Category: Covid-19

OLYMPIA The Washington State Department of Health has updated their guidance for what to do when someone is sick with COVID-19, the flu, RSV or other respiratory viruses.

In a press release, the DOH says the new guidance recommends people sick with COVID-19 return to normal activities "when their symptoms are getting betteroverall,and they have not had a fever (without having to use fever-reducing medication) for at least 24 hours."

Previous COVID-19 guidance recommended people isolate for at least 5 full days after symptoms appeared.

The department reminds people that even if their symptoms have improved, they can still be contagious for several days:

Dr. Tao Sheng Kwan-Gett, DOH chief science officer, said that the updated respiratory isolation guidance "reflects that we're in a better place now in the COVID-19 pandemic."

While life is returning to normal in many ways, we must remember that for many in our community with chronic conditions and weakened immune systems, respiratory virus infections such as COVID-19, flu, and RSV remain a deadly threat,"Kwan-Gettsaid."Each week, more than a dozen people in our state lose their lives to COVID-19 each week. We must not rest until that number is zero.

The new respiratory illness guidance recommendsstaying away from high-risk people until receiving a negative COVID-19 antigen test for people who tested positive, for 10 days after symptoms of infection start, or for 10 days since testing positive for COVID-19 for people who never develop symptoms.

DOH also recommends taking extra precautions during the first 5 days after resuming normal activities after COVID-19, flu, RSV, or other respiratory viruses, including:

The department says their new guidance "is meant to provide baseline recommendations, Washington residents are asked to follow any local health jurisdiction, workplace, business, or school policies that may provide more protective guidance specific to their setting or community."

Originally posted here:

WA Department of Health updates guidance for COVID-19, other respiratory illnesses - NCWLIFE News

It has been four years since the World Health Organization (WHO) declared COVID-19 a pandemic on March 11, 2020. The week following the announcement, institutions and organizations worldwide shut down to curb the extent of the virus, affecting billions of lives. Much has occurred since daily and weekly reports slowed down, despite WHO maintaining COVID-19 is still a pandemic. Here is a summary of events and the current state of COVID-19 at a city, state and national level.

San Antonio

The first confirmed COVID-19 case in San Antonio and in Texas occurred on Feb. 13, 2020, within a group of evacuees from China at Lackland Air Force Base. Mayor Nirenberg proactively declared a public health emergency on March 2, the same day city officials sued the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), demanding the federal agency raise standards for releasing quarantined people. Nirenberg banned future evacuees from entering San Antonio.

Following the WHOs declaration, the Spurs suspended further games, Fiesta was canceled and postponed until 2022 and many schools and workplaces went remote. On Dec. 14, 2020, UT Health received 6,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine. By Jan. 9, 2021, mass vaccination sites were created at the Alamodome and the WellMed Elvira Cisneros Senior Community Center on the south side.

By the end of 2020, San Antonio had 118,057 total COVID-19 cases and 1,538 deaths from the virus. As of March 5, 2024, there were 754,187 cumulative cases and 6,262 confirmed total deaths. Bexar County stopped updating COVID-19 data dashboards on March 12 due to COVID-19 no longer being a reportable condition as of March 1, 2024.

Texas

I am at this moment declaring a state disaster for all counties in the state of Texas, announced Governor Abbott on March 13, 2020. The Texas Supreme Court halted evictions on March 19, and unemployment rates spiked 860% the following week. In June, Abbott insisted that closing Texas would be the last option. That November, Texas breached 1 million cases and Abbott reiterated at least twice that there would be no lockdown.

In January 2021, the number of COVID-19 cases passed 2 million. By February, 1 million Texas residents were fully vaccinated, and on March 10, 2021, Abbott removed the mask mandate and re-opened businesses to 100% capacity. Several businesses maintained their COVID-19 policies. After California, Texas had the highest number of confirmed cases in the country. On Aug. 17, Abbott tested positive for COVID-19. The city of Austin announced the end of the COVID-19 National Public Health Emergency Declaration in alignment with national agencies on May 11, 2023. The end of the national public health emergency unfortunately does not mean the end of COVID-19, said Dr. Desmar Walkes of Austin-Travis County Health Authority.

