The foreign secretary stresses the “cautious” approach adopted, ahead of measures easing in England.
Coronavirus: Raab defends relaxation of lockdown rules
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Coronavirus: People shielding in England allowed outdoors from Monday
Some restrictions on vulnerable people shielding from coronavirus are to be eased after 10 weeks.
Health24.com | Strokes are deadlier when they hit Covid-19 patients
Covid-19 hasn’t increased the risk for stroke, but when a stroke occurs it’s more likely to be fatal, a new study finds.
According to researchers, less than 1% of patients hospitalised for Covid-19 suffer a stroke. But they also found that people with Covid-19 who suffer a stroke are seven times more likely to die than people who have a stroke but aren’t infected with Covid-19.
“Our study suggests that stroke is an uncommon yet important complication of coronavirus, given that these strokes are more severe when compared with strokes occurring in patients who tested negative for the virus,” lead researcher Dr Shadi Yaghi said in a New York University news release. He’s an assistant professor in the department of neurology at NYU Grossman School of Medicine in New York City.
For the study, Yaghi and his team identified 32 stroke patients among more than 3 500 being treated for Covid-19 at NYU hospitals between 15 March and 19 April.
Blood-clotting an important factor
They compared these patients with stroke patients without the virus. The researchers found that stroke patients with Covid-19 had more severe symptoms than those without the virus. During the study period, 63% died, compared with 9% of those without the virus and 5% of those who had a stroke before the pandemic.
These findings add to the evidence that Covid-19 is associated with an increased risk for clotting, which can trigger a stroke, the researchers said.
“Our findings provide compelling evidence that widespread blood-clotting may be an important factor that is leading to stroke in patients with Covid-19.” said study co-author Dr Jennifer Frontera, a professor in the department of neurology at NYU.
“The results point to anticoagulant, or blood thinner therapy, as a potential means of reducing the unusual severity of strokes in people with the coronavirus,” Frontera added in the release.
The report was published on 20 May in the journal Stroke.
Image credit: iStock
Health24.com | Vaping could put you at risk for gum disease
E-cigarettes can damage more than your lungs: New research shows that only a few months of vaping might also trigger gum disease.
“Vaping is such a big assault on the oral environment, and the change happens dramatically and over a short period of time,” said study senior author Dr Purnima Kumar, a professor of periodontology at Ohio State University.
She and her team collected plaque samples from under the gums of 123 young and healthy people who had no current signs of oral disease: 25 smokers, 25 nonsmokers, 20 e-cigarette users, 25 former smokers using e-cigarettes and 28 people who smoked cigarettes and vaped.
The samples from the daily e-cigarette users had high levels of infection-causing bacteria that put them at high risk for a range of oral health problems.
Dangerous combination of bacteria
The bacteria populations in vapers’ mouths resembled those of people with periodontitis, a gum infection that can lead to tooth loss and, if untreated, is a risk factor for heart and lung disease, according to the researchers.
The bacterial threat to oral health in vapers was seen whether they used nicotine or nicotine-free products.
That suggests that the heated and pressurised liquids in e-cigarette cartridges may transform vapers’ mouths into an ideal location for a dangerous combination of bacteria, the researchers said.
Even longtime current and former cigarette smokers in the study, whose smoking would have encouraged disease-causing oral bacteria, had high-risk oral bacteria populations associated with vaping after only three to 12 months of e-cigarette use.
The findings challenge claims that e-cigarettes are safer than tobacco cigarettes, Kumar noted.
“If you stop smoking and start vaping instead, you don’t move back toward a healthy bacterial profile but shift up to the vaping profile,” Kumar said in a university news release. “Knowing the vaping profile is pathogen-rich, you’re not doing yourself any favours by using vaping to quit smoking.”
The study was published on 27 May in the journal Science Advances.
Image credit: Unsplash
Health24.com | OPINION | Young people are key to a nicotine-free future: five steps to stop them smoking
Tobacco use kills more than 8 million people each year. Most adult smokers start smoking before the age of 20. This implies that if one can get through adolescence without smoking, the likelihood of being a smoker in adulthood is greatly reduced.
Preventing young people from becoming addicted to tobacco and related products is therefore key to a smoke-free future.
