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MONDAY, April 20, 2020 (HealthDay News) -- The lifesaving benefits of strict social distancing rules during the coronavirus pandemic far outweigh their projected harm to the U.S. economy, a new report claims. "Our benefit-cost analysis shows that the extensive social distancing measures being adopted in the U.S. likely do not constitute an overreaction," said lead author Linda Thunstrom, an assistant professor of economics at the University of Wyoming in Laramie. "Social distancing saves lives but comes at large costs to society due to reduced economic activity," she said in a university news release. "Still, based on our benchmark assumptions, the economic benefits of lives saved substantially outweigh the value of the projected losses to the U.S. economy." Assuming that social...

MONDAY, April 20, 2020 (HealthDay News) -- The virus struck swiftly, stoking panic, fear and mistrust as it sickened millions and killed thousands -- and now, more than a century later, the 1918 Spanish flu pandemic offers lasting lessons for a world in the grip of COVID-19. "The questions they asked then are the questions being asked now," said Christopher Nichols, an associate professor of history at Oregon State University, in Corvallis. "And while it's very rare that history provides a simple straightforward lesson for the present, this is one of those instances." Experts say there are four key takeaways from 1918. Here's the first: As devastating as the current pandemic may be, the Spanish flu pandemic remains the worst in world history -- by far, said E. Thomas Ewing, a...

MONDAY, April 20, 2020 (HealthDay News) -- Dr. Tom Moore argued forcefully in favor of the stay-at-home order that has helped limit the spread of COVID-19 cases in Wichita, Kan. Moore appeared before the Sedgwick County Commission on March 24 to testify the order was necessary, and the order went out the very next day. "Literally the very next day, we started to see more cases pop up," said Moore, director of infection prevention at Wesley Medical Center in Wichita. "We just barely nipped it in the bud." Two weeks later, Moore started being peppered with the question now being debated across the nation. "Now we're getting a lot of people asking when things will go back to normal," Moore said. America will reopen for business, but to do so in a safe way will require a massive and...

MONDAY, April 20, 2020 (HealthDay News) -- Eighteen patients with severe COVID-19 treated at a New York City hospital showed the classic signs of a heart attack on their electrocardiograms. But a closer look at each case revealed that more than half of these patients didn't have a blockage in a major artery, the typical trigger of a heart attack. Thirteen of the 18 patients died of cardiac causes while in the hospital, said a team from the New York University Grossman School of Medicine. These findings, published April 17 in the New England Journal of Medicine, suggest that there's something about the stress of severe COVID-19 that may be harming the heart in atypical ways, said one cardiologist who wasn't involved in the report. "As we continue to learn about the impact COVID-19...