Between March 6, 2020, and the latest report published on Jan. 15, 2024, 9,030,821 confirmed and probable cases were reported in Texas. For 2024, 38,018 confirmed and probable cases have been reported.

United States

The CDC began investigations into the then-unknown illness on Jan. 5, 2020, following a report to WHO by China two days earlier. The first confirmed infections were reported in Illinois on Jan. 24. On March 27, President Trump signed the Coronavirus Aid, Relief and Economic Security Act (CARES), providing $1,200 checks to support Americans financially, expanding funding to state and local governments and more. Other federal acts paused student loan repayments indefinitely. By the end of August, new cases would average over 1,000 a day and total cases were over 5.4 million. On Oct. 2, Trump tested positive for COVID-19.

Meanwhile, Pfizer and Moderna progressed in a COVID-19 vaccine, testing to be at least 94% effective after several trials. Both options were authorized for emergency use by Dec. 18. The Department of Health & Human Services had announced in September that vaccines would be free of charge. By the end of the year, the death toll had surpassed 300,000, and 2.8 million people had received the first dose.

By the end of January 2021, over 23 million doses had been administered. In February, the death toll surpassed 500,000 and the Johnson & Johnson one-shot vaccine was approved for emergency use. In January 2022, the United States reported the highest daily total worldwide, with almost 1 million new COVID-19 cases. June recorded over 84 million infections and slightly above 1 million deaths.

As of March 10, the total number of cases is 103,804,263, or about 1 in 3 Americans, who have had COVID-19. The death toll is 1,123,836.

Worldwide, 676,609,955 people have had COVID-19, and 6,881,955 have died. The total number of vaccine doses administered internationally is 13,338,833,198.

Read more here:

The state of COVID-19 in 2024 - UTSA The Paisano

Long Covid

People with excessive flexibility 30% more likely to say they had not fully recovered from Covid, research finds

Tue 19 Mar 2024 18.30 EDT

People with excessively flexible joints may be at heightened risk of long Covid and persistent fatigue, research suggests.

Hypermobility is where some or all of a persons joints have an unusually large range of movement due to differences in the structure of their connective tissues that support, protect and give structure to organs, joints and other tissues.

Up to 20% of adults are hypermobile and many of them are completely healthy. Hypermobility can even be beneficial, with many musicians and athletes having very flexible joints. However, it can also create problems, such as an increased propensity to pain, fatigue, joint injuries and stomach or digestive problems.

Dr Jessica Eccles, of the University of Sussex, and her colleagues had been investigating a potential link between hypermobility, myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) and fibromyalgia (a condition that causes pain all over the body), when the Covid pandemic hit.

We started thinking, if hypermobility is potentially a factor in ME/CFS, is it also a factor in long Covid? Eccles said.

She teamed up with researchers from Kings College London and examined data from 3,064 participants in the Covid symptom study (now the Zoe health study) to see if they had hypermobile joints, had fully recovered from their last bout of Covid, and if they were experiencing persistent fatigue.

The research, published in BMJ Public Health, found that people with hypermobile joints were about 30% more likely to say they hadnt fully recovered from Covid-19 than those with normal joints, and were significantly more likely to be affected by high levels of fatigue.

Although the study doesnt prove that hypermobility caused their illness, there is a plausible mechanism through which it could contribute symptoms such as fatigue, brain fog and postural tachycardia syndrome (PoTS) where peoples heart rates rapidly increase when they stand up.

Eccles added: Weve known for some time that PoTs is closely associated with hypermobility. The theory is that loose connective tissue in peoples veins and arteries can cause blood to pool in their tissues, meaning the heart has to work harder to pump blood to their brains when they stand up, triggering symptoms such as palpitations and dizziness.

It may be that some of these abnormalities were always there, but Covid unmasked them in a vulnerable person, Eccles said.

