Hong Kong — China on Sunday reported two additional deaths from COVID-19 as some cities move cautiously to ease anti-pandemic restrictions following increasingly vocal public frustrations.
The National Health Commission said one death was reported each in the provinces of Shandong and Sichuan. No information was given about the ages of the victims or whether they had been fully vaccinated.
China, where the virus first was detected in late 2019 in the central city of Wuhan, is the last major country trying to stop transmission completely through quarantines, lockdowns and mass testing. Concerns over vaccination rates are believed to figure prominently in the ruling Communist Party’s determination to stick to its hard-line strategy.
While nine in 10 Chinese have been vaccinated, only 66% of people over 80 have gotten one shot while 40% have received a booster, according to the commission. It said 86% of people over 60 are vaccinated.
Given those figures and the fact that relatively few Chinese have been built up antibodies by being exposed to the virus, some fear millions could die if restrictions were lifted entirely.
Yet, an outpouring of public anger appears to have prompted authorities to lift some of the more onerous restrictions, even as they say the “zero-COVID” strategy — which aims to isolate every infected person — is still in place.
The demonstrations, the largest and most widely spread in decades, erupted Nov. 25 after a fire in an apartment building in the northwestern city of Urumqi killed at least 10 people. That set off angry questions online about whether firefighters or victims trying to escape were blocked by locked doors or other anti-virus controls. Authorities denied that, but the deaths became a focus of public frustration.
This frame grab from eyewitness video footage made available via AFPTV on Nov. 27, 2022, shows demonstrators shouting slogans in Shanghai.
AFPTV/AFP via Getty Images
The country saw several days of protests across cities including Shanghai and Beijing, with protesters demanding an easing of COVID-19 curbs. Some demanded Chinese President Xi Jinping step down, an extraordinary show of public dissent in a society over which the ruling Communist Party exercises near total control.
Beijing and some other Chinese cities announced that riders can board buses and subways without a virus test for the first time in months. The requirement has led to complaints from some Beijing residents that even though the city has shut many testing stations, most public venues still require COVID-19 tests.
On Sunday, China announced another 35,775 cases from the past 24 hours, 31,607 of which were asymptomatic, bringing its total to 336,165 with 5,235 deaths.
While many have questioned the accuracy of the Chinese figures, they remain relatively low compared to the U.S. and other nations which are now relaxing controls and trying to live with the virus that has killed at least 6.6 million people worldwide and sickened almost 650 million.
China still imposes mandatory quarantine for incoming travelers even as its infection numbers are low compared to its 1.4 billion population.
Dec. 2, 2022 – The flu virus made the most of the Thanksgiving holiday by reaching the highest level of national activity seen since the 2017-18 influenza season, according to the CDC.
The biggest 1-week increase in what is becoming an unprecedented flu season had flu-like activity at 7.5% for the week of Nov. 20-26, as measured by the proportion of outpatient visits reported to the CDC that involved respiratory illness, which may also include respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) and COVID-19.
That 7.5% is the highest level of flu-like activity recorded in the United States since early February 2018, at the peak of the 2017-18 flu season, and the highest rate recorded in November since the CDC began tracking such data in 1997. Flu-like activity reached 7.7% in October of 2009 but then dropped below 7% by the first week of November and did not rise again for the rest of that season, the CDC’s data shows.
There are more signs of a worse flu or flu-like season this year.. The total hospitalization rate for confirmed cases of flu, 16.6 per 100,000 people, is higher than the rate seen at this point in the season during any season since 2010-2011, the CDC said.
The high rate of hospitalizations from Nov. 20-26 is nearly double the the previous week’s numbers, the CDC noted in its weekly Fluview report.
So far this season, the CDC estimates, “there have been at least 8.7 million illnesses, 78,000 hospitalizations, and 4,500 deaths from flu.” In 2018-19, the last full influenza season before COVID, there were 148 deaths through the first 8 weeks, based on CDC data.
Flu-like activity at the state and territory levels, which the CDC categorizes on a scale range from 1-13 – from minimal (1-3) to very high (11-13) – puts 31 states at very high for the week, compared with 19 the week before. Only New Hampshire and the Northern Mariana Islands are in the minimal range, according to the CDC.
Student math scores plummeted nationwide during the pandemic. But in Meriden, Connecticut, scores went up at nearly every elementary school in the district. Meg Oliver reports.
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Nov. 29, 2022 – Deaths from heart disease and stroke among adults living in the United States have been on the decline since 2010. But the COVID-19 pandemic reversed that downward trend in 2020, new research shows.
It was as if COVID had wiped out 5 years of progress, pushing rates back to levels seen in 2015, the researchers say.
Non-Hispanic Black people and those who were younger than 75 were affected more than others, with the pandemic reversing 10 years of progress in those groups.
Rebecca C. Woodruff, PhD, presented these study findings at the American Heart Association 2022 Scientific Sessions.
The rate of death from heart disease had been falling for decades in the United States due to better detection of risk factors, such as high blood pressure, and better treatments, such as statins for cholesterol, she said.
The reversal of this positive trend shows that it is important that people “work with a health care provider to prevent and manage existing heart disease, even in challenging conditions like the COVID-19 pandemic,” she said.
Woodruff advised that “everyone can improve and maintain their cardiovascular health and reduce the risk of cardiovascular disease by following the American Heart Association’s Life’s Essential 8 – eating better, being more active, quitting tobacco, getting healthy sleep, managing weight, controlling cholesterol, managing blood sugar, and managing blood pressure.”
