health

The New York Times
Can an Algorithm Prevent Suicide?
At a recent visit to the Veterans Affairs clinic in the Bronx, Barry, a decorated Vietnam veteran, learned that he belonged to a very exclusive club. According to a new AI-assisted algorithm, he was one of several hundred VA patients nationwide, of 6 million total, deemed at imminent risk of suicide.The news did not take him entirely off guard. Barry, 69, who was badly wounded in the 1968 Tet offensive, had already made two previous attempts on his life. "I don't like this idea of a list, to tell you the truth -- a computer telling me something like this," Barry, a retired postal worker, said in a phone interview. He asked that his surname be omitted for privacy.Sign up for The Morning newsletter from the New York Times"But I thought about it," Barry said. "I decided, you know, OK -- if it's going to get me more support that I need, then I'm OK with it."For more than a decade, health officials have watched in vain as suicide rates climbed steadily -- by 30% nationally since 2000 -- and rates in the VA system have been higher than in the general population. The trends have defied easy explanation and driven investment in blind analysis: machine learning, or AI-assisted algorithms that search medical and other records for patterns historically associated with suicides or attempts in large clinical populations.Doctors have traditionally gauged patients' risks by looking at past mental health diagnoses and incidents of substance abuse, and by drawing on experience and medical instinct. But these evaluations fall well short of predictive, and the artificially intelligent programs explore many more factors, like employment and marital status, physical ailments, prescription history and hospital visits. These algorithms are black boxes: They flag a person as at high risk of suicide, without providing any rationale.But human intelligence isn't necessarily better at the task. "The fact is, we can't rely on trained medical experts to identify people who are truly at high risk," said Dr. Marianne S. Goodman, a psychiatrist at the Veterans Integrated Service Network in the Bronx, and a clinical professor of medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. "We're no good at it."Deploying AI in this way is not new; researchers have been gathering data on suicides through the National Health Service in Britain since 1996. The U.S. Army, Kaiser Permanente and Massachusetts General Hospital each has separately developed an algorithm intended to predict suicide risk. But the VA's program, called Reach Vet, which identified Barry as at high risk, is the first of the new U.S. systems to be used in daily clinical practice, and it is being watched closely. How these systems perform -- whether they save lives and at what cost, socially and financially -- will help determine if digital medicine can deliver on its promise."It is a critical test for these big-data systems," said Alex John London, the director of the Center for Ethics and Policy at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh. "If these things have a high rate of false positives, for instance, that marks a lot of people at high risk who are not -- and the stigma associated with that could be harmful indeed downstream. We need to be sure these risk flags lead to people getting better or more help, not somehow being punished."The VA's algorithm updates continually, generating a new list of high-risk veterans each month. Some names stay on the list for months, others fall off. When a person is flagged, his or her name shows up on the computer dashboard of the local clinic's Reach Vet coordinator, who calls to arrange an appointment. The veteran's doctor explains what the high-risk designation means -- it is a warning sign, not a prognosis -- and makes sure the person has a suicide safety plan: that any guns and ammunition are stored separately; that photos of loved ones are visible; and that phone numbers of friends, social workers and suicide hotlines are on hand.Doctors who have worked with Reach Vet say that the system produces unexpected results, both in whom it flags and whom it does not.To some of his therapists, Chris, 36, who deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan, looked very much like someone who should be on the radar. He had been a Marine rifleman and saw combat in three of his four tours, taking and returning heavy fire in multiple skirmishes. In 2008, a roadside bomb injured several of his friends but left him unscathed. After the attack he had persistent nightmares about it and received a diagnosis of post-traumatic stress. In 2016, he had a suicidal episode; he asked that his last name be omitted to protect his privacy."I remember going to the shower, coming out and grabbing my gun," he said in an interview at his home near New York City. "I had a Glock 9-millimeter. For me, I love guns, they're