SALT LAKE CITY A young Utah mother who was hospitalized with COVID-19 in the beginning of November passed away on Thursday evening.
23-year-old Dezi Scopesi tested positive for the virus on October 29 and was shortly after hospitalized and attached to a ventilator.
When FOX 13 spoke to her family in November, they said she chose to postpone receiving the COVID-19 vaccine until after she finished nursing her 14-month-old son.
Read - Young mother with COVID fighting for her life
In an update on their Gofundme page, Dezi's family shared their appreciation for the community outreach during this difficult time.
"It is with extremely heavy hearts that we let you all knowour sweet Dezi passed away on Thursday evening," the Gofundme reads. "We feel so much strength and comfort from the endless love and support we have received from all of you."
More than $37,000 was raised for Dezi's family. Click here to donate to the Gofundme as the family navigates hospital and funeral expenses.
RICHMOND, Va (WRIC) Several children and adults walked in to get their vaccine at Martin Luther King, Jr. Middle School and other locations across the area Saturday.
Richmond Public Schools partnered with the Richmond-Henrico Health Districts to make sure kids get vaccinated against COVID-19 alongside adults.
8News was there and spoke to several folks trickling in and out of the school on Mosby Street.
One local teacher that showed up said aside from protecting her against the virus, the vaccine helped her in a whole different way.
After getting her first dose of the Moderna COVID-19 vaccine around the end of January and the beginning of February, Tiffany Goodman said the dose triggered an immune response in her body.
My upper body just swelled up really badly, and I was in a lot of pain, and I had the flu-like symptoms like a lot of people did, she said.
Her doctor recommended she go for a mammogram. They found traces of breast cancer, she told 8News.
I was a mess, she added. You know, nobody likes to hear that news at all.
Goodman has since had a double mastectomy and reconstruction surgery and is healing. She was excited to get her booster shot. She laughed, its been a tough year!
Although it was a tough year for Goodman, she said shes glad the breast cancer was caught early because that may not have happened if she hadnt gotten the COVID-19 shot.
My mom says that me getting the vaccine that I got literally saved my life, she said. We wouldnt have known otherwise when I might have detected the cancer that my immune system had just picked up on.
She said knowing theres another variant in the country is frustrating, but she said shes grateful for the protection against the virus.
RHHD plans to continue to have several walk-up vaccination events for kids and adults in the future.
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OKLAHOMA CITY (KFOR) After recovering from the COVID-19 virus, I decided to speak to a local physician about my symptoms and path to recovery.
I was diagnosed with COVID last Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, after multiple days of symptoms. The whole ordeal felt like the flu on steroids.
At one point, I went to the emergency room with difficulty breathing and an unsettling symptom of burning in the lungs and chest. I lost 12 pounds throughout the entire process.
I thought the virus would take it easy on me considering Im young and in relatively good shape. Im also fully vaccinated.
It did not.
One unusual symptom I had during my time was constant nosebleeds at least two a day.OU Chief COVID Officer Dr. Dale Bratzler says its a common symptom for most respiratory viruses, COVID included.
Remember the receptors to which the COVID virus attaches are substantially in the nose so its very common, he said. Nosebleeds are not uncommon in people who have other upper respiratory viral infections.
He added that other complications I had, including pink eye, are fairly common as well.
The most unsettling symptom I received, as aforementioned, was a hot burning or fizzing sensation that radiated from my chest and lungs.
Your immune system is reacting to the virus and it causes discomfort that can be unsettling to you, Dr. Bratzler said. A lot of people will complain that with breathing, theyll have symptoms. Their chest may feel tight or they feel they just cant feel they get the expansion in their lungs.
I also felt the common symptom of having difficulty breathing, like a weight was sitting on my chest. And even after my recovery, I get shortness of breath much quicker than before.
The virus gets into the lung and can impact the lung, he said. Even people who dont get hospitalized will complain of shortness of breath that lasts for some time.
Dr. Bratzler also gave good insight when it comes to keeping your house clean and the deep clean that I now have to do in my home.
I dont tell most people that they have to go about doing this extensive cleaning, he said.
He points out the principle way of getting COVID is by breathing it in, not by touching surfaces.
The chance that somebodys gonna get COVID by touching a surface in your house is not really high but cleaning surfaces and other things reduces other types of infections.
