Category: Corona Virus

Aditi Debnath: The COVID-19 pandemic, whether we were infected or not, took a great toll on the mental health of millions of Americans. There was fear, there was grief, anger. How does that mental harm continue to affect people today?

Dr. Jasmine Zapata: I'll never forget the first time that even as a health care provider, I had to face that same exact fear. I got COVID when it was still very early in the pandemic, even before the vaccines came out, back in November of 2020. It was a very scary time. There were reports on the news of people dying. There was so much fear that I had. And myself, even my husband, one of my children, had it as well. And to think about, what if we don't survive? What if I don't make it? What if I'm not still here in two weeks? Was terrifying. And I even still am healing and recovering from that traumatic time. Also, I'll never forget the first time that I had to go into a patient room that was positive for COVID. And I remember being in all of my protective gear, and just standing outside of that door for about a minute or two before I went in, knowing that I was going to expose myself going in there. And it was very, very scary. That is just a small example of the mental health toll that it took even on healthcare providers, myself, but then others across the country who were on the front lines. So you can only imagine how hard of a mental health toll this took on families and communities. And so we're definitely still seeing the ripple effects of that today. Now, not only the mental health impacts of having COVID-19, or having a loved one with it, but also the different ripple effects that it had in our community from a social and emotional standpoint, from a economic standpoint. There were people who lost jobs, people who were displaced from their homes. A lot of the social impacts that it had, we're definitely still seeing that right now. In fact, some people say that this, we're in another pandemic, which is a mental health pandemic now. We are definitely having a youth mental health crisis. We're seeing increased rates of self-harm. We're seeing increased rates of suicidal thoughts and other mental health concerns across all ages in our state. And it's incredibly important to continue raising awareness about this very issue.

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Dr. Jasmine Zapata on the toll of COVID-19 on mental health - PBS Wisconsin

COVID-19 is no longer among the top five causes of death for Wyoming residents, according to newly published Department of Health statistics for 2023. The coronavirus had been a leading cause of death for Wyomingites ever since 2020.

Among Wyoming residents, there were a total of 5,566 deaths last year. That's a decrease from 2021, during the height of the pandemic, when Wyoming saw 6,574 deaths in a single year. In fact, 2023 saw the lowest death toll since 2019.

Kim Deti, spokeswoman for the Wyoming Department of Health, said many factors affect the death toll. Wyoming's population is both aging and growing, so some increase in the death toll is to be expected. But the impact of the pandemic still stands out in the data.

"What we did see with the pandemic is some very significant jumps in deaths," Deti said. "And particularly, if you're looking at that data in 2021, that's when we had the delta variant and it hit some people pretty hard."

The top five leading causes of death last year were heart diseases, cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases, accidents or adverse effects, and cerebrovascular diseases.

In both 2020 and 2021, the coronavirus was the third leading cause of death in the state. In 2022, it was the fifth leading cause.

Deti said COVID-19 has now fallen to possibly the tenth or eleventh most common cause of death, and is certainly killing fewer people than it did during its height. But there may be more COVID-19 deaths occurring than the state is aware of, given that testing has decreased as the threat has receded.

"Part of the problem with that is, we've been very consistent in counting COVID-19-related deaths based on what's been listed on death certificates by the people who fill them out," Deti said. "If there's less testing going on, they may not put that on there. It may or may not have been a factor in someone's death, and we may not have the test results to indicate it. People just aren't testing the same manner that they were."

Births among Wyoming residents have also gone down, but not as much. There were just under 6,000 newborns in 2023. Deti said this continues a well-known trend.

"Other than the slight increase that we had in 2021, we have had fewer births, pretty consistently each year, among Wyoming resident mothers for quite some time," she said.

Deti said the most common birth month of 2023 was August, during which 553 Wyoming mothers gave birth.

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After three years, COVID-19 is no longer a leading cause of death in Wyoming - Wyoming Public Media

Politics

exclusive

By Ryan King

Published March 19, 2024, 11:18 a.m. ET

Sen. Ron Johnson has called on the Department of Health and Human Services to explain why dozens of pages of material on the origins of COVID-19 are still hidden under HHSs heavy redactions.

Johnson (R-Wis.) previously demanded those files back in 2021 as part of a tranche of documents on the global pandemic.

He is following up on the request after a testy hearing with HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra last week.

It is well past time for HHS to meet its legal obligation and produce, without redactions, the approximately 50 pages of priority records my office identified in 2021. You previously testified that I am absolutely entitled to that information, Johnson wrote in a Friday letter to Becerra.

The Wisconsin Republican demanded the material by the week of April 8, and he is seeking a phone call or meeting with Becerra by that same time to discuss HHS compliance with the 2021 request.

This past Thursday, Johnson pressed Becerra about why the department hadnt furnished the outstanding documents during a Senate Finance Committee hearing.

It is an accommodation process where we try to make sure that we fulfill the request as best we can without undermining national security, confidentiality, Becerra explained at the time.

