25 June 2020
THURSDAY, June 25, 2020 (HealthDay News) -- Sports fans are itching to watch their favorite teams return to play, but are jam-packed arenas even remotely safe in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic?
For Glenn Rall, chief academic officer and a virologist at the Fox Chase Cancer Center in Philadelphia, the answer isn't simple.
"There are inherent dangers," he said. "And the rational decision may simply be that, no, we can't do this. But I don't think we, as scientists, can just sit in our prototypical ivory tower and just say this is too dangerous, and nothing can happen until we have a vaccine. Because we are not going to have a vaccine available until at least mid-2021. And it's not realistic to say to the public 'Just stay inside forever.'"
For one thing, Rall explained, the...
25 June 2020
THURSDAY, June 25, 2020 (HealthDay News) -- A saliva-based test for the new coronavirus will be assessed in a study that includes NBA players and staff, Yale University researchers said.
"Our players are excited to be a part of this study," said Joe Rogowski, chief medical officer of the National Basketball Players Association.
"Not only does it offer the potential for players to have an alternative method of testing within the NBA campus in Orlando, but more importantly it allows them to leverage their regular testing to make a larger contribution to public health in the fight against this virus," he said in a Yale news release.
The new method, called SalivaDirect, was developed at Yale as an alternative to the widely used nasal-swab method for SARS-CoV-2 testing.
The swabbing...
24 June 2020
WEDNESDAY, June 24, 2020 (HealthDay News) -- With opioid addiction soaring in the United States, it should come as good news that an opioid painkiller may not be needed after a sports-injury repair.
A mix of non-addictive medicines may be safer and equally successful in managing pain after shoulder or knee surgery, a study from Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit indicates.
Concerned about the opioid abuse epidemic, doctors there tested a different regimen for pain relief. They treated post-surgical pain with a combination of non-opioid medications, including anti-inflammatories, muscle relaxants and nerve pain relievers.
Nearly half of the study participants required no opioids for pain relief.
"It's a complete change," said lead author and orthopedic surgeon Dr. Vasilios Moutzouros....
24 June 2020
WEDNESDAY, June 24, 2020 (HealthDay News) -- Restarting professional sports with fans in attendance may not be a good idea as it may increase COVID-19 deaths, a new flu study suggests.
Cities with pro teams appear to have more flu deaths than cities without them, which may be important as the NBA, NFL and other leagues consider playing games while the coronavirus pandemic continues, researchers say.
Several professional sports leagues in the United States have said they plan to resume play without fans in the stands while many soccer leagues around the world are doing the same, but France, Japan and Spain have announced plans to allow some sports fans back into stadiums before summer's end.
In the flu study, data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from 1962 to...