In a recent study posted to the bioRxiv* preprint server, researchers assessed the association between neuroinvasion and anosmia observed during coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19).
In the early phases of the COVID-19 pandemic, anosmia was a defining feature of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection. However, with the emergence of novel SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern (VOCs), the profile manifested by SARS-CoV-2 infection has evolved, and anosmia is now less common. The neuropathogenesis of the ancestral SARS-CoV-2 has been the subject of extensive research, but yet little is known about the variants' potential for neuropathology.
In the present study, researchers estimated the clinical, olfactory, and inflammatory impact of infection with SARS-CoV-2 ancestral strain and SARS-CoV-2 Gamma, Delta, and Omicron/BA.1 variants.
The team assessed how different SARS-CoV-2 VOCs affected the clinical manifestations of infection compared to the ancestral Wuhan strain. In Vero-E6 cells, the researchers examined the in vitro growth curves of these viruses. Subsequently, SARS-CoV-2 Wuhan or the VOCs Gamma, Delta, or Omicron/BA.1 were administered intranasally to male golden hamsters, and the subjects were observed for four days after infection (dpi). The nasal turbinates and lower airways were assessed for viral titers and ribonucleic acid (RNA) loads in the lungs. The team also evaluated the impact of infection on the olfactory bulbs after determining the clinical and inflammatory profile of the infected animals.
All of the SARS-CoV-2-infected animals showed a progressive loss of weight. This effect was particularly noted in SARS-CoV-2 Wuhan-infected animals that displayed the most severe median weight loss, followed by the Gamma-infected animals, the Delta-infected animals, and the Omicron/BA.1-infected animals. SARS-CoV-2 Wuhan-infected animals had the worst clinical profile, followed by Gamma- and Delta-infected animals, while Omicron/BA.1-infected animals displayed a delayed manifestation of mild symptoms, clinically detectable only at four dpi. Non-specific illness-related clinical signs such as ruffled fur, slow movement, and apathy followed the same pattern.
Only 12.5% of Gamma-infected mice fully lost their ability to smell, while 62.5% of SARS-CoV-2 Wuhan-infected animals showed signs of olfactory impairment. The rats that were infected with Delta and Omicron/BA.1, however, did not exhibit any olfactory impairment. Regardless of the infecting variant, infectious viruses were found in the lungs and nasal turbinates of all infected hamsters.
The impact of the infecting variant was, however, noted in the Gamma-infected animals that had the highest viral titers and the Omicron/BA.1-infected animals having the lowest. Notably, Delta-infected animals had the highest viral load. Genomic and sub-genomic SARS-CoV-2 RNA were found to be in equal measures in the lungs of all infected animals but in different amounts in the nasal turbinates.
All VoCs responded to the infection in the upper and lower airways, but each one did so with a tissue-specific inflammatory signature. This was observed in the lungs where all VoCs elevated MX dynamin-like guanosine triphosphatase (Mx2), interleukin-6 (IL-6), Il-10, and C-X-C motif chemokine ligand 10 (CXCL10), with the level in SARS-COV-2 Wuhan-infected animals being the highest.
Interferon beta (IFN-) and Il-6 gene expression in the nasal turbinates showed the highest values in animals infected with SARS-COV-2 Wuhan. The lowest values were in animals infected with Omicron/BA.1. Animals infected with Delta had the highest levels of Mx2, Cxcl10, and IL-10 expression, whereas those infected with Omicron/BA.1 had the lowest levels.
The prevalence of olfactory dysfunctions varied depending on the VoC, with hamsters infected with Delta and Omicron/BA.1 exhibiting no indications of anosmia. Notably, all tested SARS-CoV-2 variants could effectively enter the central nervous system (CNS) and infect the olfactory bulbs. The various VoCs can be distinguished based on spike mutations. Additionally, a few VoC isolates, including the Delta isolate used in this investigation, had deletions in the open reading frame (ORF)-7 region.
Interestingly, the clinical profile displayed by hamsters infected with Wuhan/D ORF7ab matched that of the wild-type SARS-CoV-2 Wuhan, demonstrating that ORF7ab is not necessary for viral infection and replication. However, the incidence of olfaction loss significantly lowered, with 25% of the infected animals showing symptoms of anosmia, as opposed to the 62.5% of those infected with CoV-2/SARS-COV-2 Wuhan.
The study findings showed that all tested SARS-CoV-2 variants, including the Wuhan, Gamma, Delta, and Omicron/BA.1 strains, are capable of invading the brain and causing inflammation, most likely via the olfactory bulbs. Regardless of how the disease manifests clinically, brain infection via the olfactory pathway appears to be a common trait of coronaviruses. Furthermore, this study showed that neuroinvasion and anosmia are separate processes after SARS-CoV-2 infection.
bioRxiv publishes preliminary scientific reports that are not peer-reviewed and, therefore, should not be regarded as conclusive, guide clinical practice/health-related behavior, or treated as established information.
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Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, masking has been one of the key public health measures put in place to combat the disease. Since March 2020, billions of disposable surgical masks have been used around the world, raising the question: What happens to all those used masks?
As researchers in single use plastic and microplastic pollution, the onset of a global wave of plastic debris pollution became evident to us in the early days of the pandemic we could see the evidence even during lockdowns when exercise was limited to short daily walks in the neighbourhood. Masks and gloves were on the ground, fluttering in the wind and hanging on fencing.
As ecologists, we were also aware of where the debris would end up in nests, for example, or wrapped around the legs or in the stomachs of wildlife.
In Canada, a team of researchers led by conservation biologist Jennifer Provencher studied how plastic debris impacts wildlife. In a study conducted during a canal cleanup in The Netherlands, biologists at the Naturalis Biodiversity Center documented that Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) debris would interact with wildlife in the same way as other plastics.
Theres a cartoon circulating on the internet that goes like this: a rat comes home carrying bags of groceries to see two rats laying in bunk beds made from medical grade masks. The rat in the bottom bunk exclaims, Free hammocks, all over town. Its like a miracle!
We shared this cartoon with our colleagues at the beginning of the pandemic, while we were conducting surveys of PPE litter around Toronto streets and parking lots.
We found that within the area that we were surveying which covered an area of Toronto equivalent to about 45 football fields over 14,000 disposable masks, gloves or hand wipes accumulated by the end of the year. Thats a lot of rat hammocks.
We set out to understand the breadth of the harm that PPE is doing to wildlife. What we learned is just how many other people were equally concerned.
We conducted a global survey using social media accounts of wildlife interactions with PPE debris. The images are jarring: A hedgehog wrapped in a face mask, the earloops tangled in its quills. A tiny bat, with the earloops of two masks wrapped around its wing. A nest, full of ivory white eggs, insulated with downy feathers and a cloth mask.
Many of these animals are dead, but most were alive at the time of observation. Some were released from their plastic entanglement by the people who captured the photo.
In total, we found 114 cases of wildlife interactions with PPE debris as documented on social media by concerned people around the world. Most of the wildlife were birds (83 per cent), although mammals (11 per cent), fish (two per cent), invertebrates such as an octopus (four per cent) and sea turtles (one per cent) were also observed.
The majority of observations originated in the United States (29), England (16), Canada (13) and Australia (11), likely representing both the increase in access to mobile devices and our English-language search terms. Observations also came from 22 other countries, with representation from all continents except Antarctica.
With an estimated 129 billion face masks used monthly around the world, how do we, as ecologists and environmental researchers, tell a global population experiencing a global pandemic to use fewer masks? We dont.
N95 masks have been essential in reducing the transmission of COVID-19 and, although they are more environmentally harmful than cloth masks, the benefit to health is demonstrably superior.
