Scientists warn grocery shelves may soon be missing pantry-staple food because of poor crop conditions: ‘Emphasizing the importance of sustainable farming’
Susan Elizabeth Turek – August 22, 2024
Strawberries are synonymous with the start of longer days and warmer weather, served up on tables as part of popular summer desserts. But scientists are warning this popular staple may be harder to come by soon because of warming global temperatures.
What’s happening?
A study from the University of Waterloo predicts that strawberry yields could see a dramatic reduction of 40% if temperatures rise by just 3 degrees Fahrenheit. This potentially threatens an industry that brought in more than $3 billion to the United States economy in 2022, according to a media release from the university.
Farmers in California could be hit particularly hard by changes in the industry. The analysis notes that the Golden State grows more than 80% of the country’s fresh strawberries.
According to the release, the data model provided “the most accurate findings to date” after linking air temperature anomalies to strawberry yields.
Why is this important?
While it isn’t too late to lower average temperatures, the Earth has been warming at an accelerated rate since the preindustrial era. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the 10 hottest years on record all occurred in the past decade.
It isn’t uncommon for extreme weather events to occur from time to time — and natural weather patterns such as El Niño and La Niña make them more likely to occur in certain regions. However, scientists overwhelmingly agree that supercharged weather events are one of the effects of warming temperatures primarily linked to the burning of dirty fuels such as coal, oil, and gas.
“This research shows how climate change can directly impact the foods we love, emphasizing the importance of sustainable farming practices to maintain a stable food supply for everyone,” Department of Systems Design Engineering postdoctoral fellow Dr. Poornima Unnikrishnan said in the University of Waterloo’s media release.
Other popular products that have become more scarce or expensive amid challenging weather conditions include chocolate, olive oil, and tomato-based items such as ketchup.
What can be done about reduced food yields?
The University of Waterloo researchers advocated for the continued adoption of sustainable farming practices to ensure there are no severe disruptions in the global food supply, and they believe their analysis can help.
“We hope the better understanding of the influence of rising temperatures on crop yield will help in the development of sustainable agriculture responses from the government and farmers,” Dr. Kumaraswamy Ponnambalam said in the media release. “There is an urgent need for farmers to adopt new strategies to cope with global warming.”
The Waterloo team also listed existing strategies that have been successful in varying climates, including drip irrigation (which more effectively delivers water to plants’ roots) and shading structures to protect crops from extreme heat.
Agrivoltaics is one such solution to the latter recommendation. Not only do the solar panels provide clean, low-cost energy to farmers, but they also aid crop productivity.
Officials offer critical warning after US state confirms cases of rare but serious infection spread by animals: ‘It is transmitted by various rodents’
Doric Sam – August 19, 2024
Health officials in Arizona have grown concerned after seeing an increase in a rare virus spread by rodents that can cause serious health issues.
What’s happening?
As explained by Physician’s Weekly, the Arizona Department of Health Services announced in an alert that the state has seen an uptick in hantavirus infections, with seven confirmed cases and three deaths over the past six months.
“Hantavirus is a rare but important cause of serious, even fatal respiratory infection,” Dr. Aaron Glatt, chief of infectious diseases at Mount Sinai South Nassau Hospital in New York, told NBC News, per Physician’s Weekly. “It is transmitted by various rodents, especially the deer mouse, and can cause mild disease, but it does cause fatal illness in a significant percentage of people who acquire this illness.”
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, most cases of hantavirus in the U.S. are reported in western and southwestern states, but Arizona is among the leaders in reported infections in the country. Health officials reported that there have been 11 hantavirus cases in Arizona between 2016 and 2022, per Physician’s Weekly.
Why is this important?
Hantavirus is spread when particles containing the virus get into the air from urine, saliva, or feces from deer mice. An infection can lead to hantavirus pulmonary syndrome (HPS).
Symptoms include fever, fatigue, muscle aches, nausea, vomiting, and abdominal pain. Without treatment, the infection can spread to the lungs and cause shortness of breath, chest tightness and cough, according to the American Lung Association and summarized by Physician’s Weekly. Around 38% of those who experience lung symptoms may die from the infection.
