I’m looking at my name, handwritten in capital letters, neat as a button. Considering asking for another form to rewrite it, make it shakier.
“Foeticide,” the doctor is saying.
Continue reading...How much extra time on screen have you had in the past 18 months? It may be causing nearsightedness – but there’s hope for reversing it
How close is the smartphone or laptop you’re reading this on from your eyes? Probably just a few inches. How long have you spent looking at a screen today? If you’re close to the average it’s likely to be over nine hours.
New research from ophthalmologists shows that our constant screen time is radically changing our eyes. Just like the rest of our bodies, the human eye is supposed to stop growing after our teens. Now it keeps growing.
Continue reading...TikTok video calls for bath in borax – but once a person is vaccinated, there’s no way back, doctors say
Medical experts are speaking out against Covid-19 vaccine “detoxes” that some inaccurately claim can remove the effects of vaccinations received under mandates and other public health rulings.
In one TikTok video that has received hundreds of thousands of views, Carrie Madej, an osteopath based in Georgia, falsely claims a bath containing baking soda, epsom salts and the cleaning agent borax will “detox the vaxx” from anyone who has received a jab.
Continue reading...UK also recorded 38,351 new coronavirus cases; German paper reports that 12,000 soldiers will be mobilised by Christmas
California has become the latest US state to make Covid vaccine booster doses available for all adults, despite a call from federal health officials to limit their distribution to people most at risk.
It follows similar moves by Colorado and New Mexico, which have among the highest rates of new infections in the US. California, the country’s most populous state, has now joined them in the “high” tier for transmission, according to recent figures from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Continue reading...Spiros Vasilakis’s mother, Maria, died in the Melbourne aged care home outbreak. He is among 64 witnesses to give evidence at a coronial inquest starting Monday
“One thing I will never forget is the line of ambulances coming in and coming out,” Spiros Vasilakis says as he recalls standing outside St Basil’s Home for the Aged in July last year, where his mother contracted Covid-19.
“My mum had died at that point,” he recalls. “And to stand outside a place that was not giving family any answers, seeing residents taken away one after another in ambulances, about to die or already dead … I just remember feeling overwhelmed by sadness.”
Continue reading...The drive to get the population vaccinated is gathering momentum despite the issue dividing families and straining friendships
It’s fair to say the people in the northern rivers of New South Wales generally do not like being told what to do by the government.
In a region with a free-thinking, anti-authoritarian reputation, and a long history of anti-vaccination sentiment, the requirement to get the Covid jab for work or leisure purposes was never going to find a warm welcome.
Continue reading...The online star with 15 million subscribers on demystifying everything from black holes to the immune system, the trouble with anti-vaxxers, and what his cancer taught him
Skim Philipp Dettmer’s CV and you’d have to say he was an improbable candidate to become one of the world’s foremost science communicators. The 35-year-old from Munich dropped out of high school in Germany aged 15. He eventually did a history degree, and only became involved in science through his interest in infographics. This led, in 2013, to him creating Kurzgesagt (AKA “In a nutshell”), one of the most popular science channels on YouTube. The platform’s irreverent, kaleidoscopic videos – stripped-back guides to everything from black holes to Covid – have more than 15 million subscribers and have clocked up almost 1.5bn views.
Dettmer has now written a book about the human immune system, which has intrigued him for more than a decade. Everyone has an opinion on theirs – whether it’s good or not up to much; how best to “boost” it – but it can be a struggle to understand how it works. In Immune: A Journey into the Mysterious System That Keeps You Alive, Dettmer uses eye-catching graphics and simple language to untangle the strange, compelling, sometimes grisly methods our bodies use to defend us from disease.
Continue reading...Levels of PM 2.5 particulates hit 20 times safe levels as agricultural fires add to city’s air pollution crisis
Authorities in Delhi have announced that schools are to close for a week as the Indian capital’s pollution control body warned of a looming health emergency due to smog.
Delhi is ranked one of the world’s most-polluted cities, with a hazardous mix of factory and vehicle emissions and smoke from agricultural fires turning its air a toxic grey every winter.
Continue reading...The continent is now the centre of the global epidemic – again. As countries from the Baltic to the Med brace for harsher winter measures, we look at what’s driving the fourth wave
It was almost as if the pandemic had never happened. In Cologne, thousands of revellers in fancy-dress jostled side by side in a tightly packed throng as they counted down to the start of the annual carnival season at 11am on 11 November.
In Paris, the bars and clubs were open late and filled to bursting on Wednesday, with Armistice Day a national holiday. In Amsterdam, it was business as usual in the overflowing cafes and coffee shops around the Leidseplein.
Continue reading...PM expresses concern over worsening situation in continental Europe, saying: ‘We’ve been here before’
Elderly and vulnerable people must get their booster jabs if a rise in Covid cases in the UK is to be prevented, the prime minister has said, as he warned of “storm clouds” forming over parts of Europe.
