Posts

covid

US Experts Warn Of New Covid Variant, Eris

/in , /by

This summer in the US, a new Covid-19 variant has become the dominant strain currently spreading throughout the nation, according to infectious disease experts. Experts are warning Americans to remain diligent about their Covid-19 safety procedures and vaccine boosters to keep themselves protected from this spike. 

The technical name of this strain is EG.51, a subvariant of Omicron also referred to as Eris. The Eris variant is currently the leading strain of the virus, accounting for about 17% of Covid cases in the US, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Embed from Getty Images

Experts state that the rise in infection and hospitalizations do not indicate a need for health and safety measures to be mandated, however, the new variant is a part of a potential evolution of the virus, so it’s important for people to protect themselves. 

​​“As this virus continues to circulate, the potential for mutations to occur remains, and so we will see new genetic variants. It’s very often the case when we see new genetic variants that they may increase in circulation. Sometimes they replace the variants that came before; sometimes they just kind of burn themselves out,”  said Jennifer Nuzzo, an epidemiologist and director of the Pandemic Center at Brown University School of Public Health.

People should continue to take Covid-19 tests if they feel sick, and stay diligent about monitoring virus data, especially if they’re in a vulnerable immunocompromised position. 

“We do need to continue to keep our eye out and be cautious for something that is truly like a new pandemic strain, which EG.5.1 is not,” said Justin Lessler, an epidemiology professor at the University of North Carolina.

Embed from Getty Images

“The biggest concern that we have right now is that testing is not nearly what it was in many, many countries, including the United States,” Nuzzo said. This means it’s more difficult to track trends in the virus. 

“Even if there is a high percentage of test positivity, it’s unclear whether it’s because the only people getting tested right now are people who are really quite ill and know very well that they have Covid, versus maybe in the past people getting tested were people who needed a negative test before they could play sports or go to camp. That meant that we were sampling a larger portion of the population,” Nuzzo said. 

“Public health agencies rely on wastewater testing, which allows them to see the amount of Covid and what variants are in that concentration. But it’s harder for people collecting that data to determine whether that means people are getting sicker or whether a person who is infected is infecting more people on a per-person basis,” Nuzzo said.

“We can’t link the wastewater data to people. It’s totally anonymous. If the variant is a problem, we will see it, but the question is: how early will we see it? I don’t think there is this hidden severe wave,” Nuzzo added.

“Also, as the fall virus season approaches – meaning a likely uptick in Covid, flu and RSV cases – it’s important for healthcare workers to conduct tests in places with inadequate healthcare infrastructure, such as rural areas and low-income communities,” Nuzzo said.

According to the CDC, there were around 9,000 Covid-19 hospitalizations during the last week of July, marking a 28% increase from June.

US Covid Vaccine

Covid-19 Vaccine Delays And Lack Of Federal Action Putting US In Deadly Position 

/in , /by

For the past 40 days, the US has surpassed 100,000 hospitalizations relating to the Covid-19 pandemic. While health officials across the country are doing their best to speed up vaccine distribution so that average Americans can begin receiving their dosages, a lack of federal action and planning is once again hindering the nation’s ability to heal from this pandemic. 

Dr. Scott Gottlieb, former commissioner of the US Food and Drug Administration, spoke with the media recently about how America “really needs to get this vaccine out more quickly, because this really is our only tool for beating this pandemic.” Experts have been saying from the beginning that universal mask wearing, social distancing, and widespread vaccination is the only way this pandemic will fully reach its end. However, after ten months of nearly no enforcement of these procedures on a federal level, over 22 million Americans have been infected, and over 370,000 have died.

Embed from Getty Images

So far 22.1 million doses of the Covid-19 vaccine has been distributed, and 6.7 million people have actually received their first dose, however, the initial plan was to get 20 million people vaccinated with their first dose by the end of 2020. Due to a complete lack of interest from the current president and his administration within the past two months, hundreds of thousands of Americans have continued to suffer while their government watched and made daily claims of a fraudulent and unfair election. The only new aide that the government has provided is a $600 stimulus check to every American, after nearly nine months of no other economic assistance.

The US hit a new record last week and surpassed 4,000 Covid-19 deaths in a single day. California alone is thought to be a major epicenter for the virus, after they added almost 50,000 new cases on Sunday alone, bringing the state total up to more than 2.6 million. 

According to Johns Hopkins University, which has been recording data regarding this pandemic in America since March, within the first 11 days of 2021, 28,400 new Covid-19 deaths have been reported. At this current rate, more individuals could die from Covid-19 in January than any other month of this pandemic due to an extreme influx in holiday travel and lack of policy. 