With the advent of novel tobacco products and the tobacco industry falsely marketing them as less harmful than their combustible counterparts, the adage “prevention is better than cure” has never been more important for governments to heed if we are to achieve a smoke-free future.
Here are five things that governments need to do to ensure that a smoke-free future is realised.
1. Raise taxes on tobacco products
Tobacco taxation is one of the most effective population-based strategies for decreasing tobacco consumption. On average, a 10% increase in the price of cigarettes reduces demand for cigarettes by between 4% and 6% for the general adult population.
Because they lack disposable income and have a limited smoking history, young people are more responsive to price increases than their adult counterparts. Young people’s price responsiveness is also explained by the fact that they are also more likely to smoke if their peers smoke. This suggests that an increase in tobacco taxes also indirectly reduces youth smoking by decreasing smoking among their peers.
2. Introduce 100% smoke-free environments
Smoke-free policies reduce opportunities to smoke and erode societal acceptance of smoking. Most countries have some form of smoke-free policy in place. But there are still many public spaces where smoking happens. Many of these places are frequented by young people – or example, smoking sections in nightclubs and bars – contributing to the idea that smoking is acceptable and “normal”.
Research from the United States shows that creating smoke-free spaces reduces youth smoking uptake and the likelihood of youth progressing from experimental to established smokers. In the United Kingdom, smoke-free places have been linked to a reduction in regular smoking among teenagers, and research from Australia finds that smoke-free policies were directly related to a drop in youth smoking prevalence between 1990 and 2015. By adopting 100% smoke-free policies governments can denormalise smoking and turn youth away from tobacco and related products.
3. Adopt plain packaging and graphic health warnings
The tobacco industry uses sleek and attractive designs to market its dangerous products to young people. All tobacco products should therefore be subject to plain packaging and graphic health warnings so that their attractive packaging designs do not lead youth to underestimate the harm of using these products. Currently 125 countries require graphic images on the packaging of tobacco products. Countries like South Africa that rely on a text warning message are far behind the curve. Plain packaging on tobacco products has been adopted in 13 countries to date and, in January 2020, Israel became the first country to apply plain packaging to e-cigarettes.
4. Outlaw tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship
Traditional advertising and promotion of tobacco products has been banned in most parts of the world. But the tobacco industry has developed novel ways of keeping its products in the public eye.
Some common strategies used by the industry to target youth include hiring “influencers” to promote tobacco and nicotine products on social media, sponsoring events, and launching new flavours that are appealing to youth, such as bubble gum and cotton candy, which encourages young people to underestimate the potential harm of using them. Evidence also shows how the tobacco industry uses point-of-sale marketing to target children by encouraging vendors to position tobacco and related products near sweets, snacks and cooldrinks, especially in outlets close to schools.
Governments need to outlaw these tactics and impose hefty fines on tobacco companies that make any attempt to circumvent the law.
5. Educate young people
Given that tobacco kills half of its long-term users, the tobacco industry needs to get young people addicted to its products to ensure its survival. Young people need to be made aware of this. Governments should launch counter-advertising campaigns that educate young people on the tactics employed by the industry to target them so that they do not fall prey to them.
Sam Filby, Research Officer, Research on the Economics of Excisable Products,, University of Cape Town and Corné van Walbeek, Professor at the School of Economics and Principal Investigator of the Economics of Tobacco Control Project, University of Cape Town
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
Image credit: Unsplash
Coronavirus: The mystery of ‘silent spreaders’
Scientists have discovered more evidence about a strange and worrying feature of the coronavirus
NASA astronauts launch from America in historic test flight of SpaceX Crew Dragon
For the first time in history, NASA astronauts have launched from American soil in a commercially built and operated American crew spacecraft on its way to the International Space Station. The SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft carrying NASA astronauts Robert Behnken and Douglas Hurley lifted off at 3:22 p.m. EDT Saturday on the company’s Falcon 9 rocket from Launch Complex 39A at NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
“Today a new era in human spaceflight begins as we once again launched American astronauts on American rockets from American soil on their way to the International Space Station, our national lab orbiting Earth,” said NASA Administrator Jim Bridenstine. “I thank and congratulate Bob Behnken, Doug Hurley, and the SpaceX and NASA teams for this significant achievement for the United States. The launch of this commercial space system designed for humans is a phenomenal demonstration of American excellence and is an important step on our path to expand human exploration to the Moon and Mars.”
