Health education curriculums need to specifically prepare healthcare professionals to respond to a pandemic when it comes to aspects like infection control, aged care and mental health.
Academic rigour, journalistic flair
COVID-19 – Articles, Analysis, Comment
Displaying 176 - 200 of 641 articles
Amid good news on the vaccine trial-front, Australia must think more carefully about how a national roll-out would work.
Data coming through from phase 3 trials are encouraging. But participants don’t represent the whole community — so we can’t be sure these vaccines will work as well in everyone.
Airline health advice has so far mostly focused on staying hydrated and avoiding deep vein thrombosis. What passengers really want, however, is free hand masks, hand sanitiser and more space between passengers.
Data from around the world, including Australia, indicate the pandemic has made things more difficult for people with eating disorders for a variety of reasons.
While enrolments for men over the age of 25 increased, numbers fell for women in this age group. A likely reason for the difference is caring responsibilities, which increased during the pandemic.
Face masks work well to stop the spread of diseases like coronavirus in the lab, but in the real world they seem to be less effective.
Detection of a virus in wastewater implies the presence of infected people in a community. It’s not quite so simple though.
Clear messaging about who needs to get tested is better than stigmatising people who are understandably worried about their health.
Pfizer and BioNTech have announced 95% efficacy for their mRNA vaccine, having met the final target they need to before seeking regulatory approval.
The US health system costs roughly twice as much as the Australian system per person. Despite this, the US has lower life expectancy than Australia.
Asking these four questions can help us identify good news when we see it, be more critical of news reports, or delay our judgement until we have more information.
In my view the short, sharp lockdown is warranted. It will give authorities time to discover the extent of exposure from this cluster.
A private market should have no place in the rollout of a COVID vaccine.
We will struggle to find a vaccine that works perfectly for people who need it most, despite what the headlines say is coming in 2021.
Super-spreader events typically have the ‘three Vs" in common: indoor venues, poor ventilation and vocalisation. But many buildings frequented by the public lack ventilation or the means to monitor it.
Moderna’s shot is far easier to store and distribute than Pfizer’s. But there are concerns neither vaccine performs particularly well for older people.
While Chief Scientist Alan Finkel’s review of contact tracing only briefly mentions digital methods, it’s crucial Australia invests in an automated system.
South Australia’s COVID cluster is disappointing after a long stretch of no community transmission. Now we need to act to stop it growing exponentially.
To navigate the toughest phase of their careers, junior academics need to know more than how to write research papers and apply for grants. Structured mentoring, based on their input, is a huge help.
Distributing a vaccine is a bit like boarding a plane — we can’t all board at the same time. So who gets priority? There are a few reasons we should consider vaccinating older people first.
There’s no guarantee future COVID-19 vaccines will work in the elderly. So we can consider vaccinating the young first to protect them. Here’s what we need to work out first.
COVID led to commuting time savings worth over $2,000 a year for each driver and $5,000 per public transport user. But as workplaces reopen, we may need road user charges to keep traffic flowing.
The loss of the simple act of hugging has taken a big emotional toll for many people during the pandemic.
Watch two of Australia and New Zealand’s top vaccine and virus experts answering questions about COVID-19. This was filmed at a Conversation reader event with Avid Reader bookshop.