The UK government has said it is “highly concerned” about two cases of a new mutation of the coronavirus which have been identified in people who have arrived from South Africa.

Surgeon General Jerome Adams said on Monday morning that people still had to wear masks and socially distance once they are vaccinated against COVID-19 because they can still pass on the virus.

While it has been proven to be 94% effective in preventing severe illness from the virus, it has not yet been proven to be a full proof means of preventing infection.

More study needs to be done before that can be known for certain, Adams said.

Intensive care nurse Sandra Lindsay received the first Pfizer shot in the U.S. at the Long Island Jewish Medical Center in Queens just before 9.30am this morning during a livestream with New York Gov Andrew Cuomo.

The vaccine will be rolled out gradually until around February and March, when it'll become widely available to the general public.

But even then, millions are skeptical about taking it. It means the virus could still circulate for months after millions of Americans become immunized against it.

People infected with COVID-19 may be likely to suffer long-term health effects from the virus, including erectile dysfunction among men, according to medical experts.

Infectious disease expert Dr Dena Grayson says there are now fears the disease could affect a man's ability to perform in the bedroom even after they've recovered.

'There is some real concern here that men could have long-term issues of erectile dysfunction from this virus because we know that it causes issues in the vasculature,' Grayson told NBC Chicago's LX this week.

As Covid-19 has spread around the world, it’s challenged preconceptions about which places would best tackle the worst public health crisis in a generation.

Advanced economies like the U.S. and U.K., ranked by various pre-2020 measures as being the most prepared for a pandemic, have been repeatedly overwhelmed by infections and face a return to costly lockdowns. Meanwhile, other countries—even developing nations—have defied expectations, some all but eliminating the pathogen within their borders.

Bloomberg crunched the numbers to determine the best places to be in the coronavirus era: where has the virus been handled most effectively with the least amount of disruption to business and society?

The three Nordic nations in the top 10 reflect how border control has been used effectively in Europe. Finland and Norway have blocked entry to most outsiders since mid-March, though they’re part of Europe’s passport-free Schengen area. The top-ranked European nations managed to avoid the resurgence now engulfing countries like France, the U.K. and Italy caused in part by summer vacation travel.

And as a parent myself, right now it feels like we're forming future adults in an environment where there's more distraction and disconnection than ever in human history.
From the cultural turbulence caused by uncertainty and polarization, to the endless social media and entertainment options, there's a long list of diversions competing for our kids' attention -- making it that much harder to connect with teens in ways that foster their healthy development as they move into young adulthood.

Research has shown this can be particularly challenging if those teens are male. Boys have been found to have higher high school dropout rates than girls, as well as higher suicide rates. They're struggling with technology, too: A 2007 survey found that young men are two to three times more likely than girls to feel addicted to video games.

In my work with families as a stress management and communication specialist, I've found that some young men have put so much attention on their digital devices that they've stopped connecting with their natural drive to become more responsible for their own well-being as a result.

In the summer of 1999, I heard about a wilderness adventure camp for young men in Vancouver, British Columbia. The leader of this event, Brad Leslie, invited me to serve as a volunteer while my son attended the camp as a participant. I needed the help of a village of men, he told me, to raise my son.

Coronavirus could age the brain by ten years or cause IQ to fall, a study has suggested.

Researchers have warned that survivors of the worst cases of the virus could be at risk of lasting mental damage, equivalent to an 8.5-point drop in IQ or the brain ageing a decade.

This 'brain fog' has already been reported by sufferers for weeks, even months after recovering from Covid-19.

Some have told of losing the ability to recall everyday facts or hold a conversation.

I live in a huge apartment complex with about 500 tenants. I happen to live on the back side of the complex, with a window facing the dumpster in the alleyway. Many of the maintenance workers hang out in that alley when they’re not working. I’ve been working from home for six months now, meaning I spend way more time overhearing their conversations than I used to. They probably spend three to four hours a day just shooting the breeze. They laugh loudly, speak at a way higher volume than necessary, and tell an endless number of sexist jokes in Spanish (I speak Spanish fluently so I can understand every word). I hate having to listen to sexist vitriol for literally hours every day. I’ve tried headphones and a white noise machine but neither block out the sound.