So, what could we have done better? One thing we noted during our PPE litter surveys is the abundance of discarded masks and gloves in close proximity to public garbage bins.
We hypothesize that a lack of clear messaging from municipalities and provinces about safe ways to dispose of PPE, along with our reluctance to gather near sources of discarded PPE, may have contributed to this global pollution event.
These are lessons that can still be implemented as we continue to cycle through waves of this pandemic; the use of masks is not yet behind us. Our surveys continue as we track an accumulation of PPE debris that will likely find its way into more nests and tangled around the bodies of more animals.
The rise of single use plastic use due to COVID-19 may not have been avoidable. But the rise in plastic pollution could have been mitigated with some investment in public outreach and modifications to waste management infrastructure to allow for masks and other PPE to be disposed of and processed correctly with minimal leakage to the environment.
Introduction
The COVID-19 pandemic has formed a chief social and medical crisis, forcing the medical and healthcare communities to face unprecedented challenges and rethink how to provide quality healthcare while enforcing health promotion required for pandemic deterrence and optimal healthcare distribution of resources.
The literature on crisis detection, early cautions and the following activation of crisis administrations has a wealth of information. It also says nothing about the gradual erosion of administrative and healthcare capacity as budget limitations constrict and communal opposition to voluntary compliance grows. COVID-19 provides fertile ground for further investigation.1 Whether caused by natural catastrophes, conflicts, or disease outbreaks, crises disturb peoples lives, hurting their livelihoods, economies and social and personal well-being. The primary idea for developing robust post-crisis healing is to ensure that the situation does not return to normal after the recovery process, but rather improves.
Since World War II, COVID-19 has brought the world the longest era of prolonged crisis regimes. Addressing the pandemic will necessitate not only a biomedical approach, but also a larger social sciences approach to health and, most importantly, listening to and learning from existing diverse communities and health management system, flexibility and capacity to work across sectors and recognition of social justice while carrying out public health actions in various contexts. Researchers believe that, just as previous cultural, political and epidemiological transitions led to changes in public health, these turbulent times will result in stronger public health.1
Traditionally, anthropology, sociology and more lately, cultural studies, rather than medicine and public health, have been interested in culture. In general, the public health literature provides relatively little in the way of relevant interpretations of the culture idea. Instead, the concept of culture is often used blindly, relying on presumptions about culture and the cultural behaviors that are linked to health.2 A public health culture can be defined as a new collection of words and effects, signals and facts, that supersedes or modifies the traditional set.3 It is a social construct that provides meaning through which the world is portrayed, in this case as a pandemic requiring massive political participation rather than isolated cases left in the hands of professionals.4
Moreover, communities with stronger civic capital are thus more successful at acting collectively and producing essential utilities, necessitating less costly supervision.5 Also, in the absence of government initiatives and persuasion campaigns, a strong civic culture can elicit voluntary response action at an early stage in the event of a pandemic. Furthermore, because more civic communities are more law-abiding,6 they are more likely to follow required responsive action measures if they are implemented. As a result, the higher the civic capital pool, the greater the adherence to reactive action and the slower the pandemic expansion.7
Culture has been a fundamental form of adaptation during the history of humankind. Culture is a socially communicated arrangement of shared ideas, beliefs and/or behaviors that varies across organizations and individuals within those groups.8 Because socioeconomic position, gender, religion and moral values all influence how people feel, interpret and react to their surroundings, basic cultural interpretations are insufficient to comprehend a patients unique experience with well-being and sickness.9 Policymakers must understand how communities, as cultures of behavior, adjust to different and composite pressures to develop relevant and responsive health policies and programs.
Culture may not be considered as an official priority by authorities in times of crisis, but it is available as a resource to handle adverse events by individuals and groups. Public culture assets give communities a sense of self, history and social cohesion while also providing resources for economic development and restorative energy. Culture is more than just a pastime; it is essential to human existence.
Hence, culture may increase COVID-19 exposure, early identification and therapy. Handshaking or kissing is common cultural salutations between people, but they can help infections transmit. Although persuading patients to adopt or revise their customary cultural habits as a source of data control can be difficult, it is an important tool for reducing or changing the transmission of infection. The importance of culture in dealing with these situations is sometimes overlooked. The COVID-19 pandemic, on the other hand, demonstrates the necessity of relying on and employing culture to assist individuals in dealing with difficult situations. Many internet-based efforts centered on culture and tradition expressed peoples desire to band together and, as a result, strengthen societal resilience in the face of the pandemic.
In 2001, the United Nations Education, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) defined culture as the set of distinctive spiritual, material, intellectual and emotional features of society or a social group [which] encompasses, in addition to art and literature, lifestyles, ways of living together, value systems, traditions and beliefs.10 This concept emphasizes that culture is made up of overt beliefs and behaviors and is not confined to national, racial, ethnic, or religious identity as well as the delicate and unquestioned traditions that shape our perceptions of certainty, define what is ordinary and extraordinary, and provide meaning and direction to our lives.
Because culture encompasses more than what we explicitly acknowledge, recognizing that it necessitates the difficult effort of analyzing assumptions, questioning preconceived notions and recognizing how the importance of common group values can sharply diverge, for better or worse: for better when difference allows us to rethink our assumptions in a new way; for worse when difference causes conflicts and misunderstandings. Many public health professionals are aware of the dangers of failing to address the cultural contexts of their work. As a result, public health systems have been weakened in their ability to respond effectively to the health requirements of varied communities, sparking fresh interest in establishing a health and well-being approach that is culturally sensitive.2
Culture has become a normal part of epidemiological research, seemingly unchallenged next to traditional health risk behaviors such as food and physical activity. The concept that culture can be used to improve ones health has been expressed in a variety of ways, including incorporating cultural symbols and meanings into health promotion materials11,12 asserting that a society or culture may be conducive to better health behaviors and claiming that the process of reviewing and exploring ones cultural ancestors can help ones health.13 Hall and Neitz14 suggest that culture embraces (1) ideas, knowledge and recipes for doing things, (2) humanly fabricated tools and (3) the products of social action that may be drawn upon in the further conduct of social life.
