Category: Corona Virus

WASHINGTON, D.C. More Americans will be able to obtain their free at-home COVID-19 tests starting later this week.

An announcement from the White House says a website designed to help distribute those tests will be launched on Wednesday.

People can use the site to order up to four tests per household.

A phone line will also be created for people who don't have computer access.

Officials estimate the tests will take seven to 12 days to be delivered.

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Federal at-home COVID-19 tests will be available this week - KRIS Corpus Christi News

BUFFALO, N.Y. (WKBW) Each day we learn more about the COVID-19 virus and its impact on those who have it, but one thing we do know about the virus is that the impact it has on each person can be very different.

7 News anchor Katie Morse spoke with two women more than a year after they battled the virus to hear their experience and what symptoms they're still dealing with today.

Almost one year after her release from Niagara Falls Memorial Medical Center, Talia Kalisiak says she's feeling much better, but still has lingering impacts of the virus.

"Pretty much my whole memory from November 11th until I woke up, there's just nothing," Kalisiak said. "Most of the lasting symptoms now are still like muscle weakness, and I'm trying to gain that back."

Talia lost feeling in her legs and arms as she battled the virus.

She spent time in a rehab facility and has been doing physical therapy ever since.

"Now I'm feeling pretty good," Kalisiak said. "I'm able to drive myself around in the car which is a big improvement."

It was spring of 2021 -when Bernadette Singer-Kreitzbender shared her COVID-19 story with 7 News.The mom from Lakeview told us then that the virus altered her senses of smell and taste to the point where foods she used to love, disgusted her.

"Imagine a rat that's been dead for three weeks," Singer-Kreitzbender said. "Everything smells like that. Everything tastes like that."

Seven months later Bernadette says 90 percent of her senses are back.

She practiced smell training, where you actively smell different scents each day to help recover your sense of smell.

But she says some foods like yogurt, sour cream, and cream cheese still don't taste like they used to.

The range of symptoms is something that makes this virus unique and so unpredictable.

Talia says as we move into 2022, she wants people to remember what the disease can do.

"Know for sure that COVID-19 is not the flu," Kalisiak said. "I see people say COVID-19 is the flu, and if you haven't gotten the vaccine, if you haven't gotten the booster, go get it. Don't get the chance of having to deal with what I did."

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One year later: What symptoms do some COVID-19 patients still have? - WKBW-TV

Provisional name given to any recently discovered coronavirus of medical significance

Novel coronavirus (nCoV) is a provisional name given to coronaviruses of medical significance before a permanent name is decided upon. Although coronaviruses are endemic in humans and infections normally mild, such as the common cold (caused by human coronaviruses in ~15% of cases), cross-species transmission has produced some unusually virulent strains which can cause viral pneumonia and in serious cases even acute respiratory distress syndrome and death.[1][2][3]

The following viruses could initially be referred to as "novel coronavirus", before being formally named:

All four viruses are part of the Betacoronavirus genus within the coronavirus family.

The word "novel" indicates a "new pathogen of a previously known type" (i.e. known family) of virus. Use of the word conforms to best practices for naming new infectious diseases published by the World Health Organization (WHO) in 2015. Historically, pathogens have sometimes been named after locations, individuals, or specific species.[12] However, this practice is now explicitly discouraged by the WHO.[13]

The official permanent names for viruses and for diseases are determined by the ICTV and the WHO's ICD, respectively.

At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in Hubei a 2020 study from Alabama University found a more than ten-fold increase in use of expressions such as "Chinese virus" or "Wu flu virus" on Twitter compared to before the outbreak. The researchers voiced concerns whether such terminology could hinder public health efforts or be stigmatizing. No such effects were observed in the wake of the MERS outbreaks being referred to as "Camel flu virus" or "Middle East virus".[14]

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Novel coronavirus - Wikipedia

We're tracking the latest on the coronavirus outbreak and the global response. Sign up here for our daily newsletter on what you need to know.