Embed from Getty Images

“We should expect to set new records for cases, hospitalizations, and deaths over the coming weeks. Policy action is urgently needed to mitigate the worst possible outcome.”

Joe Gerald, an associate professor at the University of Arizona, recently expressed great concern about the “inevitable arrival of the more transmissible” strain of Covid-19 that has appeared in the UK, and is thought to have been in the US since September. “If it gathers a foothold it will accelerate, lengthen, and deepen the outbreaks in Arizona and other states like it.” 

The recent riot at the US Capitol will also likely lead to a “surge event” of new cases, hospitalizations and deaths due to the fact that a majority of Trump’s supporters are anti-mask, and the footage from the violent event clearly showed a crowd of hundreds of individuals not wearing a mask, mobbed together in a giant crowd. 

Medical analyst Dr. Leana Wen recently shared a statement to the press about this reckless riot that will lead to even more death and infection: “It’s very likely they’re engaging in other risky behaviors there and potentially seeding coronavirus all around the country, wherever they came from. I hope that everyone who participated in those events will go back and quarantine and get tested.”

Many of the rioters who have been identified from images online but have yet to be arrested are being placed on No Fly lists, and local authorities for individuals who came from out of state to participate in the riot have been notified of their citizens involvement in the act of domestic terror that took place last week.

COVID Virus Causes Deaths

The US Reports 2,100 Covid-19 Deaths In A Single Day 

/in , /by

Over 2,100 deaths were reported in the US this past Tuesday, marking the highest one-day coronavirus death toll the nation has reported since May. The highest Covid-19 death tally in a single day for the US was 2,603 back in April, however, the country hasn’t come close to that number since, until now. 

Cases and hospitalizations have been surging for a couple of weeks now, and officials are preparing for the worst in terms of new deaths. It’s been three weeks since the US has had less than 100,000 new Covid-19 cases appear in a single day. For the 15th consecutive day this week the US also beat its own record of Covid-19 hospitalizations; with over 88,000 patients in hospitals nationwide currently. 

Holiday celebrations have the nation’s leading healthcare experts even more worried. The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention even released an official recommendation not to travel for Thanksgiving this year, and after a recent poll taken by Axios-Ipsos, about 61% of Americans have changed their Thanksgiving plans, and 1 in 10 Americans say they no longer plan to celebrate the holiday at all. 

Embed from Getty Images

On the opposite, more concerning, end, more than 1 million travelers have already passed through airport security this past Sunday alone, according to the Transportation Security Administration. Dr. Jonathan Reiner, a professor of medicine at George Washington University, recently spoke with the press about how everyone needs to make adjustments for the holidays this year unless we want to continue to see this devastation occur. 

“People shouldn’t rely on a negative test to give them confidence to mingle with other households for Thanksgiving, because tests can miss the virus in the newly infected. Instead, people should have quarantined 14 days beforehand.”

America’s average daily death toll for a given week is 1,601; for comparison in the summer it was around 1,130. As daunting as these stats may seem healthcare experts are really more concerned with the coming weeks after Thanksgiving when even more cases start appearing. As a result, many states are implementing more restrictions to hopefully combat the surge that’s likely to come after the holidays. 

Embed from Getty Images

New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced last week that all public schools would be closing and more restrictions would be on the way. In Nashville, Tennessee, the mayor limited restaurant and bar capacity to 50% with a 10 p.m. curfew. In El Paso, Texas, which has been hit particularly hard within the past month, County Judge Ricardo Samaniego announced a partial curfew for 10 p.m. 

The reality is, unless the country shuts down completely again, cases, hospitalizations, and deaths will continue to rise, and while multiple vaccine options are showing great promise for the spring, we still have a decent amount of time to go before Americans can expect to be vaccinated. 

Whenever a vaccine is officially approved by the FDA and CDC for distribution, health care workers and individuals at a higher risk of infection will receive the injections first, and then states with major Covid-19 hot spots will likely receive the next rounds. Dr. Anthony Fauci projects that the general public can expect to be vaccinated by spring/summer of 2021. In the meantime, however, we all need to do our part to curb the excess spreading we’re witnessing of this virus throughout the country. Wear a mask, stay home unless necessary, practice proper hand washing/hygiene, and social distance.

US Statue of Liberty with Mask

US Hits Another Record High For New Covid-19 Cases This Week 

/in , /by

The United States reported 87,164 new Covid-19 cases as of Thursday night, according to data from Johns Hopkins University, which has been recording data on the pandemic since it first began. This marks the most new cases recorded in a given day in the US, however, breaking this record is unfortunately nothing new for a country that has remained relatively relaxed in terms of Covid-19 health and safety restrictions. In fact, the previous record in America was set less than a week ago when 83,731 new cases were reported. 