On the other hand, most scientists and news commentators, appear to approve on one feature of this pandemic: that in the upshot of the COVID-19 pandemic, with its lockdown and movement limitations, this pandemic will be worse. It will be a long and slow process of recalibration to the new normal in human contact patterns around the world, as some commentators so eloquently stated it. Different cultures and societies will undoubtedly react differently to the issues they face. The area of community development theorists and practitioners is focused on the post-COVID-19 eras evolution (urban renewal) of our communities. We must take steps to protect ourselves from the pandemic and to participate actively in the repair of our community fabric and quality of life.15
Adding to the body of knowledge about the cultural settings of health and well-being. Policymakers use broad mortality and morbidity statistics to generate policy suggestions in traditional health impact evaluations, frequently without a good knowledge of the cultural settings that influence individual and societal behaviors. Though based on meticulously acquired statistical facts, the ensuing reports and policies may be out of touch with peoples interpreted experiences and expectations as well as what is practicable at the policy level. In response to this common misalignment of evidence, social requirement and health policy, measurements are primarily based on indices that, while they are beneficial in evaluating levels of perceived pleasure and contentment in a particular population, are missing the target when it comes to clarifying the shared meanings and values that support wellbeing.4
The huge number of actors involved; the complexity of the problem; and the time and space separation between the people generating and being affected by the problem are all features of a large-scale collective action problem.16 The COVID-19 pandemic has many characteristics of a large-scale collective action challenge. As a result of these qualities, stressors arise that operate against the possibility of collective action, such as anonymity (a large number of people and actors are involved, spread across the globe; lack of accountability and heterogeneity (the actors might be from different countries)).16
A variety of variables explain why different nations and governments have employed different COVID19-fighting measures. Policy advice will always be based on reservations and normative conceptions and scientific models may not be able to effectively forecast future political ramifications in this type of decision setting, even with accessible data.17 Well-functioning political institutions can build trust and social norms, which can enhance collaboration, and nations with high collective action capital have more policy options than only limits and militarism in their arsenal. This is critical when some behaviors are extremely difficult to control or monitor (e.g., washing hands). As a result, governments must respond to the needs of various segments of society in order to deal with the issue. Other potential explanatory variables, such as institutional capacity and cultural aspects must be considered in addition to demographic explanations.18 We give a convincing explanation for why certain governments are enforcing punitive policies based on the findings of collective action research. Such wealth enables a broader range of actions to combat pandemics.19
Cultural values,20 thinking patterns,21 regulatory focus,22 and other factors have all been utilized to operationalize common cultural meanings. There are considerable differences in coping mechanisms and indications of adaptive outcomes across cultures.23 Because cultural values imply desirable outcomes, they are worth pursuing.20
Peoples focus in a collectivist culture may extend beyond personal career growth concerns to issues affecting their workgroups, administrations, and social networks.23,24 National culture has also been demonstrated to influence coping strategy choices (eg, De Vaus et al).25 Because of the complexities of social identities and the various levels of cultural identification, there is a possibility of intergroup prejudice or even national conflict.23
Socioeconomic and other social factors influence the majority of health outcomes. Several studies have been conducted to investigate the impact of social factors on health. The substantial and extensively reported relationships between a variety of health variables and socioeconomic assets or social standing metrics, such as income, academic achievement, or occupational hierarchy rank, also support the health effects of social variables. This relationship regularly tracks a stepwise gradient pattern in both US and European data, with health increasing incrementally as social status rises.26 In times of crisis, make decisions as a group, management teams are required to make challenging decisions,27 and team decisions are particularly vulnerable to the effects of crises. This is because normal group functioning becomes maladaptive during crises, rendering standard therapies useless. Teams must successfully communicate and coordinate their efforts.28 Crises throw these routines off because they fundamentally alter how we collaborate and create new problems.
According to cultural variation research, tight cultures, such as Japan, and China, have severe social norms and deviant sanctions, whereas loose cultures, such as the United States, and Italy have weaker cultural standards and are more permissive.29 Tight nations are more likely to face substantial historical and ecological risks, such as natural disasters, population size and infection epidemics.29 When groups face collective risks, tight rules may help them coordinate to survive according to evolutionary theory.30
As a result of the spread of COVID-19, communities may become more strongly bonded. It may be more difficult to collaborate in the occasion of a pandemic in cultures that prioritize liberty over security. Communities may also negotiate social norms in order to strike a stability between freedom and restraint, or tightloose ambidexterity.31 The research suggests that in the fight against COVID-19, quite diverse measures may be required in different cultural situations.32
Culture and communications were predicted to be powerful forces in the twenty-first century, with the goal of improving population health and well-being. Furthermore, these forces would propel a quickly shifting and interconnected globe, with people and nations all over the world sharing common gains and hazards (eg, pandemics, climate change). In order to realize the potential of culture and technology, effective administration and information were to be a chief key in improving public health in this environment. Culture is critical for progress and it is crucial what may be learned from it, is understood and respected by the public, recognizing that there is no one-size culture fits all solution. Nonetheless, there may be some doubt and it is vital that the public understands that knowledge is always evolving and that new issues may arise.
In order to make better decisions in concealed profile circumstances, teams must normally take their time to gather and integrate available data. For example, arguing for several decision options (advocacy procedure).33 Similarly, true dissent (which can be difficult to extract in real teams) enhanced concealed profile decisions by raising the intensity of discussion in terms of spent talking time and information expansion.34 In addition, making hasty decisions in a crisis shows that the situation is changing.
During times of crisis, even management teams that share and integrate all information at the same time may have to alter their judgments in light of new information; effective decisions are not the end goal, but the beginning of a protracted implementation procedure. This is because catastrophes like the Coronavirus pandemic take time to unfold and so necessitate perseverance.
During the design, delivery, and evaluation phases, the cultural sensitivity technique strives to construct health interventions that take into account the target populations cultural traits, values, beliefs, experiences and conventions.35 The requirement for cultural competence in health communication stems from the belief that, in order to be most effective, health communication should adapt to a cultures unique characteristics.35,36 Being culturally sensitive entails tailoring communication solutions to the cultural characteristics that the health communicator values. The bigger aims of healthcare organizations and research institutions, which highlight that the means we interconnect about health to various people should be impacted by their cultures, reflect this emphasis on culture. People from more individualistic cultures may be more promotion or approach-oriented, making them more sensitive and susceptible to gain-framed communications that highlight positive results. People from more collectivistic cultures, on the other hand, may be more prevention or avoidance oriented, making them more sensitive and attentive to the negative effects highlighted in loss-framed communications.37
Health communication concepts become culturally responsive by isolating and incorporating specific cultural aspects into the primary ideas and claims of health communication. The goal is to identify common characteristics within the culture that may be used to define it and then design health communication apps that are suited to these characteristics. In models based on this strategy, certain cultural features are routinely identified and utilized to expect a variety of outcome variables. Health locus of control research, for example, seeks to predict the role of health locus of control in a variety of health outcomes.38
Certain cultural sensitivity health communication programs concentrate on hypothesizing and operationalizing the concept of cultural sensitivity, developing scales to test it and connecting it to outcome determinants. The prominence is once again on adjusting existing communication techniques, styles and messages to cultural characteristics. The goal of the culture-centered method is to identify gaps and/or silences in national public health scheme and practice in order to give a new way of thinking about and doing health communication.
Sensemaking is a social construction process that occurs when conflicting inputs disrupt peoples ongoing activities, and it entails the production of plausible meanings that legitimize what they are doing retrospective.39 The bracketing of environmental signals and the interpretation of those stimuli based on relevant frames is crucial to the creation of credible meanings. Integrating cues and frames to generate an account of what is going on, is thus the goal of sensemaking. It begins by looking at how people are reacting to the pandemic in their communities so that several contradicting responses have been received. What has occurred in the COVID-19 era is that bottom-up decision-making has been unrestricted in terms of macro strategies, as governments, medical specialists and public health authorities design policies and implement them without the participation of the general public. Citizens have generally been willing to hand over control of social contacts to the state, given evidence that harsh policies of social isolation and social distancing have been effective in slowing the spread of the virus.
Community development professionals must demonstrate their usefulness by providing strong scientific inputs based on strong scientific theory, one of the hallmarks of which is that it allows for some prediction of results,40 reducing the likelihood of unintended consequences. The Priority Index (P-Index), a basic requirements assessment technique, is one such hypothesis.41 The role of community development professionals is to (i) detect, (ii) tap into, and (iii) piggyback on the various types of flexibility that are apparent in communities, guiding them to a better quality of life as the lockdowns are lifted. The community needs prioritizing technique that has the proven capacity to aid as a nonstop social development effort to the multidisciplinary crews that organize the encouragement of societies out of the COVID-19 lockdown into the post-COVID-19 era as an information and tracking tool.15
The COVID-19 pandemic is a major global health emergency as the problem needs large-scale behavior change, the social and collective mind can be employed to assist in aligning human behavior with public health specialists recommendations. Here, we analyze evidence from various disease outbreak research, such as work on steering hazards and social and cultural implications on behavior.