Johnson was dissatisfied with that response and stressed to the HHS secretary, We fund the agencies. We pay their salaries. That data should be made available to the American public.

The senator wants HHS to flag specific privileges it feels preclude the removal of redactions and to furnish the material uncensored where it cant identify a legitimate privilege.

After Johnsons initial request in 2021, the department coughed up roughly 4,000 pages worth of material that contained some redactions, according to his letter.

In September 2021, the senators team asked for an unredacted review of 400 pages of priority records. Now that request has been reduced to 50 pages.

The Post reached out to HHS for comment.

Johnson is the ranking member of the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. He has long been scrutinizing government health agencies for their actions revolving around the outbreak.

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Sen. Ron Johnson demands HHS explain why dozens of documents on COVID-19 origins have 'heavy redactions' - New York Post

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Mauricio Savarese - The Associated Press

Posted: 2 Hours Ago

Former Brazilian president Jair Bolsonaro was formally accused Tuesday of falsifying his COVID-19 vaccination status, marking the first indictment for the embattled far-right leader, with more allegations potentially in store.

The federal police indictment released by the Supreme Court alleged that Bolsonaro and 16 others inserted false information into a public health database to make it appear as though the then-president, his 12-year-old daughter and several others in his circle had received the COVID-19 vaccine.

Police detective Fbio Alvarez Shor, who signed the indictment, said in his report that Bolsonaro and his aides changed their vaccination records in order to "issue their respective [vaccination]certificates and use them to cheat current health restrictions."

"The investigation found several false insertions between November 2021 and December 2022, and also many actions of using fraudulent documents," Shor added.

The detective said in the indictment that Bolsonaro's aide-de-camp, Mauro Cid, told investigators the former president asked him to insert the false data into the system for both himself and his adolescent daughter.

Cid also said he delivered the vaccination certificates to Bolsonaro personally.

During the pandemic, Bolsonaro was one of the few world leaders who railed against the vaccine. He openly flouted health restrictions and encouraged other Brazilians to follow his example.

His administration ignored several offers from pharmaceutical company Pfizer to sell Brazil tens of millions of shots in 2020, and he openly criticized a move by So Paulo state's governor to buy vaccines from Chinese company Sinovac when no other doses were available.

Brazil's prosecutor-general's office will have the final say on whether to use the indictment to file charges against Bolsonaro at the Supreme Court.

WATCH | Brazil's COVID-19 deaths surged as Bolsonarorefusedto implementlockdown:

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The case stems from one of several investigations targeting Bolsonaro, who governed from 2019 to 2022.

Bolsonaro's lawyer, Fbio Wajngarten, called his client's indictment "absurd" and said he did not have access to it.

"When he was president, he was completely exempted from showing any kind of certificate on his trips. This is political persecution and an attempt to void the enormous political capital that has only grown," Wajngarten said.

The former president denied any wrongdoing during questioning in May 2023.

Gleisi Hoffmann, chairwoman of the Workers' Party, whose candidate defeated Bolsonaro, celebrated his indictment on social media.

She said she hopes the former president stands trial in many other cases, including for his alleged attempt to sneak $3 million US in diamond jewlery into the country and the sale of two luxury watches he received as gifts from Saudi Arabia while in office.

"He has lied until this day about his nefarious administration, but now he will have to face the truth in the courts. The federal police's indictment sent to prosecutors is just the first of several," Hoffmann said.

"What is up now, Big Coward? Are you going to face this or run away to Miami?"

Brazil's Supreme Court has already seized Bolsonaro's passport.

LISTEN | Bolsonarodownplayedthreat of COVID-19 as cases rose:

Police accuse Bolsonaro and his aides of tampering with the health ministry's database shortly before he travelled to the U.S. in December 2022, two months after he lost his re-election bid to Luiz Incio Lula da Silva.

Bolsonaro needed a certificate of vaccination to enter the U.S., where he remained for the final days of his term and the first months of Lula's term.

The former president has repeatedly said he has never taken a COVID-19 vaccine.

If convicted for falsifying health data, the 68-year-old politician could spend up to 12 years behind bars or as little as two years, according to legal analyst Zilan Costa.

The maximum jail time for a charge of criminal association is four years, he said.

"What Bolsonaro will argue in this case is whether he did insert the data or enable others to do it, or not. And that is plain and simple: Either you have the evidence or you don't. It is a very serious crime with a very harsh sentence for those convicted," Costa told The Associated Press.

Shor also said he is awaiting information from the U.S. Justice Department to "clarify whether those under investigation did make use of the false vaccination certificates upon their arrival and stay in American territory."

If so, further charges could be levelled against Bolsonaro, Shor wrote without specifying in which country.

The indictment sheds new light on a Senate committee inquiry that ended in October 2021 with a recommendation for nine criminal charges against Bolsonaro alleging that he mismanaged the pandemic.

Then prosecutor-general Augusto Aras, who was widely seen as a Bolsonaro ally, declined to move the case forward.