One theory she is investigating is whether reduced blood flow to the brain could contribute to brain fog and fatigue in a subset of individuals. However, there are other possibilities.

Eccles said: We also know that hypermobility is related to conditions such as ADHD and autism, and ME/CFS and fibromyalgia, so fatigue might be a consequence of that.

She stressed that long Covid was unlikely to be a single entity, but said a better understanding of the link with hypermobility may aid the development of new treatments.

What this work suggests is that there may be a subgroup of people with long Covid who are more likely to be hypermobile, she said.

This is important to identify. It may be that some of the same things that help people with hypermobility and pain, such as strengthening and supporting the core muscles, could help across the board.

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People with hypermobility may be more prone to long Covid, study suggests - The Guardian

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The airport reported more than 50,000 passengers last month.

Author: wqad.com

Published: 4:53 PM CDT March 19, 2024

Updated: 4:53 PM CDT March 19, 2024

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QC Airport sees busiest February since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic - WQAD Moline

CAROLYN JONES CalMatters

After years of cash windfalls, California schools are bracing for a stretch of austerity that could jeopardize students already precarious recovery from the pandemic.

An end to billions of dollars in federal COVID-19 relief funds, declining enrollment, staff raises, hiring binges and stagnant state funding should combine over the next few months to create steep budget shortfalls, with low-income districts affected the most.

The fiscal cliff is going to vary, said Marguerite Roza, director of the Edunomics Lab at Georgetown University. The districts that got the most COVID relief dollars, those that have the most low-income students, are going to face the biggest losses.

In his budget proposal released in January, Gov. Gavin Newsom largely spared schools, keeping intact popular initiatives like transitional kindergarten, universal school meals, community schools and after-school programs. He proposed dipping into reserves and delaying some expenses to make up a projected multibillion-dollar shortfall.

But the exact numbers are shifting. The Legislative Analysts Office predicted that the shortfall may be much higher than Newsom calculated and cuts will be unavoidable. Newsom will release a revised budget in May, and the Legislature has until June 15 to pass a final budget.

Meanwhile, federal COVID-19 relief funding for schools will end in September. In a series of grants known as Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief, the federal government gave California schools $23.4 billion to pay for everything from air purifiers to after-school tutoring.

That funding was distributed based on the number of low-income students districts have. Districts with lots of low-income students got more money, which means theyll lose the most when the funding ends.

At the beginning of the pandemic, schools tended to spend the money on one-time expenses, like tablet computers and Wi-Fi hotspots for students attending school virtually. But as schools reopened, they started spending money on ongoing programs intended to help students catch up academically and recover from the mental health hardships of remote learning. That could include tutors, longer school days or summer and after-school programs.

San Bernardino City Unified used $8 million of its $230 million in COVID-19 relief funds to beef up its after-school program. Thanks to the extra funding, the district has been able to offer free after-school activities, tutoring, transportation and mental health support at every school.

Mia Cooper, a parent with three children in San Bernardino City Unified, said her children's after-school program has been a life-saver. In fact, its the main reason they want to go to school, she said.

They not only benefit from tutoring, but they get to enjoy ballet and acting lessons, field trips to science museums and Disneyland, robotics classes, performances by folklrico dance troupes and other fun activities.

During the pandemic, one of Coopers daughters was withdrawn and depressed, but the after-school program helped her reconnect with friends and fall in love with school again. Keeping the program intact should be a priority, Cooper said.

The kids were exposed to so many different activities and cultural things, she said. If a program is working for kids and were seeing good outcomes, I think its something we need to keep. We shouldnt lose that sparkle in kids eyes.

But some districts use of pandemic-era relief funds could worsen their budget prospects, said Roza of Edunomics. Districts that invested one-time funds in ongoing expenses, such as new staff, raises and bonuses, might be headed for a reckoning. Nationwide, school staffing has increased 2% since the pandemic while enrollment has decreased 2%, according to the Georgetown lab.