This is especially important in the aftermath of COVID-19, which has forced communities all across the world to learn how to respond to and deal with a new disaster. The pandemic has highlighted a worldwide hazard, highlighting the need for international collaboration and integration to establish a sense of building back better that combines culture, in order to avoid them being swamped by other national concerns.42 The role of international organizations in connecting stakeholders is becoming increasingly vital in order to enable the widespread dissemination of shared information and best practices in order to build a collective resilient recovery from the pandemic.10
It specifically demands new well-being assessments that interpret for the properties of culturally interceded sickness and health experiences, acknowledging the importance of shared values for well-being. Understanding, recognizing, and aggressively supporting the behaviors that diverse and interconnected cultural practices can increase solidarity and resilience are all part of the process of developing these metrics. This will necessitate nothing less than a whole-of-control and whole-of-society strategy, one that builds on individual shared values to encourage new kinds of critical thinking, ordinary cooperation and long-term mutual cohesion both locally and worldwide.4
Digital contact tracing automates detecting on a scale and at a speed that would be impossible to achieve without the use of digital tools.43 It lessens the reliance on human memory, which is especially important in densely populated areas with mobile people. Digital contact-tracing apps have been developed for use in numerous countries during the COVID-19 pandemic; these apps rely on ideas and technologies that have never been used on this scale before and they are problematic in terms of privacy. It is critical to assess their accuracy and efficacy.
Assessing local differences in agility and contact behaviors could be crucial for forecasting the heterogeneity of transmission capacity between communities and areas when family size and age-stratified contact patterns varied. This background can help researchers understand the effectiveness of treatments to limit transmissions, such as handwashing,44 social distancing and school closures.45 Monitoring social-distancing techniques could be used to estimate healthcare system demands46 and it will be critical in determining when limits should be eased.
Informing the public in order to ensure community trust, operative performance of measures during a pandemic requires communal education and support, as well as an appropriate communications plan that integrates vigorous community engagement. Since the first reports of an atypical influenza-like sickness resistant to traditional treatment procedures surfaced in China,47 online data and social media have played a continuous and crucial role in public communication.48 Public health organizations and technology firms are speeding up their efforts to combat misinformation and favor reputable news sites.49
Furthermore, existing data-sharing efforts appear to be primarily focused on particular country adjustment and interoperability.50 While many of these concerns are not unique to global public health, given the self- or group-identifying qualities of data, there may be a particular urgency in this domain. To address these hazards, such as the misuse of public health data, a variety of actions will be needed, each tailored to the specific data typology and taking into account the motives and interests of data owners. It will also demand that countries and data owners agree to data-sharing rules and recognize data as a global public benefit.51
We believe the World Health Organization (WHO) could play an active role in managing data sharing efforts, forming partnerships and developing guidelines and standards, particularly for patient data, public health data and health systems data, given its capacity as the normative global health organization. There are numerous examples of similar projects already in progress. The World Health Organization (WHO) has adopted a number of data-sharing protocols.52 While these rules are not legally enforceable, they do provide guidance to member nations.53
However, knowledge management is complicated during a crisis because different networks use different tactics such as centralization and alternative organizational structures such as independence. A significant goal in dealing with COVID-19 was to develop health protocols, ensure their effectiveness and publicize the practice among healthcare professionals. The nature of the crisis, which in this case is a pandemic concern, fosters learning once again.
Communities have taken responsibility for their own well-being at the micro level while yielding control at the macro level. They accomplish this in variation of behaviors. Communities are engaged in spontaneous efforts to fortify social connectivity in projects that are congruent with community engagement. The use of social media to check-in on separated friends, the practice of leaving provisions at neighbors doors and joining balcony singing groups have all contributed to the preservation of social relationships and, as a result, communal solidarity.54 In order to preserve mainstreaming culture in catastrophe conditions, more efforts must be made to integrate global knowledge and approaches to their adaptation and implementation to local cases.
The impending COVID-19 pandemic is a unique time period marked by a slew of social, economic and health issues. In order to meet the aforementioned problems and establish reasonable expectations about the diseases future course, affected populations must have an acceptable level of COVID-19 related understanding. At the middle and lower levels of management, policymakers and senior leadership should try to instill a common feeling of duty among medical and non-medical personnel workers. Well-connected systems infused with a learning culture will aid in the development of successful interactions, coordinated activities and assessments that will help to enhance acceptable healthcare practices while correcting structures, processes and assumptions. Concisely, healthcare executives can foster a culture of continual learning.55
Yet, communities must establish pedagogical ways to learn and grasp the new science and technology in public health and education must develop leaders who can stay up. The development of learning expertise and the use of data collecting allows for the synthesizing of available data and the timely transmission of judgments. Data has become a more prominent focus of teaching and training in most schools of public health in recent years yet, the rate of change in such techniques often outpaces regular educational updates. Researchers believe that recent advances in technology and willingness, revolutionize healthcare diagnosis, assessment, and management, particularly during emergencies and pandemics.56
Collaboration through communal charity organizations, regional health agencies and health specialists can provide progressive expertise to these organizations as well as assist in the implementation of solutions to address community concerns. Practices can be employed and shared to improve outcomes using acquired knowledge from outsiders yet ingrained in the working systems. Learning public health culture was also favorably associated with empowerment, dialogue and a philosophy of lifelong learning. Employees at all levels participate in collaborative decision-making and accountability as part of the empowerment process. Logical reasoning and dialogues allow for critical thinking and the development of logical and acceptable answers to a variety of problems. Learning organization culture was also found to be highly linked to continuous learning.55 Behavioral competencies (such as creativity, exploration, and knowledge integration) ensure that resources are used effectively and that appropriate actions are taken.
However, few academics have looked at fear and uncertainty in the context of unpleasant outcomes, which may not considerate the genuine dread and doubt people felt during the experience. Any crisis provides an opportunity to learn, improve sympathy and expand flexibility while building a more secure and compassionate community. Taking lessons from a looming mega-crisis COVID-19 is the second global mega-crisis to strike modern nations in this century (following the financial crisis). Given the clear prospect of additional transboundary threats, it is critical to consider COVID-19 reactions and what we should learn from them.1 COVID-19 posed a significant challenge to the modern states crisis management capabilities. Until now, the pandemic had caused significant excess mortality in many countries, put enormous strain on health systems and had significant (and diverse) economic and societal repercussions. As a result, COVID-19 is classified as a mega-crisis.57 It also helps civilizations establish collective learning, which improves individual and organizational performance.
Contextual elements, such as culture, influence learning in general. Knowledge culture is defined as an organizations commitment to learning as a crucial component of its commercial success.58 Through collective knowledge and increased understanding among teams, collective learning among small teams may result in quality standards.59 In the context of healthcare settings, team followers may transform their knowledge into arrangements and then assess those activities against evidence-based practice and current recommendations.
Furthermore, the recommendations made are frequently erroneous because they overlook the distinctions between knowing (ie passive learning) and doing (ie active learning). The irony here is that one faulty system is being examined with the misguided aim of perfecting the other. Despite the widespread use of investigations, there is no evidence that they are a successful way of learning operational lessons from previous crises. As a result, we would support a review of the previous years events and we would also advocate for a review of how these investigations are conducted to ensure that they result in active rather than passive learning.60
COVID-19 and social capital possibilities as countries respond to COVID-19s numerous obstacles, as well as lessons learned from intervention and prevention studies linking enhanced social capital with improved health outcomes, greater community buy-in and the continuation of healthcare services to vulnerable populations suggest that social capital plays a critical role in ensuring a swift modification to todays neoliberal environment.
