19, Just Facts is providing a trove of rigorously documented facts about this disease and its impacts. These include some vital facts that have been absent or misreported in much of the media’s coverage of this issue. This research also includes a groundbreaking study to determine the lethality of Covid-19 based on the most comprehensive available measure: the total years of life that it will rob from people.
Read the full story
President Donald Trump said Thursday that his administration is working on a county-level approach to the coronavirus that will enable the government to identify hotspots across the nation.
Doing so will allow social distancing measures to be relaxed or tightened based on the number of confirmed cases in each county, Trump said in a letter sent Thursday to the nation’s governors.
Read the full story
A coalition of computer coders and medical experts is looking for volunteers — including from the Volunteer State — to help provide better information on COVID-19 coronavirus testing sites.
TechCrunch reported on the one-week-old Coders Against Covid project, which is building a database of testing sites. The team of about 15 developers includes Andrew Kemendo of KesselRun, an Air Force software developer, and Dr. Jorge A. Caballero, a clinical instructor of Anesthesia at Stanford University. The goal is to inform officials tracking the disease and to better distribute the tests where they are needed.
Read the full story
The State of Connecticut has gotten on board with the CDC to report negative test results to help the agency better track the spread of the coronavirus, leaving Ohio and Maryland as the only holdouts in complying with federal law.
Read the full story
An average of 2.9 percent of Minnesotans who have been tested for COVID-19 ended up testing positive, according to the latest data from the Minnesota Department of Health (MDH).
Read the full story
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Wednesday released its first batch of data on coronavirus patients in the United States, showing that while older adults are more likely to experience severe problems with the virus, younger adults are also falling seriously ill.
Read the full story
Chloroquine, a common antimalarial drug, has shown promising results in treating COVID-19 coronavirus in South Korea and China, according to a white paper.
Read the full story
Given the spread of misinformation about Covid-19, Just Facts is providing a trove of rigorously documented facts about this disease and its impacts. These include some crucial facts that have been absent or misreported in much of the media’s coverage of this issue.
Read the full story
Gov. Mike DeWine said Sunday morning that Ohio’s public schools could remain closed for the rest of the academic year.
DeWine ordered all K-12 public schools to close for three weeks beginning at the end of the day Monday. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), however, said that closing for eight weeks or more would have a greater impact on mitigating the spread of the virus.
Read the full story
Sen. Tina Smith (D-MN) accused President Donald Trump and his administration of spreading “misinformation” about the coronavirus in a recent interview.
The Minnesota senator said the Trump administration “didn’t move quickly on developing” a test for the virus.
Read the full story
“It is not yet known whether weather and temperature impact the spread of COVID-19. Some other viruses, like the common cold and flu, spread more during cold weather months but that does not mean it is impossible to become sick with these viruses during other months. At this time, it is not known whether the spread of COVID-19 will decrease when weather becomes warmer. There is much more to learn about the transmissibility, severity, and other features associated with COVID-19 and investigations are ongoing.”
Read the full story
Ohio has a new protocol to check for the coronavirus now that in-state testing is available for high-priority cases for hospitalized patients.
“As the COVID-19 situation evolves, the Ohio Department of Health, working in conjunction with hospitals, primary care providers, and other health care experts, has a plan to maximize our testing resources,” Gov. Mike DeWine said Saturday in a press release. “We are prioritizing the patients who are the most vulnerable to be tested in the Department of Health’s State Laboratory, while ensuring those that need COVID-19 testing will be able to be tested.”
Read the full story
Fever, cough and shortness of breath are symptoms to watch for with the coronavirus, the CDC says.
Read the full story
The coronavirus death toll in the United States hit nine on Tuesday, even as more areas around the world report infections.
Read the full story
Rep. Betty McCollum (D-MN-04) said this week that President Donald Trump is “willfully ignorant” regarding the threat of a coronavirus outbreak in the United States.