The US is about to hit 9 million total coronavirus cases since the beginning of the pandemic. Across the country 41 states have reported a 10% increase in new Covid-19 cases, and all 50 states have been reporting a steady rise in cases in general. Dr. Scott Gottlieb, former commissioner of the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA), spoke with the press recently and claimed he won’t be surprised when the US starts seeing 100,000 new cases appear everyday at the rate we’re going currently. 

Embed from Getty Images

“We’ll cross 100,000 infections at some point in the next couple of weeks, probably. We might do it this week, if all the states report on time.”

The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have also predicted that by Thanksgiving the US could see 243,000 Covid-19 related deaths. At least 229,000 individuals have already died in America and there have been 8,940,000 cases. 

Ohio, specifically, has set a new high for most new Covid-19 cases to appear in one day twice within the past week, and this trend is proving to be pretty common throughout the nation. North Dakota also broke its record for daily new case numbers with 1,222 new infections reported; currently only 13% of staffed hospital beds remain open in the state. 

According to Johns Hopkins, the average number of daily new coronavirus cases is up by 24% in America. However, testing has also increased by 9% during the same time period that those increases were measured, meaning these high rates of infections have always existed, the general public and healthcare professionals of the nation just didn’t have all the proper data, and still likely don’t.

Embed from Getty Images

The Covid Tracking Project has been monitoring the nation’s hospital bed occupancy rates throughout the past nine months, and this week the group reported that 13 states are struggling to cope with high hospitalization rates. Dr. Wendy Long is the president and CEO of the Tennessee Hospital Association, and recently spoke on these struggles to the press. 

“Hospitals are doing all that they can do to increase capacity, but their ability to do that is not limitless. That is especially true as we see more and more health care providers who are becoming ill from the virus and having to quarantine at home.”

The nation’s leading healthcare experts have claimed that the data shows mask mandates are a key strategy in lowering new infection/hospitalization rates. In hospitals where more than 75% of the patients came from counties that required masks in public settings, hospitalization rates began declining between the months of July and October after the initial wave of the pandemic calmed down. On the opposite end, hospitals that were treating fewer than 25% of patients from those counties saw hospitalization increases that reached 200%!

Areas of the nation that require masks to be worn in public settings are also likely to have all the other standard health and safety procedures we’ve seen put into play as well, meaning there are areas of the nation that are able to get the virus under control, however, if America as a whole doesn’t begin to get on the same page in terms of a Covid-19 plan, cases will continue to grow and citizens will continue to die.

California Wildfires

Increase In Hospital Visits Resulting From West Coast Wildfires Has Doctors Concerned

/in , /by

The Northern California health system has reported a major surge in cases involving toxic smoke and its alarming health effects.

Read more
Young Girl with Doll Wearing Mask

US Reports 90% Increase In Covid-19 Cases Among Children In The Last Four Weeks

/in , /by

One of the largest debates regarding the Covid-19 pandemic this month has been whether or not our country should be sending its kids back to school. For many, they don’t see the problem as long as proper health and safety measures are taken, but for others, they’re confused as to how back in March the country cancelled in-person learning over a couple thousand cases in the US, but is sending kids back to school after we’ve exceeded 5 million cases and 163,000 deaths. 

Even more staggering, within the last four weeks alone, there has been a 90% increase in the number of coronavirus cases among children in the US. This data comes from the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) and the Children’s Hospital Administration, which has been updating their stats weekly. 

Embed from Getty Images

Dr. Sean O’Leary is the Vice President of AAP’s committee on infectious diseases, and recently spoke with the media about the lack of focus the country has when it comes to children being infected with Covid-19. He believes a major factor to this is because children are much less likely to have a terminal diagnosis for the virus, however, that doesn’t make it’s impact any less severe on the child; there have been about 90 children in the US that have died from the coronavirus. 

“We all have to take this virus seriously, including taking care of our children. To protect everyone in our communities we must follow all the public health measures that we know can contain the virus. This includes avoiding large gatherings.”

Between July 9th and August 6th there were 179,990 new Covid-19 cases among children in the US, bringing the total number of cases in kids up to 380,174. The data showed that children account for .5% – 5.3% of all coronavirus-related hospitalizations and also account for up to .4% of the deaths. While these numbers are extremely lower when compared to immunocompromised/older individuals who get infected, the fact that this virus has killed even one child who was otherwise completely healthy should be enough cause for concern for parents everywhere. 

