As Australia faces another “covid wave” before Christmas — at least if you believe the scary news reports — and with the dirty, dirty holiday season coming up, I thought the summer series should kick off with infectious disease physician Dr Trent Yarwood. And so it does.
In this episode we also talk about the joys of syphilis and gonorrhoea, the dangers of hand-washing, the complexity of medical supply chains, why Australia didn’t get a monkeypox epidemic, fencing (yes), drug shortages, and more generally, how everything is just getting worse.
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Trent Yarwood has been on the Edict several times before.
Episode Links
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Computer geek, infection / public health doc, steward, fencer. UQ & JCU. Fan of social justice. 'ninja old guy'. Doesn't pity the fool.
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[12 December 2023] The BOM is forecasting Jasper to arrive near Port Douglas as a category 2 storm, but says it could make landfall anywhere from Cooktown to Atherton, which are about 300 kilometres apart.
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The severity of a tropical cyclone is ranked in categories from 1 (weakest) to 5 (strongest).
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Fire danger ratings are now simpler and give you clear actions to take.
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[6 April 2020] Epidemiological data indicate a substantial number of young Aboriginal people do not test for STIs. Rigorous qualitative research can enhance understanding of these findings... Strategies to improve uptake of STI testing must tackle the overlapping social and health service factors that discourage young people from seeking sexual health support. Much can be learned from young people’s lived sexual health experiences and family- and community-based health promotion practices.
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Chlamydia is a sexually transmissible infection. Many people who are infected do not have symptoms of infection but can still spread the disease. Chlamydia can lead to infertility, and other complications if not treated.?
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[24 November 2023] The state [NSW] is in the grip of a fresh COVID wave and we're being warned vaccination is our best defence. The infection rate has exploded, doubling in a little over a month, and authorities are on edge as Christmas approaches.
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[7 December 2023] Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly says the latest COVID wave has been less severe in terms of hospitalisations but warned cases may rise ahead of the festive season.
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[7 December 2023] More than 100 staff at North Queensland's only tertiary hospital are on sick leave with COVID-19 as cases surge in Townsville. The outbreak is slowing down operations in Townsville University Hospital's (TUH) emergency department and some elective surgeries have been suspended.
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[30 November 2023] Health officials are monitoring a surge in respiratory illness in China with hospitals reporting a growing number of cases, especially among children.
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[11 December 2023] New COVID booster shots are now available in Australia. And as cases rise ahead of the holiday period yet again, experts say the new vaccines will still help protect against the subvariants currently spreading around the country.
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Fencing is a combat sport that features sword fighting. The three disciplines of modern fencing are the foil, the épée, and the sabre (also saber); each discipline uses a different kind of blade, which shares the same name, and employs its own rules. Most competitive fencers specialise in one discipline.
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Connections is a science education television series created, written, and presented by British science historian James Burke. The series was produced and directed by Mick Jackson of the BBC Science and Features Department and first aired in 1978 (UK) and 1979 (US). It took an interdisciplinary approach to the history of science and invention, and demonstrated how various discoveries, scientific achievements, and historical world events were built from one another successively in an interconnected way to bring about particular aspects of modern technology. The series was noted for Burke's crisp and enthusiastic presentation (and dry humour), historical re-enactments, and intricate working models.
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[All extant episodes appear to be here in the Internet Archive] Connections is a science education television series created, written, and presented by science historian James Burke. The series was produced and directed by Mick Jackson of the BBC Science and Features Department and first aired in 1978 (UK) and 1979 (US). It took an interdisciplinary approach to the history of science and invention, and demonstrated how various discoveries, scientific achievements, and historical world events were built from one another successively in an interconnected way to bring about particular aspects of modern technology. The series was noted for Burke's crisp and enthusiastic presentation (and dry humour), historical re-enactments, and intricate working models.
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The northeast blackout of 1965 was a significant disruption in the supply of electricity on Tuesday, November 9, 1965, affecting parts of Ontario in Canada and Connecticut, Delaware, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, and Vermont in the United States. Over 30 million people and 80,000 square miles (207,000 km2) were left without electricity for up to 13 hours
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[10 December 2023] After a year of nationwide drug shortages, Aussies will still have to go without a range of critical medications this holiday season.
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This isn't a book for people who want to fix Big Tech. It's a detailed disassembly manual for people who want to dismantle it.
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Piperacillin/tazobactam, sold under the brand name Tazocin among others, is a combination medication containing the antibiotic piperacillin and the ?-lactamase inhibitor tazobactam...Apart from Tazocin and Zosyn, the drug is marketed in various countries under other trade names such as Tazovex,Tazact, Biopiper TZ, Brodactam, Piptaz, Maxitaz, Kilbac, Trezora, Du-Tazop, Tazopen, Sytaz, Tazin, and Inzalin TZ... Various sources have referred to a shortage of the drug since May 2017, citing various reasons, including an earthquake in China and other issues at the major production facility in ?? (Hisun); increased demand; withdrawal of funding by a major pharmaceutical company.
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The 2023 Optus outage was an unplanned outage of all Optus internet, cellular and fixed-line services in Australia first detected on 8 November 2023 at 04:05 AEDT. The outage caused disruption across government and corporate sectors including hospitals, banks, train services, EFTPOS payment systems, and calls to emergency services. Restoration was gradual with some services being restored around 13:00 AEDT. The outage directly affected more than 10 million people and 400,000 businesses across Australia.
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[30 November 2023] The death of one person and infection of dozens others has prompted the urgent multi-state investigation.
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[30 October 2023] FDA is recommending that you discard these products immediately.
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[5 December 2023] White lung syndrome in the U.S. appears to be hitting Ohio the hardest with health officials in one county citing at least 145 cases in children between the ages of 3 and 14 years old. All three of Hollie Overton's toddlers are sick. Her daughter Lucy has pediatric pneumonia, which is also called white lung syndrome because of the cloudy image that shows up on a chest x-ray.
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[6 December 2023] An Ohio county is reporting an uptick in pediatric pneumonia cases. But they aren’t the result of a new illness called “white lung syndrome,” as a viral post claims.
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A short hospital stay was required for the operation, and the plan had been to keep the visit under wraps. However, those plans were thwarted by overly enthusiastic hospital staff, who Titmus believed would inadvertently leak news of her stay.
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