Carol Duff, MSN, BA, RN

MedPage Today COVID-19 Update: Worst Week Ahead; ‘Modern Day Piracy’; A Different Second Wave by Crystal Phend, Senior Editor, MedPage Today Note that some links may require registration or subscription. Unofficial U.S. case count at 8:00 a.m. EDT Monday: 337,933, with 9,653 deaths. That’s up from 245,573 cases, with 6,058 deaths, on Friday morning. President Trump on Sunday was optimistic about “light at the end of the tunnel” in the […]

MedPage Today Health Editor’s Note: I am posting this announcement but am not in agreement with this being that helpful in the scheme of this pandemic. My issues is that this will give people the false sense that they are protected and will about life as it was before COVID-19. Only when we have NO more new cases of COVID-19 will we be free to resume […]

Time to think outside the box. Way past time! Our world has been turned upside down. Right is left, left is right, up is down, well, you get the picture.  Stress levels are through the roof, even if you or a loved one or friend do not have COVID-19 and you are not working on the front lines in healthcare, you are feeling stressed and that […]

Four New Species of Prehistoric Flying Reptiles Unearthed in Morocco by Alex Fox/Smithsonianmag.com In recent weeks, paleontologists have reported four new species of prehistoric flying reptiles dating back to the mid-Cretaceous, or about 100 million years ago all found in Morocco. These leathery-winged predators, part of an extinct group known as pterosaurs, were excavated from the Kem Kem fossil beds in southeastern Morocco. Three new species of toothed pterosaur, all […]

Remains of a 90-million-year-old rainforest discovered beneath Antarctic ice, study says by Sophie Lewis/CBS News The South Pole is surrounded by a harsh, frozen landscape of year-round ice and snow — but it hasn’t always been this way, according to new research published Wednesday in the journal Nature. A group of researchers found evidence that approximately 90 million years ago, Antarctica was home to an ancient, swampy rainforest full […]

MedPage Today Health Editor’s Note: Drug companies, stop with the lame excuses!  When a person is placed on a ventilator, he or she will need endotracheal intubation, which is a tube placed into trachea for mechanical ventilation. That tube will remain there until the person is well enough to be taken off of the ventilator. As you might imagine, this is distressing as this process makes […]

MedPage Today COVID-19 Update: Spread Via Breath; Trump Tests Negative (Again); Patriots Plane to the Rescue by Kristen Monaco, Staff Writer, MedPage Today Note that some links may require registration or subscription. Spreading the virus could be just as simple as breathing, new research suggests. (CNN) Unofficial U.S. case count at 8:00 a.m. EDT Friday: 245,573, with 6,058 deaths — the first about tripled and the second more than quadrupled […]

Doctors in New York City, New York; Houston, Texas; and Rochester, Minnesota, were quick to acknowledge the US Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) recent approval of plasma therapy for COVID-19 novel coronavirus patients and have begun their own trials in the past few days. The US FDA announced on March 24 that it would allow researchers to begin experimental COVID-19 treatments using convalescent plasma – which is the […]

Health Editor’s Note: Daily the tallies of newly diagnosed cases of COVID-19 and with that comes the inevitable numbers of deaths are in our news feeds.  How are dead bodies handled when they leave the room where they died? Autopsies are performed on people whose death is violent, unexpected, and sudden? If a doctor signs a death certificate, stating the the cause of death was coronovirus, […]

In Groundbreaking Find, Three Kinds of Early Humans Unearthed Living Together in South Africa By Brian Handwerk/Smithsonianmag.com Scientists studying the roots of humanity’s family tree have found several branches entangled in and around a South African cave. Two million years ago, three different early humans—Australopithecus, Paranthropus, and the earliest-known Homo erectus—appear to have lived at the same time in the same place, near the Drimolen Paleocave System. How […]

Introduction VT is carefully screening all material and is carrying no political based conspiracy theories or rumors.  Wrong time for that. The video below is solid medical information, confirmed by VT’s own doctors and nurses who are now actively treating COVID in military and civilian hospitals in the US, UK, Syria, Russia, China, Iran, Italy and around the world. I was out on my bike today.  […]

HCQ Effective for COVID-19 in Small Randomized Trial by Molly Walker, Associate Editor, MedPage Today Hospitalized patients in China with COVID-19 coronavirus treated with hydroxychloroquine (HCQ), an antimalarial also used to treat autoimmune diseases, had a shorter time to clinical recovery, as well as improved pneumonia, a randomized trial found. Patients randomized to receive hydroxychloroquine with standard treatment had a significantly shorter time to body temperature recovery of about a […]

While veterans have already served their country, many that have transitioned to civilian life and launched a business are serving their country once again by providing solutions to the COVID-19 crisis – with that in mind, I’m reaching out to see if you’re interested in a story about how veteran-owned businesses are providing services and solutions for their communities and the world? From working with the […]

MedPage Today Health Editor’s Note: Initially healthcare providers were told to look for fever, dry cough, and difficulty in breathing or shortness of breath as signs of possible COVID-19 infection.  Patients with these symptoms were isolated and quickly tested to confirm COVID-19 infection. Note, we were told, in some of the more lengthy warnings, that we should not wear outdoor shoes inside our homes since there […]