Germany, Austria, Slovakia and Croatia are among countries that have recently seen a surge in Covid cases, with the former recording its highest coronavirus case numbers since the start of the pandemic.
Continue reading...Federal government releases net zero modelling; Scott Morrison says ‘of course the French are upset’; Australia passes 90% first dose Covid vaccination milestone; Victoria records 1,115 cases and nine deaths; NSW records 286 cases and two deaths; state funeral for Bert Newton. Follow all the day’s news
Accused drug smuggler Mostafa Baluch is due to appear before NSW court today after he was recaptured, extradited from the Gold Coast and slapped with an additional outstanding arrest warrant charge.
It’s alleged that Baluch is the financier behind a 900kg shipment of cocaine into Australia, and was on the run for nearly two weeks after allegedly cutting off his ankle monitor.
Continue reading...Lowering high blood pressure may slash the risk of the disease in millions of people in future
Blood pressure drugs could prevent millions of people worldwide from developing type 2 diabetes, a large study suggests.
Lowering high blood pressure is an effective way to slash the risk of the disease in the future, according to the research published in the Lancet.
Continue reading...I couldn’t handle stimulation or confusion and I spent a week mostly sleeping
Borders are open! Lockdowns are over! We can reunite with our families!
But after almost six months apart, my parents looked aghast, not delighted when they saw me.
Continue reading...Robert Koch Institute records 50,196 new cases of coronavirus in Germany; Netherlands would have western Europe’s first lockdown since the summer
Vic Rayner, chief executive of the National Care Forum, said there was a “human cost” to the UK government’s mandatory jab policy for care home staff, which became effective from today.
PA Media quotes Rayner on BBC Breakfast saying that about 8% of staff are leaving their jobs, on top of those who have already quit the sector since the policy was announced.
Its gurus increasingly promote vaccine scepticism, conspiracy theories and the myth that ill people have themselves to blame. How did self-care turn so nasty?
Ozlem Demirboga Carr is not really into all that woo‑woo stuff. “I’m definitely a full-science kind of person,” says the 41-year-old telecoms worker from Reading. She doesn’t believe in crystals, affirmations or salt lamps. But she did find herself unusually anxious during the UK’s Covid lockdown in March 2020 and, like many people, decided to practise yoga as a way to de-stress.
“I tried to be open-minded and I was open to advice on trying to improve my wellbeing and mental health,” she says. So she followed a range of social media accounts, including the “somatic therapist and biz coach” Phoebe Greenacre, known for her yoga videos, and the “women’s empowerment and spiritual mentor” Kelly Vittengl. The Instagram algorithm did its work. “I suddenly found myself following so many wellness accounts,” she says.
Continue reading...Victoria records 1,313 new Covid-19 cases and four deaths; NSW records 261 cases and one death; NSW bracing for widespread flooding; man dies in police custody in Melbourne; PM continues to lash out at Labor as he responds to questions about his government’s stance on EVs – follow all the day’s news
A man has died in custody at a police station in Melbourne’s west, AAP reports.
Police say the 43-year-old Sunshine man was arrested on Tuesday and remanded to appear in court on Thursday.
Study says some individuals clear virus rapidly due to a strong immune response from existing T-cells, meaning tests record negative result
We all know that person who, despite their entire household catching Covid-19, has never tested positive for the disease. Now scientists have found an explanation, showing that a proportion of people experience “abortive infection” in which the virus enters the body but is cleared by the immune system’s T-cells at the earliest stage meaning that PCR and antibody tests record a negative result.
About 15% of healthcare workers who were tracked during the first wave of the pandemic in London, England, appeared to fit this scenario.
Continue reading...Many markets have already announced they will not be going ahead amid record case numbers
Soaring coronavirus rates in Germany are threatening plans for a rollout of the country’s famous Christmas markets, due to open in about a week’s time.
There had been considerable fanfare over municipalities’ plans to stage the markets this year after they were called off a year ago.
Continue reading...Only half of children aged 12 and above have been vaccinated, despite vaccine being available for months
When Nia Heard-Garris’s son found out the Covid vaccines were authorized for adults in the US late last year, he was thrilled, then asked, “But what about us? What about kids?”
The eight-year-old is finally signed up for his first shot later this week. Even though he’s afraid of needles, he can’t wait to get vaccinated so he can return to a greater semblance of normal kid life – hanging out with his friends, going to school, playing sports – without worrying about getting sick or bringing the virus home.
Continue reading...French president also announces many people will need third jab to keep valid health pass
Emmanuel Macron has called for an acceleration of Covid-19 booster shots for elderly and vulnerable people in France and announced that many citizens will need a third vaccination for a valid health pass from next month.
In a televised address, the French president said “the pandemic is not over” and warned of the emergence of a fifth wave of infections in Europe, citing a significant rise in cases in the UK and Germany. He said the incidence rate of Covid infections in France had also recently risen.
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