INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) Blood clots are defined as a mass of blood cells that stick together, forming a gelatinous mass that blocks blood from circulating through the body. While the Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have endorsed Pfizer and Moderna over Johnson and Johnson, there is still a minimal risk of developing this rare but serious side effect post-vaccination.
News 8 spoke with Dr. Christopher Doehring, vice president of medical affairs at Franciscan Health, who gave advice on what to look for if you suspect youre experiencing a blood clot vaccine-related or otherwise.
The symptoms associated with the clot are dependent on where the clot is, he said. Clots in the legs cause leg pain and swelling there. The issue is with this vaccine is that the clot goes into the brain and can be difficult to diagnose. Certainly headaches, dizziness are sort of the more common associated with that type of problem.
The American Heart Association recently released a list of other symptoms to look out for. They include blurry vision, weakness, confusion, nausea and vomiting and seizures.
In a statement addressing the increased risk of blood clots associated with the Johnson and Johnson vaccine, Dr. Mary Cushman says:
The CDCs latest data indicate it is a rare, yet serious possible affect. Individuals who receive the Johnson and Johnson COVID-19 vaccine (those) who receive the vaccine should be monitored for symptoms.
Should you be experiencing any of these symptoms, health experts urge you to get medical attention immediately.
BUTTE COUNTY, Calif. -It's been more than a year since Dr. James Moore became the first person in Butte County to get the COVID-19 vaccine.
"I am going to have an added protection from the patients I see every day," Moore said back in 2020. Fast forward to now.
"Despite seeing so much at work I've been able to avoid getting sick as have most of my vaccinated colleagues, which here at the hospital is almost everybody," Moore said.
Since not everyone is vaccinated in Butte County, Dr. Moore tells Action News Now he sees it first hand at the hospital.
"It matters to me day in and day out. I take care of COVID-19 positive patients," Moore explained, "and I will tell you out of every 10 positive patients I see, 9 of them are unvaccinated."
When the vaccine first came last year, many people saw it as the light at the end of the tunnel, but as months passed by a divided country changed that.
"People are lacking trust in institutions that we've trusted for a hundred years," Moore said.
And it's resulting in deadly outcomes.
"A patient I just had one a couple of days ago who came in ill but we started the with the conversation 'you know my dad just died of Covid last week and I think that's how I got it.' So here we are walking down that same path watching their father pass away a week before and now telling them they're coming to the hospital as well. I can't even imagine what that's like in someone's head," Moore said.
At the peak of Delta - Moore says the hospital was overrun with COVID-19 patients.
"COVID not only affects the emergency department it affects primary care. Primary care physicians won't see patients if they have a cough or fever so that just diverts everyone to the ER," Moore said.
Moore says if you don't want to end up here - he has one message.
"Get vaccinated," he said.
Dr. Moore got his second dose of the vaccine three weeks after his first. And he got his booster in June of 2021.
Moore says if there is a sudden surge in COVID cases in Butte County he says his team is ready to take it on.
Three members of the K-pop superstar group BTS have been infected with the coronavirus after returning from abroad
By HYUNG-JIN KIM Associated Press
December 26, 2021, 1:25 AM
2 min read
SEOUL, South Korea -- Three members of the K-pop superstar group BTS have been infected with the coronavirus after returning from abroad, their management agency said.
RM and Jin were diagnosed with COVID-19 on Saturday evening, the Big Hit Music agency said in a statement. It earlier said another member, Suga, tested positive for the virus on Friday.
All three took their second jabs in August, the agency said.
BTS is a seven-member boyband. The four other members are J-Hope, Jungkook, V and Jimin.
According to the agency, RM has exhibited no particular symptoms while Jin is showing mild symptoms including light fever and is undergoing self-treatment at home. The agency said Friday that Suga wasnt exhibiting symptoms and was administering self-care at home in accordance with the guidelines of the health authorities.
RM had tested negative after returning from the United States earlier this month following his personal schedule there. But he was later diagnosed with the virus ahead of his scheduled release from self-quarantine, the agency said.
