Month: March 2022

When the Covid-19 pandemic forced much of the US to lock down in the spring of 2020, officials and experts worried the necessary social distancing measures would make another public health crisis — the opioid epidemic — worse. Addiction treatment is traditionally done in person, and restrictions on gatherings and closed businesses would make it much less accessible. So the federal government responded by easing rules for getting into treatment virtually — making it easier…

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THE GPA HAVE released a detailed statement this evening as the dispute with the GAA over player expenses continues. Written by Wexford hurler and GPA National Executive Committee Co-Chair Matthew O’Hanlon, the GPA chief insists it is false to suggest that the group would be happy to allow over training continue. The statement also questions whether the GAA pursued an honest way to negotiate over the recent charter and that if the GAA allows unlimited…

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As if the Covid-19 pandemic wasn’t bad enough, America is also seeing a surge in homicides this year. A new report, by the Council on Criminal Justice, found homicides have increased sharply this year across 21 US cities with relevant data: “Homicide rates increased by 42% during the summer and 34% in the fall over the summer and fall of 2019.” Other data, from crime analyst Jeff Asher, found murder is up 36 percent throughout…

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The United Kingdom on Wednesday granted temporary authorization for emergency use of the Covid-19 vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech to adults age 16 and older, with the first 800,000 doses of the two-dose vaccine slated to be offered in the country next week. This makes the UK the first country to approve the Pfizer/BioNTech mRNA-based vaccine and the first government approval of a vaccine backed by a clinical trial. (Some countries like Russia and…

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The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention suggested on Wednesday that some people who have been exposed to Covid-19 can quarantine for less than two weeks. The agency said a 14-day quarantine, in which people stay home and avoid interacting with others, is still the safest option if they come into close contact — within 6 feet for at least 15 minutes — with someone who has Covid-19. Anyone who actually contracts the disease should…

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If someone told you in March, when the World Health Organization finally called the Covid-19 outbreak a pandemic, that we’d have three strong coronavirus vaccine candidates by mid-November, you might have called that person delusional. Yet with Monday’s news from AstraZeneca and University of Oxford that early results from their phase 3 trial demonstrate their vaccine’s effectiveness, that’s exactly the scenario we’re in. In a press release, the pharmaceutical giant and its Oxford co-developers reported…

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DeepMind, an AI research lab that was bought by Google and is now an independent part of Google’s parent company Alphabet, announced a major breakthrough this week that one evolutionary biologist called “a game changer.” “This will change medicine,” the biologist, Andrei Lupas, told Nature. “It will change research. It will change bioengineering. It will change everything.” The breakthrough: DeepMind says its AI system, AlphaFold, has solved the “protein folding problem” — a grand challenge…

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On Wednesday, under increasing criticism for the state’s slow vaccine rollout, Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) announced that all Californians 65 and older will be eligible for the shot. But if you were a Californian who wanted to find more information about where to get that shot for yourself or your loved one, you would’ve been out of luck. While the state’s website has been updated to say that individuals 65 or older are eligible, there…

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MAYO HAVE MADE five changes for Saturday night’s trip to Omagh for a repeat of last year’s All-Ireland final against Tyrone. David McBrien comes in at full-back for his first league start of the season, with Castlebar Mitchels youngster Donnacha McHugh named to start alongside him. Fionn McDonagh, Jason Doherty and Paul Towey are the three players drafted into attack. Padraig O’Hora, Michael Plunkett, Jack Carney, Diarmuid O’Connor and Paddy Durcan are the players to…

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President-elect Joe Biden announced a plan on Friday for what will likely be his most pressing challenge when he takes the White House next week: fixing America’s messy Covid-19 vaccine rollout. The plan builds on Biden’s $1.9 trillion economic stimulus proposal, which included a $400 billion Covid-19 plan, announced on Thursday. It seeks more support to states and lower levels of government, a greater expansion of vaccine eligibility, funding for more public health workers, a…

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