Though it is a rare disease in the U.S., with the CDC reporting 850 cases between 1993 and 2021 (about 30 per year), the increase in hantavirus cases is an indication of a deeper problem.
According to Physician’s Weekly, experts theorized that “climate change, such as the extreme heat waves that have been sweeping across the county this summer, may also be partly to blame” for the rising number of infections.
Trish Lees, public information officer at Coconino County Health and Human Services in Arizona, told NBC News that cases are seen more frequently in the summer because of increased rodent activity and people coming into contact with rodents more often.
Dr. Camilo Mora, a professor in the Department of Geography and Environment at the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, explained that rising temperatures cause rodents to seek shelter in similar ways that humans do.
“Many carrying-disease species get on the move with climate change — so while for any specific case it is difficult to conclude the role of climate change, climate change has all the attributes to cause outbreaks of vector-borne diseases,” Mora said, per Physician’s Weekly.
What’s being done about this?
Officials warned that the best way to protect yourself against hantavirus is to wear N95 masks, gloves, and protective clothing when entering an area that is dirty or riddled with rodents. Anyone who experiences symptoms should seek immediate medical attention.
“The best way to prevent infection with this illness is by carefully disinfecting and cleaning up any waste products from the rodents and by not coming into contact with them,” Glatt told NBC News.
$15 million Ohio State study takes aim at molecule at the heart of Long COVID
Samantha Hendrickson, Columbus Dispatch – August 14, 2024
COVID-19 is here to stay, and for some, that means symptoms last months, even years after developing the little-understood Long COVID — but a team at the Ohio State University has received millions to find out more.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) awarded $15 million over the next five years to fund the university’s efforts, including developing new ways to treat COVID-19 and to further understanding of why Long COVID happens and how to fend it off.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that millions of adults and children have suffered — and continue to — suffer from Long COVID.
Dr. Amal Amer, center with glasses, stands with fellow Ohio State University researchers, who have been granted $15 million over five years to study Long COVID. The research is personal for Amer, who suffered from Long COVID herself.
The disease can be present for as short as three months, but can also last years after someone is first infected. It’s defined as a chronic condition that occurs after a COVID-19 infection with a wide range of debilitating symptoms such as severe fatigue, brain fog, heart and lung problems, bodily pain or exacerbating already existing health issues, all of which can impact someone’s daily life.
“It’s just unacceptable, you can’t just let that happen,” said Dr. Amal Amer, a professor of microbial infection and immunity at OSU and a principal investigator in the project, “We have to understand it, and if somebody, not just us, anybody, happens to have a clue or the beginning of the story, we have to follow it.”
Tiny creatures lead to big discoveries
This massive undertaking started with simple mice and a single molecule.
An OSU study published in 2022 found that mice infected with COVID-19 reacted differently to the disease depending on if they had a certain enzyme-producing molecule known as caspase 11.
Research showed that blocking this molecule in the infected mice resulted in lower inflammation, tissue injury and fewer blood clots in the animals’ lungs.
Humans have their own version of this molecule, or caspase 4, Amer said, and researchers discovered high levels of the enzyme in patients hospitalized for COVID-19 in intensive care units — a direct link to severe disease.
“It starts getting high because it has useful functions, but any molecule, when it gets too high, then these useful functions start becoming harmful,” Amer said.
The new work funded by the NIH will go beyond the study of the lungs and into how this molecule may impact the brain and the rest of the body, interfering with immune responses and possibly resulting in more blood clots in pathways leading to the brain and other vital organs – an entertained explanation for why Long COVID impacts people differently from case to case.
Currently, there are over 200 serious symptoms associated with Long COVID, according to the CDC.
Understanding how Long COVID comes to be is the first step in creating a treatment, Amer said. “Once you know the mechanism, then you can design what to target, where to target it and how to target it in order to reduce the damage being done.”
No one left behind
For Dr. Amer, finding that mechanism is an incredible research opportunity, but it’s also personal.