Preliminary research from the United States supports the role of social capital in the COVID-19 response, the rising rate of new COVID-19 cases has been demonstrated to be negatively connected to social capital at both the national and county levels.61 However, actively attempting to use or develop existing social networks in order to improve health results, each intervention groups social structure must be carefully examined.
Different components of socializing may respond to a public health intervention in different ways, so its critical for a social capital-based response to be able to recognize circumstances in which social capital building initiatives can effectively enhance the public health agenda, as well as accurately identify the subcategories of social capital. In this regard, a social capital-centric public health strategy to the COVID-19 response could be viewed as a paradigm for understanding how the social interactions between various groups of actors can be used to best successfully implement pandemic-related health policies.62
The aim of the study was to examine the factors influencing building effective public health culture. Having theoretical and practical implications, this study investigates the role of public health culture and some positive hints in the till-now continuing crisis of pandemic COVID-19. Besides, study findings guide policymakers to create rules and processes relying on experience of learning that develops a coherent workplace culture for a variety of communities sections to offer efficient and effective interventions and public health services.
In public health settings, the new knowledge-based learning should be deeply rooted and integrated into the fields daily operations. Empowerment, conversation and scrutiny, as well as a mindset of lifelong learning, were all found to be favorably associated with public health culture. Employees at all levels participate in collaborative decision-making and responsibility as part of the empowerment process. This approach increases policymakers incentive to learn new things so they can make effective choices. In healthcare, however, empowering partners to the point where they can participate in collective decision-making is the main hindrance.
Within the partners, a culture should be fostered where mechanisms infused with new knowledge are properly connected so that lessons can be disseminated across classifications to improve public health outcomes. Due to environmental and cultural differences, caution should be exercised when generalizing study findings in particular nations. Well-connected systems with a learning culture will aid in the development of successful interactions, coordinated activities, and insights that will promote acceptable public health behaviors while addressing protocols, methods, and assumptions.55
Culturally informed policies and practices begin with post-crisis assessments. Programs that are outlined and defined by post-crisis assessments are the beginning points and key vehicles for international support to post-crisis recovery. The goal is to prevent teams from overlooking culture in their first assessments, which could lead to missed opportunities or worse. A culturally informed analysis might use a variety of procedures, such as socioeconomic analyses, anthropological research, participatory engagement, and methods for identifying subordinate groups genuine perspectives and preferences.63 COVID-19 message for community engagement relies heavily on culture. Culture is defined as a collective sense of consciousness that shapes and influences perception, behavior and power, as well as how these are shared and conveyed.64
In general, public health is portrayed as action-oriented knowledge and competence at the disposal of decision-makers. The inputs to this knowledge and competence are regarded as natural facts that must simply be represented in statistics and the language of determinants and risk factors. The people who are expected to benefit from actions and decisions are thought to be part of a culture that needs to change for their own good. One method of reaching an understanding of what is happening on, and how a pandemic might transform ourselves and society in a post-pandemic era, is to frame a pandemic as deepening rift and hence as a learning process, in the context of fear (in the present case, the COVID-19 pandemic).65
Epidemiology is a social phenomenon. Health Determination of Society (HDOS) in COVID-19 eloquently illustrates how a health condition is profoundly affecting societies, a phenomenon that had hitherto gone unnoticed. The reactions of public health to community illness are also fundamental aspects; the kinds of organizations, rules of decision-making and conduct, and sets of values and principles might alter depending on the situation.66 The term reflective learning refers to instances in which people intentionally consider something and make an attempt to comprehend why things are the way they are. This includes drawing on relevant knowledge to figure out how to handle a problem and coming to conclusions that become part of a new reference frame.65
Because national culture can be initially conceived and operationalized in a variety of ways, future research should look for perspectives from other relevant ones, such as cultural differences in social views,67,68 or take an indigenous approach to gain a better understanding of the various aspects of cultural influence.69 Other aspects of a nation, such as economic, geopolitical and historical variables, play essential roles in molding individuals actions, and future studies should take this into account.70 As culture can be manifested at different levels, future research should adopt a multi-level approach to examine how culture interplay with each other in inducing entities coping and management strategies.
The pandemic has transformed how we give care, allowing us to re-evaluate conventional methods and improve the effectiveness of management techniques. Along with the sadness and significant obstacles, we have a unique influential effect on the public health society now and perhaps in the days ahead, as this pandemic continues to develop. If we are successful in learning from this pandemic and dealing with it, we should include some of the crisis principles and habits into our new inventive, creative, solidarity, empathetic, effective, equitable, healthy and stronger routine.
The author reported no conflicts of interest in this work.
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If the sector is going to make meaningful progress in rebuilding its depleted workforce pool, federal government agencies need to begin unwinding many of the stringent Covid-19 related guidelines nursing homes have adhered to over the last two-plus years.
Until that occurs, the skilled nursing industry will likely remain stagnant, according to Carespring CEO Chis Chirumbolo.
A lot has changed since the start of the pandemic, Chirumbolo said, both in the large percentage of staff and resident vaccination levels, and the overall understanding of the coronavirus.
And for six months running, the rate of Covid-19 deaths among nursing home residents has been less than 1 per 1,000 residents, according to the American Health Care Association/National Center for Assisted Living (AHCA/NCAL).
Still, nursing homes continue to be one of, if not the only, health care sector that continues to practice under these very challenging federal guidelines, he added.
I think thats step one And Im not talking about patient safety related stuff, how to manage infection, Im not talking about infection control criteria all those things are vitally important. But what we can stop is doing the things that really dont impact resident quality care and really hinders the health care delivery for our staff, he said during an episode of the Rethink podcast.
Chirumbolo specifically pointed to the active screening process that all health care employees have to undergo before entering a facility as well as contacting families if there is a new Covid case in the building even if that case has nothing to do with their respective family member as two Covid-related requirements that could be pulled back at this point in the pandemic.
Highlights of Robinsons podcast, edited for length and clarity, are below. Subscribe to Rethink via Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, or SoundCloud.
Yeah, I think its somewhat positive news.
I think what also is an optimistic approach is for all providers to understand that your voice matters. You have to stand up and make your voice heard, not just for this but into the future. During this rule. CMS received thousands of comments during the rulemaking process, many of which came from facilities, nurses, aides and other staff and I think globally that message from the frontlines matters.
I think it will help somewhat [for Carespring], but as we all know, our costs have exploded during the pandemic and patients on Medicare which is what this rule, the fee for service world talks about just makes up a portion of the patients we serve. The challenge is, I think, going forward is how do we rectify the several year, decades long issue in some states with a chronic underfunding of Medicaid. This population represents roughly about 60 to 70% of the SNF residents, so looking at that layered in with managed care as it comes into more facilities across the country, that component can be 70 to 80, 85% of the total population.
As were going forward, those segments either dont cover the costs or, in some cases, Medicaid grossly dont cover the cost. I have to give some states credit during the pandemic with added FMAP money, with that federal dollars thats helped some states push those dollars to facilities and so thats been a help. But I think its very much a reactive approach for, as I said, before decades long of underfunding.
I think I have no change in confidence. The federal government and CMS need to truly, truly listen to providers. You know this has been the long standing issue, from federal and state government, but it starts with the federal government because the state government follows the federal lead. So when you look at that, its time to innovate on all fronts, and so the regulatory and survey process today focuses mostly on compliance over quality of care, and this needs to be revamped as it distracts and often destroys the morale of our staff in SNFs.
As a result, whats happened because of the pandemic, its pushed good people out of the industry. Why work in a SNF, a skilled nursing facility, when you can practice in another health care sector, like a hospital or [other] health care field, and not have to deal with this overall practice, this punitive practice by the federal government?