Salaries for existing teachers have risen, too. Districts in San Francisco, Oakland, San Diego and Los Angeles all of which have declining enrollment agreed to hefty teacher raises and bonuses in the past year.

Still, the fiscal outlook is not as dire as it was during the Great Recession in 2008, according to Julien Lafortune, a research fellow at the Public Policy Institute of California. School funding generally in California has risen dramatically since then, lifting it from the bottom half of states in school funding to above the national average. In addition, the states shift to the Local Control Funding Formula a decade ago has provided more money for students with higher needs, although inequities persist.

But that doesnt mean those cuts wont hurt, Lafortune said, especially for students who were most affected by the pandemic. Low-income, Black and Latino students disproportionately bore the brunt of school closures, research has shown, because they were more likely to suffer economically from the pandemic, less likely to have adequate technology at home, and less likely to have a parent available to help them with distance learning.

Its not like the Great Recession, but I think the challenges are greater now, Lafortune said. A lot of the academic progress we made was erased by the pandemic.

Roza worries that arguments over potential cuts in the next year will eclipse concern over learning loss. Potential school closures and teacher layoffs will inevitably elicit loud protests, but school boards should stay focused on services that directly help students, such as math tutoring and literacy, she said.

Some districts will be focusing on staff retention instead of kids needs, Roza said.

These decisions may be so divisive that Roza predicts a high rate of turnover among school administrators and board members unwilling to make unpopular decisions. She also expects to see some districts refuse to make sufficient cuts and risk insolvency or state takeover.

Fresno Unified is among the districts facing a double whammy of declining enrollment and a large loss of relief funds. The 70,000-student district received more than $787 million in state and federal relief money, one of the largest allotments in California.

But the district was careful to build reserves, rely on state grants when possible and not overly invest in ongoing staff salaries. Instead, it used most of its money to train teachers in math and literacy, extend the school day and provide a high-quality summer program. It also brought in social workers, restorative justice counselors, attendance specialists and other staff to boost students mental health.

The investments have apparently paid off. The number of students meeting Californias math benchmark rose almost 3 percentage points last year, even as the state average remained unchanged. And chronic absenteeism fell significantly, from 51% in 2022 to 35% last year.

Still, the district expects to make some cuts, probably affecting the district office but not schools directly at least at first, said the districts chief financial officer, Patrick Jensen.

Its like were in a boat and we can see a storm coming, Jensen said. Were not going to be dashed against the rocks but we still need to find a safe harbor..

San Bernardino City Unified, among Californias lowest-income districts, also received a high relief funding payout: $230 million for 46,000 students. But the district isnt anticipating a financial disaster once the funding expires. It plans to shift some of its state block grant money to pay for programs funded with relief money, where necessary, and has been conservative with planning. Its also closely monitoring the state budget and economic outlook, said Associate Superintendent Terry Comnick.

But theres still likely to be some cuts, and the district will have to look closely at what programs have been effective and which didnt live up to expectations. In addition to the after-school program, a resident guest teacher program had positive results, Comnick said. The district hired substitute teachers to work one-on-one or in small groups with students who were the furthest behind. The $4.5 million program, which was at every school, resulted in higher test scores among the highest-needs students.

So far, it looks like the district will be able to keep both programs, at least for the next few years, Comnick said.

People call it a (Elementary and Secondary School Emergency Relief) cliff because the money just ends, Comnick said. But for us it will hopefully be a gentle slope.

Justin-Siena senior India De Vere's shot hits the Granite Bay sidepost during the first half in Napa on March 7.

Players run through a sign as they are introduced during the Napa Junior Girls Softball League Opening Day ceremony Saturday morning.

Players dance as they wait for the Napa Junior Girls Softball League Opening Day ceremony to begin Saturday morning.

Players and coaches line up during the Napa Junior Girls Softball League Opening Day ceremony Saturday morning.

Vintage High senior Dessianna Garcia throws the ceremonial first pitch to senior teammate Mia Griffith during the Napa Junior Girls Softball League Opening Day ceremony Saturday morning.

