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Justice Thomas, who was hospitalized on Friday, was being treated with intravenous antibiotics and was expected to be released in a day or two, the court said on Sunday.Justice Clarence Thomas, the longest-serving member of the U.S. Supreme Court, was hospitalized with an infection on Friday after experiencing flulike symptoms, the court said in a statement on Sunday.Justice Thomas was being treated with intravenous antibiotics at Sibley Memorial Hospital in Washington, the statement said.Patricia McCabe, a spokeswoman for the Supreme Court, said that Justice Thomas’s illness was not Covid-19 or related to the virus.“His symptoms are abating, he is resting comfortably, and he expects to be released from the hospital in a day or two,” the statement said, adding that he would participate in the “consideration and discussion of any cases” that he cannot physically be present for “on the basis of the briefs, transcripts, and audio of the oral arguments.”Justice Thomas, 73, was nominated by President George H.W. Bush and was seated on Oct. 23, 1991, making him the court’s most senior conservative member.He and the eight other Supreme Court justices have been vaccinated and boosted against Covid-19.At least two justices, Amy Coney Barrett and Brett M. Kavanaugh, have previously contracted the virus.The Supreme Court reconvenes on Monday.Adam Liptak

SharecloseShare pageCopy linkAbout sharingImage source, Getty ImagesChina and Hong Kong are seeing their largest spike in Covid cases in more than two years, despite determinedly pursuing one of the world’s strictest virus elimination policies. Most countries are now trying to live with coronavirus – so how long can China hold on to its “zero-Covid” goal? Striking a balanceFor the last two years, China’s strict measures to contain Covid, enforced by swift lockdowns and aggressive restrictions, seemed to be largely paying off. As the rest of the world grappled with surges in cases and deaths in 2020, China’s President Xi Jinping declared the country’s handling of the pandemic through lockdowns and widespread testing a success – and touted its methods as being the most effective in dealing with the virus. The zero-Covid model was therefore strictly enforced both in mainland China and Hong Kong.But things soon began to change. The first signs of strain on the much-vaunted zero-Covid model in China began to appear when authorities were forced to impose increasingly large lockdowns triggered by the more infectious Delta variant in 2021. These started to raise questions about how long China could maintain this policy. And now Omicron has called it further into question. In mainland China, thousands of cases are now being reported each day and millions of people in the north-eastern province of Jilin have been placed under lockdown – the first time China had restricted an entire province since the early days of the pandemic in Wuhan. Hong Kong, which was previously almost untouched by the virus, is now seeing 30,000 cases and more than 200 deaths a day. The city’s healthcare system has been overrun, with shocking images of people in need of hospital care receiving rudimentary treatment outside medical facilities. Image source, Getty ImagesIt’s a situation unlike anything the country has seen for the past two years. Officially, the Chinese government has not budged from its zero-Covid position. But there have been some signs that it may be softening its stance on how best to deal with the virus.Earlier this week, China’s National Health Commission said it was changing its rules so that mild cases would be isolated in centralised locations, rather than treated in hospitals. The criteria for a patient to be discharged from quarantine has also been lowered.”In the past, China would actually admit every patient – whether they were asymptomatic or with just mild symptoms – to the hospital,” Prof Jin Dong-yan of The University of Hong Kong told the BBC. “The fact they’re now proposing to [locally isolate] them – that’s one step to show they recognise that there’s a large group of people that do not need much help.”During China’s recent National People’s Congress meeting, Chinese Premier Li Keqiang also said China would continue to make its Covid-19 response more “scientific and targeted”. “[Premier Li’s speech] hints that the government is ready to be more flexible and loosen restrictions gradually,” said Prof Chen Gang of the National University of Singapore. “Under [a more] dynamic policy, more emphasis will be placed on striking a balance between disease control and enabling people to live normal lives.”Businesses shut as China widens Covid lockdownsThe messy cost of China’s harsh lockdown playbookHow Hong Kong’s Covid plan went wrongOn the ground as well, there’s also been a noticeable shift in attitudes. Last year, top Chinese epidemiologist Zhang Wenhong suggested that China would eventually need to “co-exist” with the virus. He was met with a barrage of criticism, with some calling him a traitor, and others saying he was colluding with foreign forces to undermine China’s Covid response. But just this