We have to do everything we can to keep these great people in our industry along with developing these next generation leaders. We have to fix those issues by stripping back and simplifying some of the Covid regulations. Its not 2020 anymore, its 2022. We know so much more. The practices have changed so much more. In reality, were the only health care sector still practicing off of some of these CDC and CMS guidelines.
I think thats step one because until some of those things run wound, and Im not talking about patient safety related stuff, how to manage infection, Im not talking about infection control criteria all those things are vitally important. But what we can stop is doing the things that really dont impact resident quality care and really hinders the health care delivery for our staff.
Also on a national and state level, how do we develop more vocational nursing and STNA programs in high schools? How do we develop STNA programs so anybody who wants to become an STA can do it free of cost? Maybe you create a fund to do that. We have to get to the next generation of people And at the end of the day, until we develop a system between the federal government that listens and adapts and adjusts based upon actual feedback, frontline feedback. Were going to be stagnant.
The biggest cost is just were paying our staff more. Our focus has been to try to be agency free and I think weve globally done a really good job with that.
Early in 2020 we started paying our staff more right there because we knew there was a fear factor in 2020. We didnt know what we were dealing with, people were scared, we needed them to continue to help us take good care of the patients.
Then 2021, 2022 the global inflation has ballooned and its challenging in the sense that how do you forecast, predict and figure out how youre going to be able to afford paying your staff that much more, paying for your food, paying for all those supplies? Thats where again, going back to the advocacy approach, is trying to work back with the governments and making sure that we can keep getting reimbursed or getting an adjustment in reimbursement going forward and in helping tell the story.
So how do we manage it? We just manage it day by day. Weve got to make sure were meeting the patients expectations but also the challenging part layered it is weve limited some of the admissions weve taken in our buildings because we want to try to remain agency free. Thats a challenging decision to have to make in a position like me. Its a no brainer from a quality care standpoint, but the challenging part is theres patients out there who need to be taken care of, theres hospitals banging on facilitys doors, asking for help asking for to get the throughput through.
But also, when you want to invest and innovate, its hard to do that when, as an industry as a whole, youre only reimbursed at a stagnant fixed reimbursement rate.
Theres unfortunately a lot of facilities that are on the market because a lot of facilities are struggling and a lot of people just want to get out of the industry altogether. So taking over buildings that have that like mindedness makes it a lot easier going forward. The regional footprint is very much important. We do not really want to stretch out into multiple other states because thats where you lose control, in our minds, of the overall operations and the vision and the mission of the organization.
So when you look at a building do they have relatively good processes? And if they dont, thats still okay. Do they have [a] good physical plant to get [it] done the way you want to provide care or is it going to be something where the buildings 50 years old and needs to completely be rebuilt?
Is it within a general physical footprint so we can be there within an hour or two, or a couple of hours But I think at the end of the day, having the like mindedness and approach, going back to what I said before, and how they provide care, and doing the right thing at the right time, even if its more expensive We tend to try to find those opportunities.
So we created this role at each of the facilities, like a retention hiring coordinator. This persons role kind of melds a lot with the nursing department Our statistics show if we keep team members beyond that three to six-month mark, they generally stay longer term so how do we get them from hire date to that point, and help them problem solve, bring up issues when issues come up.
I think another thing I do a CEO talk every couple of weeks. So as we hire new team members, I virtually get on with all the new people at all the buildings and explain who we are, explain what were trying to do, be as transparent about the challenges, transparent about how were trying to manage the challenges but also trying to empower them on becoming the next generation of leaders We have to get people to see its not just a job, its a career. Its not just becoming a nurse aide, its becoming a nurse. Its not becoming just a nurse, its becoming a leader, a manager or director of nursing or into some other role and it doesnt have to be pigeonholed just for nursing. Since our buildings are regionally concentrated, those team members also have the ability to be promoted from sister building a to sister building b and be able to grow where some operators, some buildings might be just limited by their facility in their just one location.
CNN
The organizers of Atlanta Black Pride, an LGBTQ celebration held each Labor Day weekend, have big plans. There will be parties and performances, workshops and financial literacy classes, brunches and a boat ride. This year also brings an event that no one ever expected would be necessary: a vaccination clinic.
We actually got a head start, and we started early, even before the festival, with monkeypox vaccinations for people that are here in Atlanta, said Melissa Scott, one of the organizers.
The festival will also offer Covid-19 vaccines on location.
The monkeypox vaccines wont protect people right away, because two doses are needed, but Scott said the festival is the perfect opportunity to reach a large group of people who have been disproportionately affected by the outbreak.
As of Friday, there are nearly 20,000 probable or confirmed cases of monkeypox in the US, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The virus is spread through close contact and can infect anyone. But cases in this outbreak have mostly been among gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men, and no ones been hit harder than those who identify as Black or Latino/Hispanic.
Nearly 38% of monkeypox cases are among Black people, yet they represent only 12% of the US population. Hispanic or Latino people make up 19% of the US population but account for 29% of the cases as of August 27, according to the CDC.
Not all US cities keep or publish demographic data. But among those with the most monkeypox cases, people of color are often overrepresented among the sick and underrepresented among the vaccinated.
In Philadelphia, for example, 55% of monkeypox cases are in Black people, 16% are in people who identify as Hispanic, and 24% are in those who identify as white. Yet 56% of the shots have gone to white individuals, 24% to Black people and 12% to Hispanic people, according to the citys website.
In Atlanta, as of mid-August, 71% of monkeypox patients identified as Black, 12% as white and 7% as Hispanic, while 44% of the vaccines have gone to white people, 46% to Black people and 8% to Hispanics.
And in Houston, Black people are overrepresented among the sick, making up 32% of all the cases, but they are only 23% of the population. Only 15% of people who have gotten the vaccine identify as Black, according to the Houston Health Department.
However, while Hispanic people account for 21% of the cases in Houston, they make up 45% of the citys population and 32% of those who have been vaccinated. White people are 24% of the population, 17% of the cases and 39% of those who have been vaccinated against monkeypox.
In Los Angeles County, the health department says 40% of cases are among Hispanic people, yet only 32% of first vaccine doses have gone to members of that community. Hispanics make up 49% of the countys population.
White people are the most vaccinated against monkeypox in Los Angeles. Theyve gotten 41% of the first doses, and they account for 29% of the cases. White people make up a quarter of the population of the county.
Black people are overrepresented among the cases. They make up 9% of the population in the county but 11% of the cases. Only 9% of those who got their first vaccine dose identify as Black.
It is not totally clear whats driving the differences, but this isnt the first disease to see such inequities, said Dr. Chyke Doubeni, chief health equity officer at Ohio State University. Unless something drastically changes, he said, well see the same pattern in the next outbreak.
I would say as a public health community, were very good at repeating the same mistakes multiple times, he said. Its the same story, the same underlying causes. There are barriers to care and information. Systems that require people to stand in line for hours for a vaccine do not work for people with hourly jobs, for instance.
For months, community leaders have repeatedly called on the Biden administration to step up its efforts to protect this population. On Tuesday, the administration announced that it was launching a pilot program aimed at LGBTQ communities of color.
Its important to acknowledge that theres more work we must do together with our partners on the ground to get shots in arms in the highest-risk communities, said Robert Fenton, the White House national monkeypox response team coordinator.
Equity is a key pillar in our response, and we recognize the need to put extra resources into the field to make sure we are reaching communities most impacted by the outbreak.
The administration will send thousands of vaccine doses to organizations that work with Black and brown communities. The initiative will also work with state and local governments to set up vaccination clinics at key LGBTQ events that attract hundreds of thousands of people, such as Atlanta Black Pride, Oakland Pride in California and Southern Decadence in New Orleans. They will send enough vials to vaccinate up to 5,000 people at each event.