She herself contracted Long COVID during the pandemic. For three months, the leader in cutting edge research in her field suffered from terrible brain fog and other neurological symptoms after her second, thought seemingly mild, COVID-19 infection.
Amer has traveled all over the world, and confessed she’s gotten sick in many countries, including contracting the often deadly malaria. But nothing compared to Long COVID.
Amer would receive emails from her students, and read one sentence, but not remember what it said after reading it. She started having trouble typing on a keyboard. She couldn’t recall things people had just said to her moments before.
“I started thinking, ‘what’s gonna happen to my life?’ My job is a brain job. I lose my job, then what’s gonna happen to me?” Amer recalled. Now, she’ll head the brain-focused part of the project.
This continued for three months, before she gradually started to recover. Around six months, Amer said she began to feel normal again. Though she can’t be certain that she’s back to where she was before Long COVID, she acknowledges some people aren’t as lucky as she is.
“I have to find out, and I have to understand it, and I’m not going to let anybody be left behind,” she said.
Senators urge better access to disability payments for Long COVID patients
Casey Quinlan – August 14, 2024
People with symptoms of long COVID attend a Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions hearing on long COVID in January. A group of senators is now urging the Social Security Administration to grant greater access to disability payments for people with long COVID symptoms. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
Several U.S. senators have called on the Social Security Administration to take steps to make it easier for people with long COVID to access disability benefits, actions that disability rights advocates and patients say are desperately needed.
Senators Tim Kaine (D-VA), Ed Markey (D-MA), and Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Tina Smith (D-MN), Angus King (I-ME), and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) signed the letter released on Monday. They said the agency should make the process more transparent, track and publish data on long COVID applications, and consider expanding the listing of impairments the SSA considers in applications for benefits.
“In some situations, these symptoms can be debilitating and prevent an individual from being able to work, take care of their family, manage their household, or participate in social activities,” the senators wrote to SSA Commissioner Martin O’Malley.
Long COVID is a chronic health condition, which often includes fatigue, brain fog, and shortness of breath, following a COVID-19 infection. About three in 10 American adults have had long COVID at some point according to KFF’s April analysis of long COVID data. About 17 million people had it in March 2024. In 2021, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services released guidance on long COVID as a disability under the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Kaine has been outspoken about his own experience with long COVID and Sanders introduced legislation this month to provide $1 billion in funding each year for 10 years to support long COVID research by the National Institutes of Health.
Lisa McCorkell, co-founder of the Patient Led Research Collaborative, a group of long COVID patients and patients with associated illnesses, told States Newsroom, “Creating a ruling or listing would be a huge improvement — having that specific guidance for how to document long COVID, its related diagnoses, and its associated impairment would assist physicians who may not be as knowledgeable about long COVID.”
The SSA administers disability benefits through Social Security Disability Insurance and Supplemental Security Income programs. The former program requires past employment payment into Social Security. The latter one does not have those restrictions and is based on financial need but to receive benefits, applicants have to prove they qualify as having a disability. The average monthly disability benefit for Social Security Disability Insurance is $1,538.
Long COVID’s economic cost
Researchers and economists are still trying to understand the full impact of COVID-19 infections and long COVID on the workforce. A 2023 study estimated that COVID-19 brought down the labor force by 500,000 people and that the average loss of labor is equivalent to $9,000 in earnings. More than 25% of people with long COVID said their condition had an impact on their employment or work hours, according to a 2022 Minneapolis Fed paper.
Long COVID is not going to go away, particularly as government protections on the federal, state, and local level to reduce the spread of COVID are “severely lacking,” said Marissa Ditkowsky, who serves as the disability economic justice counsel at the National Partnership for Women & Families, an organization focused on health, economic justice, and reproductive rights for women and families.
“While COVID continues to be a reality, we know that COVID disproportionately impacts women, disabled folks, and people of color, and the folks who are most impacted already have issues with access to appropriate health care, access to employment, and access to equitable wages,” said Ditkowsky, who has long COVID herself. “A lot of folks might be working in low-wage jobs where they’re in the service industry and constantly out there and more likely to contract COVID. It starts not just with the programs for how to deal with folks with long COVID, but how to prevent people from getting long COVID.”
