- CRISPR isn’t just for editing human genes. It can be used to increase corn and rice yields by 10%.
- Finally: the masks are coming off in Head Start.
- How would you like to be an inch or so taller? Doctors can oblige you.
- Learning loss was greatest in school districts that remained remote the longest.
- More on Rand Paul v. Anthony Fauci.
- Why its hard to know which drugs work best against Covid.
Category: COVID-19 and Public Health
Friday Links
- Drug Companies finance about 75% of the FDA’s drug budget.
- The percentage of physicians using tele-visits/virtual visits grew from 14% in 2016 to 80% in 2022 while the percentage of physicians using remote monitoring devices grew from 12% in 2016 to 30% in 2022.
- Rand Paul v. Fauci on natural immunity.
- Pandemic spending reduced the poverty rate; but the resulting inflation left us al worse off.
Wednesday Links
- People are waiting almost four weeks to see a doctor.
- Biased poll: Americans give the health care system an “F”.
- One reason for the labor shortage: 300,000 people of working age died of Covid and another 1.9 million are believed to have gotten long Covid. That adds up to 18% of unfilled jobs.
- A giant fern has twice as many nucleotide base pairs and three times as many chromosomes as humans do. (NYT, gated)
- An unusual jellyfish can live forever.
Americans Boozed it Up During the Lockdown and Never Stopped
During the pandemic Americans were stuck at home with little social outlet and apparently boozed it up to relieve the stress of Covid, according to an article in The New York Times. Or maybe they thought alcohol taken internally was a good sanitizer for Covid.
Alcohol tax revenues collected by the U.S. Treasury Department rose by eight percent in the fiscal year that ended on Sept. 30, 2021, compared with the previous year, and remain well above pre-pandemic levels.