Federal health officials say they also will work with local leaders to identify smaller gatherings for pop-up vaccine clinics, like house and ballroom events that are popular with younger people. Theyve set aside an additional 10,000 vials for those equity initiatives.
Pride Month events in June went by without pop-up clinics. One pilot vaccination program that the administration launched with local public health organizers at the Charlotte Pride Festival and Parade last weekend ended up administering only about a quarter of the doses allocated, but officials still called it a great success.
Its important to also respect sort of the strategy that Charlotte may have had in terms of how to get the word out, Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, the White Houses assistant monkeypox response coordinator, said Tuesday. And so, 500-plus vaccines is a great success its not a clinic, and so really, going to Pride and getting vaccinated any number, especially that, I think is remarkable.
The outreach seems to be working in Fulton County, Georgia, which includes Atlanta and several large suburbs.
Black people make up 79% of monkeypox cases there but are only 42.5% of the population, according to the last census. Since the start of the outbreak, the county Board of Health said, it has initiated its own efforts to engage directly with organizations that work with Black and brown communities. Officials have set up clinics, posted QR codes in bars that link to appointment information, and extended hours at clinics so people dont have to take time off from work to get vaccinated.
As a result, nearly 70% of the monkeypox vaccines that the county has given have gone to people of color, the board said. In comparison, only 10% of doses nationwide have gone to people who are Black, 22% went to Hispanic or Latino people, and 44% went to people who identify as white, according to the Biden administration.
Communities of color have been hit particularly hard by monkeypox, said Dr. Lynn Paxton, Fulton Countys district health director. So efforts targeting health equity have been especially crucial for the Board of Health.
The Biden administration said equity is a key priority with its monkeypox strategy.
Our vaccine strategy is to meet people where they seek services, care or community, especially in communities of color, Daskalakis said.
The extra efforts have been prompted by several obstacles to access to treatments, vaccines and culturally sensitive education material, public health experts say.
Sean Cahill, director of health policy research at the Fenway Institute in Boston, a health organization that works with sexual and gender minorities, says he has been frustrated by these unnecessary barriers.
For example, the monkeypox treatment Tpoxx is still considered experimental, so patients and doctors have to fill out paperwork required by the CDC to get it. For months, not one of the forms was translated into a language other than English. The CDC made the Spanish-language form available on its website in the second week of August.
For patients who speak Spanish or Chinese or dont speak a lot of English, it can be a real challenge for them to complete these forms, Cahill said. Its even harder for people who dont have access to a computer or printer.
Theres just some logistical issues that have been a constant challenge to help patients, and there neednt be, he added.
Throughout the outbreak, organizers have been critical of the Biden administrations response to the public health crisis, especially where people of color are concerned.
As soon as we started receiving a vaccine, we should have had a conversation with Black and brown community-based organizations to lead the way to vaccinate the most at risk, said Daniel Driffin, an HIV patient advocate and a consultant with NMAC, a national organization that works for health equity and racial justice to end the HIV epidemic.
To get a vaccine appointment, particularly in the beginning of the US outbreak when vaccines were in much shorter supply, people essentially had to follow their local health department on Twitter to find out when they were available, Driffin said. The appointments would often fill up in minutes.
Your health status should not be dictated by Twitter or Instagram, Driffin said.
He added that its especially difficult for some people to get appointments to get tests or treatments.
Especially here in Georgia, where many individuals, especially men, Black and brown people, may not have access to regular medical care. So where are they supposed to go?
This is not, of course, the first health outbreak to disproportionately affect Black and brown communities.
Black people account for a higher proportion of new HIV diagnoses and cases compared with other races and ethnicities. Hispanic and Latino people are also disproportionately affected by HIV.
The CDC says racism, stigma, homophobia, poverty and limited access to health care continue to drive these disparities.
These same communities are overrepresented in the Covid-19 pandemic. People of color have a disproportionate number of cases and deaths compared with White people when accounting for age differences, according to the CDC.
The CDC has regularly said that more needs to be done to help these communities, and public health officials inclination to want to help is good, Doubeni said.
But typically, they dont say Oh, we have a problem. Let me see how I can work with the community to see what is beneficial for them, and they especially dont do this from the beginning, Doubeni said.
On more than one occasion, Doubeni said, he has watched government public health officials spend months to create education materials in English. Only after those materials come out will they start working on a Spanish version.
I think its all well-intentioned, but unfortunately, it doesnt always begin with an end in mind, he said.
He tells people that because of institutional racism, and for social and economic reasons, those who are in communities of color may have to be persistent to get the treatment they need.
Dont take no for an answer, Doubeni said. People should not be ashamed to have to seek treatment for monkeypox. It has nothing to do with them as a person per se. We can control this outbreak and keep it from running out of control. And its your right to get the answers you need.
Atlanta Black Pride organizer Scott said shes been pleased with the local public health departments targeted outreach. One of the events goals has always been to strengthen the communitys health while encouraging everyone to have fun.
Were trying to make sure we reach the people who need it most, she said.
The federal government will send 6,000 doses of the monkeypox vaccine to New Orleans for distribution during this weekends Decadence Festival in an effort to boost immunizations in the LGBTQ population.
The allocation represents the largest influx of vaccines in the state since the outbreak began. It also comes as federal, state and local public health officials explore new ways to curb the spread of the virus that, up to this point, has been most common among men who have sex with men.
White House officials have targeted Southern Decadence in New Orleans, Black Pride in Atlanta and Pridefest in Oakland for a trial run at massive immunization and education campaigns that may be used in other LGBTQ events.
"There's no doubt we will learn lessons over the weekend that we can then share with other folks around the country and help them to do an even better job of preparing for similar events," Gov. John Bel Edwards said on a press call with White House officials.
The return of the annual festival, which hasnt been held since 2019 due to the COVID-19 pandemic and Hurricane Ida, could have as many as 300,000 attendees.
Dr. Demetre Daskalakis, deputy coordinator of the White House National Monkeypox Response, said the effort came at the request of community leaders who challenged the federal government to meet people at higher risk of contracting the virus where they are.
It was a great opportunity to get folks ready for the event in terms of getting vaccines on the ground early, but also a great opportunity to reach people who wont go to a clinic for a vaccine effort, but will feel comfortable in, frankly, a less stigmatizing space, Daskalakis said.
Daskalakis emphasized that people who receive vaccinations this weekend should still take other precautions to avoid contracting or spreading monkeypox. The vaccine, which is administered in two doses 28 days apart, only reaches full efficacy two weeks after the second dose.
That first shot doesnt mean youre protected for the event, Daskalakis said. That shots not for today. Its for four weeks from now, plus two weeks, when you get maximum protection.
Monkeypox is not a sexually transmitted disease, but does spread through close skin-to-skin contact with the rash monkeypox causes, and through bodily fluids, respiratory secretions and touching clothing or linens used by someone with monkeypox.
Along with vaccines, the federal government is sending a mobile testing unit, and the state will conduct wastewater monitoring in the French Quarter and nearby neighborhoods to determine the virus prevalence in the community.
Federal health officials recently altered their guidance to allow the vaccine to be administered under the skin, enabling health workers to stretch limited vaccine supplies. The intradermal method allows for four times as many doses as the intramuscular method previously used.
The change allowed for a much wider distribution of a vaccine that has been hard to access in Louisiana and across the country.
Earlier this month, the state requested additional vaccine doses from the federal government in anticipation of the Decadence festival. The city of New Orleans has held several vaccine events ahead of the event. To date, the state has received 8,862 vials of the monkeypox vaccine, not including the allocation announced Tuesday.