The number of new people getting the Covid-19 vaccine is at one of the lowest points since the rollout began, according to a review of the latest U.S. government data, even as average daily infections approach 800,000.

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Virus Outbreak: Covid (Coronavirus) News and Analysis From Jan. 15 - Bloomberg

SAFE LEISURE TIME What is currently possible, and what is not

Do you have questions about events or want to know which leisure facilities are open in SalzburgerLand? Here, we give you an overview.

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Corona Virus SalzburgerLand.com

AMSTERDAM, Jan 16 (Reuters) - Thousands of protesters packed Amsterdam's streets on Sunday in opposition to the government-imposed COVID-19 measures and vaccination campaign as virus infections hit a new record.

Authorities were granted stop and search powers at several locations across the city and scores of riot police vans patrolled neighbourhoods where the demonstrators marched with banners and yellow umbrellas.

Regular anti-coronavirus protests are held across the country and Sunday's large gathering was joined by farmers who drove to the capital and parked tractors along the central Museum Square.

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The crowd played music, chanted anti-government slogans and then marched along thoroughfares, blocking traffic.

The Netherlands had one of Europe's toughest lockdowns for a month through the end-of-year holidays.

Amid growing public opposition, Prime Minister Mark Rutte on Friday announced the reopening of stores, hairdressers and gyms, partially lifting a lockdown despite record numbers of new COVIC-19 cases. read more

Infections reached another record high above 36,000 on Sunday, data published by the Netherlands Institute for Health (RIVM) showed. The Netherlands has recorded more than 3.5 million infections and 21,000 deaths since the start of the pandemic.

Rutte's government ordered the lockdown in mid-December as a wave of the Delta variant forced the health system to cancel all but the most urgent care and it appeared rising Omicron cases would overwhelm it. read more

Non-essential stores, hairdressers, beauty salons and other service providers were allowed to reopen on Saturday under strict conditions.

Bars, restaurants and cultural venues have been instructed to remain closed until at least Jan. 25 due to uncertainty about how the Omicron wave will impact hospital capacity.

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Reporting by Piroschka van de Wouw, Writing by Anthony Deutsch, Editing by Angus MacSwan

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Protest in Netherlands against coronavirus measures - Reuters

The complications

Saliva also has trade-offs. While the virus appears to build up in saliva early, the nose may be a better place to detect it later in the course of infection.

Researchers at the California Institute of Technology found that while the virus often spiked first in saliva, it ultimately rose to higher levels in the nose. Their results suggest that highly sensitive tests, like P.C.R. tests, may be able to pick up infections in saliva days earlier than they do in nasal swabs, but that less-sensitive tests, like antigen tests, might not.

The data on saliva are still mixed, some experts noted.

There are these few studies that I have found really very interesting, said Dr. Mary K. Hayden, an infectious disease doctor and clinical microbiologist at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago.

But Dr. Hayden said she was interpreting the new studies cautiously because for years and years and years, research has suggested that nasopharyngeal specimens are best for detecting respiratory viruses.

Some scientists also have practical concerns. The mouth is a little more of an uncontrolled environment compared to the nasal passages, said Joseph DeRisi, a biochemist at the University of California, San Francisco, who is a president of the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub and an author of the cheek swab paper. Did you drink a Coke right before you took the test? The pH will be different. And those things matter.

Saliva can be viscous and difficult to work with, especially when patients are sick and dehydrated, Dr. Marie-Louise Landry, director of the clinical virology laboratory at Yale New Haven Hospital, said in an email.

Ultimately, different approaches may be required in different circumstances. For people who have had symptoms for several days, nasal swabs might be a good choice, while saliva might be best suited for the large-scale surveillance screening of asymptomatic people, Dr. Hansen suggested. We need to get the right test into the right places, he said.

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For Coronavirus Testing, the Nose May Not Always Be Best - The New York Times

Fourteenmore Mainers have died and another 1,359coronavirus cases reported across the state, Maine health officials said Saturday.

Saturdays report brings the total number of coronavirus cases in Maine to 160,857,according to the Maine Center for Disease Control and Prevention. Thats up from 159,498 on Friday.