“COVID-19 vaccines can help everyone, especially those with underlying heart disease or other health conditions, and protect people from severe COVID-19,” she stressed.
Andrew J. Einstein, MD, PhD, from Columbia University Irving Medical Center in New York City, who was not involved with this research, says the results show “very disturbing changes” to the decline in deaths from heart disease over the past decade.
The study findings underscore that “as a society, we need to take efforts to ensure that all people are engaged in the health care system, with one aim being improving heart health outcomes, which worsened significantly in 2020,” he says.
“If you don’t actively see a primary care provider, it’s important to find one with whom you can have a good relationship and can discuss with you heart-healthy living; check your blood pressure, sugar, and cholesterol; ask you about symptoms and examine you to detect disease early; and refer you for more specialized heart care as needed,” he says.
Some Study Findings
The researchers analyzed data from the CDC’s WONDER database.
They identified adults ages 35 and older with heart disease as cause of death.
They found that the number of people who died from heart disease in every 100,000 people (heart disease death rate) dropped each year from 2010 to 2019, but it increased in 2020, the first year of the pandemic.
This increase was seen in the total population, in men, in women, in all age groups, and in all race and Hispanic ethnicity groups.
In the total population, the heart disease death rate dropped by 9.8% from 2010 to 2019. But this rate increased by 4.1% in 2020, going back to the rate it had been in 2015.
Among non-Hispanic Black people, the heart disease death rate fell by 10.4% from 2010 to 2019, but it increased by 11.2% in 2020, going back to the rate it had been in 2010.
Similarly, among adults ages 35 to 54 and those ages 55 to 74, the rates of heart disease deaths decreased from 2010 to 2019 and increased in 2020 to rates higher than they had been in 2010.
In 2020, about 7 years of progress in declining heart death rates was lost among men and 3 years of progress was lost among women, the researchers said.
Nov. 29, 2022 – Reports of respiratory illness continued to rise as the 2022-23 flu season maintained its early surge through mid-November, according to the CDC.
Nationally, 6% of all outpatient visits were because of flu or flu-like illness for the week of Nov. 13-19, up from 5.8% the previous week, the CDC’s Influenza Division said in its weekly FluView report.
Those figures are the highest recorded in November since 2009, but the peak of the 2009-10 flu season occurred even earlier – the week of Oct. 18-24 – and the rate of flu-like illness had already dropped to just over 4.0% by Nov. 15-21 that year and continued to drop thereafter.
Although COVID-19 and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) are included in the data from the CDC’s Outpatient Influenza-like Illness Surveillance Network, the agency did note that “seasonal influenza activity is elevated across the country” and estimated that “there have been at least 6.2 million illnesses, 53,000 hospitalizations, and 2,900 deaths from flu” during the 2022-23 season.
Total flu deaths include 11 reported in children as of Nov. 19, and children ages 0-4 had a higher proportion of visits for flu like-illness than other age groups.
The agency also said the cumulative hospitalization rate of 11.3 per 100,000 population “is higher than the rate observed in [the corresponding week of] every previous season since 2010-2011.” Adults 65 years and older have the highest cumulative rate, 25.9 per 100,000, for this year, compared with 20.7 for children 0-4; 11.1 for adults 50-64; 10.3 for children 5-17; and 5.6 for adults 18-49 years old, the CDC said.
Nov. 28, 2022 – The COVID-19 pandemic was hard on everyone, especially during the early months of the lockdown. But college students had particularly high stress levels, with mental health effects that have remained in some people even 2 years later.
During spring semester of 2020, many college students had to go home and live with their families – “which was a big adjustment after being more autonomous – deal with remote instruction, figure out plans such as summer internships, worry about their health and the health of others,” all at a critical time when teens and young adults are “gaining independence, developing a central identity, and figuring out where they fit into the world,” says Jordan Booker, PhD, an assistant professor of psychological sciences at the University of Missouri.
Olivia McKenzie is an example. Now 23 and working as a paralegal in New York City, she was a sophomore at the University of Michigan when the pandemic struck.
“We were sent home because of COVID, and I did my classes and coursework online,” she says. “College was awesome for me because I like being around friends and in the company of many people, so being at home and away from my friends wasn’t good for me or for my mental health.”
McKenzie feels “lucky” because her parents recognized her needs and supported her return to Ann Arbor, where she shared a living space with a few other students and continued online classes from there.
Booker and his colleagues wanted to understand how college students were coming to terms with shutdowns and quarantines.
He was part of a team effort, including researchers from private and public universities around the U.S. with expertise in studying how people use life stories to organize and make sense of their lives. The team came together very quickly as colleges were shutting down during spring semester, Booker says. “We wanted to see the implications of the shutdown and how these students were making sense of how COVID was impacting their lives early on.”
Different Styles for Different Folks
Over 600 first-year college students were asked to write about the impact of the pandemic on them in response to a computerized questionnaire with narrative prompts.
The researchers expected the crisis to be short. But as the pandemic continued, it became clear that, unlike shorter events (like natural disasters), the pandemic never had a “clean break,” signaling its end. So the researchers followed these students for a year to see if they could detect themes in their narratives that might predict their adjustment to the issues posed by COVID-19 and the return to campus.
The students also filled out questionnaires about their psychological adjustment, sense of belonging, well-being, identity development, and mental health concerns.