As of Tuesday, the Louisiana Department of Health has recorded 181 cases of monkeypox in the state, with the vast majority occurring in the greater New Orleans region.
The outbreak has disproportionately affected Black Louisianans, who account for 60% of the cases reported in the state compared to the 27% among white individuals. Nearly 90% of cases have been among men.
White House officials hope the vaccination and education efforts at Southern Decadence can be a model that can be scaled-down and brought to smaller LGBTQ events across the country.
I think that our next chapter here is about making sure that we build in systems that really improve equity and make sure vaccines are not only getting in arms, but in the arms of people who really need it, Daskalakis said.
The current supply of monkeypox vaccine in the U.S. is limited, but the federal government has released a national vaccine strategyto be undertaken by the Food and Drug Administration, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Institutes of Health, and the Administration for Strategic Preparedness and Response.
In advance of vaccines becoming more widely available, there are actions people can take to mitigate their risk of exposure and infectionactions that are also useful even between the first and second shot for those who have qualified for vaccination.
While monkeypox has not been classified as a sexually transmitted disease, it has been shown to be highly contagious in the context of close, intimate human contact. Therefore, exchanging contact information with any new partner to allow for sexual health follow-up, speaking openly with your partner about any monkeypox symptoms, and avoiding sharing things such as towels, sex toys, and toothbrushes are means by which people can proactively try to protect themselves from exposure. Close social situations, such as parties, raves, or nightclubs where patrons wear minimal clothing and where there is often direct bodily contact, also increase a person's risk.
Stacker compiled a list of frequently asked questions about the monkeypox vaccine from governments, scientific sources, and health experts. Stacker spoke with Dr. Wafaa El-Sadr, professor of epidemiology and medicine and chair of global health at Columbia University's Mailman School of Public Health, and Dr. Sandra A. Fryhofer,board-certified in internal medicine and chair of the American Medical Association's Board of Trustees, to gain their expert perspectives on the current state of vaccine dissemination and to discover what the near future holds for increased vaccine availability.
As of Aug. 30, 2022, there were 18,417 total confirmed monkeypox cases in the United States, according to the CDC.
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Oregon reported far fewer coronavirus cases in the week ending Sunday, adding 4,231 new cases. That's down 10.3% from the previous week's tally of 4,719 new cases of the virus that causes COVID-19.
Oregon ranked fifth among the states where coronavirus was spreading the slowest on a per-person basis, a USA TODAY Network analysis of Johns Hopkins University data shows. In the latest week coronavirus cases in the United States decreased 17.1% from the week before, with 543,317 cases reported. With 1.27% of the country's population, Oregon had 0.78% of the country's cases in the last week. Across the country, 16 states had more cases in the latest week than they did in the week before.
The Labor Day holiday may have altered how many people can get tested and when, and when governments report testing results and deaths. This will skew week-to-week comparisons.
Lane County reported 327 cases and seven deaths in the latest week. A week earlier, it had reported 393 cases and one death. Throughout the pandemic it has reported 71,938 cases and 613 deaths.
Across Oregon, cases fell in 23 counties, with the best declines in Jackson County, with 194 cases from 293 a week earlier; in Marion County, with 357 cases from 430; and in Lane County, with 327 cases from 393.
>> See how your community has fared with recent coronavirus cases
Within Oregon, the worst weekly outbreaks on a per-person basis were in Wheeler County with 300 cases per 100,000 per week; Malheur County with 200; and Curry County with 183. The Centers for Disease Control says high levels of community transmission begin at 100 cases per 100,000 per week.
Adding the most new cases overall were Multnomah County, with 852 cases; Washington County, with 608 cases; and Clackamas County, with 386. Weekly case counts rose in 12 counties from the previous week. The worst increases from the prior week's pace were in Yamhill, Multnomah and Polk counties.
In Oregon, 44 people were reported dead of COVID-19 in the week ending Sunday. In the week before that, 41 people were reported dead.
A total of 879,640 people in Oregon have tested positive for the coronavirus since the pandemic began, and 8,427 people have died from the disease, Johns Hopkins University data shows. In the United States 94,748,404 people have tested positive and 1,047,498 people have died.
>> Track coronavirus cases across the United States
USA TODAY analyzed federal hospital data as of Sunday, Sept. 4. Likely COVID patients admitted in the state:
Likely COVID patients admitted in the nation:
Hospitals in 10 states reported more COVID-19 patients than a week earlier, while hospitals in 15 states had more COVID-19 patients in intensive-care beds. Hospitals in 21 states admitted more COVID-19 patients in the latest week than a week prior, the USA TODAY analysis of U.S. Health and Human Services data shows.
The USA TODAY Network is publishing localized versions of this story on its news sites across the country, generated with data from Johns Hopkins University and the Centers for Disease Control. If you have questions about the data or the story, contact Mike Stucka at mstucka@gannett.com.
The rate that emerging wildlife diseases infect humans has steadily increased over the last three decades. Viruses, such as the global coronavirus pandemic and recent monkeypox outbreak, have heightened the urgent need for disease ecology tools to forecast when and where disease outbreaks are likely. A University of South Florida assistant professor helped develop a methodology that will do just that predict disease transmission from wildlife to humans, from one wildlife species to another and determine who is at risk of infection.
The methodology is a machine-learning approach that identifies the influence of variables, such as location and climate, on known pathogens. Using only small amounts of information, the system is able to identify community hot spots at risk of infection on both global and local scales.
Our main goal is to develop this tool for preventive measures, said co-principal investigator Diego Santiago-Alarcon, assistant professor of integrative biology. Its difficult to have an all-purpose methodology that can be used to predict infections across all the diverse parasite systems, but with this research, we contribute to achieving that goal.
With help from researchers at the Universiad Veracruzana and Instituto de Ecologia, located in Mexico, Santiago-Alarcon examined three host-pathogen systems avian malaria, birds with West Nile virus and bats with coronavirus to test the reliability and accuracy of the models generated by the methodology.
The team found that for the three systems, the species most frequently infected was not necessarily the most susceptible to the disease. To better pinpoint hosts with higher risk of infection, it was important to identify relevant factors, such as climate and evolutionary relationships.
By integrating geographic, environmental and evolutionary developmentvariables, the researchers identified host species that have previously not been recorded as infected by the parasite under study, providing a way to identify susceptible species and eventually mitigate pathogen risk.
We feel confident that the methodology is successful, and it can be applied widely to many host-pathogen systems, Santiago-Alarcon said. We now enter into a phase of improvement and refinement.
The results, published in the Proceeding of the National Academy of Sciences, prove the methodology is able to provide reliable global predictions for the studied hostpathogen systems, even when using a small amount of information. This new approach will help direct infectious disease surveillance and field efforts, providing a cost-effective strategy to better determine where to invest limited disease resources.
Predicting what kind of pathogen will produce the next medical or veterinary infection is challenging, but necessary. As the rate of human impact on natural environments increases, opportunity for novel diseases will continue to rise.
Humanity, and indeed biodiversity in general, are experiencing more and more infectious disease challenges as a result of our incursion and destruction of the natural order worldwide through things like deforestation, global trade and climate change, said Andrs Lira-Noriega, research fellow at the Instituto de Ecologia. This imposes the need of having tools like the one we are publishing to help us predict where new threats in terms of new pathogens and their reservoirs may occur or arise.
The team plans to continue their research to further test the methodology on additional host-pathogen systems and extend the study of disease transmission to predict future outbreaks. The goal is to make the tool easily accessible through an app for the scientific community by the end of 2022.