like a safety blanket. Next thing I know, I'm waking up in cold water, sitting in the tub, the gun is sitting right there, out of the holster. I blacked out. I mean, I have no idea what happened. There were no bullets in the gun, it turned out."The strongest risk factor for suicide is a previous attempt, especially one with a gun. Yet Chris' name has not turned up on the high-risk list compiled by AI, and he does not think it ever will."At the time, in 2016, I was going to school for a master's, working full time," he said. "Our two kids were toddlers; I was sleeping no more than a few hours a night, if that. It was too much. I was sleep-deprived all the time. I had never been suicidal, never had suicidal thoughts; it was a totally impulsive thing."The AI behind Reach Vet seems to home in on other risk factors, Goodman said: "The things this program picks up wouldn't necessarily be the ones I thought about. The analytics are beginning to change our understanding of who's at greatest risk."The algorithm is built on an analysis of thousands of previous suicides in the VA's database, dating to 2008. The computer mixes and shuffles scores of facts from the medical records -- age, marital status, diagnoses, prescriptions -- and settles on the factors that together are most strongly associated with suicide risk.The VA model integrates 61 factors in all, including some that are not obvious, like arthritis and statin use, and produces a composite score for each person. Those who score at the very top of the range -- the top 0.1% -- are flagged as high risk."The risk concentration for people in the top 0.1% on this score was about 40 times," said John McCarthy, the director of data and surveillance, in Suicide Prevention in the VA Office of Mental Health and Suicide Prevention. "That is, they were 40 times more likely to die of suicide" than the average person.Bridget Matarazzo, the director of clinical services at the Rocky Mountain Mental Illness Research Education and Clinical Center for Veteran Suicide Prevention, said of Reach Vet, "My impression is that it's identifying some folks who were previously on providers' radar, but also others who were not."Late in 2018, a VA team led by McCarthy presented the first results of the Reach Vet system. Over a six-month period, with Reach Vet in place, high-risk veterans more than doubled their use of VA services. By contrast, in a comparison group tracked for six months before Reach Vet was installed, the use of VA services stayed roughly the same.The Reach Vet group also had a lower mortality rate over that time -- although it was an overall rate, including any cause of death. The analysis did not detect a difference in suicides, at least up to that stage. "It's encouraging, but we've got much more to do to see if we're having the impact we want," McCarthy said.Ronald Kessler, a professor of health care and policy at Harvard Medical School, said: "Right now, this and other models predict who's at highest risk. What they don't tell you is who is most likely to profit from an intervention. If you don't know that, you don't know where to put your resources."For doctors using the system, however, it has already prompted some rethinking of how to assess risk. "You end up with a lot of older men who are really struggling with medical problems," Goodman said. "They're quietly miserable, in pain, often alone, with financial problems, and you don't see them because they're not coming in."And for those whose names have popped up on Reach Vet's list, the experience of being identified and contacted is not something they can easily forget.Barry, the Vietnam veteran, said that he was in a relatively good place, for now. He is close to his two grown children, and he receives regular care at the Bronx VA, including both individual and group therapy, and medication for recurrent psychotic episodes. But he is also aware of how quickly things can turn dark."Look, I know I sometimes talk to myself at night, and I hear voices," he said. "The meds work fine, but once in a while they don't, and that angers them, the voices. And that is not good for me."----If you are having thoughts of suicide, call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255 (TALK). You can find a list of additional resources at SpeakingOfSuicide.com/resources.This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2020 The New York Times Company
The New York Times
The Risks of Another Epidemic: Teenage Vaping