In the meantime, she said people with long COVID, as well as other people with disabilities, would benefit from the changes senators are advocating, such as restoring the treating physician rule, which was repealed in 2017. The rule allowed the agency to give greater weight to medical evidence from a physician who treated a patient for years compared to, say, a doctor who examines a patient once.
“Giving your own doctor the weight [they] deserve is huge,” Ditkowsky said.
Mia Ives-Rublee, senior director of the disability justice initiative at the Center for American Progress, a liberal think tank, said there is an opportunity for the Biden administration or the next administration to revamp how the agency administers disability benefits. She said that given the aging population, there is more reason than ever for the agency to make significant improvements to the application process. Advocates for people with disabilities say it’s also imperative to boost funding for the agency.
“Not only are we seeing an increase in disability in younger folks, but we’re also looking at the big boomer generation getting older … We’re going to see a huge pressure on the [SSA] and we need to see real changes and funding and think of ways to manage the wide variety of experiences that people have in order to deal with differences in applying for these benefits,” she said.
Scientists Drilled So Deep Into the Center of the Earth, They Knocked on the Mantle’s Door
Darren Orf – August 13, 2024
Scientists Go Deeper Into Mantle Than Ever BeforeBloomberg Creative – Getty Images
“Hearst Magazines and Yahoo may earn commission or revenue on some items through these links.”
To understand the mantle—the largest layer of Earth’s rocky body—scientists drill deep cores out of the Earth.
In May of 2023, scientists drilled the deepest core yet and recovered serpentinized peridotite that forms when saltwater interacts with mantle rock.
Although this is the deepest into the mantle scientists have ever drilled, the mission didn’t uncover pristine mantle that lies beyond the Mohorovičić discontinuity, or Moho, boundary.
If you want to understand the geology of our home planet, studying the mantle is a great place to start. Separating the planet’s rocky crust and the molten outer core, the mantle makes up 70 percent of the Earth’s mass and 84 percent of its volume. But despite its outsized influence on the planet’s geologic processes, scientists have never directly sampled rocks from this immensely important geologic layer.
And that’s understandable, especially when you consider that the crust is roughly 9 to 12 miles thick on average. Luckily, that average contains outliers—areas of the world where the crust is actually incredibly thin and faulting exposes the mantle through cracks. One such area is the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, specifically near an underwater mountain called the Atlantis Massif.
On the south side of this massif is an area known as the Lost City—a hydrothermal field whose vent fluids are highly alkaline and rich in hydrogen, methane, and other carbon compounds. This makes the area a particularly compelling candidate for explaining how early life evolved on Earth. Additionally, it contains mantle rock that interacts with seawater in a process known as “serpentinization,” which alters the rock’s structure and gives it a green, marble-like appearance.
It was here, 800 meters south of this field, in May of 2023 that members of the International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP)—aboard the JOIDES Resolution, a 470-foot-long research vessel rented by the U.S. National Science Foundation—extracted a 1,268-meter core containing abyssal peridotites, which are the primary rocks that make up the Earth’s upper mantle. The results of the study were published last week in the journal Science.
Although this makes this particular drill core the deepest sample of the mantle yet, going that deep into the rock wasn’t the goal of this record-breaking expedition.
“We had only planned to drill for 200 meters, because that was the deepest people had ever managed to drill in mantle rock,” Johan Lissenberg, a petrologist at Cardiff University and co-author of the study, told Nature. He said that the drilling was so easy that they progressed three times faster than usual. The team eventually drilled a staggering 1,268 meters, and only stopped due to the mission’s limited operations window.
Andrew McCaig—study co-author and University of Leeds scientist—said in an article from The Conversation that, according to a preliminary analysis of the rock, the core’s composition contains a variety of peridotite called harzburgite that forms via partial melting of mantle rock. It also contained rocks known as gabbros, which are coarse-grained igneous rocks. Both of these rocks then chemically reacted with seawater, changing their composition.
