Imagine if when you got sick, you knew exactly what you were sick with, and therefore had an idea of how it spreads and how to treat it. That could be a reality in the future with the prevalence of at-home testing for other viruses beyond COVID.

Dr. Lisa Maragakis is a professor of medicine and infectious diseases at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. She says the convenient and easy-to-use at-home tests for COVID-19 were a game changer during the pandemic.

"And this really raises the question of why we don't have more widespread at-home testing for other respiratory viruses like influenza or respiratory syncytial virus RSV," Dr. Maragakis said.

The so-called 'tripeldemic' of COVID-19, influenza and RSV last year brought to light the need for at-home testing for other viruses.

"One new challenge in respiratory virus season is having co-circulation of influenza, RSV and SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19," Dr. Maragakis said. "And since we do have treatments that are different for the different viruses, we do need to know and cannot make the kind of empiric decisions or diagnoses that we used to be able to make in past flu seasons."

Dr. Maragakis says the science is there to create these types of tests, but they aren't widely available yet. Global life sciences company Labcorp announced last year emergency-use authorization from the FDA for an at-home collection kit that simultaneously detects COVID-19, influenza, or RSV.

You can order one online that will be shipped to your house free of charge if you have insurance. Without insurance, it's $169 dollars.

However, it's not a rapid test. It's a PCR test that you send to a lab, so it takes several days to get results. As at-home testing becomes more prevalent, Dr. Maragakis says public health leaders will need to take new challenges into consideration.

"We know, right now, that the publicly reported numbers for COVID-19 are just the tip of the iceberg because so many people are being diagnosed by these at-home tests and those data don't flow into the reported numbers," Dr. Maragakis said.

Dr. Maragakis says one solution could be developing a way for people to self report data from at-home tests. The other limitation is that not everyone may use the test correctly, and results could be inaccurate. Until health companies can provide convenient at-home tests for other viruses, Dr. Maragakis says your health care provider still offers the most precise test results.

 

SANTA FE, N.M. —

Discussions of workplace safety are now front and center after the fatal 'Rust' movie set shooting at Bonanza Creek Ranch.

On Oct. 21, Santa Fe County deputies said Alec Baldwin, the actor and co-producer of the film, discharged a prop gun that misfired. The weapon fatally wounded cinematographer Halyna Hutchins and injured director Joel Souza.

Questions also remain, like how live rounds showed up on the set.

The lawyer for the film's armorer, 24-year-old Hannah Gutierrez, released a statement Friday.

Jason Bowles said Gutierrez had no idea where the live rounds came from and added that the guns were locked up every night.

The incident has been a big concern for many people, including Baldwin.

On Saturday, Baldwin briefly spoke with reporters in Vermont, where he and his family have been laying low since the shooting.

"An ongoing effort to limit the use of firearms on film sets is something I’m extremely interested in," Baldwin said.

The actor added safety measures are needed when it comes to guns on movie sets.

"We have to realize that when it does go wrong, and it’s this horrible, catastrophic thing, some new measures have to take place," Baldwin said. "Whatever other people decide is the best way to go in terms of protecting people’s safety on film sets."

New Mexico Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham said the state may take action to address those concerns.

Her office provided the following statement to sister station KOAT:

"Workplace safety in any and every industry in New Mexico is absolutely paramount. A workplace death is never acceptable and must compel an analysis of what can and should be done better. My full expectation is that the film and television industry will, at the conclusion of the investigation into this tragic incident and once all the facts are in hand, bring forward comprehensive new safety protocols to ensure this kind of incident never, ever happens again. If that sort of comprehensive new approach does not materialize, the state of New Mexico will take immediate action, throughout whatever means are available to us, to ensure the safety of all personnel on all film and television sets here in our state. This industry is important to us economically and to so many workers throughout New Mexico, and I look forward to a full accounting of how this could have possibly happened, and we will determine our next steps from there."

The investigation is still ongoing and no charges have been filed.