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Dr. Anthony Fauci, the longtime director of the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, on Sunday responded to claims by GOP Sen. Ron Johnson that he "overhyped" the AIDS crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic.
Johnson, a senator from Wisconsin, made the remark during an episode of Fox News host Brian Kilmeade's podcast that aired Wednesday, which was also World AIDS Day.
"Fauci did the exact same thing with AIDS. He overhyped it," Johnson told Kilmeade, after claiming that US officials were attempting to use COVID-19 to create a culture of fear.
"He created all kinds of fear, saying it could affect the entire population when it couldn't," Johnson said without provided examples, according The Advocate. "And he's doing, he's using the exact same playbook with COVID, ignoring therapy, pushing a vaccine."
Fauci pushed back against the comments, saying he didn't understand what Johnson was talking about.
"Jake, how do you respond to something as preposterous as that?" Fauci asked host Jake Tapper during an appearance on CNN's "State of the Union." "Overhyping AIDS that's killed over 750,000 Americans and 36 million people worldwide? How do you overhype that?"
"Overhyping COVID that's already killed 780,000 Americans over 5 million people worldwide. So I don't have any clue what he's talking about," Fauci added.
"I don't think he does, either," Tapper responded.
Fauci, who also works as the chief medical advisor to President Joe Biden, in a documentary earlier this year said he had Post Traumatic Stress Disorder from spearheading the US response to the HIV/AIDS crisis in the 80s and 90s.
"It was all bad, bad, worse, bad, worse, bad, worse," he said in the film, which began streaming on Disney+ in October. "It was just so unbelievably frustrating when you're used to being able to fix things and you're just not really fixing anything."
As Insider's Aria Bendix noted, Fauci, who has been a frequent target of right-wing figures during the COVID-19 pandemic, also faced backlash during the HIV/AIDS epidemic. That backlash came from activists who believed Fauci was not working quickly enough to begin clinical trails, according to the previous report.
This week our teampublishedthebeginningofa seriesdocumentingthedevastatingtoll COVID-19hastakenon our community.Not only did welearnthatmore thanhalf of San Dieganswho died in thefirst year of thepandemic were immigrants, but that for every $6,600 increase in median household income, a personschances of death decreased by 10 percent.
You may be wondering why were sharing this information now.Allowmetoexplain.
Over the pastseveralmonths, our team hasspentcountlesshours at theSan Diego Countyarchiveslogging thousands of death certificates. One data entry for each San Diegan who died from COVID-19.Thedocumentsare in fact public records, but we had to sueforaccessto them.
Background:In April2020,Jared Whitlock, a freelance journalist who contributes to VOSD,requested copies of county death certificates. At the time he wanted the information for a series he was doing on nursing homes during the pandemic. But county officials told him he needed to provide the name of each decedent and their date of death something we obviously didnt have.
Fast-forward a few monthsandwe suedfor the information.The countyssuggestionthat a reporter must already know thedetailscontained in the documenttheyrerequesting turns state law on its head. Itwouldrequire the public to know what records its government has beforebeingable to access them.
Thencame thefunpart. Afterwinning our case, the county told us thatour staff wouldneed to travel to the county archives in Santee to see the documents. Otherwise, copiesof everything we needed would run us a bill of more than$80,000.We said no, thanks. Instead, our reporters spentmonthsat the archivesreading through the paperwork,without knowing exactly what wed find.(Reporter WillHuntsberryshared more about that experience here).
That brings ustotoday. When we filed our lawsuit, we hadhoped to find out on a granular level where the virus hascaused harm.So far, our stories have detailed two key findings.
The first is that the virus disproportionately killed San Dieganswith lower levels of education and income.These factors havealready been linked with increased risk of deathamong COVID-19 patients, but we foundthe share of San Diegans without a high school degree who died of COVID-19 was nearly three times as high as their share of the countys population.
As our team noted, having a bachelors degree is often the distinguishing factor between essential workers and those who worked from home during the pandemic.
And second, thatimmigrants accounted formore than half of all COVID-related deathsduring the pandemics first yearbutmake upjust23 percent ofthe countyspopulation.
Consider this:AsoureditorAndrea Lopez-Villafaaaskedreporter WillHuntsberryon this weeks podcast,Had you had access to these death certificates early onand you could pull and show those numbersdo you think it would have made a difference?
