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FRIDAY, Sept. 4, 2020 (HealthDay News) -- Face masks and hand-washing are a good start, but to protect your kids from the coronavirus you'll need to up your game on the road, too, a leading pediatricians' group says. There are a number of things parents should do to protect children from COVID-19 infection when they're traveling in cars or using other types of transportation, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP). As always, children in vehicles should be properly restrained in an appropriate car safety seat, belt-positioning booster seat, travel vest or seat belt. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends that surfaces be disinfected. However, disinfectant chemicals can weaken the strength of car safety seats and seat belts, possibly affecting...

FRIDAY, Sept. 4, 2020 (HealthDay News) -- Even light smokers are much more likely to die of lung disease or lung cancer than nonsmokers, a new study warns. "Everyone knows that smoking is bad for you, but it's easy to assume that if you only smoke a little, the risks won't be too high," said study co-leader Pallavi Balte, of Columbia University Irving Medical Center, in New York City. The new study shows how wrong that thinking can be. It included nearly 19,000 people in the United States, average age 61, who were followed for an average of 17 years. During that time, nearly 650 died of lung disease (such as emphysema) and 560 died of lung cancer. Among nonsmokers, less than 2% died from lung disease and less than 1% died from lung cancer. But among social smokers (fewer than 10...

FRIDAY, Sept. 4, 2020 (HealthDay News) -- New research may have people with asthma breathing a little easier: Doctors found the airway disease doesn't raise the risk of being hospitalized due to COVID-19. The researchers also noted that people with asthma weren't more likely than people without it to need a ventilator to help them breathe. "A lot of people with asthma think they have a predisposition to severe COVID, and they worry a lot about going out. They should take precautions like using their masks, but they may not need to worry so much," said study author Dr. Fernando Holguin. He's director of the Asthma Clinical and Research Program at the University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, in Aurora. Holguin said the proportion of hospitalized COVID-19 patients with asthma...

FRIDAY, Sept. 4, 2020 (Healthday News) -- The chief adviser for the White House vaccine program said Thursday it was "extremely unlikely, but not impossible" that a vaccine could be available by the end of October. Speaking with National Public Radio, Dr. Moncef Slaoui said that the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's guidance to states to prepare for a vaccine as early as late October was "the right thing to do" in case a vaccine was ready by that time. "It would be irresponsible not to be ready if that was the case," Slaoui said, adding that he first heard about the new CDC guidance from media reports, the Washington Post said. Still, Slaoui, the chief scientific adviser for Operation Warp Speed, described getting a vaccine by late October as a "very, very low...