“There are different ways that folks come to terms with their experiences and talk about the impact on their lives,” Booker observes. “Storytelling, in and of itself, is a widespread human activity. We use it all the time to share insights and make sense, day-to-day.”
But how people tell their stories differs, based on their personalities, cultural norms, and social standards.
“For example, some people provide more structure, organization, and detail; some people focus on major goals, such as personal success and connecting with others; and some bring in more integration and personal growth,” he says.
Personal Growth
“We found that how the young people tended to emphasize personal success and focus on [independent] values tended to be tied to relatively fewer reports of COVID-related stressors,” Booker reports.
“Another big theme was the expression of personal growth – ways that students were talking about and recognizing challenges from COVID-related experiences that actually changed their lives for the better,” he says.
Students who identified ways that COVID-19 helped their personal growth had fewer reports of COVID-related stresses, better mental health in the moment, and more advanced identity development, he says.
These findings extended to the 1-year follow-up, “where we continued to see valuable insights and ways that growth was tied to most areas of development and adjustment.” The students “were able to incorporate personal reasoning, ways that they could move forward, even with a lot of uncertainty in the world, and we saw initial and lasting positive ties with other areas of development and adjustment.”
McKenzie says the pandemic “forced me to grow because there were all sorts of emotions I wasn’t used to dealing with full-on when I was distracted by being with friends or going to classes.”
She’s learned from the pandemic. “I think there was a lot I took for granted instead of feeling gratitude. Now, it’s way easier for me to look back and be grateful or intentional about how I spend my time, seeing people, or being able to go outdoors, which I couldn’t do during the freezing winter in Michigan.”
Another long-term area of growth has been self-care. “The pandemic caused me to be in tune with myself, perhaps in more ways than I would be at this stage in my life if I hadn’t gone through that.”
She also has learned to value spending time alone and is more “intentional” about whom she spends her time with.
But there were downsides. “Anxiety in particular is a lingering effect – unsureness about general things and being a lot more sensitive to news and world events, because you never know what might happen next,” she says. “I see this not only with me, but with my peers as well. There’s more harsh reality in our lives now, a sense of unease in my generation. Nothing will ever be the same.”
Sharing Stories
McKenzie didn’t directly describe her perceptions of the pandemic in writing during the lockdown, although she was a creative writing student and taking two writing classes. But “how the pandemic was influencing me as a human being got woven into my writing in other ways.”
She kept a journal and talked about common experiences with friends. “I found a job in a restaurant, which felt like my saving grace during the pandemic because it was an excuse to leave the house,” she says. “For over a year, we were fully masked and limited to outdoor seating, but still quite busy. We exchanged a lot of stories in that space.”
Sharing stories of common stressors and coping helped forge a “different kind of friendship” with fellow waitstaff and created a “sense of community and comradery during a time when ordinary ways of communing with others were discouraged.”
Nov. 28, 2022 – In early September, about a week after recovering from COVID-19, Barri Sanders went to the bank to pay a bill. But by mistake, she transferred a large amount of money from the wrong account.
“I’m talking about $20,000,” she says. “I had to go back [later] and fix it.”
Sanders, 83, had not had confusion like that before. Suddenly, the Albuquerque, NM, resident found herself looking up from a book and not remembering what she had just read. She would stand up from her chair and forget what she meant to do.
“I kind of thought it was just the aging process,” she says. Combined with sudden balance issues, insomnia, and a nagging postnasal drip, the overall effect was “subtle, but scary,” she says.
After 5 days of this, she went to bed and slept the whole night through. She woke up in the morning to find her balanced restored, her sinuses clear, and the mental fog gone. What she’d had, she realized, wasn’t a rapid start of dementia, but rather a mercifully short form of long COVID.
Somewhere between 22% and 32% of people who recover from COVID-19 get “brain fog,” a non-scientific term used to describe slow or sluggish thinking. While this is disturbing at any age, it can be particularly upsetting to older patients and their caregivers, who fear they’re having or witnessing not just an after-effect of a disease, but the start of a permanent loss of thinking skills. And some scientists are starting to confirm what doctors, patients, and their families can already see: Older patients who have had COVID-19 have a higher risk of getting dementia or, if they already have mental confusion, the illness may worsen their condition.
British scientists who studied medical records from around the world reported in the journal The Lancet Psychiatry in August that people who recovered from COVID-19 had a higher risk of problems with their thinking and dementia even after 2 years had passed.
Another 2022 study, published in the journal JAMA Neurology, looked at older COVID-19 patients for a year after they were discharged from hospitals in Wuhan, China. Compared with uninfected people, those who survived a severe case of COVID-19 were at higher risk for early onset, late-onset, and progressive decline in their thinking skills. Those who survived a mild infection were at a higher risk for early onset decline, the study found.
Eran Metzger, MD, an assistant professor of psychiatry at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, says he’s noticed that COVID-19 makes some older patients confused, and their brains don’t regain their former clarity.
“We see a stepwise decline in their cognition during the COVID episode, and then they never get back up to their baseline,” says Metzger, medical director at Hebrew SeniorLife.
New research is beginning to back up such findings.
People who got COVID-19 were twice as likely to receive a diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease in the 12 months after infection, compared to those who didn’t get COVID, according to a study published in the journal Nature in September, which analyzed the health care databases of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.
Joshua Cahan, MD, a cognitive neurologist at Northwestern University, advises caution about applying such a specific label simply from a patient’s medical chart. After all, he notes, few patients get tested to confirm that they have the proteins linked to Alzheimer’s.