While most of us strive to avoid inhaling aerosols that could harbor a deadly virus, millions of teens and young adults are deliberately bathing their lungs in aerosols rich in chemicals with known or suspected health hazards.I'm referring to vaping (or "juuling"): the use of electronic cigarettes that is hooking young people on a highly addictive drug -- nicotine -- and will be likely to keep them hooked for decades. Meanwhile, e-cigarettes and other vaping devices are legally sold with few restrictions while producers and sellers reap the monetary rewards. Although many states prohibit e-cigarette sales to persons younger than 18 or 21, youngsters have little trouble accessing the products online or from friends and relatives.In just one year, from 2017 to 2018, vaping by high school seniors increased more than "for any substance we've ever monitored in 45 years, and the next year it rose again almost as much," said Richard Miech, principal investigator for the national survey Monitoring the Future.Sign up for The Morning newsletter from the New York TimesBy 2019, one-quarter of 12th graders were vaping nicotine, nearly half of them daily. Daily vaping rose in all three grades surveyed -- eighth, 10th and 12th -- "with accompanying increases in the proportions of youth who are physically addicted to nicotine," Miech and colleagues reported in The New England Journal of Medicine last year.Although self-reported use of e-cigarettes by high school and middle school students decreased over the past year, Dr. Robert R. Redfield, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, cautioned, "Youth e-cigarette use remains an epidemic.""We're stepping backward from all the advances we've made in tobacco control," Miech, professor at the Institute for Social Research at the University of Michigan, said in an interview. "I'm worried that we will eventually return to the tobacco situation of yore. There's evidence that kids who vape are four to five times more likely the next year to experiment with cigarettes for the first time."As someone who witnessed the persuasive tactics the tobacco industry used to get nearly half of American adults hooked on regular cigarettes in the 1950s, I see similar efforts being used today to promote these new delivery systems for nicotine: sex, glamour, endorsements by celebrities and doctors, and sponsorship of popular sports and musical events. Only now there are even more pervasive avenues of influence through websites and social media.In 2016, ads for e-cigarettes reached nearly 4 in 5 middle and high school students in the United States, Dr. Ellen S. Rome said.As in decades past, the nation's regulatory agencies have been slow -- some say negligent -- to recognize this fast-growing threat to the health and development of young Americans. Rome, a pediatrician who heads the Center for Adolescent Medicine at the Cleveland Clinic, explained that nicotine forms addictive pathways in the brain that can increase a youngster's susceptibility to addiction throughout life. The adolescent brain is still developing, she told me, and e-cigarette use is often a gateway to vaping of marijuana, which can affect the brain centers responsible for attention, memory, learning, cognition, self-control and decision-making.In a review published last December in the Cleveland Clinic Journal of Medicine, Rome and her co-author, Perry Dinardo, challenged the public perception that vaping is harmless, or "at least less harmful than cigarette smoking."While it's likely to be true that vaping may be less hazardous than tobacco cigarettes, since the vaped aerosols that reach the lungs are devoid of the thousands of tobacco-derived toxic and carcinogenic substances inhaled by cigarette smokers, vaping still introduces a fair share of potentially harmful chemicals. In addition to nicotine, some of the chemicals, like the carcinogen formaldehyde, are created when the nicotine-rich liquid in some vaping devices is heated to high temperatures."E-cigarettes might have their own unique health effects we haven't discovered yet," said Theodore L. Wagener, director of the Center for Tobacco Research at Ohio State University. "Although compared to tobacco cigarettes, e-cigarettes without a doubt expose users to much lower levels of harmful chemicals, we still don't know how the body handles them and what their long-term effects might be."Remember, it took many decades of smoking by tens of millions of people before the deadly hazards of tobacco cigarettes were recognized.The surge in the use of electronic cigarettes was tied to a game-changing product, Juul, a cartridge device introduced in 2017 in a slew of enticing flavors. Flavors especially attractive to youngsters are now banned from use in closed-system devices like Juul, which now is sold only in tobacco and menthol flavors, but can still be used in the open-system products sold in vape shops. And now, taking advantage of a loophole in regulations, a disposable product called Puff Bar, which comes in more than 20 flavors, has replaced Juul as the vape of choice among young people.Concerns about vaping grew after a 2019 outbreak of severe lung injuries, which were subsequently linked to vitamin E acetate, an additive found in some vaping devices that deliver THC, the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana. Juul