Brazilian media reported that Aras' successor, Paulo Gonet, was scheduled to meet lawmakers later Tuesday to discuss the possibility of filing charges.

Bolsonaro retains staunch allegiance among his political base, as shown by an outpouring of support last month, when an estimated 185,000 people clogged So Paulo's main boulevard to decry what they and the former president characterize as political persecution.

The indictment will not turn off his backers and will only confirm his detractors' suspicions, said Carlos Melo, a political science professor at Insper University in So Paulo.

"It is definitely worse for him in courts," Melo said. "He could be entering a trend of convictions, and then arrest."

Brazil's top electoral court has already ruled Bolsonaro ineligible to run for office until 2030, on the grounds that he abused his power during the 2022 campaign and cast unfounded doubts on the country's electronic voting system.

Another investigation relates to his alleged involvement in the Jan. 8, 2023, uprising in the capital of Brasilia, soon after Lula took power.

The uprising resembled the U.S. Capitol riot in Washington two years prior.

He has denied wrongdoing in both cases.

Shor wrote that the indictment will be folded into the investigation of Jan. 8, which is being overseen by Supreme Court Justice Alexandre de Moraes.

That justice authorized the unsealing of the indictment.

WATCH | What role did Bolsonaro play in protests, riots after election loss:

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Mauricio Savarese Associated Press

Associated Press

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Brazil's Jair Bolsonaro indicted for allegedly falsifying COVID-19 vaccination status - CBC News

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The Effects of COVID-19 on the Mental Health of Children and Adolescents: A Review - Cureus

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Countries Where the Most People Have Died From COVID-19 - USA TODAY

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COVID-19 response put significant pressure on health care workers - NJ Spotlight News

This story is from The Pulse, a weekly health and science podcast.

Find it on Apple Podcasts,Spotify,orwherever you get your podcasts.

For the first several months of the COVID-19 pandemic, Angie and a couple shed befriended in Los Angeles made a hard decision. The friends agreed to a freeze in hanging out.

We were almost like family, said Angie, who asked us to only use her nickname to protect her privacy.

Shed first met the two, a husband and wife, while taking an adult French classand the three of them had done everything together for over a decade afterwards.

I came over to their home a lot, Angie said. Id go hiking with them, eating with them, to events throughout the city. Whenever they had crises, theyd talk to me about it. They even took Angie with them on vacations and work trips.

But when the coronavirus came ashore and began infecting Americans in March 2020, the friends didnt see each other in person for months. When they finally did, they wore masks and stayed outdoors. Even when vaccines became available in 2021, Angie and her friends blanched at the prospect of hosting parties or dinners in their homes.

Soon, though, for reasons Angie cant fully explain, things changed.

They started going to events, and going indoors, with no masks, she said. It was a complete 180.

Eventually, Angie said she felt her friends pressing her to step out, too.

They said, We just want to see you, she recounted.

But Angies partner at the time had lost his father, an ER doctor, to complications from COVID-19. A few months later, the boyfriend contracted post-COVID syndrome, known commonly as long COVID. He went from an active, engaging lifeengineering by day, martial arts by nightto outsourcing his laundry and struggling to walk from his couch to his dining room. And Angies part-time gig as a contact tracer flooded her with stories about coronaviruss consequences. So, she stayed vigilantand, eventually, was left far more vigilant than many of the people around her.

Angie pulled the wife aside and explained where she was coming from, in the hopes that her concerns would be understood and respected. But when the curtain fell on that conversation, they both felt worse than ever.

Her response was, Ive been doing all these things, and I never got COVID, Angie said.Everything was being minimized, and I got really flustered.

Her friend had become frustrated, too and mentioned that the couple had once kept a birthday party outside, in the rain, so that Angie could feel safe. To the friend, that felt like proof that she was taking the pandemic seriously.

Angie saw it differently.

It felt like she was trying to manipulate me, Angie said.

Angie and her friends were on a road that millions of people had taken before them: In August of 2021, a survey found that about 1 in 6 adults had severed at least three friendships amid differences of opinion on vaccines and precautions, according to OnePoll.

For people like Angie, the pandemic and its fallout forged new bones of contention between friends and families. For Carey Cadieux, a nursing PhD whos taught RNs in Maine and New York, COVID-19 only widened a rift that was already there.

Before 2020, Cadieux said her marriage of 24 years often piled on responsibilities and rarely brought her help.

I was the primary breadwinner, she said. I was the primary caregiver for the children. I organized everything.

When Cadieux came down with COVID-19 in February 2020, she didnt return to full strength for over a month. During her illness, she didnt just want the duties and dynamics in her house to change she felt they needed to, for her childrens sake as much as her own.

But they did not.

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How the COVID-19 pandemic changed relationships, and how to move forward - WHYY

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Up Close with Bill Ritter: COVID-19 lockdown 4th anniversary and the lessons learned - WABC-TV

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What happens when someone is hyper-vaccinated with COVID-19 boosters - Oklahoman.com