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World Mental Health Day

World Mental Health Day is observed on 10th October each year. This year the World Health Organisation has announced that the goal of the 2020 World Mental Health Day is increased investment in mental health. We know from past experience of health emergencies and economic crises that the need for mental health and psychosocial support will substantially increase in the coming months and years. Investment in mental health services, after years of chronic underfunding in most parts of the world, is more important today than it has ever been.

Cuomo advisor: Malatras should lead SUNY

Jim Malatras, co-chair, New York State Complete Count Commission, speaks during a press conference to highlight the importance of participation in the 2020 Census on Tuesday, Sept. 3, 2019, in Albany, N.Y. Officials touted the consequences of what a low count could mean for Capital Region businesses, non-profits and local governments and the people and communities who depend on them. (Will Waldron/Times Union)Will Waldron/Albany Times Union

SANITIZER AND COVID-19

Disinfectants are useful as enhancers in washing with lukewarm water and soap to treat pathogenic microorganisms, such as the new Coronavirus Covid- 19.

This virus just like other pathogen viruses structurally  has an outer shell consisting of lipids and proteins.  Due to lipids the shell is easily dissolved by soap and lukewarm water and the Coronavirus is destroyed. However soap and water are not always available while soaping  does not kill all pathogens. This is why in some cases a disinfection may be required .

Life after the Coronavirus lockdown: Lessons in Resilience

If someone had told you last year that you would spend the spring of 2020 in lockdown, due to a pandemic, what would you have said? You probably would have found it unbelievable. You probably would have said there was no way you could stay at home for days and weeks on end, without going “crazy”.

But it did happen. And whilst a heightened level of distress and anxiety are completely normal reactions to a situation as worrying and uncontrollable as a pandemic, most of us did not “lose” our minds.  You may be experiencing some stress-related reactions may including iirritability, poor concentration, insomnia and reduced productivity. But we faced some of our worst fears and we survived. You probably learnt recently that you are more resilient than you had realised.

The mysterious dark matter | Science Pages

The observations of astronomers in the Universe have shown that we do not see matter in its entirety, only 5%. 68% is attributed to the dark energy due to the expansion of the Universe, while 27% is made up of dark matter, which does not interact with electromagnetic radiation. The astronomers came to this conclusion using supernova type 1a as the standard wax, the accelerating expansion of the Universe, but also the phenomenon of the gravitational lens, in order to calculate the mass of galactic clusters and found that there is much more matter directly in the Universe observable.

Coronavirus COVID-19

In December 2019, the Chinese authorities notified the world that a virus was spreading through their communities. In the following months it spread to other countries with cases doubling within days. It has triggered lockdowns in dozens of nations, and the disease continues to spread. This disease is called COVID-19 (most commonly known as coronavirus). COVID-19 is caused by SARS-COV-2 or “severely acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2” (because it’s genetically similar to the SARS CORONAVIRUS which was responsible for the SARS outbreak in 2002).

THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC A brief essay on transmission, infection, symptoms and treatment

December of 2019, in Wuhan, a large metropolitan area inside China's Hubei province, an epidemic of unexplained low respiratory infections seemed to be emerging. On December 31, cases where reported to the WHO country office in China. The first cases were dubbed cases of "pneumonia of unknown etiology.” Soon after , the Chinese Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) conducted a thorough outbreak investigation and eventually discovered that the disease may be attributed to a novel coronavirus belonging to the coronavirus family (CoV) and that it’s most likely origin was the Wuhan seafood market where an animal to human transmission most probably occurred (Cascella, 2020). By January 20, 2020 the first case had reported in the US and on January 30, 2020 the WHO declared the outbreak to be a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (CNN, 2020). Only a few weeks later on February 11, 2020 the WHO Director-General, announced that the disease caused by the virus would be named “COVID-19," as an acronym for “Coronavirus Disease 2019” and at that point the virus has began spreading around the globe as countries began taking their first measures. Additionally it seemed that virus had a more severe impact on elders and people with compromised immune systems, this was worrying as some people rained asymptomatic and continued to spread the virus without knowledge of doing so (Cascella, 2020). At this point, April 19, 2020, around 5 months after the initial reported cases, more than 2 million people around the globe have contracted the novel coronavirus while health care systems are struggling to cope with the huge numbers of patients admitted to hospitals eventually leading to an increased mortality rate (WHO, "COVID-19 situation reports", 2020). The situation is complicated and may be analyzed from many different perspectives and fields as the outbreak has temporarily changed the dynamics of how society operates. This essay will cover the basic biochemical processes involved in the transmission and infection associated with COVID-19 along with symptoms, complications, and treatment.

Is factory farming -also- to blame for coronavirus?

As the pandemic is ongoing scientists try to find conclusive answers on where the pandemic came from and how it spilled over to humans. As the answers are pieced together there seems to be causality in fields that escape our attention while they really shouldn’t.