pods are not designed to be refillable with substances like THC or other chemicals.Producers of Juul introduced changes that enhanced the palatability and safety of vaping, but at the same time "made it easier for kids to start using nicotine," Wagener said. Instead of freebase nicotine that is very harsh to inhale, Juul contains a nicotine salt, "a very palatable form of nicotine that makes inhaling high doses of nicotine easy," he explained. And Juul doesn't require the high temperatures that produce toxic substances like formaldehyde. A single pod contains the nicotine equivalent of a pack of conventional cigarettes."Juul made it cool, and young people who had never smoked cigarettes are becoming addicted to nicotine," said Erika R. Cheng, a public health researcher at Indiana University School of Medicine. In addition to nicotine, Juul pods contain a mix of glycerol, propylene glycol, benzoic acid and flavoring agents, the long-term health effects of which have yet to be determined, she said."E-cigarettes were initially advertised as a means to help people transition from harmful tobacco smoking," Cheng said. "A lot of early users didn't even know they contained nicotine." Although a small minority of smokers have used e-cigarettes to help them quit or reduce their dependence on tobacco, most who use the devices vape to get their nicotine fix when they can't smoke regular cigarettes.Although there have been calls for bans on e-cigarettes, Abigail S. Friedman, a health economist at Yale University School of Public Health, cautioned that "bans can push people into the black market looking for something that can be acutely dangerous."Friedman said that rather than outright bans that can have unanticipated costs, she favors better regulations. Currently, other than flavors, what is inhaled from e-cigarettes is unregulated. Still, she and other experts are very concerned about the explosive uptake of vaping by young people. In the 2019 Youth Risk Behavior Survey of 4.9 million high school students, she said, 6% reported smoking conventional cigarettes while 33% puffed e-cigarettes in the past 30 days. In December 2018, the U.S. Surgeon General, Dr. Jerome Adams, declared e-cigarette use by youth an epidemic.This article originally appeared in The New York Times.(C) 2020 The New York Times Company
USA TODAY
There are now three promising COVID vaccine candidates. This is what we know about them.
Pfizer, Moderna and AstraZeneca are producing the leading COVID-19 vaccine candidates. How effective are they in helping end the pandemic?
Reuters
WHO says 'safest bet' for some families is to forgo Christmas gatherings
The "safest bet" for some families will be not to have family gatherings this Christmas in order to stop the spread of the coronavirus, Maria Van Kerkhove, the World Health Organization's technical lead for COVID-19, said on Monday. "In some situations, the difficult decision not to have a family gathering is the safest bet," she told a virtual briefing in Geneva.
Reuters
WHO welcomes news on AstraZeneca vaccine, awaits trial data
The news on Astrazeneca's COVID-19 vaccine results is "encouraging and we look forward to seeing the data as we do with other promising results of recent weeks", the World Health Organization's chief scientist Soumya Swaminathan said on Monday. AstraZeneca said on Monday its COVID-19 vaccine could be around 90% effective, giving the world's fight against the global pandemic a new weapon, cheaper to make, easier to distribute and faster to scale-up than rivals.
USA TODAY
Pregnant women haven’t been included in promising COVID-19 vaccine trials
Vaccine trials have had promising results, but a lack of testing makes it unclear whether they'll be safe for those who are pregnant.
Reuters
Merck adds experimental COVID-19 therapy with OncoImmune deal
Merck is paying $425 million for the private company, in addition to extra payments for regulatory milestones and sales. Merck has built out its portfolio of COVID-19 medicines through a series of deals in recent months, including the acquisition of Australian drugmaker Themis and a partnership with Ridgeback Biotherapeutics LP. OncoImmune recently announced positive interim data from a phase 3 trial of its leading therapeutic candidate, CD24F, for patients with severe and critical COVID-19.
Reuters
U.S. posts sharpest weekly rise in COVID-19 deaths since August
Cases rose by 90% in New Mexico last week, the biggest percentage increase in the country, followed by Virginia at 62% and Arizona with a 50% increase. In North Dakota, the hardest hit state on a per capita basis, nearly 73,400 tests have come back positive for the new coronavirus since the beginning of the outbreak. Across the United States, 9.8% of tests came back positive for the virus for a second week in a row, according to data from The COVID Tracking Project, a volunteer-run effort to track the outbreak.