week, Dr Zhang posted another message on Chinese social media that got a very different reception.While he said that it was necessary for China to maintain its zero-Covid strategy for now, he added that it should not be afraid to eventually move towards a more “sustainable coping strategy” in the future. “With this virus, alleviating fear is the first step we must take,” he said. “Omicron has become so mild, in countries that have achieved widespread vaccination and natural infection rates, it may be less deadly than even the flu.”This time, he was not met with vitriol – and was instead widely praised. “Thank you Dr Zhang for your scientific and rational [take] on issues,” one comment said.Others shared their struggles over the past years – a sign of growing frustration after more than two years of lockdowns.”These past few years, I have suffered a lot. I have lost my freedom – all in the name of the virus,” one said.According to Professor Huang Yanzhong, a senior fellow for global health at the Council on Foreign Relations, there is a sense that “public support for zero-Covid is in decline”. “My sense is that especially in bigger cities like Shanghai, some people are saying it’s just too much. While there’s still overall public support for zero-Covid – it’s being undermined by the recent Omicron wave,” he said. Politics and the pandemicSo how much longer can China hold on?Experts say we are unlikely to see any big moves this year, especially not now while it is in the throes of its biggest outbreak in years.Many believe loosening restrictions now could lead to an overwhelmed healthcare system – and a huge spike in the death rate. All mainland China needs to do is look to Hong Kong to see a city struggling to contain its outbreak, with morgues filled to capacity and hospitals swamped with patients. Prof Huang says China’s Centre for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has been proclaiming the fact that it has avoided a significant number of deaths, and “there is no doubt that opening will lead to a rapid increase in cases”.”The dilemma is do you want to accept short-term pain – a significant increase of cases, deaths – for long-term stability?”Analysts believe the answer is unlikely to be yes – especially right now.”If restrictions are loosened, the number of deaths may shoot up, leading to social panic – something that will not be allowed in the politically sensitive year of the 20th party congress,” said Prof Chen. This Chinese Communist Party 20th party congress is one of the country’s most important political events of the decade, and on paper, was when President Xi Jinping was supposed to step down, having come to the end of his two term-limit in office.Image source, Getty ImagesBut this limit was removed and there is growing certainty that Mr Xi will secure another term in power as party chief and come out of the congress “more powerful than ever”, according to Michael Cunningham of research institution the Heritage Foundation. “The government usually shifts the pendulum toward preserving stability in party congress years, as those in power seek to avoid crises rather than make bold decisions that, if unsuccessful, could negatively impact their career prospects,” said Mr Cunningham in a report. Mr Xi himself said in a politburo meeting on Thursday that China would stick to its dynamic zero-Covid policy, saying: “Victory comes from perseverance”. With this clear instruction coming from the top, its more likely that officials will instead put in place smaller and gradual measures, similar to those already being made – but with no “fundamental” change – for now. “The problem with the zero-Covid policy is that it doesn’t accept risks,” says Prof Huang. “And unless [the Chinese government] is no longer obsessed with worst-case scenarios, you cannot expect to see a fundamental change to its policy.”More on this storyBusinesses shut as China widens Covid lockdownsThe messy cost of China’s harsh lockdown playbookHow Hong Kong’s Covid plan went wrongXi Jinping cements status with historic resolution

Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the Biden administration’s top adviser on the pandemic, predicted on Sunday an “uptick” in coronavirus infections similar to the current increase in Europe, despite the current decline in cases, hospitalizations and deaths in the United States.It is “no time at all to declare victory, because this virus has fooled us before and we really must be prepared for the possibility that we might get another variant,” Dr. Fauci said on ABC’s “This Week.” “And we don’t want to be caught flat-footed on that.”While anticipating a new rise, Dr. Fauci said that at this time he does not expect a surge. Still, the BA.2 subvariant has been shown to be a more contagious version of the Omicron variant, though it, too, causes less-severe illness in most people.Epidemiologists have said the current lull in U.S. cases mirrors the dip that Europe enjoyed before many officials in the region relaxed restrictions like indoor masking.Global coronavirus cases by regionThis chart shows how reported cases per capita have changed in different parts of the world.