While this core represents an incredibly opportunity to learn more about the Earth’s mantle, as well as give an in-depth look at the geologic substrate upon which the Lost City rests, the mission didn’t quite complete the “grand challenge” of crossing the Mohorovičić discontinuity. Otherwise known as the Moho, the Mohorovičić discontinuity is recognized as the true boundary between the crust and pristine mantle.
Future missions could continue exploring this site near the Atlantis Massif, but sadly, those missions won’t include JOIDES Resolution—the NSF declined to fund more core drilling past 2024. Just as scientists are finally knocking on the door to the Earth’s most ubiquitous geologic layer, the future of these kinds of drilling missions is now uncertain.
The Trump Campaign Just Tweeted Something Really Racist
Nathalie Baptiste – August 13, 2024
On Tuesday, an official social media account of Donald Trump’s 2024 campaign posted a racist meme implying that if Vice President Kamala Harris wins the presidency in November, nice suburban neighborhoods will be overrun with hordes of Black people and immigrants.
“Import the third world. Become the third world,” read the post on X, the former Twitter.
Side-by-side images ― captioned “Your Neighborhood Under Trump” and “Your Neighborhood Under Kamala,” respectively ― show a tranquil residential street and a 2023 Getty photo of recent migrants to the U.S. sitting outside New York’s Roosevelt Hotel in hopes of securing temporary housing. (The Roosevelt now serves as an intake center for homeless migrants, and has been described as a “new Ellis Island.”) Most of the migrants in the photo are people of color.
In a conversation with X owner Elon Musk on the platform Monday night, Trump repeatedly vilified immigrants, bringing up cases of alleged murders by undocumented migrants. “These are rough people,” Trump told Musk. “These are criminals that make our criminals look like nice people. And it’s horrible what they’re doing.”
Trump has, once again, made building a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border a campaign priority, and has promised that his administration will deport every undocumented immigrant living in the U.S. At the Republican National Convention in July, attendees cheered and waved signs reading “Mass Deportations Now!”
In the three weeks since President Joe Biden announced he wouldn’t seek a second term, reports have suggested that Trump is flailing for ways to counter the swell of enthusiasm for Harris, now the Democratic nominee.
Racism is a go-to approach for Trump, as evidenced by his quest over a decade ago to “prove” that then-President Barack Obama was not born in the U.S. Some of his advisers have told the media in recent weeks of their plans to rerun the “Willie Horton” playbook, referring to an infamous ad from 1988 that supporters of Republican George H.W. Bush produced for his presidential campaign against Democrat Michael Dukakis. (Trump’s current pollster and adviser Tony Fabrizio had a hand in that advertisement.)
According to The New York Times, GOP donors and Trump’s own advisers have been pleading with him to attack Harris’ policies and stay on message, instead of questioning whether she is actually Black, as he has repeatedly done in the past two weeks. The fear among conservatives is that blatant racism will drive voters away in November.
But it seems that even when attacking Harris’ immigration policies, the Trump campaign just can’t help itself.
This is now California’s worst summer COVID wave in years. Here’s why
Rong-Gong Lin II – August 12, 2024
Individuals, some wearing face masks, walk in Laguna Beach on July 28. (Zoe Cranfill / Los Angeles Times)
California’s strongest summer COVID wave in years is still surging, and an unusual midsummer mutation may be partly to blame.
There are a number of possible culprits behind the worst summer infection spike since 2022, experts say. A series of punishing heat waves and smoke from devastating wildfires have kept many Californians indoors, where the disease can more easily spread. Most adults are also well removed from their last brush with the coronavirus, or their last vaccine dose — meaning they’re more vulnerable to infection.
But changes in the virus have also widened the scope of the surge.
Of particular concern is the rise of a hyperinfectious subvariant known as KP.3.1.1, which is so contagious that even people who have eluded infection throughout the pandemic are getting sick.
“COVID is extraordinarily common now,” said Dr. Elizabeth Hudson, regional chief of infectious diseases for Kaiser Permanente Southern California’s 16-hospital healthcare system.
