Generate an explanation for the given claim using the provided supporting material from the paragraph. Please consider the following points while generating an output. 1) The claim will always have supporting proof in the paragraph, and the paragraph will have a clear point of view supporting the claim. 2) There can be instances where direct correlation to the claim is not available. Make use of the sentences in the paragraph to provide a corresponding output supporting the claim. 3) The explanation should be at least one and at most twelve sentences long.

Paragraph: In recent decades, laughter has been touted as a possible cure for many ills, including cancer and heart trouble. But could mirth also be deadly, making the phrase “I just about died laughing” as much about accuracy as it is hyperbole? On 24 March 1975, 50-year-old bricklayer Alex Mitchell of King’s Lynn in Norfolk, England, kicked the bucket while roaring with laughter at one of his favorite television shows, the comedy program The Goodies. The skit that precipitated Mitchell’s fatal fit of glee involved a kilted Scotsman’s flailing away with his bagpipe at a vicious black pudding intent upon attacking him. Mitchell was unable to stop laughing, and after twenty-five minutes of uproar gave one last “tremendous belly laugh, slumped on the settee, and died,” said his widow, who witnessed his passing. While Mitchell had expired from heart failure, what felled him was not a classic heart attack, but rather the result of an unusual inheritable heart rhythm disorder that routinely takes the lives of even apparently robust 20-somethings. Mitchell had Long QT syndrome, an affliction in which the heart is prone to experiencing long pauses between heart beats, especially after instances of excitement or exertion. After such an incident, the heart resets itself after a few beats, but in some cases (such as this) the person is not so fortunate. An odder account of a “dying laughing” incident was reported in Bangkok in 2003:  An ice cream truck driver in Thailand died while laughing in his sleep. Damnoen Saen-um, 52, laughed for about two minutes yesterday and then stopped breathing, The Nation newspaper reported. Damnoen’s wife tried to wake him up but he kept laughing. An autopsy suggested that he might have had a heart attack. “I have never seen a case like this. But it is possible that a person could have heart seizure while laughing or crying too hard in their sleep,” said Dr Somchai Chakrabhand, deputy director-general of the Mental Health Department. On the anecdotal side, Schott’s Original Miscellany attributes the death of Burmese king Nandabayin in 1599 to his having “laughed to death when informed, by a visiting Italian merchant, that Venice was a free state without a king.”  And on the fictional front, one version of the demise of Pecos Bill, the legendary cowboy hero of American folklore, has him dying from laughter after an encounter with a Boston dude:  When Bill was gettin’ on in years, a Boston man came down to New Mexico for a visit. He fancied himself a bit of a cowboy. Got himself one of them mail-order suits, don’t ya know. The ones with the lizard skin boots, a shiny brass belt buckle, a new pair of blue jeans and a huge ten gallon hat with not a speck of dust on it. Well, when Pecos Bill saw him trying to swagger into a bar, he jest lay down on the sidewalk and laughed himself to death! Not enough information was given in the (real) cases cited above to know whether laughter was a coincidental, contributory, or causal element of the deaths, but linguistically we’ve been tossing about “dying laughing” expressions for centuries; the Oxford English Dictionary records a use of this phrase as far back as 1596 (“Went they not quickly, I should die with laughing”). We also employ similar phrases to indicate intense feelings of humiliation (“I almost died of embarrassment”), and in a more generic sense we use ‘dying’ to indicate great longing (“I’m just dying to see you”) or excellence (“It’s to die for”). It therefore comes as a bit of a shocker to realize that there might be at least a smidgen of truth buried deep beneath all this overblown emoting. Claim: People have died laughing.
Yet even if there may have been an occasional death from guffawing, it’s still possible merriment is far more healthy than harmful (at least for the ones who survive). Some studies assert laughing produces beneficial effects on physical health, including decreasing the secretion of serum cortisol (a stress hormone) and boosting the blood levels of immunoglobulin A, an antibody that fights bacterial and viral infections in the upper respiratory and gastrointestinal tracts. However, not everyone in the scientific community has jumped on this bandwagon: in a study reported upon in 2002 in Current Directions in Psychological Science (“Is Laughter the Best Medicine? Humor, Laughter, and Physical Health)  researchers reported that the connection between humor and wellness was “less conclusive than commonly believed” and that “future research in this area needs to be more theoretically driven and methodologically rigorous.”