After returning to South Korea this month, Jin underwent PCR tests twice upon arrival and later before his release from self-quarantine and tested negative both times. But he had flu-like symptoms on Saturday afternoon before he took another PCR test that came back positive, the agency said. Media reports said he also had traveled to the U.S.
Suga, who has had a number of personal engagements in the United States during the band's official time off, was diagnosed with COVID-19 during quarantine after returning from the U.S., the agency said.
The agency said itll continue to provide support for the three members for their speedy recovery. It said it will cooperate with the requests and guidelines of the South Korean health authorities.
Since their debut in 2013, BTS has garnered global recognition for their self-produced music and activism, which includes giving a speech at the United Nations and publicly calling out anti-Asian racism.
BTS was named artist of the year and favorite pop duo or group, and also won the favorite pop song award for Butter at the American Music Awards in November. In October, the group's collaboration with British rock band Coldplay, My Universe, hit No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100. It was BTS sixth Hot 100 No. 1.
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Coronavirus Omicron LIVE News: Karnataka government Sunday decided to ban New Year parties and gatherings in public places, and impose night curfew for 10 days from December 28, between 10 pm to 5 am.
The government has also announced certain restrictions for New Year related parties and gatherings, amid fresh COVID-19 concerns with new clusters emerging and increasing threat of the new Omicron variant of Coronavirus.
India reported 6,987 new Covid-19 cases and 162 deaths in the last 24 hours. The country has 76,766 active cases, while over 141 crore vaccine doses have been administered.
A total of 422 cases of the Omicron variant have been reported across 17 states and Union Territories, of which 130 people have recovered.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi announced on Saturday that vaccination against COVID-19 for children between 15-18 years will start from January 3, while precaution dose for healthcare and frontline workers would be administered from January 10, decisions that come amid rising Covid cases linked to the Omicron variant of the virus.
In an address to the nation, he said the precaution dose will also be available for citizens above 60 years of age and with comorbidities on the advice of their doctor from January 10 next year as well.
Once again, Britain is experiencing a festive season hit by waves of Covid-19 infections. Last year, Christmas and New Year were spoiled by the appearance of the Alpha variant. This time, it is Omicron that has sent case numbers soaring. Christmas cancellations have swept through Britains restaurants, pubs and clubs and left the country on the brink of another bleak New Year as the NHS warns once more that it is facing the threat of being overwhelmed by spiralling numbers of seriously ill patients.
The scenario has raised fears that this now represents the shape of Christmases to come. Social restrictions and lockdown threats could become our normal festive fare.
It is a dispiriting prospect. But is it realistic? Are we justified in drawing close parallels between this Christmas and last years? These are key questions because, in trying to answer them, we may also find clues to the likely path of the entire pandemic.
At first glance, the two years look strikingly similar, with case numbers rocketing in only a few weeks in the UK. However, hospitalisations and deaths from Covid-19 remain very low so far this year, with latest research suggesting that the new variant appears to trigger fewer cases of severe illness than its viral predecessors.
Scientists have generally treated these results studies as good news but have also counselled caution. Daily Covid-19 case numbers are still rising they reached a record 122,000 on Friday and it was estimated that 1.7m people had Covid-19 in the UK last week.
Crucially, most of the new cases have occurred in young adults, which has led some researchers to warn that if Omicron starts to affect older more vulnerable people in greater numbers, hospitalisations could still jump. On the other hand, a huge number of people especially the elderly have now been give vaccines and boosters and will have gained considerable protection against Omicron. It remains to be seen how these different factors affect figures. At present, data is still being gathered and it is too early to be sure. At the same time, policy decisions to protect public health still have to be taken.
The problem is highlighted by infectious disease epidemiologist Professor Mark Woolhouse of Edinburgh University. There is inevitably a lag between infection and hospitalisation, he told the journal Nature last week. But in the meantime, policy decisions have to be made, and that is not straightforward.
Many scientists believe evidence is now suggesting that this idea may be correct. Recent studies in Scotland, England and South Africa all point in this direction. My gut feeling is that this variant is the first step in a process by which the virus adapts to the human population to produce more benign symptoms, says Dr Julian Tang, Professor of Respiratory Sciences at Leicester University. In a sense, it is to the viruss advantage if it affects people in a way that that they dont get too sick because then they can walk around and mingle in society and spread the virus even more.
