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THURSDAY, April 23, 2020 (HealthDay News) -- Sparse traffic on U.S. roads during the coronavirus pandemic has spawned a spike in speeding and other types of reckless driving, the Governors Highway Safety Association (GHSA) says. Here are some examples. Police in Colorado, Indiana, Nebraska and Utah have clocked drivers going more than 100 miles per hour on highways. In Los Angeles, cars are going as much as 30% faster on some streets, prompting changes to traffic lights and pedestrian walk signals. In New York City, automated speed cameras issued 24,765 speeding tickets on March 27 -- nearly double the number issued daily a month earlier -- despite far fewer cars being on the road. Some states have lower crash rates but more serious crashes. Car crash death rates are on the rise...

THURSDAY, April 23, 2020 (HealthDay News) -- Contact lens users may be at increased risk for coronavirus infection, so they need to be extra careful, an eye expert says. "There are no confirmed cases of COVID-19 transmission by handling of contact lenses," said David Chu, assistant professor of ophthalmology at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School, in Newark. "However, since contact lenses can cause eye irritation, wearers tend to touch their face or to rub their eyes more often, which puts them at a higher risk for acquiring infection." Strict hygiene is essential when wearers handle their contacts. "They must wash their hands for a minimum of 20 seconds with soap and water, and dry their hands completely before handling contact lenses," Chu said in a Rutgers news release. Standard...

THURSDAY, April 23, 2020 (HealthDay News) -- Dozens of drugs are being investigated for their value in treating COVID-19, as desperation drives doctors and researchers to look for something that could battle the virus and save lives. "There are really no FDA-approved medications for the treatment of COVID-19, unfortunately," said Ashley Barlow, a pharmacy resident with the University of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore. "We're doing the best we can to try and ramp up studies, but since we're doing it in such a quick period of time there are a lot of flaws we have to take into consideration." The COVID-19 drugs being tried and tested fall into two general categories, explained Dr. Rajesh Gandhi, director of HIV clinical services and education at Massachusetts General Hospital in...

THURSDAY, April 23, 2020 (HealthDay News) -- Even at the beginning of April, large percentages of residents at U.S. homeless shelters were testing positive for the new coronavirus, studies show. One study looked at the results of coronavirus testing conducted at homeless shelters in four American cities -- Atlanta, Boston, San Francisco and Seattle. Testing included almost 1,200 residents and 300 staffers and was done in late March and early April, according to a team led by Emily Mosites, from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The findings: In Boston, 36% of homeless shelter residents and 30% of staff tested positive for the new coronavirus; in San Francisco those numbers were 66% and 16%, respectively; and in Seattle infections were 17% for both residents and...