Diana Corzo sings the national anthem during the Napa Junior Girls Softball League Opening Day ceremony Saturday morning.

Players walk through the crowdduring the Napa Junior Girls Softball League Opening Day ceremony Saturday morning.

Napa Mayor Scott Sedgley, right, Napa Police Lieutenant Keri Sedgley, middle, and Napa Vice Mayor Beth Painter are recognized during the Napa Junior Girls Softball League Opening Day ceremony Saturday morning.

Players and parents arrive for the Napa Junior Girls Softball League Opening Day ceremony Saturday morning.

A player runs to accept the bike she won in a raffle during the Napa Junior Girls Softball League Opening Day ceremony Saturday morning.

A hot air balloon flies overhead during the Napa Junior Girls Softball League Opening Day ceremony Saturday morning.

Young softball players run onto the field as they are introduced during the Napa Valley Junior Girls Softball League Opening Day ceremony on Saturday, March 16.

Young softball players run onto the field as they are introduced during the Napa Valley Junior Girls Softball League Opening Day ceremony on Saturday, March 16.

A scene from Opening Day of the Napa Valley Junior Girls Softball League on Saturday, March 16.

A scene from Opening Day of the Napa Valley Junior Girls Softball League on Saturday, March 16.

A scene from Opening Day of the Napa Valley Junior Girls Softball League on Saturday, March 16.

A scene from Opening Day of the Napa Valley Junior Girls Softball League on Saturday, March 16.

A scene from Opening Day of the Napa Valley Junior Girls Softball League on Saturday, March 16.

A scene from Opening Day of the Napa Valley Junior Girls Softball League on Saturday, March 16.

A scene from Opening Day of the Napa Valley Junior Girls Softball League on Saturday, March 16.

A scene from Opening Day of the Napa Valley Junior Girls Softball League on Saturday, March 16.

A scene from Opening Day of the Napa Valley Junior Girls Softball League on Saturday, March 16.

A scene from Opening Day of the Napa Valley Junior Girls Softball League on Saturday, March 16.

A scene from Opening Day of the Napa Valley Junior Girls Softball League on Saturday, March 16.

A scene from Opening Day of the Napa Valley Junior Girls Softball League on Saturday, March 16.

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California schools gained billions during COVID-19. Now the money is running out. - Napa Valley Register

Four years after hospitals in New York City overflowed with covid-19 patients, emergency physician Sonya Stokes remains shaken by how unprepared and misguided the American health system was.

Hospital leadership instructed health workers to forgo protective N95 masks in the early months of 2020, as covid cases mounted. We were watching patients die, Stokes said, and being told we didnt need a high level of protection from people who were not taking these risks.

Droves of front-line workers fell sick as they tried to save lives without proper face masks and other protective measures. More than 3,600 died in the first year. Nurses were going home to their elderly parents, transmitting covid to their families, Stokes recalled. It was awful.

Across the country, hospital leadership cited advice from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on the limits of airborne transmission. The agencys early statements backed employers insistence that N95 masks, or respirators, were needed only during certain medical procedures conducted at extremely close distances.

Such policies were at odds with doctors observations, and they conflicted with advice from scientists who study airborne viral transmission. Their research suggested that people could get covid after inhaling SARS-CoV-2 viruses suspended in teeny-tiny droplets in the air as infected patients breathed.

But this research was inconvenient at a time when N95s were in short supply and expensive.

Now, Stokes and many others worry that the CDC is repeating past mistakes as it develops a crucial set of guidelines that hospitals, nursing homes, prisons, and other facilities that provide health care will apply to control the spread of infectious diseases. The guidelines update those established nearly two decades ago. They will be used to establish protocols and procedures for years to come.

This is the foundational document, said Peg Seminario, an occupational health expert and a former director at the American Federation of Labor and Congress of Industrial Organizations, which represents some 12 million active and retired workers. It becomes gospel for dealing with infectious pathogens.