Read the full story
U.S. citizens should expect coronavirus outbreaks in their communities, warns the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Read the full story
Ken Cuccinelli, the acting deputy secretary of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), could not definitively rule out the theory that the coronavirus was created in a laboratory.
Read the full story
The Ohio Department of Health (ODH) announced Wednesday that it is monitoring an Ohioan who potentially has the coronavirus, the highly contagious respiratory illness that has killed almost 600 people in China.
Read the full story
China says it has nearly 10,000 confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus. The virus has caused 213 deaths in China where it emerged late last year.
Read the full story
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Thursday the first person-to-person spread of a new coronavirus in the U.S., but health officials believe the general public is at low risk.
Read the full story
Three more cases of coronavirus in the United States have been confirmed, bringing the total number of infected patients to five in the country, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Sunday.
Read the full story
Health officials confirmed a second U.S. case of a coronavirus as China locked down more cities near the epicenter of the outbreak Friday.
Read the full story
A massive outbreak of mumps is plaguing migrant detention centers across the U.S., according to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) report.
Read the full story
The United States has confirmed 695 measles cases so far this year, the highest level since the country declared it had eliminated the virus in 2000, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said on Wednesday. The resurgence, which public health officials blamed in part on the spread of misinformation about the safety of vaccines, has been concentrated mainly in Washington state and New York with outbreaks that began late last year. “The longer these outbreaks continue, the greater the chance measles will again get a sustained foothold in the United States,” the CDC warned in a statement. It said outbreaks can spread out of control in communities with lower-than-normal vaccination rates. Although the disease was eliminated from the country in 2000, meaning the virus was no longer continually present year round, outbreaks still happen via travelers coming from countries where measles is still common, the CDC says. As of Wednesday, the number of measles cases so far this year exceeds the 667 cases reported in all of 2014, which had been the highest annual number recorded since the elimination in 2000. The virus has been recorded in 22 states so far in 2019, the CDC said. The…
Read the full story
Reuters The United States recorded 71 new measles cases last week, a 13 percent increase as the country faces its second-worst outbreak of the disease in almost two decades, federal health officials said on Monday. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said it had recorded 626 cases of the highly contagious and sometimes deadly disease in 22 states as of April 19, the highest rate of infection in five years. The CDC had previously reported 555 cases in 20 states between Jan. 1 and April 11. The current outbreak will likely surpass the 2014 outbreak in number of cases, the CDC said on Monday. Iowa and Tennessee were the two states that joined the CDC list with new measles cases. More than half the cases recorded this year occurred in New York City, primarily in the Williamsburg neighborhood of Brooklyn. The U.S. outbreak is part of a worldwide rise in the once nearly eradicated disease. The World Health Organization reported last week that global cases had risen nearly four-fold in the first quarter of 2019 to 112,163 compared with the same period last year. A vocal fringe of parents in the United States oppose vaccines believing, contrary…
Read the full story
by Amy Swearer Gun control advocates long have controlled the narrative about defensive uses of firearms, calling the “good guy with a gun” scenario a “myth meant to scare people into buying guns for self-defense.” This is a false narrative that does not reflect reality. Despite a backdrop of rhetoric asserting that “the average person … has basically no chance in their lifetime ever to use a gun in self-defense,” the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in a 2013 report concluded that studies routinely find that Americans use firearms in defense of themselves or others between 500,000 and 3 million times every year. Data collected by the CDC itself, but long hidden from the public, indicates that the number is likely around 1 million defensive gun uses per year. But even the lowest end of this statistical range far outpaces the number of times Americans use firearms for unlawful purposes. It’s one thing to hear that incredible number and know that the “good guy with a gun” is not a myth. It’s another thing entirely to dig deeper into the firsthand accounts of individual law-abiding Americans whose lives and livelihoods were saved because they were able to exercise…
