Tag: coronavirus

Half of CDC Coronavirus Test Kits Are Inaccurate, Study Finds

Coronavirus testing has been a hot-button issue since the beginning of the pandemic. First, there weren’t enough coronavirus tests to go around. Now, a new issue has emerged—just how accurate the tests people are getting actually are. According to a July 17 study published in the International Journal of Geriatrics and Rehabilitation, 50 percent of nucleic acid coronavirus tests distributed by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) provided inaccurate results.

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University COVID App Mandates Are The Wrong Call

As students, parents, and schools prepare the new school year, universities are considering ways to make returning to campus safer. Some are considering and even mandating that students install COVID-related technology on their personal devices, but this is the wrong call. Exposure notification apps, quarantine enforcement programs, and similar new technologies are untested and unproven, and mandating them risks exacerbating existing inequalities in access to technology and education. Schools must remove any such mandates from student agreements or commitments, and further should pledge not to mandate installation of any technology.

Even worse, many schools—including Indiana University, UMass Amherst, and University of New Hampshire—are requiring students to make a general blanket commitment to installing an  unspecified tracking app of the university’s choosing in the future. This gives students no opportunity to assess or engage with the privacy practices or other characteristics of this technology. This is important because not all COVID exposure notification and contact tracing apps, for example, are the same. For instance, Utah’s Healthy Together app until recently collected not only Bluetooth proximity data but also GPS location data, an unnecessary privacy intrusion that was later rolled back. Google and Apple’s framework for exposure notification based on Bluetooth is more privacy-protective than a GPS-based solution, but the decision to install it or any other app must still be in the hands of the individuals affected.

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Exposing the maskerade: The questions every American should be asking about indefinite mask mandates

The trope of “just shut up and wear a mask” is not science, ordered liberty, or constitutional governance. It’s what they do in North Korea. We need real debate on the effectiveness of masks, the type of masks, the situations in which they are worn, the duration of time, the benchmarks that need to be met to measure effectiveness, and the process for promulgating these rules. We are no longer 24 hours into an emergency. We are four months into this virus, and it’s time to function like the representative republic that we are.

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Domestic Violence More Than Doubled Under Lockdowns, New Study Finds

Analyzing government-mandated lockdowns in India, researchers Saravana Ravindran and Manisha Shah found evidence of a 131 percent increase in complaints of domestic violence in May 2020 in “red zone districts,” or districts that experienced the strictest lockdown measures, relative to districts that had less strict measures (“green zones”).

The researchers, who used a difference-in-differences empirical strategy, found the increase in domestic violence complaints was consistent with a surge in Google search activity for terms related to domestic violence over the same period.

The authors’ findings “contribute to a growing literature on the impacts of lockdowns and stay-at-home policies on violence against women during the COVID-19 pandemic.”

The findings, which also found a decline in reported sexual assaults because of decreased mobility, are similar to those from research that found lockdowns led to a 100 percent increase in intimate partner violence calls in Mexico City. A study analyzing data from police departments in four US cities showed smaller increases in domestic violence, 10-27 percent, during lockdown periods.

Globally about one-third of women experience “intimate partner violence” (IPV), which negatively impacts female earnings, labor participation, earnings, mental health, and household consumption.

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Autopsy shows Wellington nurse died of kidney infection, not COVID-19

A report from the Palm Beach County Medical examiner obtained by CBS12 News shows that a young Wellington nurse believed to have passed from COVID-19, was never infected with the virus at all.

The report shows that 33-year-old Danielle DiCenso died from “complications of acute pyelonephritis,” otherwise known as a kidney infection.

DiCenso was quarantining at home when she died suddenly in her sleep. Before she passed away, DiCenso was tested for COVID-19 after she was reportedly exposed to the virus at work.

Her husband, David DiCenso told CBS12 News that the young nurse was not given proper PPE at her job at Palmetto General in Hialeah. He said she began experiencing coronavirus symptoms in late March, and her test came back inconclusive.

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Florida Keys couple jailed for refusing to quarantine

 Two residents of the Florida Keys have been jailed for failing to quarantine after testing positive for the new coronavirus.

Jose Interian, 24, and Yohana Gonzalez, 26, are facing charges of violating isolation rules for a quarantine and violating emergency management disaster preparedness rules, according to jail records. They were arrested Wednesday in Key West, officials said.

The Miami Herald reports Interian and Gonzalez had been ordered by the health department to quarantine after testing positive for COVID-19, but neighbors said they were ignoring the order.

Someone videotaped the couple and gave it to Key West police, according to Greg Veliz, Key West’s city manager.

“There were complaints from the neighborhood of them continuing to be outside, going about normal life functions,” Veliz said.

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