Production on the movie 'Rust' has since halted.

MINNEAPOLIS, Minn. — The issue of missing and murdered Indigenous people has gained more attention in recent years, but many who have lost their own say it’s not enough. A new state office that's the first of its kind in the country is working to change that.

Janice Hannigan, Roma L. Jim and Mary Johnson are just a few of the missing Indigenous people in the U.S.

Nicole Matthews, the executive director of the Minnesota Indian Women’s Sexual Assault Coalition, says most people don't know about the missing Indigenous people.

“Why hasn’t Sheila St. Claire from Duluth, who’s been missing for six years, why isn’t her story isn’t out there? Why don’t we know her name? How come we don’t know about Jojo Boswell, who's been missing for decades, and was 19 when she went missing," Matthews said.

Advocates say a lack of communication, combined with jurisdictional issues between state, local, federal and tribal law enforcement, makes it difficult to start the investigative process.

“Our relationship to the federal government is much different than other racial and ethnic groups. This is our land, everybody that is in this country is standing on Indian land," Matthews said. “So if a non-Native person comes onto our land and rapes a Native woman, our tribes have no recourse. So, if the states or the feds who do have jurisdiction in those cases decline prosecution, that person walks.”

It’s why Matthews was the Vice-Chair of the Missing and Murdered Women’s Task Force in Minnesota and that has led to the country's first State Office for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Relatives.

Sen. Mary Kunesh spearheaded this effort in the Minnesota Senate.

“I’m still floored that we were able to do this good legislative in kind of a short amount of time," Kunesh said. “They were able to use funding’s through the governor’s office to initially create this but it will also be supported through public safety dollars.”

The office now has permanent funding, which means it’s not going anywhere. One of their main efforts is building a data base that will track those names and cases.

“We need to be able to have that liaison there that’s going to be able to go walk between and work between all these different agencies," Kunesh said.

Having no database has made gathering information tough. However, the task force was able to pinpoint some jarring statistics.

“In our task force work, we learned in a ten-year period, in any given month, there were anywhere from 27 to 54 Native women that were missing," Matthews said. “Native women represent about 1% here in Minnesota, but we represent about 8 or 9% of the murdered women in Minnesota. So that is a huge disproportionate impact on our communities.”

Marisa Cummings, the CEO of the Minnesota Women’s Resource Center says there is distrust in government from some tribal members, especially women. 

“I’m thinking about the lack of trust our people have with systems in this country. Systems that have been designed to exterminate us," Cummings said.

Now there is an opportunity to create trust through this office and its partnerships.

“I think the office can be a starting point if the office is staffed with native women that the community trusts," Cummings said. “All of these implicit biases, manifest in ways of oppression. So a lot of times our families, when they go to report someone missing, they are not believed, a lot of times a woman reporting a sexual assault, they are not believed, or deaths are considered explosion. She got really drunk and she just died somewhere and not acknowledging the psychical violence she experienced that left her in a field in the freezing cold.”

These women say Gabby Petito's case is not only a reminder of why this office is so crucial in Minnesota, but also how it can be adopted in every other state.

“The response that Gabby Petitio received is the response that all of us deserve," Matthews said.

“But I think we’re entering a time now where we’re demanding that there is some accountability and some equity in the way that these systems work in our country. Systems that we designed to eliminate us as the original people of this land," Cummings said.

“Minnesota has obviously made this a priority and recognizes this is an investment in our communities now but like we say in the Native communities, investment in the next seven generations to come," Kunesh said.

A new treatment for COVID-19 is in the works.

Dr. Linda Gorgos, of Santa Fe, New Mexico, is heading the trial for the experimental antiviral drug called Molnupiravir. She says the medication shuts the virus down so that it cannot replicate or make copies of itself.

"The idea is that you try to shut the infection down early, before it can even set itself up or if in the off chance that you have already gotten infected, it will make the illness milder," Dr. Gorgos said. "It is really an exciting option to have to offer people something as prevention because we haven't had that before outside of vaccination."