Reuters
Canada could approve COVID-19 vaccines early next year: regulator
Canada could approve one or more COVID-19 vaccines early in the first quarter of 2021, under a new, accelerated process similar to the U.S. emergency use authorization, according to Health Canada, the country's drug regulator. An interim order signed by Canada's health minister on Sept. 16 created an expedited, temporary review system for COVID-19 drugs or vaccines, which otherwise could have taken a year to evaluate.
Reuters
Spain's King Felipe in quarantine after close contact with coronavirus case
Spain's King Felipe VI started 10 days of quarantine on Monday after coming into close contact with someone who later tested positive for the new coronavirus, a Royal House source said. The king, 52, has cancelled his public appearances during the quarantine period after the person tested positive on Monday, one day after they were in close contact, the source added. Felipe VI had chaired a scientific meeting in Madrid earlier on Monday.
Yahoo Life
COVID-19 testing and Thanksgiving: What experts want you to know
“No test or multiple tests can 100 percent ensure that someone does not have the virus,” one expert tells Yahoo Life.
The Conversation
Why nursing home aides exposed to COVID-19 aren’t taking sick leave
The COVID-19 pandemic has devastated America’s nursing homes, but the reasons aren’t as simple as people might think.To understand how nursing homes became the source of over one-third of U.S. COVID-19 deaths, you have to look beyond just the vulnerability of the residents and examine how nursing homes pay and manage their employees.The average nursing aide earns just $14.25 an hour, less than $30,000 a year. Many are women who work at multiple nursing homes to make ends meet. Partly as a result of that, the typical nursing home has staff connections to 15 other facilities – each an opportunity for the coronavirus to spread. That risk is magnified by a reluctance among many nursing aides to take sick days when they are ill, even though federal law currently requires employers to provide paid sick leave for coronavirus-related reasons.An alarming number of infections in long-term care facilities – nearly half – have been traced to staff who work in multiple health care facilities and who engage in “presenteeism,” meaning they continue to work even after being exposed to or falling ill from COVID-19.As law professors who specialize in employment, immigration and health law, we have spoken with many nursing home aides to try to understand why this is happening and find ways to avoid it. The story of one of them represents what many others have experienced. We’ll call her Salma rather than use her real name to protect her from retaliation. Like about a third of nursing aides, Salma is an immigrant. She often spends 12 hours a day cooking, cleaning and caring for residents’ most intimate needs, such as bathing, dressing, feeding and providing medication.When Salma fell ill earlier this year, she requested paid sick leave, but her employer refused to provide it. She tried to assert her rights under her state’s paid sick time law, but she said her employer responded by threatening to report her to immigration authorities. When she explained that she had legal status, Salma said, her employer changed tactics and threatened to report her to the Internal Revenue Service because no payroll taxes had been deducted from her wages, as she was paid off the books. Salma was afraid she would lose her job, so she continued to go to work.Our research, drawing on interviews with nursing aides like Salma and emerging studies of other essential workers during COVID-19, shows how employee policies, particularly for low-paid aides, have sharply raised the risks, and how access to paid sick leave could lower them. A long-running problemHistorical records from previous outbreaks in the U.S., including the 1918 influenza pandemic and the 2009 H1N1 epidemic, show that immigrants and people of color are more likely to contract and die of infectious diseases. While preexisting conditions account for the severity of illness, they do not explain why these segments of the population are more likely to become sick in the first place. Data show this is due to large percentages of immigrants and people of color performing essential labor, such as nursing aide roles, that requires close contact with many other people. Our research asks why nursing aides are more likely to spread the virus. To answer this question, we examined laws and policies that affect them, including paid sick time.San Francisco became the first U.S. jurisdiction to require paid sick leave in 2006. Other cities, counties and states followed, and now there are approximately 40 of these laws nationwide. Paid sick leave laws require employers to pay workers who take time off when they or any family members are sick, injured or seeking medical treatment. Some laws explicitly allow for paid sick leave during a public health emergency, such as COVID-19. Most are based on an accrual model. This means employees must earn paid sick time hours; typically one hour of paid sick leave is earned for every 30 hours worked. Local paid sick time laws apply to private-sector