Of those, 117,814have been confirmed positive, while 40,043were classified as probable cases, the Maine CDC reported.

Eight men and six women have succumbed to the virus, bringing the statewide death toll to 1,658.

One was from Androscoggin County, one from Cumberland County, one from Franklin County, two from Kennebec County, two from Penobscot County, one from Sagadahoc County, one from Somerset County, one from Waldo County, one from Washington County and three from York County.

Of those, nine were 80 or older, three were in their 60s and two in their 50s.

The number of coronavirus cases diagnosed in the past 14 days statewide is 14,121. This is an estimation of the current number of active cases in the state, as the Maine CDC is no longer tracking recoveries for all patients. Thats up from 12,762 on Friday.

The new case rate statewide Saturday was 10.15 cases per 10,000 residents, and the total case rate statewide was 1,201.86.

Maines seven-day average for new coronavirus cases is 1,070.1, up from 1,049.3 the day before, up from 775.3 a week ago and down from 1,071.4 a month ago.

The most cases have been detected in Mainers younger than 20, while Mainers over 80 years old make up the majority of deaths. More cases have been recorded in women and more deaths in men.

So far, 3,698 Mainers have been hospitalized at some point with COVID-19, the illness caused by the new coronavirus. Of those, 418 are currently hospitalized, with 108 in critical care and 57 on a ventilator. Overall, 54 out of 384 critical care beds and 214 out of 321 ventilators are available.

The total statewide hospitalization rate on Saturday was 27.63 patients per 10,000 residents.

Cases have been reported in Androscoggin (16,636), Aroostook (7,840), Cumberland (31,865), Franklin (4,140), Hancock (4,805), Kennebec (15,656), Knox (3,679), Lincoln (3,335), Oxford (8,212), Penobscot (18,734), Piscataquis (2,121), Sagadahoc (3,272), Somerset (6,919), Waldo (4,074), Washington (2,945) and York (26,714) counties. Information about where an additional 10 cases were reported wasnt immediately available.

An additional 3,457 vaccine doses were administered in the previous 24 hours. As of Saturday, 969,927 Mainers are fully vaccinated, or about 75.7 percent of eligible Mainers, according to the Maine CDC.

As of Saturday afternoon, the coronavirus had sickened 65,195,602 people in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands and the U.S. Virgin Islands, as well as caused 849,748 deaths, according to the Johns Hopkins University of Medicine.

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14 more Mainers have died and another 1,359 coronavirus cases reported across the state - Bangor Daily News

Ministers are seeing encouraging signs that plan B coronavirus restrictions in England could be lifted in 10 days time, the co-chair of the Conservative party Oliver Dowden has said.

Current measures in England, including guidance to work from home and the widespread use of face coverings, were imposed in early December to help tackle the spread of Omicron. They are set to be reviewed on 26 January.

In the clearest hint yet that some or all of the measures will be removed on that date, Dowden, who also serves as minister without portfolio, said that while the government would review further data this week before making a decision, the signs are encouraging.

His comments came after health and scientific experts expressed cautious optimism this weekend that the Covid situation was improving.

Dr Susan Hopkins, the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) chief medical adviser, said cases appeared to be plateauing in parts of the UK, and added that while cases were still relatively high, there had also been a slowdown in hospital admissions.

Prof Linda Bauld, a professor of public health at the University of Edinburgh and chief social policy adviser to the Scottish government, said Omicron cases in the UK appeared to be stabilising. Dr Chris Smith, a consultant virologist and lecturer at Cambridge University, said the latest data gave him great cause for optimism.

Dowden told Sky News Trevor Phillips on Sunday programme: It has always been my hope that we would have the plan B restrictions for the shortest period possible. Im under no doubt the kind of burdens this puts hospitality, wider business, schools and so on under, and I want us to get rid of those if we possibly can. The signs are encouraging but, clearly, we will wait to see the data ahead of that final decision.