It's an oral pill, so you won't have to receive an injection. In fact, its primary use is for people who don't have the COVID-19 vaccine.

"We know that people who are already vaccinated have that level of protection against getting sick with COVID-19 and getting infected," Dr. Gorgos said.

So how often do you have to take the treatment for it to be effective? Dr. Gorgos said participants in the trial will take the medication orally for four or five days to test the effects.

She says the trial is already in advanced stages, "COVID prevention is really exciting for us, and we're excited to have the opportunity to bring that science to New Mexico."

The clinical trial is currently only accepting people 18 and older. You must be in a household of 10 people or less to be eligible.

Watch the video above for more on this story.

Scientists believe they've developed a way to treat skin cancer more efficiently and without surgery.

Researchers at Yale School of Medicine developed an injection of nanoparticles and a chemotherapy agent that goes directly into the cancerous cells.

Dr. Michael Girardi says the breakthrough would allow doctors to treat multiple skin cancers at once.

An injection treatment could benefit health care systems and lower costs for patients.

Girardi says one of the most important parts in this possible treatment is how it targets the skin cancer.

“We load the anti-cancer agent within and that will slowly release over time. It keeps a lot of the anti-cancer drug right there within the skin cancer, so it can work long after the injection,” said Girardi.

Work on the treatment started more than three years ago. Researchers wanted to develop a method that concentrated on its intended target, but is also compatible with treatments that stimulate the immune system.

So far, they say the nanoparticles combined with the chemotherapy agent have been successful in clinical models.

“We have a special coating on these particles that allows it to be very sticky. So, when we put it into the tumor, it binds to proteins that lets it stay within the tumor matrix, which is a complex of proteins around the cancer,” said Girardi.

Girardi says the hope is each skin cancer would need just one injection, but it could take more than one depending on the severity and the patient. That is something that will be determined in human trials.

human trials are still a few years away, because they need to secure funding and partnerships.

BEDFORD, Va. — Millions of people are scouring the internet every day, digging deep into genealogy and learning about the generations before them. One woman has found that behind every name lies an important story.

A cemetery might not be a place that comes to mind when thinking about healing.

But for Alicia Williams, that’s exactly what Bedford, Virginia’s Longwood Cemetery is. It’s her therapy.

“It’s just more of an underground community, I mean, who hangs out in cemeteries with dead people all day," Williams said.

She recently went through a tumultuous divorce and a battle for her children.

“I had not a soul in the world that made me feel like I was good enough to exist in the world," Williams said.

This place, filled with souls Williams can only feel, became her cleanse.

“Coming out here, it was like, this stone has 120 years of dirt on it and I made it clean, so why can’t I do the same thing for myself? For my soul?” Williams said.

For almost a year, she’s been cleaning gravestones to conserve what’s there and bring these stories back to life.

“Once I get their name out and see their dates, then I can start to research them and investigative them and some of them sadly, there is not much to find out," Williams said. “Which to me makes it even more important to clean that marker because, in a lot of instances, it’s the only record that that person existed at all.”

For many, there is much more to discover. It’s why the genealogy trend is picking up. For example, Ancestry had 15 million people in its DNA network in 2019, and in just two years, that number grew to over 20 million.

Joshua Taylor, the president of the New York Genealogical and Biological Society says the accessibility factor of records and information has changed the way people approach it.

“Those are individual stories, and they are also a collective community story," Taylor said. “Getting started is easier than ever before because you can access records at home, online, in 10 minutes that could take you ten months to find.”

It’s also why eyes are glued on Williams' work.

“We are in many ways, the current generation is the most documented generation ever. In photographs, in audio or video," Taylor said.

“We live in a time where people are very passionate about restoring the historical narrative and giving a voice to people that didn’t have a voice.”

Her cleaning methods and efforts to conserve have gone viral on TikTok.