Late last year, the committee advising the CDC on the guidelines pushed forward its final draft for the agencys consideration. Unions, aerosol scientists, and workplace safety experts warned it left room for employers to make unsafe decisions on protection against airborne infections.

If we applied these draft guidelines at the start of this pandemic, there would have been even less protection than there is now and its pretty bad now, Seminario said.

In an unusual move in January, the CDC acknowledged the outcry and returned the controversial draft to its committee so that it could clarify points on airborne transmission. The director of the CDCs National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health asked the group to make sure that a draft set of recommendations cannot be misread to suggest equivalency between facemasks and NIOSH Approved respirators, which is not scientifically correct.

The CDC also announced it would expand the range of experts informing their process. Critics had complained that most members of last years Healthcare Infection Control Practices Advisory Committee represent large hospital systems. And about a third of them had published editorials arguing against masks in various circumstances. For example, committee member Erica Shenoy, the infection control director at Massachusetts General Hospital, wrote in May 2020, We know that wearing a mask outside health care facilities offers little, if any, protection from infection.

Although critics are glad to see last years draft reconsidered, they remain concerned. The CDC needs to make sure that this guidance doesnt give employers leeway to prioritize profits over protection, said Jane Thomason, the lead industrial hygienist at the union National Nurses United.

Shes part of a growing coalition of experts from unions, the American Public Health Association, and other organizations putting together an outside statement on elements that ought to be included in the CDCs guidelines, such as the importance of air filtration and N95 masks.

But that input may not be taken into consideration.

Subscribe to KFF Health News' free Morning Briefing.

The CDC has not publicly announced the names of experts it added this year. It also hasnt said whether those experts will be able to vote on the committees next draft or merely provide advice. The group has met this year, but members are barred from discussing the proceedings. The CDC did not respond to questions and interview requests from KFF Health News.

A key point of contention in the draft guidance is that it recommends different approaches for airborne viruses that spread predominantly over short distances versus those that spread efficiently over long distances. In 2020, this logic allowed employers to withhold protective gear from many workers.

For example, medical assistants at a large hospital system in California, Sutter Health, werent given N95 masks when they accompanied patients who appeared to have covid through clinics. After receiving a citation from Californias occupational safety and health agency, Sutter appealed by pointing to the CDCs statements suggesting that the virus spreads mainly over short distances.

A distinction based on distance reflects a lack of scientific understanding, explained Don Milton, a University of Maryland researcher who specializes in the aerobiology of respiratory viruses. In general, people may be infected by viruses contained in someones saliva, snot, or sweat within droplets too heavy to go far. But people can also inhale viruses riding on teeny-tiny, lighter droplets that travel farther through the air. What matters is which route most often infects people, the concentration of virus-laden droplets, and the consequences of getting exposed to them, Milton said. By focusing on distance, the CDC will obscure what is known and make bad decisions.

Front-line workers were acutely aware they were being exposed to high levels of the coronavirus in hospitals and nursing homes. Some have since filed lawsuits, alleging that employers caused illness, distress, and death by failing to provide personal protective equipment.

One class-action suit brought by staff was against Soldiers Home, a state-owned veterans center in Holyoke, Massachusetts, where at least 76 veterans died from covid and 83 employees were sickened by the coronavirus in early 2020.

Even at the end of March, when the Home was averaging five deaths a day, the Soldiers Home Defendants were still discouraging employees from wearing PPE, according to the complaint.

It details the experiences of staff members, including a nursing assistant who said six veterans died in her arms. She remembers that during this time in late March, she always smelled like death. When she went home, she would vomit continuously.

Researchers have repeatedly criticized the CDC for its reluctance to address airborne transmission during the pandemic. According to a new analysis, The CDC has only used the words COVID and airborne together in one tweet, in October 2020, which mentioned the potential for airborne spread.

Its unclear why infection control specialists on the CDCs committee take a less cautious position on airborne transmission than other experts, industrial hygienist Deborah Gold said. I think these may be honest beliefs, she suggested, reinforced by the fact that respirators triple in price whenever theyre needed.