Read the full story
by Evie Fordham A replacement has been named for Vice Adm. Scott Stearney, the top Navy admiral in the Middle East, after he was found dead in his residence in Bahrain Saturday. Vice Adm. Jim Malloy, the deputy chief of naval operations for operations, plans and strategy, will take Stearney’s place commanding U.S. Naval Forces Central Command and the 5th Fleet, Stars and Stripes reported Monday. Defense officials called Stearney’s death an “apparent suicide,” CBS News reported. Navy officials declined to comment on those reports, according to Stars and Stripes. “Scott Stearney was a decorated naval warrior. He was a devoted husband and father, and he was a good friend to all of us,” Chief of Naval Operations Adm. John Richardson said in a statement Saturday. “The Naval Criminal Investigative Service and the Bahraini Ministry of Interior are cooperating on the investigation, but at this time no foul play is suspected.” There will be a private memorial for Stearney on the Navy’s Bahrain base, officials told Stars and Stripes Monday. The 5th Fleet that Stearney commanded is based in Bahrain. It functions in the Arabian Gulf, Red Sea, Gulf of Oman and the Indian Ocean as well as strategically important…
Read the full story
by Grace Carr The United States saw the lowest number of abortions ever reported between 2014 and 2015 since 1973’s Roe V. Wade legalized abortion, according to a Wednesday report. Between 2014 and 2015, the total number of reported abortions decreased two percent, falling to a rate of 11.8 abortions per 1,000 women aged 15 to 44 years, according to a Wednesday Centers for Disease Control and Prevention surveillance report. A total of 638,169 abortions were reported in that year, according to the CDC. The report contains the most recent nationally representative data on abortion in the U.S. Between 2006 and 2015, the total number of reported abortions also decreased 24 percent, according to the report. Between 2006 and 2010, the number of reported abortions decreased by 19,280 per year. The number of reported abortions also fell between 2011 and 2015, decreasing by 23,087 per year, according to Wednesday’s report. White and black women accounted for the largest percentages of all abortions between 2014 and 2015, according to the report. Just over 14 percent of all women who obtained abortions in that year were married, while 85.7 percent were unmarried, according to the report. California, Maryland, and New Hampshire do not publicly report…
Read the full story
by Evie Fordham The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is searching for answers on 127 suspected and confirmed cases of a polio-like disease leaving children across the U.S. paralyzed. Sixty-two cases of acute flaccid myelitis (AFM) have been confirmed in 22 states out of 127 reports of AFM. Those numbers put 2018 on track to have a record number of AFM cases, Dr. Nancy Messonnier of the CDC told NBC News. “We have not been able to find the cause of the majority of AFM cases …” Messonnier said according to NBC News. “AFM is a rare condition. It’s also a serious condition. So we want to encourage parents to seek medical care right away if you or your child develop symptoms of AFM such as sudden weakness or paralysis of the arms and legs.” Patients with AFM often need help from a ventilator to breathe, and they can be disabled for years AFM can also strike people older than 18, according to NBC News. Confirmed AFM cases peaked at 149 in 2016 after the illness first grabbed headlines with 120 confirmed cases in 2014, according to CDC data. The illness appears to spike every other year. The…
Read the full story
Getting your flu shot every single year is a real pain in the arm. Sure, it helps protect you and everyone around you. The Centers for Disease Control estimate that flu vaccines prevented 5.1 million cases of the disease during the 2015 to 2016 flu season alone. But few of us actually look forward to the hassle of taking time from work or school to get poked by needles. Wouldn’t it be great if we could figure out how to make one vaccine that gave us lifelong protection against every strain of flu? …
Read the full story
President Donald Trump’s administration named Georgia Public Health Commissioner Brenda Fitzgerald as the next director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Friday. Fitzgerald, 70, is trained as an obstetrician-gynecologist. She served as Georgia Public Health Commissioner since 2011. Before Republican Governor Nathan Deal chose her to serve as public health commissioner of Georgia,…
Read the full story
Autism is treatable. However, children do not “outgrow” autism. Studies show that early diagnosis and intervention lead to significantly improved outcomes. The CDC believes we must promote early identification of children with ASD
Read the full story