SharecloseShare pageCopy linkAbout sharingThis video can not be playedTo play this video you need to enable JavaScript in your browser.In his hospital bed, little Artem stares into space. He clutches a small yellow toy tractor but says nothing as specialist nurses monitor his condition. The Russian shell that blasted shrapnel into his belly also badly wounded his parents and grandparents as they tried to flee Mariupol. A victim of Putin’s war and he’s not yet three years old. In the next bed to Artem lies 15-year-old Masha, also from near Mariupol. Her right leg was amputated after it was torn apart by the blast from a Russian shell last Tuesday. The very worst of Vladimir Putin’s war in Ukraine and what the relentless Russian bombardment has done to the people trapped in the besieged city of Mariupol, can be seen at the Regional Children’s Hospital in the nearby city of Zaporizhzhia.Hundreds of people have been evacuated here. Their physical wounds are obvious and may, to an extent, heal. The psychological trauma will live with them for ever. Doctors here and the children’s surviving relatives, asked us to tell their stories, among them Dr Yuri Borzenko, head of the Children’s Hospital. He can’t hide his contempt for what Russia has done. “I hate Russia,” says Dr Borzenko, without a flicker of emotion on his face. “The girl who lost her leg (Masha) was so traumatised she wouldn’t eat or drink for days. She couldn’t mentally handle what had happened. We had to feed her intravenously.” “Another boy,” says the doctor, “a six-year-old, with shrapnel in his skull described – without any tears or emotion – watching his mother burn to death in their car after it was hit. Two days later he said ‘dad buy me a new mum, I need someone to walk me to school’.” What is happening in Mariupol is a humanitarian disaster, even – perhaps – a war crime. An estimated 90% of the city’s buildings have been damaged or destroyed. After last week’s destruction of a theatre where more than 1,000 people were sheltering, reports today that an arts school, with 400 people inside, has also been attacked. Those who’ve been able to escape Mariupol talk of unimaginable horrors. First-hand accounts of bodies lying in the streets, of homes destroyed. Carrying those memories they put as much physical distance as they can between themselves and what they went through. In a café in the central city of Dnipro, which itself has come under Russian fire, we met Oksana Gusak. With her husband Andrii, and her parents, Oksana fled Mariupol last week through mined roads and a dozen hostile Russian army checkpoints. Just drinking a glass of water now feels like a luxury for Oksana, after they had run out of everything in Mariupol. They all politely turn down our offer of coffee, saying it would be an insult to the family members they left behind in parts of Mariupol from where it was impossible to flee. Her husband, Andrii, told me there was no water supply in the city, no power, no heating and no communications so they had no choice but to go. “Absolutely we were taking a risk but at that point I didn’t care whether I’d die in Mariupol or die trying to get out,” says Oksana. “We knew there was a chance, we’d be targeted and we realised we had to take that chance. If we would have stayed, the chances of surviving would be zero.” Andrii and Oksana are fortunate to have escaped unharmed and with each other. They know that. ‘Tanks in streets’ as fighting hits Mariupol centreMariupol theatre: ‘We knew something terrible would happen’Mariupol terror will go down in history – ZelenskyAt Zaporizhzhia’s Children’s Hospital, I came across one grief-stricken, inconsolable father whose family had been completely torn apart. His daughter Natasha, who was 26, and his 4-year-old granddaughter Dominica, were killed when a Russian shell landed near the shelter where the whole family was seeking refugee from the bombardment of Mariupol. “I looked at the ground and there lay my little granddaughter with her head completely torn to pieces,” says Vladimir. “She lay there without a single breath and right next to her was my daughter with her legs fractured, open fractures.” Image source, Family handout/BBCDominica – whose pictures her grandfather almost caresses on his phone – was killed instantly. Her mother died from her injuries the next day. As broken as he is, Vladimir is trying to stay strong for his second daughter, Diana. She was also critically wounded in the blast and was about to undergo emergency surgery. But he could not hide his pain. “God, why would you bring all this upon me? I was not supposed to bury my children, my lovely girls, I failed to protect you.” War in Ukraine: More coverage LIVE: Latest updates from Ukraine and nearbyANALYSIS: Putin’s redrawn the world – but not as he wantedBATTLEFIELD: What have been Russia’s military mistakes?WATCH: Drone footage shows Mariupol devastationIN DEPTH: Full coverage of the warMore on this story’Tanks in streets’ as fighting hits Mariupol centre’We knew something terrible was coming’Mariupol terror will go down in history – Zelensky

In this troubled time of war and pandemic, the World Happiness Report 2022 shows a bright light in dark times. According to the team of international researchers, including McGill University Professor Christopher Barrington-Leigh, the pandemic brought not only pain and suffering but also an increase in social support and benevolence.