“Probably the most appropriate conclusion from that is that there’s an increased risk of dementia after a COVID infection,” he says, “but we don’t know whether it’s truly Alzheimer’s disease or not.”
There could be a number of reasons why COVID-19 triggers a decline in thinking skills, says Michelle Monje, MD, a neuroscientist and neuro-oncologist at Stanford University.
In a paper published in October in the journal Cell, Monje and her co-author, Akiko Iwasaki, PhD, a professor of immunobiology at Yale University, propose six possible triggers for brain fog caused by COVID: inflammation in the lungs and respiratory passages that leads to inflammation and dysregulation of the central nervous system; autoimmune reactions that damage the central nervous system; brain infection directly caused by the coronavirus (though, they note, this appears rare); a re-activation of a Epstein-Barr virus, which can lead to neuro-inflammation; triggered by the coronavirus; and/or complications from severe cases of COVID-19, possibly involving periods of low blood oxygen and multi-organ failure.
Scientific understanding of brain fog is “part of an emerging picture that inflammation elsewhere in the body can be transmitted to become inflammation in the brain,” Monje says. “And once there’s inflammation in the brain … that can dysregulate other cell types that normally support healthy cognitive function.”
One issue with the concept of brain fog is that, like the term itself, the condition can be tough to define for doctors and patients alike and hard, if not impossible, to capture on common cognition tests.
These days, patients often arrive at the Center of Excellence for Alzheimer’s Disease, in Syracuse, NY, complaining that they “don’t feel the same” as they did before contracting COVID-19, says Sharon Brangman, MD, the center’s director and the chair of the Geriatrics Department at Upstate Medical University.
But the evidence of diminished cognition just isn’t there.
“There’s nothing that we can find, objectively, that’s wrong with them,” she says. “They’re not severe enough to score low on mental status testing.”
But specialized, directed testing can find some probable signs, says Cahan, who evaluates patient cognition in a long COVID clinic at Northwestern University.
He often finds that his long COVID patients score in the low normal range on cognitive testing.
“Patients do have a complaint that something’s changed, and we don’t have prior testing,” he says. “So it’s possible that they were maybe in the high normal range or the superior range, but you just don’t know.”
He says he has seen very high-performing people, like lawyers, executives, PhDs, and other professionals, who have tests that might be interpreted as normal, but given their level of achievement, “you would expect [higher scores].”
Like Sanders, many of those who do have muddled thinking after a COVID infection return to their former mental status. A study published in the journal Brain Communications last January found that people who had recovered from COVID-19, even if they had a mild illness, were significantly more likely to have memory and other cognition issues in the months after infection. But after 9 months, the former COVID patients had returned to their normal level of cognition, the team at Britain’s University of Oxford reported.
Notably, though, the average age of the people in the study was 28.6.
At the Northwestern clinic, Cahan treats patients who have struggled with COVID-induced cognition issues for months or even years. A rehabilitation program involves working with patients to come up with ways to compensate for cognitive deficits – such as making lists – as well as brain exercises, Cahan says. Over time, patients may achieve a 75% to 85% improvement, he says.
Monje hopes that one day, science will come up with ways to fully reverse the decline.
“I think what is likely the most common contributor to brain fog is this neuro-inflammation, causing dysfunction of other cell types,” she says. “And, at least in the laboratory, we can rescue that in mouse models of chemotherapy brain fog, which gives me hope that we can rescue that for people.”
Missed the second half of the show? The latest on immigration and asylum cases, Anthony Fauci on Covid-19 and Colorado Gov. Jared Polis on red flag laws.
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This week on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan,” the U.S. faces some tough questions on public health — and public safety. Americans are gathering for the holidays, some for the first time in years, but health officials are warning a pandemic-weary populace of the dangers posed by a triple threat of respiratory viruses. We’ll talk to Dr. Anthony Fauci about the risk. Plus, Rep. James Clyburn and Colorado Gov. Jared Polis.
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This week on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan,” the U.S. faces some tough questions on public health — and public safety. Americans are gathering for the holidays, some for the first time in years, but health officials are warning a pandemic-weary populace of the dangers posed by a triple threat of respiratory viruses. We’ll talk to Dr. Anthony Fauci about the risk. Plus, Rep. James Clyburn and Colorado Gov. Jared Polis.
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Health officials are growing concerned that holiday gatherings could accelerate a “tripledemic” — a convergence of COVID-19, flu and RSV cases. Manuel Bojorquez takes a look.
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China has put millions in lockdown after violence erupted at the world’s largest iPhone factory after workers have endured grueling COVID restrictions.
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Note that I don’t make that statement as a criticism. Battlefield 2042 was released in the middle of the pandemic, with almost two whole years of its development affected, and as a long-time series fan—but also a video game journalist familiar with how this stuff works—I’ve made peace with the fact the game was clearly rushed out the door by executives to meet a short-term financial goal, regardless of the damage it has done to the brand’s long-term standing.
Well, we’re now at that “months of updates” point, which in previous Battlefields would have been the stage where the game had been added to substantially, but in 2042’s case is just where it’s within touching distance of par.
This week saw the release of Season 3, which adds a huge new map (set in Sweden around two boxy robot arms factories), a new anti-tank vehicle, a railgun and a new specialist, whose unique weapon is a miniature air-bursting explosive rifle.
