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Category: biotech/medical – Page 2,399

Former Taiwan Premier Offers Lessons on How the U.S. Should Deal With COVID-19

The last point is that Taiwan has a very good healthcare system, especially compared with the U.S. Taiwan’s health insurance system is affordable for the general public, which means everyone can get a medical examination or hospital treatment when necessary. It is also a scientific one: The health insurance system collects personal data and medical records, so hospitals and doctors can make good judgments about every patient’s condition. The quality of the national health system is quite important in the healing of patients and the containment of coronavirus.

Taiwan’s coronavirus response so far has been exemplary. Other nations, especially the U.S., should take note, says former Taiwan Premier Jiang Yi-huah.

Epidemiologist Behind Highly-Cited Coronavirus Model Drastically Revises Model

Epidemiologist Neil Ferguson, who created the highly-cited Imperial College London coronavirus model, which has been cited by organizations like The New York Times and has been instrumental in governmental policy decision-making, offered a massive revision to his model on Wednesday.

Ferguson’s model projected 2.2 million dead people in the United States and 500,000 in the U.K. from COVID-19 if no action were taken to slow the virus and blunt its curve.

However, after just one day of ordered lockdowns in the U.K., Ferguson is presenting drastically downgraded estimates, revealing that far more people likely have the virus than his team figured. Now, the epidemiologist predicts, hospitals will be just fine taking on COVID-19 patients and estimates 20,000 or far fewer people will die from the virus itself or from its agitation of other ailments, as reported by New Scientist Wednesday.

Early Transmission Dynamics in Wuhan, China, of Novel Coronavirus–Infected Pneumonia

The initial cases of novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV)–infected pneumonia (NCIP) occurred in Wuhan, Hubei Province, China, in December 2019 and January 2020. We analyzed data on the first 425 confirmed cases in Wuhan to determine the epidemiologic characteristics of NCIP.

Since December 2019, an increasing number of cases of novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV)–infected pneumonia (NCIP) have been identified in Wuhan, a large city of 11 million people in central China.1–3 On December 29, 2019, the first 4 cases reported, all linked to the Huanan (Southern China) Seafood Wholesale Market, were identified by local hospitals using a surveillance mechanism for “pneumonia of unknown etiology” that was established in the wake of the 2003 severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) outbreak with the aim of allowing timely identification of novel pathogens such as 2019-nCoV.4 In recent days, infections have been identified in other Chinese cities and in more than a dozen countries around the world.5 Here, we provide an analysis of data on the first 425 laboratory-confirmed cases in Wuhan to describe the epidemiologic characteristics and transmission dynamics of NCIP.

Table Held Up

If you’ve never heard of a tensegrity structure, you should stop now and watch the video below. In it, [The Action Lab] shows a 3D printed table that is held up only with strings. We didn’t say suspended by strings but held up. Or so it appears. The model is from Thingiverse, but it is one of those things you have to see to believe.

The basic idea is pretty simple. Strings have a lot of tensile strength but collapse under the slightest compressive force. The arrangement of strings puts the force on the center string which is essentially hanging — the force is pulling the string down. The other three strings aren’t just for show, though, they keep the structure from tipping over in any one direction.

There are actually real-life examples of these kinds of structures. The video shows the Skylon at the Festival of Britain as one example and an Australian bridge. The video also makes the point that the human body uses tensegrity, since tendons are very similar to the strings in the model.

Will the coronavirus kill cash? Russia is pushing for more digital payments

As countries work to fight the spread of the coronavirus, it has become clear that traditional methods of fighting disease have proven ineffective. Considering the threat, Russia is now pushing for more digital payments so it won’t be spread out on cash. Russia isn’t alone in worrying about people contracting coronavirus from handling cash, as widespread concerns over if you can get coronavirus from currency have caused many leaders to call for less money changing hands.

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