Sir Keir Starmer said he hoped plan B restrictions could be lifted as soon as possible. Speaking on the BBCs Sunday Morning programme, the Labour leader said: I think the sooner we can lift the final restrictions, the better. I think thats what the whole country want. Its important that were led by the science on this. We had access to the government scientific and medical advisers, and thats helped us form our views.

I hope those restrictions can be lifted as soon as possible, but I want them to be lifted because the medical science says they should be lifted, not simply because the prime minister is in a real mess and hes desperately trying to get out of it.

So, if its the right thing to lift those restrictions, we will vote to lift those restrictions. But well be led by the science as we always have been, not by the politics of propping up a broken prime minister.

The shadow health secretary, Wes Streeting, said he could not be confident the government was not looking to lift plan B measures in an attempt to shore up Boris Johnsons leadership.

He told Trevor Phillips on Sunday: If the prime minister or the health secretary from the Conservative party is coming forward saying, Were going to remove Plan B measures, I want to be absolutely confident they are making that decision in the national interest and not in the party interest, for party management reasons. I dont have total confidence about that.

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Encouraging signs plan B Covid measures may soon be lifted in England - The Guardian

RALEIGH, N.C. (WNCN) Several questionable methods have been suggested as treatments for COVID-19, from a medication that fights malaria to the anti-parasitic drug ivermectin.

But milk and Benadryl?

A North Carolina state lawmaker recently posted a study on social media that suggests compounds in those two commonplace products might be effective against the virus that causes COVID-19. Experts, however, say more research is needed, and warn against attempting to self-medicate with the compounds.

Rep. Jeff McNeely, R-Iredell, said on Facebook that milk may be the answer to Covid-19, before linking to the study published in November by an immunologist at the University of Florida.

One of his replies in the chain of comments read: Drink up People.

Were those posts meant to be taken seriously, or were they made in jest?

A little bit of both, said McNeely, one of the chairs of the Houses agriculture committee who represents the states top dairy-producing county.

The study found the combination of diphenhydramine the active ingredient in Benadryl and lactoferrin a protein found in milk from cows and humans were found to slow the SARS-CoV-2 virus from replicating itself in tests in monkey cells and human long cells.

But theres a big difference between the results in a lab and those from the real world.

To push this as a potential therapy based on this work only is significantly premature, said Dr. Timothy Sheahan, a virologist at the University of North Carolinas Gillings School of Global Public Health.

Lots of things have shown antiviral activity in cells in a (Petri) dish, he added. Many of those things when further studied dont go on to actually have efficacy and activity in a person.

Dr. David Ostrov, an immunologist and associate professor at the University of Florida College of Medicine, led the study, which found that in human and monkey cells, the two drugs individually reduced virus replication by about 30 percent each but together, that reduction was 99 percent.

But its way too early for people to raid the supermarket shelves for milk and Benadryl, Ostrov said. While he is encouraged, he said more work still needs to be done, including clinical trials.

I would caution people from going out and taking it themselves, Ostrov said. The study also used a type of lactoferrin that differs slightly from the kind that is commonly available to the public, UF Health noted.

Compared to some other substances that have been pushed as treatments, Benadryl and milk come with relatively low risk. But theres still a concern that people may try to self-medicate and chug Benadryl and gallons of milk instead of consulting with their doctor, Sheahan said.

Thats the thing that worries me, is that people will take this information and be making decisions about their health when they should be talking to more knowledgeable people about it, Sheahan said.

When asked if he was worried that his post would be flagged as potential misinformation, McNeely quipped that it wont be the first time.

Youre in politics, Facebook loves to say youre giving false information, whether you are or not, he said.

But the bigger issue might be this: Why do people keep hanging onto so-called miracle treatments in the first place?

I truly believe theres a cure out there, McNeely said. And were not seeing it.

Sheahan says people need something to put hope in. And they want some kind of magical therapy that will prevent them from getting coronavirus.

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Experts warn against using Benadryl and milk to treat COVID, despite NC lawmakers post - KXAN.com