Paragraph: "The story mentioned that the test carried a $399 price tag. Of course there are larger cost perspectives. If this diagnostic test truly has value, it might lead to more targeted therapy – perhaps decreasing overall medical costs. If it is a poor test, it may increase medical costs beyond the initial $399 for the test itself. The story included discussion about how this test might be of benefit; it did not include quantification of benefit (i.e. :how much faster could it enable a clinician to make a diagnosis?) though one of the points of the story was that the actual benefit of this test was somewhat imprecise. Lastly – the statement that any information is good is a red herring. However, we’ll again give the story the benefit of the doubt on this criterion. The story discussed problems associated with false positive or false negative results. It mentioned that physicians might not have the appropriate training to understand what to do with the results of the test and could make, what an expert quoted in the story described as ""foolish decisions"" The story mentioned that this and other genetic test kits prey on individuals’ deepest anxieties. That said – there are many more harms possible. Creating the precedent for direct marketing of lab tests – even if the results go to the doctor carries significant risks. It could prey on peoples’ insecurities, cause financial harm, adversely affect the patient-clinician relationship, and lead to other family members of test positive patients (family members without symptoms) getting a meaningless test due to worry. It was good that the story pointed out that there is little oversight for the accuracy of genetic test kits. Overall the story did a good job; it gave data such as 1% rate of genetic abnormality in unaffected vs. 3% in bipolar patients. It said, ""The report that accompanies those results instructs doctors that a positive test means patients are two to three times more likely to have bipolar disorder."" If the reporter had gone the next step, it would have been even better. For example, if someone has no symptoms of bipolar disorder, then the likelhood of current bipolar is 0% – so a 2-3 time increase in risk is still 0. For someone with many symptoms, the risk of bipolar disorder might be 50-60% (rough estimate) and an abnormal test might increase that substantially. Granted, interpreting the quantitative data for readers may be difficult but it would have been helpful to put it into terms that were easier to understand. But in discussing why the test was useful, the company founder said that it was important ""even if it just helps a little bit"". The story should have noted that this lack of quantification of benefit is problematic. We’ll give the story the benefit of the doubt on this criterion. The story did not engage in overt disease mongering. The story included quotes not only from the scientist who developed the test discussed, but from several experts in the field. The story did not make clear how diagnosis of bipolar disorder with the test vs. without the test differed. However it would appear that this may have been intentional as it isn’t actually clear how diagnosis of this disorder is dramatically altered in the era where this test is available. The story mentioned that this was a commercially available product. (Though it failed to mention that this test would likely not be covered by insurance, it also did not imply that it would. This, of course, will affect availability.) The story was clear that the test for bipolar disorder it described had been commercially available for about a month. It also mentioned that there about 1000 other test kits (for other genetic traits) which are available. Does not appear to rely on a press release." Claim: At-home gene test stirs up debate
This is an excellent story that used a concrete example (i.e. bipolar disorder) to highlight the pitfalls involved with the use of genetic test kits for gene alleles. Rather than write a story heralding the first commercial availability of a test to identify genetic markers associated with risk of bipolar disorder, this was a thoughtful piece that presented both the hope and the hype associated with the product. While failing to provide concrete estimates for the benefit from the product or diagnostic alternatives, the story painted an accurate picture of the uncertainty for deriving benefit.

Paragraph: Washington State Secretary of Health John Wiesman approved the county’s application Friday, making it the ninth county in the state to receive approval to move into phase two of the four-phase reopening process. Those counties can allow restaurants to open at 50% of capacity. Hair and nail salons, tattoo and makeup artists, and stores also can start reopening with additional protections in place. Counties applying for a quicker reopening must currently have a population of less than 75,000 and no new cases of COVID-19 in the last three weeks, among other stipulations, in order to be approved. The other eight counties of the 39 in Washington that can begin the second phase include: Columbia, Ferry, Garfield, Lincoln, Pend Oreille, Skamania, Stevens and Wahkiakum. Inslee and health officials have said other counties may enter phase two on June 1, depending on public-health COVID-19 data. Reopening businesses must comply with health and safety requirements outlined in their industry’s guidance, officials said. More than 17,950 people in Washington state have tested positive for the coronavirus and at least 992 have died. The virus causes mild to moderate symptoms in most patients, and the vast majority recover. But it is highly contagious and can cause severe illness and death in some patients, particularly the elderly and those with underlying health conditions. Claim: Whitman County 9th county approved for phase 2 reopening.

Whitman County in Eastern Washington has been given the OK to take a faster path to reopening businesses, including restaurants, under Gov. Jay Inslee’s coronavirus recovery plan.

