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Dr. Farzad Mostashari presenting on syndromic surveillance.Farzad MostashariWhen Carnegie Mellon researchers had the idea to put together a survey asking the general public about their coronavirus symptoms, the scientists knew they needed to collect millions of data points to learn anything meaningful.So they asked Facebook, which has a public team that specializes in using analytics for humanitarian…

disproportionately afflicted by COVID-19.It’s not a complete shock that vitamin D—available by sun, supplement, and diet—could be a factor in COVID-19. It’s been previously found to be protective against respiratory tract infections—many of which are caused by other kinds of coronaviruses than the one that triggered the global pandemic.Scientists have also identified that people with…

Share on PinterestA new study finds that during lockdown, eating disorder symptoms worsened in people with a history of eating disorders.The research, which appears in the Journal of Eating Disorders, raises awareness of the pandemic’s detrimental effects on people’s mental health, and could be valuable for the future development of health services.COVID-19, the disease caused…

At the beginning of March, Andrew Noymer felt a familiar twinge of doubt. He was watching countries across Europe and North America begin to record their first deaths from COVID-19, and he knew there could be problems with the data. Even in a normal winter, some deaths caused by influenza get misclassified as pneumonia. If…

Four people have died in two separate fires in Cape Town.The fires broke out in Khayelitsha and Dunoon in the early hours of Sunday morning.Just after 04:30, the City of Cape Town's Fire and Rescue Service was informed that an informal structure was on fire in Qandu-qandu informal settlement, just off Japhta Masemola Drive, Fire…