As the world battles the ills of disease and war, it is especially important to remember the universal desire for happiness and the capacity of individuals to rally to each other’s support in times of great need, say the authors of the report. This year marks the 10th anniversary of the World Happiness Report, which uses global survey data to report on how people evaluate their own lives in more than 150 countries around the world reaching over 9 million people in 2021.
“COVID-19 is the biggest health crisis we’ve seen in more than a century,” says Professor John Helliwell of the University of British Columbia. “Now that we have two years of evidence, we are able to assess not just the importance of benevolence and trust, but to see how they have contributed to well-being during the pandemic.”
Growth in acts of kindness
Helliwell adds “We found during 2021 remarkable worldwide growth in all three acts of kindness monitored in the Gallup World Poll. Helping strangers, volunteering, and donations in 2021 were strongly up in every part of the world, reaching levels almost 25% above their pre-pandemic prevalence. This surge of benevolence, which was especially great for the helping of strangers, provides powerful evidence that people respond to help others in need, creating in the process more happiness for the beneficiaries, good examples for others to follow, and better lives for themselves.”
Finland takes the top spot while Canada drops to 15th place
For the fifth year in a row Finland takes the top spot as the happiest in the world. This year its score was significantly ahead of other countries in the top ten. Denmark continues to occupy second place, with Iceland up from 4th place last year to 3rd this year. Switzerland is 4th, followed by the Netherlands and Luxembourg. The top ten are rounded out by Sweden, Norway, Israel and New Zealand. The next five are Austria, Australia, Ireland, Germany and Canada, in that order. This marks a substantial fall for Canada, which was 5th ten years ago.

A study has found that much higher doses of antibiotics are needed to eliminate a bacterial infection of the airways when other microbes are present. It helps explain why respiratory infections often persist in people with lung diseases such as cystic fibrosis despite treatment.
In the study, published today in The ISME Journal, researchers say that even a low level of one type of microbe in the airways can have a profound effect on the way other microbes respond to antibiotics.
The results highlight the need to consider the interaction between different species of microbe when treating infections with antibiotics — and to adjust dosage accordingly.
“People with chronic infections often have co-infection with several pathogens, but the problem is we don’t take that into account in deciding how much of a particular antibiotic to treat them with. Our results might help explain why, in these people, the antibiotics just don’t work as well as they should,” said Thomas O’Brien, who carried out the research for his PhD in the University of Cambridge’s Department of Biochemistry and is joint first author of the paper.
Chronic bacterial infections such as those in the human airways are very difficult to cure using antibiotics. Although these types of infection are often associated with a single pathogenic species, the infection site is frequently co-colonised by a number of other microbes, most of which are not usually pathogenic in their own right.
Treatment options usually revolve around targeting the pathogen, and take little account of the co-habiting species. However, these treatments often fail to resolve the infection. Until now scientists have had little insight into why this is.