Some health officials have predicted that Covid-19 could end up behaving like influenza, which requires a new vaccine to deal with new strains that appear every year. However, Professor Martin Hibberd, of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, argues that coronaviruses like those that already cause common colds do not behave this way: They do not appear as new strains every year. The reason we get colds in winter is because our immunity to coronaviruses does not last very long. And this virus seems to be more similar to those that cause common colds. In other words, we may still need to think about giving vaccines to protect against Covid-19 every year because immunity will always slip.
That does not mean we face doom and gloom for the next five years, adds Tang. I think the virus will evolve itself out of the pandemic strain very soon and become milder, more transmissible to the point where you may only need to think about vaccinating the more vulnerable members of the population.
People wearing face masks walk in the street, as the region of Lazio makes face masks mandatory outdoors in all areas, as coronavirus disease (COVID-19) cases rise and Christmas nears, in Rome, Italy, December 23, 2021. REUTERS/Yara Nardi
Register
ROME, Dec 25 (Reuters) - Italy reported a third successive record tally of COVID-19 cases on Saturday, with new infections hitting 54,762 against 50,599 a day earlier, the health ministry said.
The number of coronavirus-related deaths rose to 144 from 141 on Friday.
Italy has registered 136,530 deaths linked to COVID-19 since its outbreak emerged in February last year, the second highest toll in Europe after Britain and the ninth highest in the world.
Register
It has reported 5.57 million cases to date.
Patients in hospital with COVID-19 - not including those in intensive care - stood at 8,892 on Saturday, up from 8,812 on Friday.
There were 106 new admissions to intensive care units, against 102 on Friday. The total number of intensive care patients increased to 1,071 from a previous 1,038.
Some 969,752 tests for COVID-19 were carried out in the past day, compared with a previous 929,775 the health ministry said.
Register
Reporting by Philip Pullella;Editing by Andrew Cawthorne
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
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Each week, we answer frequently asked questions about life during the coronavirus crisis. If you have a question you'd like us to consider for a future post, email us at goatsandsoda@npr.org with the subject line: "Weekly Coronavirus Questions." See an archive of our FAQs here.
I hear a lot of talk in the news these days about the omicron variant and the kind of disease it might cause: mild, moderate, severe. Could you explain those terms?
As the omicron variant spreads around the globe, everyone wants to know: Will it cause mainly mild disease? Moderate? Severe?
Early studies suggest that many people could have asymptomatic or mild cases rather than severe, in part because many more people are now vaccinated or have had previous disease. There's not yet enough data for a definitive answer.
And then there's the question of what exactly "mild," "moderate" and "severe" mean vis-a-vis COVID.
It turns out that question isn't so easy to answer. That's because doctors and patients have different concerns when assessing COVID.
Doctors think in terms of how your lungs and other organs are doing and what treatments might be required.
"SARS-CoV-2 is a respiratory virus that causes COVID, and the designations refer largely to how well a patient's lungs are able to oxygenate and what treatment is necessary to keep the illness from progressing," says Stanford University infectious disease physician Dr. Abraar Karan.
"So when we move from mild to severe, we mean how easy or how difficult is it for you to breathe and maintain certain oxygen levels in your blood, and what treatments, if any, should we be using."
Patients, meanwhile, think in terms of how horrible they might feel. This is an important distinction because some patients can have very low oxygen levels without many other symptoms or could have bad symptoms such as high fever and a painful headache but have normal oxygen levels.
So what does a mild case look like? A mild case could mean barely any symptoms and a quick return to feeling normal. But so-called mild cases aren't always ... well, mild. The National Institutes of Health guidelines for treatment categorize mild COVID as" [i]ndividuals who have any of the various signs and symptoms of COVID-19 (e.g., fever, cough, sore throat, malaise, headache, muscle pain, nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, loss of taste and smell) but who do not have shortness of breath, dyspnea (difficult or labored breathing), or abnormal chest imaging."
