Could drive-through clinics make medical care safer—and help hospitals offset the $50 billion they’re losing each month during the COVID-19 pandemic? Seattle-based architecture firm NBBJ has come up with a new concept that could reduce the risk of contamination for patients visiting hospitals: a drive-through medical clinic. Read Full Story

The decision could be a huge break for renters affected by the pandemic, but it’s not totally clear who qualifies or what the terms are. We’ve tried to clear it up. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued an order on September 1 banning evictions of people who lost work as a result of the pandemic. To benefit, renters must sign a declaration that they don’t make more than $99,000 a year or $198,000 for those filing a joint return and that they essentially have no options other than homelessness. But the order, which takes effect on September 4, leaves some questions unanswered. We asked Katy Ramsey Mason, an assistant professor of law and director of the University of Memphis Medical-Legal Partnership Clinic, to answer some of them. Read Full Story

Despite the fact that the pandemic has killed 200,000 Americans, neither candidate presented a plan for how to bring it under control. Melania arrived in a pinstripe suit wearing a big white surgical mask. Attendees sat six feet apart. On Tuesday night, President Donald Trump and former Vice President Joe Biden met to debate at the health education campus of Case Western and Cleveland Clinic, one of the foremost medical institutions in country. But over the course of an hour and a half, both failed to tell the American people how we will come out of this pandemic. Read Full Story

AbCellera’s Pandemic Prevention Platform team brought the first COVID-19 antibody to clinical trials in under 90 days. Together with Eli Lilly and NIAID’s Vaccine Research Center, AbCellera’s Pandemic Prevention Platform team combined microfluidics, data science, machine learning, bioinformatics, and genomics to bring the first COVID-19 antibody to clinical trials in under 90 days, a process that typically requires three to six years. In June Eli Lilly began two Phase 1 clinical trials of COVID-19 antibodies isolated by AbCellera. “People have pushed themselves to the very limits of their endurance in this race against the virus,” says AbCellera head of R&D Ester Falconer. Read Full Story

The clinical trials company checks in at number eight on the list of 100. Small and nimble, clinical trials company 4G Clinical moves quickly to leverage technology to expedite medication for FDA approval. When the coronavirus hit, the team pivoted to focus on delivering drugs to step up clinical trials. “Starting in mid-March, we have been at the forefront of getting trials directly to people’s homes,” says founder and CEO David Kelleher. “When COVID-­19 hit, we acted fast.” Read Full Story

Last year, Boston Scientific launched 87 new products. In 2019, the medical device company launched 87 new products, including a revolutionary single-use duodenoscope developed by a 150-person team of internal engineers and clinical experts. According to the FDA, more than 5% of reusable scopes are contaminated with pathogens that can cause fatal infections. “The team was huge,” says executive vice president Dave Pierce, “and the investment significant. We were lucky to have the resources to put against this. You can’t do it on a shoestring.” Read Full Story

It limits exposure of medical staff and other patients, frees up the hospital for other work, and allows you to test a lot of people quickly (if there are enough tests, of course). Drive-through coronavirus testing is popping up across the U.S., and other countries affected by the coronavirus pandemic have already been deploying this tool for weeks. South Korea has been operating drive-through testing facilities since February; there, the speedy clinics have helped Korean health officials conduct up to 15,000 tests a day, and this way of testing is credited with helping slow the spread of COVID-19 and reducing deaths. Drive-through testing alone won’t rid us of COVID-19, but it’s an important step toward curbing the pandemic, for multiple reasons. Read Full Story

Last week, the UK became the first Western nation to approve the vaccine developed by Pfizer and BioNTech.

Why do men go to sexual health clinics? The reasons have shifted sharply over the last decade. Why do men go to sexual health clinics? The reasons have shifted sharply over the last decade. Ten years ago, the average age of attendance was 61, and impotence and premature ejaculation topped the list of complaints. But a new wave of problems has risen to the fore: low libido and curvature of the penis, which are now appearing in much younger patients. The average age is 53. Read Full Story

One of the effects of the pandemic is that it’s brought previously obscure medical terms to the forefront of everyday speech—but it’s also created new words that we’ve never seen before. In April , the editors of the Oxford English Dictionary did something unusual. For the previous 20 years, they had issued quarterly updates to announce new words and meanings selected for inclusion. These updates have typically been made available in March, June, September, and December. Read Full Story