employees and, in some cases, state and local government employees. In March 2020, Congress passed the nation’s first universal paid sick leave law. This emergency law, which expires at the end of the year, provides most employees in the country with up to 80 hours of paid leave if the worker has been exposed to, is ill from, or is caring for someone infected with COVID-19.However, a large survey earlier this year showed that many essential, low-wage employees still could not access paid sick leave after the law went into effect. That survey and our research show that these employees tend to either believe they have no right to paid leave or that their employer will retaliate if they try to use it. Many fear they could lose their jobs. Even a short period of lost income can be financially devastating for these individuals. Among Latina essential workers, 43% surveyed said that even while employed they didn’t earn enough to adequately provide food for their families. How to make sick leave work as intendedSo, can paid sick leave laws be made more accessible for essential workers like Salma? Our research highlights both the inadequacies of existing laws and policies and what might be done to strengthen them.[Research into coronavirus and other news from science Subscribe to The Conversation’s new science newsletter.]First, nearly all paid sick leave law violations require federal or state labor agency intervention or the employee loses out. These agencies, however, often lack adequate resources to investigate potential employer violations and hold employers accountable if they retaliate against workers. Second, most of these agencies are highly centralized and do not conduct effective outreach to immigrant communities, so both employers and employees are often unaware of paid sick leave laws. A handful of states and local governments offer pioneering examples. Massachusetts, for example, posted guidance online in multiple languages about sick leave and other workers’ issues. Washington, D.C., conducted tele-town halls with strategies to help workers and employers understand their respective paid sick time rights and obligations during the pandemic.An approach that both empowers employees while informing employers about the benefits of paying employees to stay at home when sick can help save lives.This article is republished from The Conversation, a nonprofit news site dedicated to sharing ideas from academic experts. It was written by: Shefali Milczarek-Desai, University of Arizona and Tara Sklar, University of Arizona.Read more: * Rural hospitals are under siege from COVID-19 – here’s what doctors are facing, in their own words * States are making it harder to sue nursing homes over COVID-19: Why immunity from lawsuits is a problemThe authors do not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and have disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.
Reuters
U.S. to begin distributing Regeneron's COVID-19 antibody therapy Tuesday
U.S. officials on a call with reporters said doses will be allocated based on which states have the highest numbers of confirmed cases and hospitalizations, both of which are currently soaring nationwide. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration on Saturday issued emergency use authorization for the treatment called REGN-COV2, which combines two monoclonal antibodies, to be used for mild-to-moderate COVID-19 in adults and children who are at high risk of progressing to severe COVID-19. Regeneron has said it expects to have enough REGEN-COV2 for about 80,000 patients by the end of this month.
Reuters
Decades of work, and half a dose of fortune, drove Oxford vaccine success
It took Oxford University's brightest minds decades of work to give them the expertise to develop a COVID-19 vaccine. The Oxford vaccinologists were exhilarated on Monday when drugmaker AstraZeneca, with whom they developed the shot, announced that it could be around 90% effective, citing data from late-stage trials. "It can only happen if extraordinary support is provided," Adrian Hill, director of Oxford University's Jenner Institute which developed the shot, told Reuters.
Reuters
Spain to make coronavirus vaccination optional, sources say
Spain is unlikely to make vaccination against the coronavirus compulsory, at least initially, health ministry sources said on Monday. Under Spanish law, vaccination is voluntary, although in some cases, such as an epidemic, the government could make it compulsory. Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez said on Sunday that Spain would begin a coronavirus vaccination programme in January, covering a substantial part of the population within six months.
Reuters
Daily COVID-19 cases in France at near two-month low
France reported 4,452 new COVID-19 infections on Monday, the lowest daily tally since Sept. 28, suggesting a second national lockdown is making its mark. The lockdown, in place from Oct. 30 and less stringent than the first one that ran from March 17 to May 11, has also helped lower hospitalisations, on a downward path again after peaking at 33,497 a week ago. President Emmanuel Macron will give a speech to the nation on Tuesday when he may announce a relaxation of lockdown rules.