Equifax, Experian and TransUnion — the giant credit-reporting companies that each keep files on roughly 200 million Americans — said on Friday that they will soon wipe away credit stains created by certain medical debts.The changes — including removing black marks for people who settled a debt after it went to collections — were cheered by consumer advocates and reflected a growing acceptance that such debts aren’t the best predictor of a consumer’s financial behavior.The companies said the changes would eliminate up to 70 percent of the medical debt accounts on consumers’ credit reports, which contain reams of data used to calculate the all-important three-digit credit score that is the key to mortgages, car loans, rental agreements and more.Starting on July 1, medical debts that were paid after they went to collections will no longer appear on consumers’ credit reports, where they can currently linger for up to seven years.New unpaid medical debts will now only appear after a full year of being sent to collections — instead of the current six months. That will give people more time to address the debt with their insurance companies and health care providers.And beginning in the first half of 2023, the credit-reporting companies said, they will exclude unpaid medical collection debts under $500.“As an industry we remain committed to helping drive fair and affordable access to credit for all consumers,” the companies’ chief executives said in a statement.The changes mirror some already in action elsewhere: The formulas used to generate credit scores have already been updated to reduce the influence of paid medical debts. But older scoring models are still widely in circulation, so consumers haven’t necessarily reaped the benefits.And the three companies’ changes do go a bit further — for example, they will expunge more unpaid medical debts — while reducing the negative information flowing into the calculations of lenders that haven’t adopted the latest formulas.“This is huge, no doubt about it,” said Chi Chi Wu, a staff attorney at the National Consumer Law Center, “and it helps those people who have medical debt due to things like co-pays and deductibles, which is usually under $500.”But the changes will do little to lift the scores of people with the largest unpaid debts, who are often dealing with catastrophic or costly illnesses that result in high bills even with insurance coverage.“It is the sickest and poorest, the most vulnerable, who are the 30 percent,” Ms. Wu added, referring to the portion of unpaid medical debt accounts that will remain on credit reports.FICO, the most widely used credit score, baked in changes to ignore paid debts and to weigh certain unpaid medical collections less heavily starting in 2014 with its FICO 9 formula. It found that ignoring collection accounts — medical or otherwise — that had been paid would actually improve its score’s accuracy, so it eliminated them entirely.It also found that people with unpaid medical collections were less risky than those with other types of unpaid collections, so it factored in that information as well. But people with any unpaid accounts (including medical) were still riskier than those with none at all, so it did not go as far as eliminating medical debt from its algorithm altogether.VantageScore, FICO’s main competitor, made similar changes to its formula even earlier. It eliminated all paid collections, including medical debt, with a scoring model introduced in 2013. Ethan Dornhelm, FICO’s vice president of scores and predictive analytics, said the company was working with the credit-reporting companies to quantify how the changes may shift scores — and how many people will be affected. He said he believed the changes would have a similar effect as when the reporting companies eliminated two other sources of negative information: tax liens and civil judgments. Those affected generally saw their scores rise by 20 points or less, he said.If a consumer had an otherwise spotless credit report and eliminated a medical bill — paid or unpaid — it could boost a score by as much as 25 points, he added. (FICO scores range from 300 to 850, the higher the better.)“The more pristine the file looks after you take away that negative information, the more that score can increase,” Mr. Dornhelm said. The bureaus’ announcements came just weeks after the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau said it would be scrutinize the credit companies’ treatment of medical debt and would consider an outright ban on including medical debt in credit reports. The agency said its research suggested that roughly 43 million people had medical bills on their credit report as of June, totaling around $88 billion. Fifty-eight percent of collections debt appearing on credit reports was tied to medical bills, the bureau estimated.Medical debts are often difficult to resolve given the nation’s byzantine insurance system and confounding billing practices. Sometimes consumers aren’t even aware unpaid bills are lurking on their credit reports until they apply for a loan and their score is lower than expected. Regulators have targeted medical debts on credit reports before. Seven years ago, the credit bureaus reached a settlement with the New York State attorney general (and later with attorneys general of dozens of others) to overhaul their approach to fixing errors and their treatment of medical debt. Under that agreement, the companies established the six-month waiting period before reporting delinquent medical debt on consumers’ files; it also removed medical debts from reports after they had been paid by insurance.

An investigation into how human nerve cells differ from animal cells has provided researchers from The University of Texas at Dallas’ Center for Advanced Pain Studies (CAPS) with important clues in the pursuit of more effective treatments for chronic pain.