COVID hospitalizations are ticking up, but remain lower than the peaks for the last two summers, probably thanks to some residual immunity and the widespread availability of anti-COVID drugs such as Paxlovid.
The World Health Organization has warned of COVID infections rising around the world, and expressed concern that more severe variants could emerge.
“In recent months, regardless of the season, many countries have experienced surges of COVID-19, including at the Olympics,” said Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove, the WHO’s technical lead on COVID.
Among those caught up was 27-year-old American sprinter Noah Lyles, who after winning the gold in the men’s 100-meter finals, came up short Thursday during the 200-meter finals, taking the bronze. Lyles collapsed after the race, fighting shortness of breath and chest pain, and was later taken away in a wheelchair.
“It definitely affected my performance,” he said of the illness, estimating that he felt “like 90% to 95%” of full strength.
The rate at which reported coronavirus tests are coming back positive has been rising for weeks — to above 10% globally and more than 20% in Europe. In California, the coronavirus positive test rate was 14.3% for the week that ended Aug. 5 — blowing past the peaks from last summer and winter — and up from 10% a month ago.
There were already indications in May that the typical U.S. midyear wave was off to an early start as a pair of new coronavirus subvariants — KP.2 and KP.1.1, collectively nicknamed FLiRT — started to make a splash, displacing the winter’s dominant strain, JN.1.
But by July, a descendant strain, KP.3.1.1, had clearly taken off.
“KP.3.1.1 is extremely transmissible and a little bit more immune evasive. It kind of came out of the blue during the summer,” said Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, an infectious-diseases specialist at UC San Francisco.
Cases are up at Kaiser Permanente Southern California, and “looking through the CDC data … KP.3.1.1 is really what is driving this particular surge,” Hudson said. “We are certainly much higher than we were last summer.”
Anecdotally, some infected people report being “pretty darn miserable, actually — really severe fatigue in the first two days,” Hudson said.
People may want to think their symptoms are just allergies, she said, but “it’s probably COVID. So we’re just really encouraging folks to continue to test.”
An initial negative test doesn’t necessarily mean you’re out of the woods, though. Officials recommend testing repeatedly over as many as five days after the onset of symptoms to be sure.
California has now reported four straight weeks with “very high” coronavirus levels in its wastewater, according to data released by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Friday. That followed five weeks of “high” viral levels.
Last summer, California recorded only eight weeks with “high” coronavirus levels in wastewater, and never hit “very high” levels. In the summer of 2022, California spent 16 weeks with “high” or “very high” levels of coronavirus in wastewater.
“Fewer people got immunized this year compared to last year at this time,” Chin-Hong said. “That means, particularly amongst people who are older, they’re just not equipped to deal with this virus.”
There are 44 states with “high” or “very high” coronavirus levels in their wastewater, according to the CDC. Five states, and the District of Columbia, have “moderate” levels, and there were no data for North Dakota.
The CDC said coronavirus infections are “growing” or “likely growing” in 32 states, including California; are “stable or uncertain” in seven states, as well as the District of Columbia; are “likely declining” in Connecticut; and “declining” in Hawaii and Nevada. There were no estimates in eight states.
In Los Angeles County, coronavirus levels in wastewater jumped to 54% of last winter’s peak over the 10-day period ending July 27, the most recent available. A week earlier, coronavirus levels in wastewater were at 44% of last winter’s peak.
For the week ending Aug. 4, L.A. County reported an average of 479 coronavirus cases a day, double the number from five weeks earlier. Cases are an undercount, only reflecting tests done at medical facilities — not self-tests conducted at home.
In Santa Clara County, the most populous in the San Francisco Bay Area, coronavirus levels were high in all sewersheds, including San Jose and Palo Alto.
Hospitalizations and emergency room visits related to the coronavirus are also rising. Over the week ending Aug. 3, there were an average of 403 coronavirus-positive people in hospitals in L.A. County per day. That’s double the number from five weeks earlier, but still about 70% of last summer’s peak and one-third the height seen in summer 2022.