What do you think? Comment below or email me atmegan@vosd.org.
Click here to read ourseries Year One: COVID-19s Death Toll.Stay tuned next week for more.
On San Diegoslack of access to public restrooms
With all due respect to the Mayor, San Diego has a severe shortage of public restrooms. I visited San Francisco a couple years ago, walked for miles every day, and NEVER had a problem finding a clean, well-tended public restroom. It was a stunning contrast to my hometown. Balboa Park, Mission Bay Park, and the waterfront have some, but not enough, to accommodate visitors and residents. Elsewhere in downtown, I dont even know where I would find a clean public restroom.CatherineThiemann
Onreconsideringthe locationof San Diego Grand Central
Whatever the reason (sounds like slow Navy may be the main one), I am glad the focus on the NAVWAR site is being reconsidered. A transit hub that is located somewhere that transit isntactually neededwould be the ultimate San Diego Special: A convenient site or building thats not fit for purpose. Like, oh, a skydiving fun zone for homeless services. Here, the NAVWAR site is not fit for purpose because of location. Its in between a few big places that transit is needed (airport, downtown, areas of dense housing), but not in or close enough to any one of those places to make sense.Hunter
On theregulation of sidewalk vendors
Go down to the boardwalk vendors in front of Belmont Park. The boardwalk had been reduced from 24 to 18 feet with the vendors setup. Then you have two customers. Another three feet plus occasional vendors selling along the sea wall. Mike Johnson
Thanks for reading. If you enjoy this newsletter,check out our others here.Have something you wantme to include? Email me atmegan@vosd.org.
by: Jose Fabian, Sonseeahray Tonsall, Nexstar Media Wire
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (KTXL) These days Sarah and Matthew Heyl are eagerly watching their almost 4-month-old Naomi thrive, waiting on her first real smile.
About 15 1/2 weeks ago, there was little to smile about for the family.Sarah was sick with COVID and could not see her new baby for 10 days.
I started to rapidly decline, and by the time I was admitted to the ER, I couldnt walk. Had to be in a wheelchair. At home, I needed assistance, used a walker, Sarah Heyl said.
It was COVID-19. It was something the then-pregnant, healthy and already mom to a toddler never thought she would be at risk for since she was working remotely and sequestered from the outside world.
That and previous miscarriages convinced her to go against her obstetricians advice and delay getting vaccinated.
I contracted COVID from a family member who had a brief interaction with my then 16-month-old, and it was enough to infect him. Luckily, he didnt have any serious symptoms, Sarah Heyl said.
But for mom and dad, that was not the case. Matthew Heyl had a breakthrough case, with his last vaccine being in April.
As sick as he was, watching his wife was worse.
The thing, that last straw for me was I actually sat and started counting her breaths she was taking in a minute. And it was terrible. She was up to about 36 breaths a minute, and I was like I got to rush her to the ER, Matthew Heyl recalled.
At 32 weeks, doctors made the decision that a C-section was the best chance of survival for the mother and baby.
Sarah Heyl is grateful for all the effort that saved her life and that of her daughter after they were put at risk by delaying vaccination.
Now, she has a message for other moms.
Something that will stick with me is that because I was positive, Naomi, I didnt get to meet Naomi until 10 days after she was born, Sarah Heyl said. So, that was a tough time that I would never want another mother to experience that separation after birth where you cant see your child, you cant touch your child.
Editors note: Stories in this list received the most page views on SummitDaily.com in the past week.
Public health officials have said the treatment is becoming a key to limiting hospitalizations at a time when just 6% of Colorados intensive-care beds are available.
The treatment which essentially gives patients antibodies that vaccinated people are already making on their own is proving to be effective: Out of 276 treatments on COVID-19 patients at UCHealth Yampa Valley Medical Center in Steamboat Springs, officials say just a handful have ended up in the hospital.
The hospitals nurse manager Sanaya Sturm said vaccination is still the best way to protect from contracting the virus. Still, for those who are not vaccinated or people with weak immune systems, hospital officials said antibodies have had really good results when given within 10 days of the first symptoms. The treatment is also given to those who have been vaccinated but still contracted the virus.
Steamboat Pilot & Today
At a Summit Board of County Commissioners meeting Nov. 23, the board passed new short-term rental licensing regulations on first reading. The new regulations divide unincorporated Summit County into resort zones which include areas such as the Peaks 7 and 8 neighborhoods, Copper Mountain and Keystone and neighborhood zones, which include areas such as Dillon Valley, Wildernest and Summit Cove.