Known as NASA’s SpaceX Demo-2, the mission is an end-to-end test flight to validate the SpaceX crew transportation system, including launch, in-orbit, docking and landing operations. This is SpaceX’s second spaceflight test of its Crew Dragon and its first test with astronauts aboard, which will pave the way for its certification for regular crew flights to the station as part of NASA’s Commercial Crew Program.
“This is a dream come true for me and everyone at SpaceX,” said Elon Musk, chief engineer at SpaceX. “It is the culmination of an incredible amount of work by the SpaceX team, by NASA and by a number of other partners in the process of making this happen. You can look at this as the results of a hundred thousand people roughly when you add up all the suppliers and everyone working incredibly hard to make this day happen.”
The program demonstrates NASA’s commitment to investing in commercial companies through public-private partnerships and builds on the success of American companies, including SpaceX, already delivering cargo to the space station.
“It’s difficult to put into words how proud I am of the people who got us here today,” said Kathy Lueders, NASA’s Commercial Crew Program manager. “When I think about all of the challenges overcome — from design and testing, to paper reviews, to working from home during a pandemic and balancing family demands with this critical mission — I am simply amazed at what the NASA and SpaceX teams have accomplished together. This is just the beginning; I will be watching with great anticipation as Bob and Doug get ready to dock to the space station tomorrow, and through every phase of this historic mission.”
SpaceX controlled the launch of the Falcon 9 rocket from Kennedy’s Launch Control Center Firing Room 4, the former space shuttle control room, which SpaceX has leased as its primary launch control center. As Crew Dragon ascended into space, SpaceX commanded the spacecraft from its mission control center in Hawthorne, California. NASA teams are monitoring space station operations throughout the flight from Mission Control Center at the agency’s Johnson Space Center in Houston.
The SpaceX Crew Dragon spacecraft is scheduled to dock to the space station at 10:29 a.m. Sunday, May 31. NASA Television and the agency’s website are providing ongoing live coverage of the Crew Dragon’s trip to the orbiting laboratory. Behnken and Hurley will work with SpaceX mission control to verify the spacecraft is performing as intended by testing the environmental control system, the displays and control system, and by maneuvering the thrusters, among other things. The first docking maneuver began Saturday, May 30, at 4:09 p.m., and the spacecraft will begin its close approach to the station at about 8:27 a.m. Sunday, May 31. Crew Dragon is designed to dock autonomously, but the crews onboard the spacecraft and the space station will diligently monitor the performance of the spacecraft as it approaches and docks to the forward port of the station’s Harmony module.
After successfully docking, the crew will be welcomed aboard the International Space Station, where they will become members of the Expedition 63 crew, which currently includes NASA astronaut Chris Cassidy. NASA will continue live coverage through hatch opening and the crew welcoming ceremony. The crew will perform tests on Crew Dragon in addition to conducting research and other tasks with the space station crew.
Three astronauts aboard the International Space Station will participate in a live NASA Television crew news conference from orbit on Monday, June 1, beginning at 11:15 a.m. on NASA TV and the agency’s website (www.nasa.gov/live).
Demo-2 Astronauts
Behnken is the joint operations commander for the mission, responsible for activities such as rendezvous, docking and undocking, as well as Demo-2 activities while the spacecraft is docked to the space station. He was selected as a NASA astronaut in 2000 and has completed two space shuttle flights. Behnken flew STS-123 in March 2008 and STS-130 in February 2010, performing three spacewalks during each mission. Born in St. Anne, Missouri, he has bachelor’s degrees in physics and mechanical engineering from Washington University in St. Louis and earned a master’s and doctorate in mechanical engineering from the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena. Before joining NASA, he was a flight test engineer with the U.S. Air Force.
Hurley is the spacecraft commander for Demo-2, responsible for activities such as launch, landing and recovery. He was selected as an astronaut in 2000 and has completed two spaceflights. Hurley served as pilot and lead robotics operator for both STS‐127 in July 2009 and STS‐135, the final space shuttle mission, in July 2011. The New York native was born in Endicott but considers Apalachin his hometown. He holds a Bachelor of Science degree in civil engineering from Tulane University in New Orleans and graduated from the U.S. Naval Test Pilot School in Patuxent River, Maryland. Before joining NASA, he was a fighter pilot and test pilot in the U.S. Marine Corps.
