Calvert Journal: Mask media: Soviet Kazakh health posters from the 1970s. “Vladimir S. Tverdokhlebov’s posters for the Kazakh Red Cross from the 1970s offer an offbeat aesthetic for public safety. Humour, floral imagery, and a playful use of layout counter the cynicism of the time, medicine for the weary then and now.”
Route Fifty: The Most Likely Timeline for Life to Return to Normal. “The end of the coronavirus pandemic is on the horizon at last, but the timeline for actually getting there feels like it shifts daily, with updates about viral variants, vaccine logistics, and other important variables seeming to push back the finish line or scoot it forward. When will we be able to finally live our lives again?”
EurekAlert: Researchers reveal genetic predisposition to severe COVID-19. “HSE University researchers have become the first in the world to discover genetic predisposition to severe COVID-19. The results of the study were published in the journal Frontiers in Immunology.”
PsyPost: New “COVIDiot” study explores the impact of using an aggressive style to convey public health messages. “New research indicates that aggressive messages from science communicators can amplify the threat of the COVID-19 pandemic and increase compliance with measures intended to prevent the spread of the deadly virus. But the study, which appears in Public Understanding of Science, also suggests that such messages can backfire among those who feel psychologically distant from the communicator.”
Brief13: Major NIH-Funded Trial of Convalescent Plasma in Covid-19 Outpatients Stopped Early Due to Futility. “In another blow to convalescent plasma, the much-hyped proposed treatment for covid-19, the “Convalescent Plasma in Outpatient with COVID-19,” or ‘C3PO’ trial has stopped recruiting new patients and has been halted early, Brief19 has learned.”
ProPublica: How Inequity Gets Built Into America’s Vaccination System. “People eligible for the coronavirus vaccine tell us they are running up against barriers that are designed into the very systems meant to serve those most at risk of dying of the disease. We plan to continue tracking these roadblocks.”
EurekAlert: Why some coronavirus strains are more infectious than others. “The coronaviruses that cause SARS and COVID-19 have spike proteins that move into ‘active’ and ‘inactive’ positions, and new research indicates how those molecular movements may make the COVID-19 virus more infectious compared to the SARS virus.”
PR Newswire: FIU study finds women who just gave birth, menopausal women among those at higher risk of death from COVID-19. “More men than women are dying from COVID-19. Many studies suggest that hormones may give women the upper hand. But not all women seem equally protected – those who have just given birth or are menopausal are at a higher risk of dying, according to FIU medical researchers.”
BBC: Covid-19: India in a ‘delicate phase’ of its coronavirus battle as cases surge. “In early February, physicians in Amravati district, some 700km (435 miles) from India’s commercial capital, Mumbai, noticed a sudden surge in the number of people suffering from Covid-19. Life in this cotton-growing district in the western state of Maharashtra had almost returned to normal after the first wave of infections last summer. The ICUs of the 1,600-bed state-run hospital and half-a-dozen private hospitals were nearly empty.”
PsyPost: Coronavirus shelter-in-place orders were less effective in states with a greater share of Trump voters. “A new study that examined anonymous cell phone tracking data shows that shelter-in-place orders worked better in some regions of the United States than others. The findings, which appear in PLOS One, suggest that political partisanship and other factors played an important role.”
LiveScience: COVID-19 vaccines: What does 95% efficacy actually mean?. “One common misunderstanding is that 95% efficacy means that in the Pfizer clinical trial, 5% of vaccinated people got COVID. But that’s not true; the actual percentage of vaccinated people in the Pfizer (and Moderna) trials who got COVID-19 was about a hundred times less than that: 0.04%.”
Route Fifty: After Hundreds of Meatpacking Workers Died From Covid-19, Congress Wants Answers. “A key House subcommittee cited reports by ProPublica and other news outlets in launching an investigation into how the country’s meatpacking companies handled the pandemic, which has killed hundreds of workers to date.”
Los Angeles Times: For a rural family, COVID-19 felt like a distant threat. Until it devastated them. “Last summer, everyone in the house [Sonia] Bravo shares with eight family members got COVID-19: Bravo, her husband, her 7-year-old twin boys. Her mom and dad. Her two sisters. Her brother…. Now, the family hopes their story can be a cautionary tale for rural California, where skepticism of the virus’s severity and of the vaccine’s effectiveness runs deep.”
PsyPost: Your adherence to COVID‐19 rules depends more on your social circle than your own opinion. “New research published in The British Journal of Psychology provides insight into some of the factors associated with compliance with COVID-19 regulations. The findings indicate that people are significantly more likely to follow such guidelines when their close friends and family members also do.”
The Guardian: Vaccine scepticism is as old as vaccines themselves. Here’s how to tackle it. “Nineteenth-century doctors tried to maintain boundaries between scientific journalism and the media, but were unable to prevent the public and journalistic demand for health information. That desire remains with us today. The flow of medical knowledge works best when researchers, journalists and the public are better connected and considerate of one another. Preventing misinformation is a shared responsibility.”