Summit County Senior Planner Jessica Potter, who helped spearhead the countys new regulations, explained at the meeting that home sales in the first half of 2021 that resulted in short-term rental license applications increased 21% compared with the first half of 2020.
Summit County leaders believe these changes will indirectly stop the bleed, or slow the pace of short-term rental unit conversions.
Jenna deJong
Its finally here: The Pad hotel and hostel officially opened the week of Thanksgiving, and with it, A-Bar, a new watering hole that offers both guests and visitors a place to stop and relax on the north side of town.
The Pad has generated buzz as a boutique hostel-hotel hybrid that offers a combination of shared- and private-room options to accommodate the needs and interests of different types of travelers. The development was built with 18 upcycled shipping containers and features 36 rooms and 101 beds.
According to a news release, co-owners Lynne and Rob Baer built the boutique hostel as a new social lodging concept. Part of that social concept extends to A-Bar, the new bar situated near the lobbys front desk that welcomes visitors and locals.
Jenna deJong
The Colorado Department of Transportation has entered a winter hiatus on construction to replace a failing emergency access structure beneath Interstate 70 west of the Eisenhower Johnson Memorial Tunnels, according to a news release.
The release said that from the end of November until April, 2022, no lane closures or construction work are expected for the I-70 structure replacement project. The far-right westbound lane west of the tunnel has also been reopened.
A separate repaving project on I-70 will continue between Silverthorne and Frisco during work hours Mondays through Thursdays, according to the release.
Lindsey Toomer
Its been over three weeks since a trench collapse along Sallie Barber Road killed 20-year-old Marlon Diaz and partially buried another individual. Details about the incident remain scarce as the Occupational Safety and Health Administration takes on the investigation.
But one thing is clear: A steel box meant to protect workers from a trench collapse was not in use when emergency responders arrived at the scene Nov. 16.
Drew Hoehn, deputy chief of operations for the Red, White & Blue Fire Protection District, reported that when the district arrived at around 4:15 p.m., the steel trench box used to support trench walls was not in the trench but was sitting nearby the site. Hoehn said it appeared members of the crew were working in an unprotected hole during the time of the incident.
Jenna deJong
JOHANNESBURG, Dec 4 (Reuters) - Higher hospital admissions among children during a fourth wave of COVID-19 infections in South Africa that has been driven by the Omicron coronavirus variant should not prompt panic as infections have been mild, a health official said on Saturday.
A large number of infants admitted with COVID-19 last month in Tshwane, the metropolitan area that includes the capital Pretoria, raised concerns that the newly identified Omicron could pose greater risks for young children than other variants.
Scientists have yet to confirm any link and have cautioned that other factors could be at play.
Register
Ntsakisi Maluleke, a public health specialist in the Gauteng province that includes Tshwane and the biggest city Johannesburg, told Reuters that out of the 1,511 COVID-positive patients in hospitals in the province 113 were under 9 years old, a greater proportion than during previous waves of infection.
"We are comforted by clinicians' reports that the children have mild disease," she said in an interview, adding health officials and scientists were investigating what was driving increased admissions in younger ages and were hoping to provide more clarity within two weeks.
Since only a small percentage of South Africa's positive COVID-19 tests are sent for genomic sequencing, officials do not yet know which variants the children admitted to hospital have been infected with.
Maluleke said healthcare workers could be acting out of an abundance of caution. "They would rather have a child under care for a day or two than having a child at home and complicating, ... but we really need to wait for the evidence," she said.
She said many COVID-19 patients in Gauteng were reporting "non-specific" flu-like symptoms like a scratchy throat. But she urged parents and pregnant women, another cohort that has seen more hospital admissions recently, not to take flu-like symptoms lightly and to get tested in case intervention is needed further down the line.
"The public needs to be less fearful but vigilant," she said. Despite a recent influx of admissions, Gauteng's dedicated COVID-19 bed occupancy was still only around 13%, Maluleke said.
REASSURING SIGNS
Scientists are yet to determine what severity of illness is caused by the Omicron variant, first detected in southern Africa last month and since seen in more than 30 countries, and whether it may be more resistant to existing vaccines.