Mission Objectives
The Demo-2 mission is the final major test before NASA’s Commercial Crew Program certifies Crew Dragon for operational, long-duration missions to the space station. As SpaceX’s final flight test, it will validate all aspects of its crew transportation system, including the Crew Dragon spacecraft, spacesuits, Falcon 9 launch vehicle, launch pad 39A and operations capabilities.
While en route to the station, Behnken and Hurley will take control of Crew Dragon for two manual flight tests, demonstrating their ability to control the spacecraft should an issue with the spacecraft’s automated flight arise. On Saturday, May 30, while the spacecraft is coasting, the crew will test its roll, pitch and yaw. When Crew Dragon is about 1 kilometer (0.6 miles) below the station and moving around to the docking axis, the crew will conduct manual in-orbit demonstrations of the control system in the event it were needed. After pausing, rendezvous will resume and mission managers will make a final decision about whether to proceed to docking as Crew Dragon approaches 20 meters (66 feet).
For operational missions, Crew Dragon will be able to launch as many as four crew members at a time and carry more than 220 pounds of cargo, allowing for an increased number crew members aboard the space station and increasing the time dedicated to research in the unique microgravity environment, as well as returning more science back to Earth.
The Crew Dragon being used for this flight test can stay in orbit about 110 days, and the specific mission duration will be determined once on station based on the readiness of the next commercial crew launch. The operational Crew Dragon spacecraft will be capable of staying in orbit for at least 210 days as a NASA requirement.
At the conclusion of the mission, Behnken and Hurley will board Crew Dragon, which will then autonomously undock, depart the space station, and re-enter Earth’s atmosphere. Upon splashdown off Florida’s Atlantic coast, the crew will be picked up by the SpaceX recovery ship and returned to the dock at Cape Canaveral.
NASA’s Commercial Crew Program is working with SpaceX and Boeing to design, build, test and operate safe, reliable and cost-effective human transportation systems to low-Earth orbit. Both companies are focused on test missions, including abort system demonstrations and crew flight tests, ahead of regularly flying crew missions to the space station. Both companies’ crewed flights will be the first times in history NASA has sent astronauts to space on systems owned, built, tested and operated by private companies.
Learn more about NASA’s Commercial Crew program at: https://www.nasa.gov/commercialcrew
New sunspots potentially herald increased solar activity
On May 29, 2020, a family of sunspots — dark spots that freckle the face of the Sun, representing areas of complex magnetic fields — sported the biggest solar flare since October 2017. Although the sunspots are not yet visible (they will soon rotate into view over the left limb of the Sun), NASA spacecraft spotted the flares high above them.
The flares were too weak to pass the threshold at which NOAA’s Space Weather Prediction Center (which is the U.S. government’s official source for space weather forecasts, watches, warnings and alerts) provides alerts. But after several months of very few sunspots and little solar activity, scientists and space weather forecasters are keeping their eye on this new cluster to see whether they grow or quickly disappear. The sunspots may well be harbingers of the Sun’s solar cycle ramping up and becoming more active.
Or, they may not. It will be a few more months before we know for sure.
As the Sun moves through its natural 11-year cycle, in which its activity rises and falls, sunspots rise and fall in number, too. NASA and NOAA track sunspots in order to determine, and predict, the progress of the solar cycle — and ultimately, solar activity. Currently, scientists are paying close attention to the sunspot number as it’s key to determining the dates of solar minimum, which is the official start of Solar Cycle 25. This new sunspot activity could be a sign that the Sun is possibly revving up to the new cycle and has passed through minimum.
However, it takes at least six months of solar observations and sunspot-counting after a minimum to know when it’s occurred. Because that minimum is defined by the lowest number of sunspots in a cycle, scientists need to see the numbers consistently rising before they can determine when exactly they were at the bottom. That means solar minimum is an instance only recognizable in hindsight: It could take six to 12 months after the fact to confirm when minimum has actually passed.