“For the most part, the thing that surprises me and still to this day, it’s been nine months now, it’s been overwhelmingly positive," Williams said.

After cleaning, she researches and discovers stories buried beneath these graves. Decades later, Williams is resurfacing this history and trying to keep their legacies alive.

“If we don’t tell as many individual stories as possible, we’re never going to get an accurate picture," Williams said. “I feel like it’s giving me the courage to slowly start to tell more of my story.”

NEW RICHMOND, Ohio —

Tuesday brought a heartbreaking announcement in the search for a missing Clermont County man.

The Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation believes a body found off of State Route 222 on Monday is that of Robert "Bobby" Farrell Jr., 23, from New Richmond.

Along with new details released by officials, there are still many lingering questions.

The search for Farrell started in New Richmond and has expanded into the county.

Even as family members said his best friend has been arrested, the questions of "How?", "Who?" and "Why?" are still unanswered.

Exclusive WLWT video showed a scene in the 2300 block of State Route 222 in Clermont County on Monday night just before 11 p.m.

The road was blocked off by tape.

Clermont County sheriff's deputies and the Clermont County coroner were in sight as evidence and bags were loaded into a truck.

Investigators have not elaborated on everything they found on Monday night.

But as of Tuesday, Ohio BCI officials said they believe they found the remains of Farrell off the roadway, describing him as the victim of a homicide.

His family has been devastated since he disappeared from New Richmond on July 6.

"He went out with his friend and that's all we really know. He went out with his friend and never came home," Farrell's aunt, Sandy Coorey, said.

Family members said Farrell's best friend, Keyanta Gardner, spent days helping them search for the young dad.

On Monday, we uncovered Gardner was arrested in connection to Farrell's disappearance.

Investigators said he admitted to making false and misleading statements to BCI agents.

The tragedy just keeps getting worse for Farrell's family.

"It just hard when you watch someone grow up as a baby, and just, and you don't know what's happening," Coorey said.

Neighbors in New Richmond and along State Route 222 told WLWT that police have asked for surveillance video from July 6.

Clermont County dispatchers said no one called 911 to report the body, so it's unclear how it was found or when it was put there.

Even still, there is a community demanding justice for Farrell.

The Ohio BCI said though Gardner is already charged with tampering with evidence, additional charges are expected.

Anyone with information is asked to call the Ohio BCI at 1-855-224-6446.

GLENWOOD SPRINGS, Colo. — Technology has drastically changed over the years, but one Colorado shop shows us no matter how old something is, it can still work perfectly

From the outside of Raymond's Office Machine & Supplies, you’d never know what lies beneath the alley shop. When you step inside, the more than 50 years of sales and service become evident.

“This is a Hermes. It’s a model 300 typewriter. These are made in Switzerland. It’s one of the top of the line portable manual typewriter," said Darwin Raymond, the owner.

To call Raymond’s skills unique would be an understatement. The same goes for his assistant, JJ the cockatoo.

“..like I said if he takes something apart, you can almost never get it back together," Raymond said.

Most of the time, he’s looking over Raymond’s shoulder as he plucks and pulls moves and maneuvers to fix every kind of typewriter. It's a skill Raymond never thought would be needed in 2021.

“Oh I thought it was dead 30 years ago and there wasn’t much going on, people just throwing typewriters away, going on with the new computers and printers and everything," Raymond said. "The typewriter stuff has come back. It’s evolved back.”

Not even the newest technology is distracting the younger generations from this 1800s invention.

“They are tired of all the computer electronic stuff. I think they are kind of going back," Raymond said. "Something that they can hit a key and see it print and it’s not going anywhere else.”

In the last two years, Raymond has watched them return to popularity.

“I get equipment and calls from all over the United States," Raymond said. "And they call me for all kinds of stuff. A lot of times they say, 'I want a certain typewriter, a certain type style, a certain color,' and because of what I have, probably 60, 70% of the time, I can fulfill what they want.”