Battlefield 2042 | Season 3: Escalation Gameplay Trailer
It’s all good! The map, Spearhead, is a big one, and like Stranded before it is cleanly differentiated by having two big indoor playgrounds for close-quarters combat, surrounded by wide-open spaces for snipers and vehicles. I’ve been having a great time with it, as its long design and rocky terrain between the two buildings means games often turn into meatgrinders over the central control points, leading to huge, explosive battles.
The new Specialist, Rasheed Zain, is also something the game has needed; his air-bursting rifle is able to kill enemy forces bunkered down in cover or around corners, giving infantry the kind of space-clearing ability that was previously only available to vehicles or the rare few who can actually use grenades properly.
I’m not quite as sold on the other two main additions, the railgun and anti-armour tank. The latter, the EMKV90-TOR, plays like StarCraft’s Siege Tank; you can drive it around for a bit with limited firepower but when you really want to mess stuff up, you can lower its suspension and snipe enemy tanks from across the map.
The railgun, meanwhile, is all about timing; it’s useful as both a medium and long-range weapon, but only if you can master the way it charges itself then discharges automatically when ready. Nearly all of the game’s current roster of weapons and vehicles feel somewhat contemporary, with gentle concessions made to the fact this game is set 20 years in the future; these two additions look, sound and feel more like Halo weapons.
Image: EA
When you look back at all the work and updates the game has received since launch—not just new stuff but revisions of old maps and tweaks to things like Specialist appearance and their soundbytes, giving the game a more cohesive tone—it’s clearly a much-improved experience!
I think when the unpopular Specialist system is reworked next month to revert to traditional Battlefield classes, that year-long effort to make this the game it should have been will be done. Which, given how disastrous the game’s launch was, will be one hell of an achievement.
And yet, it also can’t have us help but wonder: what could this game have been if the last 12 months had been free to add to the game, rather than just perform emergency repairs? I really like the setting of 2042, one of the few blockbusters to ever take the threat of climate change seriously, and its near-future arsenal has been so much more fun to use than the historical gear available in the last few games.
We’ll never know! A pandemic and the investor class conspired to curse this game, and so if all we can look forward to is one last Season 4 update before the whole thing gets binned and everyone moves onto the next Battlefield, then that’s what I’ll be looking forward to. Me and the other people who have been enjoying the game since launch. There are dozens of us! Dozens!
Nov. 22, 2022 – White House officials on Friday urged Americans – again – to get their COVID-19 vaccines and boosters, as the latest booster shot has a better immune response to the evolving COVID-19 variants BA.4 and BA.5.
“Recent data that has come out indicate that, in fact, if you are vaccinated and boosted, compared to an unvaccinated person, there is a 14 times lower risk of dying in the most recent BA.4-5 era, compared to unvaccinated, and at least a three times lower risk of testing positive, compared to unvaccinated individuals,” said Anthony Fauci, MD, who stood at the White House press briefing podium “one last time” as he bid farewell to reporters on Tuesday.
The physician-scientist will be stepping down from his position as director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and chief medical adviser to President Joe Biden next month.
Fauci has made it clear that he is not retiring, but rather, pursuing “the next chapter” of his career.During his more than 5 decades of service to the federal government, he has spearheaded the fights against HIV and AIDS, Ebola, and COVID-19, among other health crises.
White House COVID-19 Response Coordinator Ashish Jha, MD, joined Fauci on the podium and highlighted the latest developments in COVID-19 vaccinations and disease prevention.
On Monday, 12 of America’s top medical and clinical societies, including the American Medical Association and the American College of Physicians, released a statement with a clear message: Go get your updated COVID-19 vaccine and annual flu shot, which is the best way to save lives this holiday season – particularly the lives of older Americans.
Other announcements included a “6-week sprint” to help Americans get their updated COVID shot by the end of December. Three hundred and fifty million dollars in funding will go towardcommunity health centers, mobile vaccine clinics, and religious organizations to assist in vaccine education and distribution. There will also be $125 million in funding for aging and disability networks to get more vulnerable and disabled Americans vaccinated.
Jha also said that most Americans will need one shot each year to stay safe, similar to the flu shot.
“We need to make protecting our loved ones an important part of the conversation we have around the Thanksgiving table and an important part of the conversation that we have in the days and weeks ahead,” he said.
“If folks get their updated vaccines, and they get treated if they have a breakthrough infection, we can prevent essentially every COVID death in America.”
For more information on COVID-19 vaccines, click here.
American Academy of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation: “PASC Dashboard.”
Janna Friedly, MD, executive director, Post-COVID Rehabilitation and Recovery Clinic, University of Washington.
National Institutes of Health: “Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) Treatment Guidelines,” “RECOVER: Researching COVID,” “RECOVER Program Takes First Steps in Advancing Toward Clinical Trials to Better Understand Long COVID.”
Cancer: “Prevalence and Characteristics of Moderate to Severe Fatigue: A Multicenter Study in Cancer Patients and Survivors.”
National Institute for Health Care and Excellence: “Chronic Fatigue Syndrome/Myalgic Encephalomyelitis (or Encephalopathy): Diagnosis and Management.”
Monica Verduzco-Gutierrez, MD, chair of rehabilitation medicine, director, COVID-19 Recovery Clinic, University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio.
PM&R: “Multidisciplinary Collaborative Consensus Guidance Statement on the Assessment and Treatment of Fatigue in Postacute Sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 infection (PASC) Patients.”