I finally gave up and emailed management. Three of the guys were fired. They have been replaced with workers who spend significantly less time joking and hanging out in the back alley. I view this as a win: I don’t have to be subjected to this for hours every day, and the guys learned a valuable lesson about not going on sexist rants at work. My partner, on the other hand, is angry at me. They say I should’ve just talked to the men myself (which seems naïve, considering they clearly hate women) or, in my email to the complex, asked for the men not to be fired. I disagree. All I did was speak up about an issue that affected me—it’s not my responsibility how the complex chooses to handle it. My partner is basically saying I’m a monster for getting blue-collar workers fired. We cannot seem to move past this issue. Did I do the right thing? What can I do now to get my partner and I past this difference of opinion?

—Not Sorry They’re Gone

For Mirabai Nicholson-McKellar, Covid-19 brought an onslaught of symptoms from chest pains to an 11-day migraine, three positive test results, and a period in hospital.

Seven months later, the rollercoaster is far from over: the 36-year-old from Byron Bay, Australia is still experiencing symptoms – including difficulties with thinking that are often described as “brain fog”.

“Brain fog seems like such an inferior description of what is actually going on. It’s completely crippling. I am unable to think clearly enough to [do] anything,” says Nicholson-McKellar, adding that the experience would be better described as cognitive impairment.

The consequences, she says, have been enormous.

“I can’t work more than one to two hours a day and even just leaving the house to get some shopping can be a challenge,” she says. “When I get tired it becomes much worse and sometimes all I can do is lay in bed and watch TV.” Brain fog has made her forgetful to the point that she says she burns pots while cooking.

“It often prevents me from being able to have a coherent conversation or write a text message or email,” she adds. “I feel like a shadow of my former self. I am not living right now, I am simply existing.”

There is no medical definition or list of symptoms shared by all patients - two people with long Covid can have very different experiences.

However, the most common feature is crippling fatigue.

Others symptoms include: breathlessness, a cough that won't go away, joint pain, muscle aches, hearing and eyesight problems, headaches, loss of smell and taste as well as damage to the heart, lungs, kidneys and gut.

Mental health problems have been reported including depression, anxiety and struggling to think clearly.

It can utterly destroy people's quality of life. "My fatigue was like nothing I've experienced before," said one sufferer Jade Gray-Christie,

Shortly after U.S. lockdowns began, the Ashley Madison “married dating” site saw an uptick in members. Today, more than 21,000 people are signing up each day for the online membership service, up from 17,000 a day in March. That’s on top of a worldwide base of 65 million members around the world in 2019.

“We’re in such unprecedented catastrophic times,” sex and relationship therapist Dr. Tammy Nelson said. “It’s so apocalyptic that you have got to have something to look forward to.”

The vast majority of Ashley Madison members have said that having affairs keeps them married. In an effort to understand the motivations behind choosing infidelity over divorce during a pandemic and how marriage will be impacted in the future, the company conducted surveys of its members. The results backed up Ashley Madison’s belief that marriage is a pragmatic arrangement that offers inherent value despite a partner often failing to provide sufficient love, support, or desire.

Historic wildfires which ravaged California throughout August and September may cause 3,000 early deaths, according to research from academics at Stanford University.

This year there have been over 8,100 wildfires that have burned well over 3.7 million acres in California. Since August 15, when California's fire activity elevated, there have been 26 fatalities and over 7,000 structures destroyed.

On Sunday, 17,000 firefighters were still at work, battling 25 wildfires in the state.

Now academics have concluded that the wildfires, from August 1 to September 10, were responsible already for at least 1,200 deaths in California - and may, over the next month, cause a total of 3,000 deaths.

Dear How to Do It,

I’m in a relationship with a woman who I strongly consider to be a potential life partner, and if her words are anything to go by, she feels the same way about me. We share hobbies and passions, find the others’ individual interests fascinating, can talk for hours, and have a great sex life for the most part. I consistently satisfy her during sex in almost every way (you’ll see shortly why I say almost), and by her own words, I am by far the best partner she has had in terms of physical, emotional, and kink compatibility. However, despite my complete satisfaction with our sex life, she seems to be unable to believe that she is enough for me.