Embed from Getty Images

For children especially, one of the biggest concerns is how easily they’re able to spread the virus because they’re so much less likely to exhibit symptoms or be hospitalized. Many are worried about US school staff health and safety specifically, and William Haseltime, a former professor at Harvard’s Medical School, claims that administrations need to be thinking of that as top priority. 

“Children can be highly infectious to other people. It turns out they have a thousand times more virus in their nose than you need to infect, so they’re very, very contagious. There’s every reason to suspect that this virus  behaves pretty much like a cold virus in terms of transmission.”

New reports from the US’ Centers for Disease Control also show that when kids are hospitalized for Covid-19, they need to be administered to the Intensive Care Unit as often as adults do. The report specifically measured information taken from 14 states which found that 576 children were administered to the ICU between March and July. 

Children under the age of two hold the same level of risk as an elderly individual due to the fact that their immune systems are much less developed when compared to a toddler or older child. To slow down the spread and risk of infection, the CDC recommends you make your kids wash their hands as often as possible, ensure they understand the importance of social distancing, and of course, make sure they always wear their mask.

Girl Vaping

Health Scares Spell Trouble for Vaping Industry

/in , /by

Recently, a string of vaping-related hospitalizations made headlines and led to growing concerns about the safety of e-cigarettes marketed as healthier alternatives to cigarettes and other tobacco products. In the aftermath of this news, a number of states have moved to ban flavored vaping products, and the federal government even contemplated the idea of banning all flavors of vapor except tobacco nationwide. This sudden spike in concern has led to problems for the vaping industry, as blame is being placed squarely on the manufacturers of nicotine-containing products for the public health epidemic, and as the growing popularity of vaping among teenagers and young people threatens to undo the work of several decades of public campaigns aimed at curbing nicotine addiction.

Embed from Getty Images

Juul, a brand which has become synonymous with vaping as it controls roughly 70% of the e-cigarette market, recently saw a change of leadership as it replaced its CEO with a former tobacco executive. A sudden change in leadership is never a good sign for a company, particularly one as large as Juul, and this news comes amidst other troubling developments for the company. Recently, the F.D.A. claimed that Juul broke the law by implying that e-cigarettes were safer than traditional cigarettes despite the lack of scientific evidence concerning the long-term health effects of using the products. Even more disconcertingly, the F.D.A found that Juul was marketing their products to teenagers in high schools as part of a campaign ostensibly targeted at reducing tobacco use by young people. Juul has said that it intends on fully cooperating with the F.D.A.’s regulations, and has announced it will not fight a proposed ban on flavored nicotine cartridges. Next year, e-cigarettes are scheduled to be banned in San Francisco, and Juul is considering whether or not they should abandon a ballot initiative to overturn the ban.

In order to stay on the market in the United States, Juul and other similar companies have to be able to prove that their products promote public health more than they harm it, which is growing increasingly difficult as the news reports of vaping-related hospitalizations and an epidemic of nicotine addiction in young people. While initially envisioned as a tool to help people quit smoking, vaping has instead become a fashionable trend, and many who are addicted to nicotine have no history of smoking cigarettes. The rise in popularity of e-cigarettes has been explosive, and while F.D.A. regulations concerning the sale of nicotine products have long been in effect, regulatory bodies have yet to catch up with the specific public health problems that e-cigarettes in particular pose. 

Embed from Getty Images

Health professionals across the country are in virtual consensus in advising against the use of e-cigarettes, except as replacements for cigarettes as smoking cessation devices. Even then, there are nicotine delivery systems, such as chewing gum and patches, that are likely safer than vaping as they do not involve any inhalation of chemicals. The director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, Dr. Nora Volkow, said that e-cigarettes should be clinically tested to determine whether they are effective as smoking cessation tools, and if they are they should only be available by prescription, which is the same standard to which other potentially dangerous drugs are held.

While recent develops certainly don’t bode well for the e-cigarette industry, it’s difficult to make any concrete predictions about the fate of affected companies. Famously, the tobacco industry spent millions of dollars lobbying against the notion that cigarettes cause cancer and other health problems, and were very successful in doing so for several years. Vaping has become so widespread that its popularity perhaps even eclipses that of the tobacco products that preceded it, and as a result, the industry has a lot of money to spend on resisting regulatory efforts. However, the government has fought Big Tobacco before, pioneering widespread public health campaigns in an attempt to stop tobacco use, and as such has plenty of relevant experience to apply to fighting Juul and similar companies. Meanwhile, a meaningful segment of an entire generation of young people who otherwise would not have been exposed to nicotine are addicted to vaping, and only time will tell how they will be able to get their nicotine fix in the years to come.