Critics fear that if the final guidelines dont clearly state a need for N95 masks, hospitals wont adequately stockpile them, paving the way for shortages in a future health emergency. And if the document isnt revised to emphasize ventilation and air filtration, health facilities wont invest in upgrades.

If the CDC doesnt prioritize the safety of health providers, health systems will err on the side of doing less, especially in an economic downturn, Stokes said. The people in charge of these decisions should be the ones forced to take those risks.

The rest is here:

Health Workers Fear It's Profits Before Protection as CDC Revisits Airborne Transmission - Kaiser Health News

I was there, where no one wanted to be in 2020.

Right about this time four years ago, my colleague Sharon Cantillon, a longtime Buffalo News photographer, reached out to ask if I would accompany her into hospital intensive care units, which would soon be overrun with people suffering and dying from the then-novel coronavirus, which we would all soon be calling Covid-19.

Journalists go places where others cant and then tell the story. Sometimes thats on a red carpet or into the White House. This time, it was on the front lines of the battle against the

I said yes, quickly but not easily. Covid was new, hot and scary. No vaccines existed, nor did any significant immunity. If our bodies were exposed to the virus, our immune systems could respond with confusion and alarm, slamming into overdrive and leaving us deathly ill. (You can interpret deathly to be figurative or literal. Depending on the person, either is true.)

Doctors hadnt yet learned how to handle it. Elected leaders were warning us to stay home. Stay safe was a common refrain. We would soon be socializing over video calls. Ordering takeout was chic. Grocery workers were noted for their bravery on the front line. Doctors, nurses, pharmacists and respiratory therapists in hospitals? We started calling them heroes and meaning it.

When Sharon asked me to join her, I felt the only natural answer was yes. The charge from my editors when I took this job with The News five years earlier was to spend time with people and in places that are hard to reach, to spend time digging for stories and taking readers into places they arent likely to go.

In early 2020, I thought to myself: This might be the most important writing you ever do.

Achieving understanding during the age of Covid is an elusive endpoint. The pandemic didnt simply change us. It transformed us in ways well be unraveling for decades. It altered our relationship with work, school and each other. It sometimes changed where we live, how we live and how we socialize. Researchers have studied and debated how the pandemic has affected our mental health on a broad scale: Look closely, and youll find reports showing the tripling of depression rates juxtaposed against a major review of more than 12 dozen studies claiming the impact is little.

But mental health is both an individual and ever-changing dynamic, so the question is: Are you, or the people closest to you, handling stress differently? Do people seem a little less patient or understanding? That may be because our collective empathy has dropped. According to a study conducted in 2022 by the United Way of the National Capital Area, Americans considered themselves less empathetic a couple years into the pandemic than we were in 2019. The national average was a 14% drop from 2019 to 2022, with millennials reporting the steepest fall (19%).

Everyday medical decisions like vaccination often mutated into political statements, with blue voting blocs embracing the shots while red states and regions resisted it, even though the vaccines were developed under the leadership of the Trump administration, and former President Donald Trump himself was vaccinated. A study published in September 2022 by the National Bureau of Economic Research analyzed Covid-19 death rates in Ohio and Florida and found that more Republicans died than Democrats.

The pandemic is done, but Covid-19 is here to stay. How do we make sense of that? We spoke with a series of experts to find out.

From March 2020 to the end of 2021, the average excess death rate for Republicans was 76% higher than for Democrats. (Excess deaths is a term epidemiologists use to describe the number of deaths above what is statistically expected.) The gap in excess death rates between Republicans and Democrats is concentrated in counties with low vaccination rates and only materializes after vaccines became widely available, wrote researchers Jacob Wallace, Paul Goldsmith-Pinkham and Jason L. Schwartz.

The deeply red state of Mississippi had the highest childhood vaccination rate pre-pandemic, but ranked among the lowest states for Covid-19 vaccinations.

Here they are, doing great on vaccination, pre-Covid, said Gale M. Sinatra, who is co-author with Barbara K. Hofer of Science Denial: Why it Happens and What to Do About It. Then Covid becomes politicized.