For the week ending Aug. 4, 4% of emergency room encounters in L.A. County were classified as related to the coronavirus — more than double the figure from seven weeks earlier. The peak from last summer was 5.1%.
“We’ve had a few people who have become very ill from COVID. Those are people who tend to be pretty severely immunocompromised,” Hudson said.
UC San Francisco has also seen a rise in the number of coronavirus-infected hospitalized patients. As of Friday, there were 28, up from fewer than 20 a week earlier, Chin-Hong said.
In the Bay Area, three counties have urged more people to consider masking in indoor public settings because of the COVID surge. Contra Costa County’s public health department “recommends masking in crowded indoor settings, particularly for those at high risk of serious illness if infected,” the agency said Tuesday, following similar pleas from San Francisco and Marin County health officials.
Compared with advice such as washing hands and staying away from sick people, suggesting wearing a mask can provoke strong opposition from some.
“The moment people see this, like in their mind, it sets off this chain reaction of, like, all the negative things of the pandemic, having to have society shut down and social isolation,” said Dr. Abraar Karan, an infectious-disease doctor and researcher at Stanford University.
But masks do help reduce the risk of infection, and people don’t have to wear them all the time to benefit. Karan says he socializes and eats at indoor restaurants. But he’ll decide to mask in other situations, like “when I’m traveling,” and, obviously, at work.
Doctors say that wearing a mask is one of many tools people can use to reduce their risk, and can be especially helpful when in crowded indoor settings.
Karan said he’s seen more coronavirus-positive patients while working shifts in urgent care, and he suggested that more healthcare providers take the time to order tests. He said he worries that when people come in with relatively mild symptoms, they may be sent home without testing.
But that could miss potential COVID diagnosis, which could allow a patient to get a prescription for an antiviral drug like Paxlovid.
Without testing, “you run the risk of taking shortcuts and not prescribing people meds that they actually should technically be getting,” Karan said.
CDC says COVID wastewater levels are ‘very high’ in VA and NC
KaMaria Braye – August 12, 2024
PORTSMOUTH, Va. (WAVY) – The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that wastewater levels of COVID-19 are considered very high across the United States.
At least 26 states are either high or very high for COVID-19 infections. The data shows this summer’s COVID-19 levels could pass the previous two summers.
The CDC says sewage can be tested to find traces of infectious diseases in communities and that the diseases can be found even if people don’t have symptoms.
With most Hampton Roads school districts returning back to school starting in mid-August, the CDC has recommendations for parents to help kids stay healthy while learning.
Potential Tropical Cyclone Five expected to become tropical storm within next few days
Sara Filips – August 11, 2024
Potential Tropical Cyclone Five expected to become tropical storm within next few days
TAMPA, Fla. (WFLA) — The National Hurricane Center issued its first advisory for Potential Tropical Cyclone Five on Sunday as it’s likely to develop into a tropical storm within the next few days.
The system has a 90% chance of development within the next seven days and has ramped up to an 80% chance within 48 hours, the NHC said in a 5 p.m. update.
The wave, which is located about 1,530 miles east-southeast of Antigua, continues to show signs of organization.
The NHC said the system is moving toward the west-northwest at 21 mph with maximum sustained winds of 30 mph. It is expected to move across portions of the Leeward Islands on Tuesday and approach the U.S. and British Virgin Islands on Tuesday night.
“Some strengthening is forecast and the system is expected to become a tropical storm by late Monday,” the NHC said. Ernesto is the next storm name on the list.
“The good news is that it’s expected to turn to the north well to the east of the U.S. and Bahamas and may impact Bermuda later this week,” Max Defender 8 Meteorologist Eric Stone said. The system is not expected to impact Florida.
Why Japan issued its first-ever ‘megaquake advisory’ — and what that means
Evan Bush – August 10, 2024
The Summary
Japan’s meteorological agency on Thursday issued its first-ever “megaquake advisory.”
The warning followed a 7.1-magnitude earthquake off the country’s southern coast.