I have, in the many, MANY sexual experiences we’ve shared, come maybe a half-dozen times compared to my partner’s firecracker-style orgasms from start to finish during nearly every sexual session we have. This is no fault of mine or my partner. I received physical trauma to my body a number of years ago in a way that has impacted my ability to feel touch as strongly as some might. My sensations of touch and pain are muted, and for some time, fine motor control was a serious struggle. To give a good analogue, raw sex feels to me now like what sex wearing a condom used to feel like, if I also coated my dick with a numbing cream (I use this analogy because in my teen years I made exactly this same mistake).

Annrene Rowe was getting ready to celebrate her 10th wedding anniversary this summer when she noticed a bald spot on her scalp. In the following days, her thick, shoulder-length hair started falling out in clumps, bunching up in the shower drain.

“I was crying hysterically,” said Rowe, 67, of Anna Maria, Florida.

Rowe, who was hospitalized for 12 days in April with symptoms of the coronavirus, soon found strikingly similar stories in online groups of COVID-19 survivors. Many said that several months after contracting the virus, they began shedding startling amounts of hair.

Doctors say they too are seeing many more patients with hair loss, a phenomenon they believe is indeed related to the coronavirus pandemic, affecting both people who had the virus and those who never became sick.

Dear How to Do It,

I’m a 36-year-old single straight woman, and I really didn’t think this was going to be an issue until later in life. I’m a very sexual person (just reading about sex in your column is enough to turn me on) and I’d like to get married one day, but for the past few years, I haven’t even been able to manage halfway decent sex, much less great sex or a relationship. The problem I keep experiencing in the dating world is the same: men with all kinds of erection issues.

The most recent guy could get hard but would lose it after a few thrusts, saying sex doesn’t do it for him these days (he preferred mutual masturbation or blow jobs). Guy No. 2 was good in bed but refused any touching outside of that 20 minutes. Guy No. 3 required 20 minutes of me going down on his flaccid penis before possibly getting hard enough to have intercourse for three minutes (most of the time, he wouldn’t get hard at all). Guy No. 4 hadn’t had sex in years so he’d either come in 30 seconds or he’d stick it in and barely move so he could last five minutes (I could have worked with him sexually, but we broke up for other reasons). Guy No. 5 completely ignored his problem, continuing to thrust even after I told him he was soft (I suspect he had a porn addiction).

The list goes on. I’ve barely had any good sex in the past six years. I don’t know what to do. These guys are all my age or younger. I try to be patient and understanding, asking if there’s something they’d like me to do or offering up a menu of things they might like, but most just shrug awkwardly and avoid talking about it. None of them sound like they’ve made any effort to get help. I get that it can be embarrassing and men might feel ashamed, but these guys keep cropping up in my dating pool. I can orgasm on my own, but I crave and miss sex, and I know I wouldn’t be happy in a relationship without it. So I’m stuck in a lonely, sexually frustrated land and I can’t get out. Any suggestions?

—Elusive Wood

People often throw the phrase "obsessive-compulsive disorder" (OCD) around as jokey shorthand for being excessively particular or high-strung, casting the disorder as a sort of innocuous, yet desexualizing, set of anxieties.

But OCD isn’t a quirk. It's a mental health condition that more than 2 percent of people experience at some point. It takes the random thoughts that flash through people's heads—that irrational fear of having done something wrong, or an unbidden, bizarre fantasy—and, instead of allowing them to quickly fade, forces them to the forefront of their minds in distressing spirals. Because these obsessions don’t respond well to reason, people with OCD develop rituals in an attempt to bring themselves relief from those anxieties. But that relief is fleeting, and people get stuck in this cycle of obsession and ritual. Many become dependent on a growing list of compulsions, which can become their own sources of anxiety and shame.

Obsessions and rituals can bleed directly into sex, as well. People with contamination obsessions often talk about fixating on the perceived dirtiness of genitals or bodily fluids and putting up hard limits on how they have sex. By some estimates, at least one in 10 people with OCD will also at some point develop obsessions about sex, constantly questioning their sexualities or worrying they might be developing harmful urges and building rituals into their relationships, their masturbation habits, their engagement with porn, to test or reassure themselves about their desires. Fears of being misunderstood—or actually dangerous—force some people with sexual obsessions to avoid intimacy altogether. Often, current or potential romantic partners who face the realities of OCD write those with the condition off as just too much.