Coronavirus News (272)

Scientists Confirm Nevada Man Was Infected Twice With Coronavirus  The cases underscore the importance of social distancing and wearing masks even if you were previously infected with the virus, and they raise questions about how the human immune system reacts to the virus. ........ The patient originally tested positive for the virus in April and had symptoms including a cough and nausea. He recovered and tested negative for the virus in May. But at the end of May, he went to an urgent care center with symptoms including fever, cough and dizziness. In early June, he tested positive again and ended up in the hospital. ............  "The second infection was symptomatically more severe than the first" .........  In theory, the body's immune system should make antibodies after the first infection that help it combat the virus more effectively if the person is exposed to the same virus again. ...............  "they may have been exposed to a lot higher levels of the virus the second time around" .......... or the immune response from the first infection might be making the disease worse rather than better. ........... One of the biggest outstanding questions is how widespread reinfection might be. ....... about 90% of people who have experienced "a clear, symptomatic infection" have the antibodies to fight off another infection, "perhaps for about a year." ...........  cases of people being infected multiple times could have implications for the efficacy of a coronavirus vaccine ...... The virus can deploy proteins to get in the way of the immune response, whereas a vaccine has none of those proteins, she explains. "The good thing about a vaccine is that it can induce much better immunity, a much longer lasting immunity, than the natural exposure to the the virus"

In a First, New England Journal of Medicine Joins Never-Trumpers Editors at the world’s leading medical journal said the Trump administration “took a crisis and turned it into a tragedy.”  .........   The world’s most prestigious medical journal has never supported or condemned a political candidate. Until now. ............ The N.E.J.M.’s editors join those of another influential publication, Scientific American, who last month endorsed Mr. Biden, the former vice president. ............ “When it comes to the response to the largest public health crisis of our time, our current political leaders have demonstrated that they are dangerously incompetent. We should not abet them and enable the deaths of thousands more Americans by allowing them to keep their jobs.” .......... The Trump administration, he said, had demonstrated “a continuous, reckless disregard of truth.”

How Are You Coping With the Coronavirus? As the disease continues to spread, we would like to hear what people are doing to handle an outbreak in their community.