Dr. Ted Price BS’97, Ashbel Smith Professor of neuroscience in the School of Behavioral and Brain Sciences (BBS) and CAPS director, leads a team that is analyzing the origins of how pain is generated by nociceptors — pain-sensing nerve cells — in human dorsal root ganglia (DRG) neurons. Price is co-corresponding author of a study, featured on the cover of the Feb. 16 issue of Science Translational Medicine, that charts the full range of messenger RNA (mRNA) strands — a grouping called the transcriptome — produced in these cells.
Because mRNA is a single-stranded copy of a gene that can be translated into protein, the findings provide neuroscientists with a much better understanding of which genes are expressed in DRG neurons. The study also reinforces the value of studying human tissue — as opposed to animal cells — in the search for pain treatments.
DRG neurons are specialized nerve cells clustered near the base of the spine. Very little work has been done previously with these cells from humans due to the scarcity of their availability for research.
“We’re one of the few groups in the country with access to human donor DRG tissue acquired specifically for research,” said Stephanie Shiers PhD’19, neuroscience research scientist and a joint first author of the paper.
Shiers’ prior research made the case in broad terms that significant differences exist between the nociceptors in mice and humans. That work explained why proposed pain treatments that succeed in mice fail in humans.

First manufactured more than 50 years ago, ketamine is a fast-acting dissociative anesthetic often used in veterinary and emergency medicine. Ketamine also has a history of being an illicit party drug.
Now, ketamine is getting a closer look.
Researchers from UBC Okanagan and the University of Exeter have identified ketamine as a potentially powerful tool in the fight against mental illness.
In a recent study published in the British Journal of Psychiatry, the research team found ketamine to have significant anti-depressant and anti-suicidal effects. They also found evidence that suggests its benefits don’t stop there.
Led by Psychology Professor Dr. Zach Walsh and doctoral student Joey Rootman — both based in the Irving K. Barber Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences — the research team arrived at this conclusion after analyzing more than 150 worldwide studies on the effects of sub-anesthetic ketamine doses for the treatment of mental illness. The study was co-led by Professor Celia Morgan and doctoral student Merve Mollaahmetoglu from the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom.
“We found strong evidence that indicates ketamine provides rapid and robust anti-depressant and anti-suicidal effects, but the effects were relatively short-lived,” explains Rootman. “However, repeated dosing appeared to have the potential to increase the duration of positive effects.”
Beyond these results, the study provides evidence that suggests ketamine may be helpful in the treatment of other disorders, including eating disorders, problematic substance use, post-traumatic stress and anxiety — though the evidence in these areas is scarce.

Researchers at the University of California, Berkeley, have found that a drug once widely used to wean alcoholics off of drinking helps to improve sight in mice with retinal degeneration.
The drug may revive sight in humans with the inherited disease retinitis pigmentosa (RP), and perhaps in other vision disorders, including age-related macular degeneration.
A group of scientists led by Richard Kramer, UC Berkeley professor of molecular and cell biology, had previously shown that a chemical — retinoic acid — is produced when light-sensing cells in the retina, called rods and cones, gradually die off. This chemical causes hyperactivity in retinal ganglion cells, which ordinarily send visual information to the brain. The hyperactivity interferes with their encoding and transfer of information, obscuring vision.
He realized, however, that the drug disulfiram — also called Antabuse — inhibits not only enzymes involved in the body’s ability to degrade alcohol, but also enzymes that make retinoic acid. In new experiments, Kramer and collaborator Michael Goard, who directs a lab at UC Santa Barbara (UCSB), discovered that treatment with disulfiram decreased the production of retinoic acid and made nearly-blind mice much better at detecting images displayed on a computer screen.
Kramer suspects that retinoic acid plays an identical role in people with vision loss. But experiments measuring retinoic acid in the eye have not been done on humans because they would be too invasive.
Disulfiram — which is already approved for use by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) — could establish that link.The researchers are planning to partner with ophthalmologists to conduct a clinical trial of disulfiram on patients with RP. The trial would be carried out on a small set of people with advanced, but not yet complete, retinal degeneration.