The Journal of Head Trauma Rehabilitation: “Effectiveness of Amantadine Hydrochloride in the Reduction of Chronic Traumatic Brain Injury Irritability and Aggression.”
CNS Drugs: “Modafinil: A Review of its Pharmacology and Clinical Efficacy in the Management of Narcolepsy.”
Frontiers in Neurology: “Methylphenidate Treatment of Cognitive Dysfunction in Adults After Mild to Moderate Traumatic Brain Injury: Rationale, Efficacy, and Neural Mechanisms.”
PM&R: “Multi-Disciplinary Collaborative Consensus Guidance Statement on the Assessment and Treatment of Cognitive Symptoms in Patients With Post-Acute Sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 Infection (PASC).”
Annals of Clinical and Translational Neurology: “Persistent Neurologic Symptoms and Cognitive Dysfunction in Non-Hospitalized Covid-19 Long Haulers.”
Alba Miranda Azola, MD, co-director, Post-Acute COVID-19 Team, Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore.
U.S. National Library of Medicine: “SARS-CoV-2 Viral Persistence Study (PASC) – Study of Long COVID-19.”
PolyBio: “LongCovid Research Consortium.”
Gary H. Gibbons, MD, director, National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute.
Nov. 22, 2022 – The overall risk of myocarditis after a COVID-19 vaccination remains rare, according to a new study published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal.
At the same time, developing inflammation of the heart muscle appears to be more common in men ages 18-29 who receive the Moderna shot. The researchers recommended the Pfizer shot for this group.
“Although observed rates of myocarditis were higher than expected, the benefits of the vaccine in reducing the severity of COVID-19, hospital admission, and deaths far outweigh the risk of developing myocarditis,” says Naveed Janjua, MBBS, the senior study author and executive director of data and analytic services at the British Columbia Centre for Disease Control.
Still, the number of people who developed myocarditis after vaccination is “somewhere between three to six times less than what we see after COVID disease,” says C. Buddy Creech, MD, director of the Vanderbilt Vaccine Research Program. Creech, who wasn’t involved with this study, has led COVID-19 vaccine clinical trials throughout the pandemic.
Janjua and colleagues looked at data from the people in British Columbia who were vaccinated for COVID-19 from December 2020 to March 2022. They looked for hospital admissions or emergency department visits for myocarditis or myopericarditis (inflammation of the sac-like tissue layer that surrounds the heart) within 7-21 days after vaccination. The research team also compared the number of observed cases to the cases expected if there were no link between a COVID-19 vaccine and myocarditis.
Overall, more than 10.2 million doses of Pfizer or Moderna vaccines were given to people ages 12 and older in British Columbia during that time, including nearly 7 million Pfizer doses and 3.2 million Moderna doses. Nearly 4 million were first doses, about 3.9 million were second doses, and 2.3 million were third doses.
The researchers found 99 cases of myocarditis within 7 days after vaccination, as compared with seven expected cases. The rate of myocarditis was 0.97 cases per 100,000 vaccine doses, as compared with an expected rate of 0.23 per 100,000 population. The observed rate was about 15 times higher than expected.
Also, they found 141 cases within 21 days, as compared with 20 expected cases. The rate of myocarditis was 1.37 cases per 100,000 vaccine doses, as compared to an expected rate of 0.39 per 100,000 population. The observed rate was about 7 times higher than expected.
Analyzing by age, myocarditis cases were highest among ages 12-17 and 18-29, and lowest among ages 70-79. By sex, myocarditis cases were higher for men than women.
“The numbers are small [for Moderna versus Pfizer], and therefore may not be entirely precise, but this has been a common theme,” Creech says. “This may be due to the slightly higher amount of antigen in the Moderna vaccine compared to Pfizer.”
The study confirmed what other researchers are seeing in the U.S. and around the world, Creech says.
“At the end of the day, the absolute number of myocarditis cases after vaccination are very low, though higher than we would expect. Both Pfizer and Moderna, as well as NIH, CDC, and others, have launched large-scale studies in order to understand why this is happening,” he says.
Finally, Creech says, the cases of myocarditis after vaccination have been mild.
“This should provide parents a measure of confidence as they seek to protect their families from COVID disease, including the often not mild cases of myocarditis following COVID disease,” he says.
Going digital: QR codes have seen a sharp increase in usage over the past two years.
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The popularity of QR codes have seen many ups and downs over the course of its almost 30-year existence, but with the need for contact-less menus and transactions during the pandemic, barcode technology is coming back in a big way. From 2018-2020, QR code usage has increased by 96% and many of the top real estate brokerages across the globe have taken notice.
With internet listings now being the primary means for home searches, the ease of use and speed of QR codes have made this once-forgotten technology more valuable than ever.
Here’s how top agents are using this simple yet effective tool to connect with clients.
Despite its complicated image, QR codes are both ubiquitous and simple, making it a fine candidate … [+] for those seeking to streamline information sharing.
AFP via Getty Images
Straightforward Listings
Previously, one of the main drawbacks of QR codes was entire segments of the population unaware of how the technology worked, but that has drastically changed since the pandemic says Chris Morrison, co-founder of RETSY. “I went to a restaurant with my mother, who is not a tech-savvy person, and I watched her easily scan a QR code to order a drink. I realized then that a lot more people must know how to use this technology than before.”