That raises the risk of an even larger quake on the Nankai Trough, an underwater subduction zone that scientists believe is capable of producing temblors up to magnitude 9.1.
After a 7.1-magnitude earthquake shook southern islands in Japan on Thursday, the country’s meteorological agency sent out an ominous warning: Another, larger earthquake could be coming, and the risk will be especially high over the next week. In the first “megaquake advisory” it has ever issued, the agency said that the risk of strong shaking and a tsunami are greater than usual on the Nankai Trough, a subduction zone with the potential to produce magnitude 8 or 9 temblors. Area residents, it said, should prepare.
The message was not a prediction, but a forecast of enhanced risk — and it shows how far seismologists have come in understanding the dynamics of subduction zone earthquakes.
Here’s what to know about the situation.
A dangerous subduction zone
The Nankai Trough is an underwater subduction zone where the Eurasian Plate collides with the Philippine Sea Plate, forcing the latter under the former and into the Earth’s mantle.
Subduction zone faults build stress, and a so-called megathrust earthquake takes place when a locked fault slips and releases that stress. “Megaquake” is a shortened version of the name. These zones have produced the most powerful earthquakes in Earth’s history.
The Pacific “Ring of Fire” is a collection of subduction zones. In the U.S., the Cascadia subduction zone off the West Coast runs from Vancouver Island, Canada, to Cape Mendocino, California.
A beach is closed in Nichinan in southwestern Japan on Friday, after the country’s issued its first warning about a possible megaquake.
If a megaquake were to happen near Japan, the Philippine Sea Plate would lurch, perhaps as much as 30 to 100 feet, near the country’s southeast coast, producing intense shaking. The vertical displacement of the seafloor would cause a tsunami and push waves toward the coast of Japan. Those waves could reach nearly 100 feet in height, according to estimates from Japanese scientists published in 2020.
A history of big quakes
The Nankai Trough has produced large earthquakes roughly every 100 to 150 years, a study indicated last year. Japan’s Earthquake Research Committee said in January 2022 said there was a 70% to 80% chance of a megathrust earthquake in the subsequent 30 years.
Large Nankai Trough earthquakes tend to come in pairs, with the second often rupturing in the subsequent two years. The most recent examples were “twin” earthquakes on the Nankai Trough in 1944 and 1946.
The phenomenon is due to the segmented nature of the fault; when one segment slips, it can stress another.
People stand outside after leaving a building following an earthquake in Miyazaki on Thursday.
Harold Tobin, a University of Washington professor who has studied the Nankai Trough, said the magnitude-7.1 quake took place in a segment that shakes more frequently than others. Regular earthquakes can relieve stress, so the possibility that the segment itself produces a big earthquake is less of a concern. The worry is the earthquake’s proximity to a segment that’s been building stress since the 1940s. “It’s adjacent to the western Nankai region and that’s clearly locked up. That’s the reason for alert and concern,” Tobin said.
A forecast, not a prediction
Scientists can’t predict earthquakes, but they are developing the ability to forecast times of heightened risk, particularly in areas with frequent shaking and good monitoring equipment, like Japan.
Firefighters walk near a fallen building in Wajima, in Japan’s Ishikawa prefecture, after a New Year’s Day earthquake.
The most likely outcome is that the recent shaking won’t trigger anything, even though the probability of a large earthquake is higher.
“We might wait decades before Nankai has another earthquake,” Tobin said.
A known danger
In 2011, an area of the seafloor roughly the size of Connecticut lurched all at once, producing a magnitude-9.1 earthquake — the third biggest recorded worldwide since 1900. That megathrust earthquake caused a tsunami off Japan’s eastern coast. More than 18,000 people died in the tsunami and earthquake, according to the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
The Cascadia Subduction Zone poses a similar risk for the U.S. West Coast, though megathrust earthquakes are expected there less often — every 300 to 500 years. This fault has the capability of producing a magnitude-9.1 earthquake and tsunami waves 80 feet in height. Researchers recently mapped the fault in detail and found it was divided into four segments.