If you want a typewriter to come back to life, Raymond is one of the few people who can make that happen.

“The problem with these is finding parts," Raymond said. “If I don’t have it, there are very few people I can get it from.”

Thousands of parts and dozens of machines all fixed for use.

“I have probably over 100 different machines down in my basement," Raymond said. “It’s just a resurgence. I can’t explain it. I don’t know why it is, but I am very thankful for it.”

There is one thing he is worried about.

“The problem is that there’s not a lot of younger people that want to work on them or learn how to work on them," Raymond said. “I’m just hopeful somebody will come along that will want to learn how to do that and maybe take over my position someday.”

CHEVIOT, Ohio —

A car came flying through a Cheviot neighborhood launching through a yard and hitting a house before coming to a stop in a front yard.

Neighbors are still talking about it and joined the homeowners pushing for a change to make their street safer.

They came together to call for action at Cheviot City Hall, but the meeting, which got heated at some points, left them feeling less than heard.

Alyssa and Will Bryant believe the woman who hit their house was going 60 miles per hour or faster.

"I had seen two headlights coming in my direction and then a really big, loud sound that almost sounded like a bomb," Alyssa Bryant said.

It was enough to nearly stop her heartbeat.

A Ford Taurus wagon slammed into her and her husband's home on Applegate Avenue in Cheviot Sunday night.

"Literally, 'Bo Duke'd it' up here and hit my column, took out my handrails, rode the front step actually and, then, ended up in the yard right next to the magnolia tree," Will Bryant said.

They found twisted iron railing ripped off the house and brick columns damaged.

Shattered glass was sprinkled like glitter.

The driver, Lacey Wurster, 35, from Cleves, is charged with Operating a Vehicle while Intoxicated and Operation without Reasonable Control, according to a citation filed by Cheviot police.

The Bryants said hours earlier, their 3-year-old son was playing in the area where Wurster crashed.

"We made his slide over here into a little water slide. So, we actually had it positioned right where this crater is," Alyssa Bryant said.

The husband and wife came to Cheviot City Hall on Tuesday, joined by neighbors pushing for new safety measures.

"I constantly hear cars screeching their tires and honking at each other because they've almost hit each other while they're speeding down my street," Alyssa Bryant said.

Several council members said speed bumps are expensive and a liability.

The mayor said 50 to 60 streets in Cheviot want speed humps, but added that they're hard on garbage and emergency vehicles.

That infuriated neighbors who worried their children could become the next emergency.

A councilwoman said they also slow down response times.

"I'm hoping that they are hoping to look into other options, getting, if it's not speed bumps or speed humps, getting some kind of other alternative that is not just a quick fix and won't be temporary," Alyssa Bryant said following the meeting.

The charged driver told WLWT she was having a seizure when the crash occurred and had only had one margarita that day.

She said the medication in her car was for her seizures and said she will not be driving.

Wurster also said she did not cause damage and that she is sorry for what has happened.

Cheviot's mayor said police will clearly run a radar sign on the street indicating the speed limit and the speed of the approaching car.

Neighbors said they still left feeling less than impressed with city leaders.

A streets and sidewalks committee will have a special meeting about the concerns on Applegate Avenue.

The public meeting is set for June 1, following the city council meeting.

NEW YORK (AP) — Bacon and black coffee for breakfast, or oatmeal and bananas?

If you're planning to try to lose weight in 2019, you're sure to find a fierce debate online and among friends and family about how best to do it. It seems like everyone has an opinion, and new fads emerge every year.

Two major studies last year provided more fuel for a particularly polarizing topic — the role carbs play in making us fat. The studies gave scientists some clues, but, like other nutrition studies, they can't say which diet — if any — is best for everyone.

That's not going to satisfy people who want black-and-white answers, but nutrition research is extremely difficult and even the most respected studies come with big caveats. People are so different that it's all but impossible to conduct studies that show what really works over long periods of time.

Before embarking on a weight loss plan for the new year, here's a look at some of what was learned last year.