It was this realization that helped lead Morrison to start RETSY and develop the proprietary technology that would define the Scottsdale-based brokerage. “We use QR codes on almost every listing. What it does is give the consumer easy access to the information they want without all the extra trouble. No agents nagging you for months, no 1-800 recordings, no empty flier boxes. Just scan and you’ve got everything you need.”
For Tracey Atkins, a director at Private Property Global, QR codes not only make listings easier to access but also more enticing. By removing unnecessary text from listing advertisements, Atkins says that “we look less like we’re selling a home on the market and more that we’re telling a home to the market.”
The Melbourne-based marketing specialist added, “all we use is the image, the address and a QR code, and that leads them to a video where they can get a deeper level of understanding and engagement.”
Often, the search for a home is a digital one.
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Tried and True Methods Meet Modern Technology
Most agents have learned that sometimes traditional means of connecting with clients, like newspaper ads, billboards and cards, can work the best. However, for Catherine Bassick of Bassick Real Estate Advisors, adding a little update to these methods can make all the difference.
“I send out postcards about properties coming to the market and also those recently sold and I include a QR code to enable folks to get right to the property website instead of having to find it through several steps.”
Atkins says that PPG utilized QR codes alongside more classic advertising strategies when marketing the renowned Melbourne mansion Namarong. “We did a large campaign that included using QR codes through a national newspaper which was a powerful way to leverage that media and an opportunity for further storytelling.”
Real estate listings at storefront are just one way to reach potential clients. The addition of QR … [+] codes allows for all mediums to convey the same information.
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Agent Intel, With Ease
The ease of QR codes doesn’t just apply to home buyers but to agents as well, says Morrison. “When someone sees a property they like, they can scan the real estate sign and now we, as agents, can show them not only that property but others similar to it. We’re trying to make the perfect ecosystem for our agents.”
By using technology like QR codes, Morrison says that RETSY has been able to draw in some of “the top performing luxury agents who know that the tools we provide give us an advantage over any type of competition.”
The head of the Morrison Team added that the data gathered from QR codes is used for real estate and real estate only.
“A lot of companies give out QR codes so they can scrape your information, but with our system, it’s a closed loop, and it’s designed just for the real estate agents.”
CDR San Miguel uses QR codes as both a listing tool and a local resource for residents. A company … [+] brochure includes a QR code directing to the company’s lifestyle blog, written through the eyes of three generations of San Miguel de Allende residents.
CDR San Miguel
Creating A Personnel Connection
In addition to connecting home buyers with listings, Jim Dolan, owner of CDR San Miguel, says the scannable technology also aids in marketing his brokerage and himself.
“We put QR codes on the back of our cell phones. It’s great, I’ll be at a conference or socializing and someone will ask for a business card and all I have to do is flip my phone over and they instinctively know what to do.”
The luxury broker continued that, unlike physical business cards, digital cards are more likely to remain in the hands, or phones, of potential clients. “Most of the time you get these cards and they end up in a stack in your closet. But with QR codes, my information goes directly into their phones, and that’s a big thing for us.”
CDR San Miguel, Private Property Global and RETSY areexclusive members of Forbes Global Properties, a consumer marketplace and membership network of elite brokerages selling the world’s most luxurious homes. Search the latest luxury listings here.
Nov. 17, 2022 – The overlapping symptoms of respiratory viruses with household names – COVID-19, the flu, the common cold, and RSV (respiratory syncytial virus) – can make it challenging to tell them apart.
But how quickly the symptoms come on, how long they last, and even which symptom(s) you have can be important clues. Some treatments are available, and they’re most effective when taken early, so it’s worth figuring out which infection is hitting you, a friend, or a loved one.
The American Academy of Pediatrics came up with a helpful chart of which symptoms are most likely with which respiratory illnesses. “I think that’s a really good chart. And I do think that It is mostly the same for children and adults,” says Patricia (Patsy) A. Stinchfield, a registered nurse and president of the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases (NFID).
One exception she offered is that children with COVID-19 report less loss of taste and smell, compared to adults.
“It is extremely, extremely difficult to differentiate our symptoms between influenza, RSV, and COVID-19 … for parents and physicians for that matter,” says Mobeen Rathore, MD, a member of the American Academy of Pediatrics’ Committee on Infectious Diseases.
Stinchfield agrees that these viruses cause many of the same symptoms, such as congestion, coughing, and the potential for fever. But that does not mean it’s impossible to tell them apart.
The Fast and the Furious
“After 44 years as an infectious disease nurse practitioner, one of the things I would ask people trying to figure out how sick they are is about the onset.” For both children and adults, the flu often comes on very quickly. “It’s like one minute a child is playing or an adult is working – and the next minute … it’s that feeling like you got hit by a Mack truck.”
In contrast, the other viral illnesses tend to come on more slowly, she says. “People will say they feel like they’re coming down with something, they have chills, a sore throat, or feel ‘blah.’”
GI symptoms can be another clue. Vomiting and diarrhea are more common with COVID-19, and to some extent the flu, compared to RSV. This happens in part because the COVID-19 virus attaches to ACE2 receptors found in both the lungs and the gut, so it can affect both parts of the body.
In addition, it is well accepted that loss of taste and smell is a unique sign of COVID-19 infection. So that can help you tell COVID-19 from other viral illnesses.
Symptoms That Point to RSV
More sneezing, “copious amounts” of nasal mucus – snot – coming from a runny nose, and wheezing are some hallmark symptoms of RSV. Wheezing is when a child or adult makes a whistling sound while breathing. Stinchfield says, “You don’t see wheezing as much in COVID or influenza as you do with RSV.”