But an article by the South African Medical Research Council based on early observations at the Steve Biko/Tshwane District Hospital Complex in Pretoria over the last two weeks contained reassuring signs.
The majority of patients in the COVID wards at the hospital complex were not oxygen-dependent and were "incidental COVID admissions," having another reason for admission, the article said.
"This is a picture that has not been seen in previous waves. In the beginning of all three previous waves and throughout the course of these waves, there has always only been a sprinkling of patients on room air in the COVID ward," it said.
There had been no COVID-related deaths among 34 admissions in the paediatric COVID wards over the last two weeks. But the article added that trends would become clearer and further analysis was still being conducted.
Register
Additional reporting by Wendell Roelf in Cape TownEditing by Frances Kerry
Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.
The Philadelphia Union will be forced to field a vastly understrength side for Sunday's Eastern Conference final against New York City FC due to 11 players being placed in the league's Health and Safety protocols.
The list includes usual starters Alejandro Bedoya -- who is the team's captain -- goalkeeper Andre Blake, left-back Kai Wagner, center-back Jack Elliott and center-back Jakob Glesnes. Also on the list are backup goalkeeper Joe Bendik, forward Cory Burke, midfielder Ilsinho, defender Alvas Powell, forward Sergio Santos and midfielder Quinn Sullivan.
- ESPN+ viewers' guide: LaLiga, Bundesliga, MLS, FA Cup, more
A player will be listed as being as out due to "Health and Safety Protocols" for quarantine due to participating in high-risk behaviour, quarantine related to being a high-risk close contact, pending COVID-19 test results, an inconclusive COVID-19 test result, a positive COVID-19 test or a confirmed case or other illness not related to COVID-19.
A league source confirmed to ESPN that the game is going ahead as planned.
The seriousness of the situation emerged earlier this week when the Union's practice session on Thursday was canceled. The team trained with reduced numbers on Friday.
"We hope to have as many players available as possible for our game against NYCFC," manager Jim Curtin said during Friday's news conference.
He added, "Our players have worked tirelessly to get to this point. I know they'll be brave even in the adversity that we're facing.
"We've stepped up in big moments all year long. Be it international absences, the challenges of CONCACAF, players losing loved ones.
"Adversity on and off the field, this group always finds a way to step up. We will make our fans proud."
A Minnesota man who attended an anime convention in New York last month and later tested positive for the Omicron coronavirus variant has reportedly told health officials that 15 of his friends have also contracted COVID-19.
It's unclear if any of those individuals also caught the Omicron variant, health officials told media outlets. The man was one of the first reported cases of the Omicron variant in the United States, prompting questions of whether the variant spread throughout the convention, which tens of thousands of people attended.
"It's hard to say that it is a 'superspreader.' Certainly we're concerned about that," Kathy Como-Sabetti, manager of the COVID-19 epidemiology section for the Minnesota Department of Public Health, told The New York Times.
Officials in New York and Minnesota and with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are investigating the variant's possible spread and tracing the man's contacts, according to The Washington Post.
"We don't know if we'll see a lot of Omicron, or we'll see a lot of Delta," Kris Ehresmann, the director of the Infectious Disease Epidemiology, Prevention, and Control Division at the Minnesota Department of Health, told The Post. "But we're likely to see a lot of COVID."
The man had attended the late-November convention as part of a group of 30 people from across the United States half of whom are now sick, he told health officials.
Convention organizers noted that it's still unclear where the man contracted the Omicron variant and he may not have even picked it up at the convention at all. Organizers said all event attendees were required to wear masks and have at least one dose of a COVID-19 vaccine.
"There have been no other mass cases reported from our event, and we are now way past two weeks" since the convention ended, Kelly Comboni, president of LeftField Media, which organized the convention, told The Times.
The Times also reported Saturday that the man had been fully vaccinated and received a booster weeks before attending the convention. His symptoms were mild and he has turned over the names and contact information of some of his friends to health officials, according to The Times.
New York officials announced Saturday that three new cases of the Omicron variant have appeared in New York state, bringing the total to eight.
Gov. Kathy Hochul has urged calm and said the Omicron cases are "no cause for alarm," though health officials are taking the situation "extremely seriously."
Though most reported Omicron cases so far have been mild or asymptomatic, experts have cautioned that hospitalization data is too preliminary to draw conclusions on the variant's severity.