FEWER CARBS, FEWER POUNDS?

It's no longer called the Atkins Diet, but the low-carb school of dieting has been enjoying a comeback. The idea is that the refined carbohydrates in foods like white bread are quickly converted into sugar in our bodies, leading to energy swings and hunger.

By cutting carbs, the claim is that weight loss will be easier because your body will instead burn fat for fuel while feeling less hungry. A recent study seems to offer more support for low-carb proponents. But, like many studies, it tried to understand just one sliver of how the body works.

The study , led by an author of books promoting low-carb diets, looked at whether varying carb levels might affect how the body uses energy. Among 164 participants, it found those on low-carb diets burned more calories in a resting state than those on high-carb diets.

The study did not say people lost more weight on a low-carb diet — and didn't try to measure that. Meals and snacks were tightly controlled and continually adjusted so everyone's weights stayed stable.

David Ludwig, the paper's lead author and a researcher at Boston Children's Hospital, said it suggests limiting carbs could make it easier for people to keep weight off once they've lost it. He said the approach might work best for those with diabetes or pre-diabetes.

Ludwig noted the study wasn't intended to test long-term health effects or real-world scenarios where people make their own food. The findings also need to be replicated to be validated, he said.

Caroline Apovian of Boston University's School of Medicine said the findings are interesting fodder for the scientific community, but that they shouldn't be taken as advice for the average person looking to lose weight.

DO I AVOID FAT TO BE SKINNY?

For years people were advised to curb fats , which are found in foods including meat, nuts, eggs, butter and oil. Cutting fat was seen as a way to control weight, since a gram of fat has twice as many calories than the same amount of carbs or protein.

Many say the advice had the opposite effect by inadvertently giving us license to gobble up fat-free cookies, cakes and other foods that were instead full of the refined carbs and sugars now blamed for our wider waistlines.

Nutrition experts gradually moved away from blanket recommendations to limit fats for weight loss. Fats are necessary for absorbing important nutrients and can help us feel full. That doesn't mean you have to subsist on steak drizzled in butter to be healthy.

Bruce Y. Lee, a professor of international health at Johns Hopkins, said the lessons learned from the anti-fat fad should be applied to the anti-carb fad: don't oversimplify advice.

"There's a constant look for an easy way out," Lee said.

SO WHICH IS BETTER?

Another big study this past year found low-carb diets and low-fat diets were about equally as effective for weight loss. Results varied by individual, but after a year, people in both groups shed an average of 12 to 13 pounds.

The author noted the findings don't contradict Ludwig's low-carb study. Instead, they suggest there may be some flexibility in the ways we can lose weight. Participants in both groups were encouraged to focus on minimally processed foods like produce and meat prepared at home. Everyone was advised to limit added sugar and refined flour.

"If you got that foundation right, for many, that would be an enormous change," said Chris Gardner of Stanford University and one of the study's authors.

Limiting processed foods could improve most diets by cutting down overall calories, while still leaving wiggle room for people's preferences. That's important, because for a diet to be effective, a person has to be able to stick to it. A breakfast of fruit and oatmeal may be filling for one person, but leave another hungry soon after.

Gardner notes the study had its limitations, too. Participants' diets weren't controlled. People were instead instructed on how to achieve eating a low-carb or low-fat in regular meetings with dietitians, which may have provided a support network most dieters don't have.

SO, WHAT WORKS?

In the short term you can probably lose weight by eating only raw foods, or going vegan, or cutting out gluten, or following another diet plan that catches your eye. But what will work for you over the long term is a different question.

Zhaoping Li, director of clinical nutrition division at the University of California, Los Angeles, says there is no a single set of guidelines that help everyone lose weight and keep it off. It's why diets often fail — they don't factor into account the many factors that drive us to eat what we do.

To help people lose weight, Li examines her patients' eating and physical activity routines to identify improvements people will be able to live with.

"What sticks is what matters," Li said.