This is partly because our star is extremely variable. Just because the sunspot numbers go up or down in a given month doesn’t mean it won’t reverse course the next month, only to go back again the month after that. So, scientists need long-term data to build a picture of the Sun’s overall trends through the solar cycle. Commonly, that means the number we use to compare any given month is the average sunspot number from six months both backward and forward in time — meaning that right now, we can confidently characterize what October 2019 looks like compared to the months before it (there were definitely fewer sunspots!), but not yet what November looks like compared to that.
On May 29, at 3:24 a.m. EST, a relatively small M-class solar flare blazed from these sunspots. Solar flares are powerful bursts of radiation. Harmful radiation from a flare cannot pass through Earth’s atmosphere to physically affect humans on the ground, however — when intense enough — they can disturb the atmosphere in the layer where GPS and communications signals travel. The intensity of this flare was below the threshold that could affect geomagnetic space and below the threshold for NOAA to create an alert.
Nonetheless, it was the first M-class flare since October 2017 — and scientists will be watching to see if the Sun is indeed beginning to wake up.
Story Source:
Materials provided by NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center. Original written by Karen Fox and Lina Tran. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.
Coronavirus: ‘Dangerous moment’ as UK lockdown eases
The public must be “sensible” after scientists warn of risks of lifting lockdown, medical chief says.
The fight goes on: Clinical trial shows promising new treatment for rare blood cancer
Lymphoma is a type of blood cancer that develops from lymphocytes (a type of white blood cell). It has many subtypes. A rare subtype, called intravascular large B-cell lymphoma (or IVLBCL) is notably hard to diagnose accurately because the cancerous lymphocytes grow inside small blood vessels, instead of at lymph nodes, and there is no perceptible swelling/enlargement of lymph nodes. There is also no effective treatment: the disease tends to affect the elderly, for whom standard high-dose chemotherapy may have serious side-effects, and patients are at a high risk of developing subsequent central nervous system (CNS) disorders even with treatment. A novel treatment protocol with fewer side-effects and which also tackles secondary CNS involvement is needed, and this is exactly what a group of scientists, led by researchers from Nagoya University and Mie University, Japan, attempted to test in a new clinical trial.
All of this being said, however, the rarity of this disease has made testing new combinations of drugs difficult. A previous “retrospective” study involving the analysis of medical records of patients who had undergone standard chemotherapy combined with a drug called “rituximab” showed that this line of treatment is more promising than standard treatment alone, but it does not solve the problem of secondary CNS involvement. “We considered that rituximab-containing chemotherapies combined with treatment for the secondary CNS problems could lead to further improvement in the clinical outcome,” remarks Dr Kazuyuki Shimada of Nagoya University. With this consideration, Dr Shimada and team conducted a Phase 2 multicenter clinical trial, where they administered their proposed treatment to 38 enrolled patients (aged 20 to 79 years and without CNS disorders at the time of cancer diagnosis) and monitored their conditions over the long term. The results are published in their paper in The Lancet Oncology.
Overall, their treatment protocol appears to be promising: 76% of the enrolled patients reached the primary goal of two-year survival without disease progression and 92% reached two-year overall survival. The disease affected the CNS in only 3% of patients. What’s more, the toxicity of the treatment was found to be low, and all adverse effects were manageable, with very few serious complications.
Aptly summarizing their achievement, Dr Shimada says: “To the best of our knowledge, this is the first ‘prospective’ trial of any treatment in patients with IVLBCL. It appears that the proposed treatment protocol might be effective in patients without apparent central nervous system involvement at the time of diagnosis.”
An important advantage of the proposed treatment protocol is that it employs a combination of conventional drugs and uses no novel agents. This means that although further study is necessary, this protocol can be adopted in clinical practice in the very near future. As Dr Shimada explains: “Given the rarity of this disease, a large-scale Phase 3 prospective trial is not feasible. In such a scenario, the results of our trial provide a safe and effective treatment option that can function as a historic control for future prospective trials.”
The findings of this clinical trial are certainly quite promising. With only minor refinements to the proposed treatment protocol, patients with IVLBCL could have an edge in their fight against cancer.
Story Source:
Materials provided by Nagoya University. Note: Content may be edited for style and length.