Nurse Eman Omar cares for a patient in the Covid intensive care unit at Buffalo General Medical Center in April 2020, when medical science was struggling to control the often-deadly virus.

Sinatra, a psychology professor at the University of Southern California, pointed out in an interview last year that the Los Angeles region has a lot of liberal and progressive people who are into eating organic and no genetically modified foods and all of that. They were very anti-vax for childhood vaccination and some of them were also anti-vax for Covid, but some of them flipped in the other direction because it became this politically divided issue, and they took the Covid vaccine.

Though politics underlined many peoples choices, the more pervasive and frightening issue became misinformation and disinformation. The electorate has a voice and politicians change. We can choose our leaders. Thats how its supposed to be.

But during the pandemic, people started choosing their facts.

We didnt know a lot about Covid in the beginning, Sinatra said. There were serious questions about it that infectious disease doctors didnt know yet. So without good information, everybody turns to the internet because everybody is home. That combination was like throwing gasoline on an already blazing fire of misinformation on the internet, and it just exploded.

In this installment of Pandemic Lessons, we explore the state of our yearslong battle against Covid-19 and examine whether weve managed to recapture normalcy.

The kindling of that forest fire of misinformation was crackling years before anyone knew of Covid-19, but the onset of the pandemic ignited an explosion.

When I told my wife four years ago about my plan to report from inside hospitals, she was supportive. A bit hesitant? Maybe, but she didnt show it. More than anything, she was practical. We made a plan similar to what medical professionals were doing at the time: When I came home, she would open and then close the garage; I would strip off my outer layers, toss them in the laundry, then immediately shower. I wrapped my hand-held recorder in plastic and left my notebook in the garage, trying to minimize any chance of those threatening, mysterious Covid particles from getting into the house and infecting my wife or daughter.

Looking back, and knowing the facts we do now, not every bit of that was necessary. My recorder was unlikely to be a vessel for transmission, for example, and my notebook was unlikely to contaminate my entire house. But we were operating on what we knew, and what we knew was this: I was meeting medical professionals who were resolved but worn, and patients who were very sick. I watched a woman die. I met a man who was hospitalized for more than a month, had nightmarish visions of moaning corpses after being kept alive on a ventilator, and only wanted to make it home for his sons third birthday. (He did.)

Nurse Shawn Covell hangs sedatives and pain medication for a Covid patient as respiratory therapist Nick Logiudice, right, stands by at Buffalo General Medical Center in April 2020. The spread of misinformation became a frightening issue during the pandemic.

I met a nurse who kept newspaper clippings of her patients obituaries, a husband-wife duo who both worked as respiratory therapists, meaning they spent every working day close to peoples noses and mouths, where Covid camped out. I met doctors who made it their personal mission to bring vaccines to neighborhoods, communities and even countries where they werent easily accessible. I spent time with the secretary of Health and Human Services. I began a texting relationship with the former U.S. surgeon general. People like Dr. Tom Russo and Dr. John Sellick, the two Buffalo-based infectious disease experts whose voices have been most prominent in these parts, were (and remain) on speed dial.

I wrote about masks and shots, and have a collection of emails and voicemails in which people who didnt like facts masked their own identities and took shots at me. I gained readers. I lost friends.

I hope to never have to do it again. I would, but who would ever want to go through that again?

And honestly, now that most of the world (including me) lives life unmasked and gathers freely, it feels like a fever dream. That either means were all adaptable and able to move back into our old ways comfortably, or we all forget quite easily.

Follow Tim OShei on Twitter @timoshei .

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Recalling heroism, fear 4 years after Covid-19 pandemic - Buffalo News

significantly affect odds of survival and treatment options. (Photo: Getty) getty

The Covid-19 pandemic and the botched handling of it have been tragic in many different ways. One of the still emerging tragedies has been delays in the diagnoses of and care for other types of medical conditions because people werent being seen in clinics and hospitals as regularly as they should have. