People recovering from COVID-19 should not assume they automatically have three months of immunity from reinfection, the CDC has warned, after misleading reports suggested those recovering from coronavirus would be naturally resistant to catching it again. The caution follows misinterpreted guidance by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention about when COVID-19 retesting should be carried out.
The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has announced the discovery of a chemical found in grapefruit peels that can effectively repel bloodthirsty insects like ticks and mosquitos. The agency has big plans for this compound, which it has registered with the Environmental Protection Agency for use in insect repellants and insecticides. What's so special about this chemical? It works differently from existing insecticides, effectively killing pests that bite and, as a result, reducing the presence of bloodborne diseases like Lyme disease.
The CDC just updated their guidance for citizens of the United States during our modern global pandemic here in the year 2020. The update appeared on the 7th of August (earlier today) and included a few key points that've been clarified or straight up added to the mix that were not present before. To be clear, if you wear a mask over your nose, mouth, and chin, and your mask is simple but secure, you're probably not going to need to change anything about how you're handling the situation.
This week the CDC launched a system called SPHERES: SARS-CoV-2 Sequencing for Public Health Emergency Response, Epidemiology and Surveillance (SPHERES). This group, this new national genomics consortium, aims to facilitate large-scale, rapid genomic sequencing of the virus that causes COVID-19. That, in turn, will ideally allow public health experts to achieve several goals.
In an update late last week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention revealed that it is working with the FDA and local health agencies to investigate an outbreak of Cyclospora linked to contaminated salad products. More than 600 people have become ill as a result of eating these salads, according to the agency, which notes that reports of illness have been verified in 11 states thus far. Fortunately, there haven't been any reports of death linked to the outbreak.
New guidelines for how long people with COVID-19 should isolate, when they can return to work, and how they should be tested and re-tested for coronavirus have been released by the CDC, in a significant update on the agency's pandemic policy. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said that, among other reasons, an attempt to limit "unnecessary use of laboratory testing resources" was a key motivator behind the new guidance.
This week, an updated set of questions were released by the CDC for COVID-19 laboratory test orders. Anyone who orders a COVID-19 test, collects a specimen, or performs a laboratory test, "must make every reasonable effort to collect complete demographic information as well as responses to the following 'ask on order entry' (AOE) questions." These AOE questions were updated as of January 18, 2020 by the CDC.
COVID-19 could have been ten times more prevalent than previously believed, the CDC director has suggested, with new testing indicating the coronavirus pandemic had been far more expansive than assumed. The US Centers for Disease Control has been assessing antibody test results from March through May 2020, with the agency's findings casting COVID-19 case numbers into new light.
As little as 1-2 months of consistent mask-wearing across the US could be enough to tame COVID-19, the CDC chief has predicted, highlighting the stakes at play as the coronavirus pandemic looks set to surge again. Cases of infection had been dropping across America as states enacted lockdowns, but efforts to reopen businesses have threatened to upend that progress.
A squirrel tested positive for bubonic plague in Morrison, Colorado over the weekend. This is the first confirmed case of plague in the county (Jefferson County, Colorado), but not the first case of plague in the state. The report appeared on Saturday, July 11, 2020, when the Jefferson County Colorado Public Health department delivered results to the community with a set of symptoms and warning signs.
If you live in the Midwestern United States, you may want to avoid bagged salad mixes for a while. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention details a new outbreak that has been linked back to the products, putting consumers at risk of contracting a parasite that can cause gastrointestinal distress. Multiple brands of bagged salads sold by various retailers have been recalled as part of this outbreak.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has released a new report stating that the majority of Americans support measures intended to prevent or slow the spread of the novel coronavirus behind COVID-19. The statement is based on a survey of thousands of Americans from across the nation; the data was recently published in the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.