"At board of health meetings I've heard discussions of people designated as 'mild' but they couldn't get out of bed for three days," says Shira Doron, a hospital epidemiologist at Tufts Medical Center in Boston.
Indeed, NPR reporter Will Stone had a case of COVID that would be classified as "mild" by the guidelines that Dr. Karan cites. And here's Stone's self-report:
"Fatigue had enveloped me like a weighted blanket...[n]ext, a headache clamped down on the back of my skull. Then my eyeballs started to ache. And soon enough, everything tasted like nothing...It was a miserable five days. My legs and arms ached, my fever crept up to 103 and every few hours of sleep would leave my sheets drenched in sweat."
Not exactly what you think of when you hear the word "mild."
As for moderate, patients in that category would experience shortness of breath or difficulty breathing. If you're using a device called a pulse oximeter to monitor your breathing, you should seek medical attention if the concentration of oxygen in your blood falls below 94%.
To make matters more complicated, the World Health Organization updated its descriptors in November and they're different than those used by NIH. Rather than mild, moderate, and severe, WHO uses the terms "non-severe" "severe" and "critical." It defines non-severe as "absence of signs of severe or critical disease." Critical disease covers individuals who have respiratory failure, septic shock and/or multiple organ dysfunction.
So what's a patient to do?
First off, Karan urges that anyone with symptoms get tested to see if it's actually COVID-19 you have. It is flu season and other viral and bacterial infections are circulating. If you don't have COVID and your symptoms worsen, you might benefit from a targeted therapy for what you do have, such as a flu antiviral or an antibiotic.
And perhaps you shouldn't worry about figuring out the right adjective for your case, suggests Dr. William Schaffner, professor of medicine at Vanderbilt University and medical director of the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases. It's more important to alert your physician to what you're experiencing, he says.
"Be very specific about symptoms," says Schaffner, "including temperature, any difficulty breathing and your oxygen saturation rate if you are using a pulse oximeter. We need these benchmarks to put people and their doctors on alert that symptoms could be progressing and they need to be seen. And always tell the doctor if you or someone with you just have this feeling that things are going south."
One more note on the subject of COVID terminology. Dr. Waafa El-Sadr, chair of global health at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University, has another description she'd like to see made more precise: "breakthrough infections." That's what cases are COVID are called in people who are fully vaccinated and in some cases boosted.
"We should be saying post-vaccination infections instead," says El-Sadr. "Breakthrough implies the vaccine has failed, when we knew from day one that these vaccines were never expected to protect 100% from developing infections. What they do is decrease the risk of getting infected and of hospitalization."
El Sadr says that just when we need unvaccinated people to go ahead and get their shots, "the term breakthrough may be undermining the importance of being vaccinated and boosted."
Fran Kritz is a health policy reporter based in Washington, D.C., who has contributed to The Washington Post and Kaiser Health News. Find her on Twitter: @fkritz
Imagine how many more lives could have been saved and suffering could have been avoided had more ... [+] people followed science-backed Covid-19 precautions from the start of the pandemic. (Photo by Thomas Lohnes/Getty Images)
Today, December 23, in addition to being National Pfeffernuse Day, is supposed to be the Festivus Holiday. Thats according to the Frank Costanza character on the super-syndicated TV showSeinfeld. And Festivus is supposed to begin with the airing of grievances. So, in the words of the elder Costanza, I got a lot of problems with some of you people and now you're gonna hear about it. Here are 10 such grievances for 2021 all focused on, surprise, surprise, the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic:
Nothing lasts forever, with the possible exception of the 1996 movie The English Patient. Back in 2020, many experts warned that this pandemic would continue for about two plus years into 2022. Such a time course would be similar to what was seen with the 1918 influenza pandemic. That flu pandemic began with a herald wave in the Spring of 1918 and went through surges in the two subsequent Winters before dissipating in the Spring of 1920. So staying vigilant and buckling for about two or so years is not the same as doing it forever.