Reuters
Turkey's daily COVID-19 deaths hit record 153 as people deal with new curbs
Turkey's daily coronavirus death toll reached a record 153 on Monday, according to the Health Ministry, as citizens adapted to new nationwide curbs and weekend curfews following a rise in infections in recent weeks. Under the new measures announced by President Tayyip Erdogan last week, the curfews and restricted hours for restaurants, cafes and shopping malls were imposed on Friday. "Until we can start administering a vaccine, support us so that we can keep the spread rate of the outbreak under control," Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said on Twitter.
Associated Press
Millions stick to Thanksgiving travel plans despite warnings
About 1 million Americans a day packed airports and planes over the weekend even as coronavirus deaths surged across the U.S. and public health experts begged people to stay home and avoid big Thanksgiving gatherings. To be sure, the number of people flying for Thanksgiving is down by more than half from last year because of the rapidly worsening outbreak. Many travelers are unwilling to miss out on seeing family and are convinced they can do it safely.
Business Insider
One of Belgium's top virologists offered his family 4 tips for surviving the long COVID-19 winter — read the full letter he wrote them
"A long holiday dinner, inside, and with many people, is about as risky of a situation I can imagine for us," Guido Vanham wrote to his kids.
Reuters
UK says COVID-19 'Test and Trace' system cost to rise to 22 billion pounds
The British government announced a 7-billion-pound ($9.3-billion) increase in funding for its COVID-19 testing and contact tracing system on Monday, as part of an expanded programme of mass testing and plans to test frontline staff more regularly. The 'Test and Trace' system has been heavily criticised after a series of high-profile failures since its launch earlier this year, and ministers concede it has not performed as well as they had hoped. "This strategy is backed by an additional 7 billion (pounds) for NHS (National Health Service) Test and Trace to increase testing and continue to improve contact tracing, taking the overall funding provided for Test and Trace this financial year to 22 billion (pounds)," the government said in its COVID-19 winter plan, published on Monday.
USA TODAY
Pfizer and Moderna use mRNA in their COVID-19 vaccines. This never-before-used technology could transform how science fights diseases.
Though messenger RNA technology like Pfizer, Moderna use hasn't grabbed headlines before now, some researchers have been working on it for decades.
Reuters
China gives pledge on access for COVID origins probe: WHO
The World Health Organization (WHO) has had assurances from China that an international field trip to investigate the origins of the new coronavirus will be arranged as soon as possible, its top emergency expert said on Monday. Chinese researchers are carrying out epidemiological studies into early cases and conditions at a seafood market in the central Chinese city of Wuhan. An international team of experts has been formed to carry out phase 2 studies.
Reuters
Sao Paulo expects Brazil regulator to OK Sinovac COVID-19 vaccine by January
São Paulo Health Secretary Jean Gorinchteyn said on Monday he expects Brazil's regulator to approve the use of a COVID-19 vaccine developed by China's Sinovac by January. The Butantan biomedical research institute that is running the late-stage trials of the Sinovac vaccine in Brazil has now reached the minimum number of infected cases to register the vaccine, Gorinchteyn said at a news briefing. João Gabbardo, head of the Sao Paulo's COVID-19 contingency committee, said at the same event that he expects China's health regulator to approve Sinovac's CoronaVac in December, which could hasten approval in Brazil.
Reuters
WHO says it's waiting to see efficacy and safety of AstraZeneca vaccine
The World Health Organization's chief scientist said on Monday it was awaiting to see the efficacy and safety of AstraZeneca's COVID-19 vaccine. AstraZeneca said on Monday its COVID-19 vaccine could be around 90% effective, giving the world's fight against the global pandemic a new weapon - cheaper to make, easier to distribute and faster to scale-up than rivals. The WHO's chief scientist, Soumya Swaminathan, said the results were "encouraging and we look forward to seeing the data as we do with other promising results of recent weeks".
Reuters
Local tourism keeps 'Symbol of Hong Kong' junk boat afloat
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