“With RSV, it’s more of the upper respiratory type of infection, and people tend to have more of what we call bronchiolitis,” Rathore says. Bronchiolitis is inflammation and congestion in the small airways of the lungs, which in turn can cause the wheezing sound.
In addition, some people with RSV have so much trouble breathing normally that they recruit other muscles to help, including muscles right above and below the breastbone.
The Common Cold Is Still Around
“People are talking a lot about RSV right now – and rightly so – but at least what we are seeing is quite different,” Rathore says. The latest internal figures from the American Academy of Pediatrics’ Committee on Infectious Diseases suggest that the common cold is predominant virus at the moment, followed by influenza, RSV, and COVID-19.
Rathore estimates that about 35% of patients coming in with a viral illness test positive for the rhino enterovirus causing the common cold.
“So it is probably much more common than any of the other infections we are talking about,” he says. And yes, the cold is more common, “but it’s also relatively less likely to cause more severe illness.”
Testing Remains Essential
Stinchfield shared two main messages. Testing is the only reliable way to diagnose a viral illness. “So if someone says: ‘This is definitely RSV’ and your child hasn’t been tested, you really don’t know.”
Testing very young children is important because they cannot describe their aches and pains, says Rathore, who is also chief of the Division of Pediatric Infectious Diseases and Immunology at the University of Florida in Jacksonville.
Testing can also confirm flu or COVID. “The nice thing is that there are some combination rapid tests that we use in clinics that can look at COVID-19, the flu, and RSV all in one,” Stinchfield says. She hopes that similar combination home tests will be available in the future.
Another reason to test is “there’s treatment for COVID-19 and there’s treatment for influenza, so it is important to know what is it that you have so that you could potentially benefit from early treatment.”
Stinchfield also says there are effective vaccines for COVID-19 and influenza, and a vaccine to protect against RSV is in development.
Don’t Hesitate to Get Help
Trust your instinct if you feel a viral illness is getting worse, Stinchfield says. “Just listen to your gut. If you are afraid, if you’re like, ‘This is not right,’ ‘my husband doesn’t look good,’ ‘my baby doesn’t look good,’” get medical help.
“That’s what we’re here for,” she says.
Stinchfield acknowledges there can be longer than usual waits to see a pediatrician or infectious disease doctor because of the RSV outbreak. Also, consider a virtual appointment if you are concerned about exposure to other people in a medical setting, she says.
Are We in for a Worrisome Winter?
With multiple noteworthy viruses in circulation, some experts are warning about a “twindemic” or “tripledemic” this coming winter. Rathore took it a step further. “I’m actually calling a possibility of a quaternary-demic.” In addition to COVID-19, RSV, and the flu, the common cold virus is widespread as well.
In fact, in his area of northeast Florida, RSV rates seem to be going down, flu is going up, and with COVID-19, “there is a concern that it may come back as it did in previous seasons.” At the same time, rates for the common cold are holding steady.
“There is nothing you can say for sure” about which viruses will dominate over the coming winter,” Rathore says. But the flu season in the Southern Hemisphere was relatively severe, and that often predicts what happens in the United States and other parts of the Northern Hemisphere, he says.
On a positive note, the flu vaccine this past season was a good match for protecting against the flu strain that circulated in Australia and elsewhere, which could be reassuring here. “So that is one more reason that all those eligible for the influenza vaccine should get it.”
Zachary Schwartz, MD, medical director, Vancouver General Hospital’s Post-COVID-19 Recovery Clinic.
Rainu Kaushal, MD, senior associate dean for clinical research, Weill Cornell Medicine, New York City; co-lead, National Institutes of Health RECOVER Initiative study on long COVID in adults and children.
Alexander Charney, MD, PhD, lead principal investigator, RECOVER adult cohort, Mount Sinai, New York City; assistant professor of psychiatry, genetics and genomic sciences, neuroscience, and neurosurgery, Icahn Mount Sinai.
Katie Bach, senior fellow, Brookings Institution.
David Cutler, PhD, professor of economics, Harvard University.
CDC: ”Long COVID, Household Pulse Survey.”
U.S. Census Bureau: “U.S. Adult population grew faster than nation’s total population from 2010 to 2020.”
U.S. Government Accountability Office: Science & Tech Spotlight: Long COVID
The Journal of the American Medical Association: “Prevalence and correlates of long COVID symptoms among U.S. adults,” “Association Between BNT162b2 Vaccination and Long COVID After Infections Not Requiring Hospitalization in Health Care Workers.”
The Lancet: “Persistence of somatic symptoms after COVID-19 in the Netherlands: an observational cohort study.”
Health Canada: “Frequency and impact of longer-term symptoms following COVID-19 in Canadian adults.”
U.K. Office for National Statistics: “Prevalence of ongoing symptoms following coronavirus (COVID-19) infection in the UK: 3 November 2022.”
World Health Organization: “At least 17 million people in the WHO European Region experienced long COVID in the first two years of the pandemic; millions may have to live with it for years to come.”
The Guardian: “The data is clear: long Covid is devastating people’s lives and livelihoods,” ”Trajectory of long covid symptoms after covid-19 vaccination: community based cohort study.”
Nature: “Outcomes among confirmed cases and a matched comparison group in the Long-COVID in Scotland study” (updated with correction).