An anti-mask protestor holds a sign during a rally outside Downing Street in London, England. (Photo ... [+] by Hollie Adams/Getty Images)
Sure, you may feel that you owe it to world to share the amazing bottom half of your face with everyone. But come on folks. Its a face mask not a cinder block attached to your genitals. If wearing a face mask is the worst thing that you have to do today, your life aint bad at all.
These days youve got podcast hosts, politicians, and all sorts of other people with no real medical and scientific training and experience spouting off misinformation about Covid-19. Also, just because someone is a medical doctor or has some type of science degree doesnt mean that he or she is qualified to offer real Covid-19 advice. Would you let a podcast host defend you in a criminal court case? Or an ice hockey player quarterback your team in the Super Bowl? Or a proctologist perform heart surgery on you?
Check the sources of the information and their qualifications. Getting medical advice from an anonymous social media account would be like getting medical advice from the graffiti in a public bathroom stall.
Being asked to wear a face mask or provide proof of vaccination like everyone else when you want to watch Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway in a movie theater isnt the same as racial discrimination. And its certainly not the same as The Holocaust.
The Covid-19 pandemic has revealed a lot of the structural racism that has long existed in society. Persons of color have been disproportionately affected by the pandemic. For example, Black and Latinx Americans have died at approximately twice the rate as White Americans, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Then theres whats been happening to many Asian American. As I have covered previously for Forbes, the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic has uncovered anti-Asian racism and hate that has been going on for years, long before people started popularizing terms like the kung-flu virus. The following tweet thread described some of this:
Yet, many people still refuse to acknowledge such structural racism and take concrete steps to fixing these problems.
Sure, you may be able to make money selling supplements or hydrogen peroxide nebulizers by claiming that they can somehow prevent or cure Covid-19. But for Petes and everyone elses sake, can you please stop putting profits over people? Your misinformation and disinformation may be hurting and potentially killing people.
Over 241.5 million people, which is 72.7% of the U.S. population, have already received at least one dose of the Covid-19 vaccines, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). So how come keys, magnets, paper clips, anvils, and other metallic objects arent freaking flying around or sticking to everyone? Again, trying to discredit Covid-19 vaccines or other science-backed Covid-19 prevention measures may serve your political or business agenda. But you may be doing real harm to many, many people.
Remember this video from The Daily Show with Trevor Noahthat captured the numerous times then-U.S. President and current Mar-A-Lago resident Donald Trump claimed that the pandemic was rounding the corner in 2020:
That was a freaking huge corner. Clearly the pandemic was nowhere close to being finished in 2020. And it hasnt rounded that so-called corner in 2021. Yet, a number of politicians have continued to push for premature relaxation of Covid-19 precautions. For example, the U.S. prematurely relaxed face mask and social distancing recommendations in mid-May. And like with many things that are premature, that left a messy situation and many people rather confused. Soon thereafter, the Delta variant came along and well, in the words of Ron Burgundy, That escalated quickly. Then in the Fall and early Winter of 2021, some politicians like Rep. Jim Jordan (R-Ohio) said stuff like Real America is done with #COVID19, as you can see here:
To that, many people responded with what was essentially an OMG. And the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) seems to have responded with Omicron.
If you think you are really free to do anything that you want, try going to your workplace completely naked or use a restaurant table as a toilet. Better yet. Try doing the same thing at the house or private country club of one of those politicians claiming that face mask requirements are infringing on your personal liberties. Rules and requirements are in place because many people are just plain selfish and wont do whats good for society. Whether or not you take Covid-19 precautions affects many people around you. For example, the protection offered by the vaccines increases as more and more people around you get vaccinated too. Thats how herd immunity works.
Welcome to 2021 when politicians trolled Big Bird after the Sesame Street character encouraged people to get the Covid-19 vaccine. Science-backed Covid-19 precautions are not political opinions. Fighting for science is not playing politics.
One things for sure. Society is not going to be the same once the pandemic is over. Thats how time and history work. Dont be one of those people always longing for a return to your high school days. High school was actually kind of awful for many people. Like it or not, the future is going to be different. So you might as well start adapting. Things could even end up being better than they were before 2020.
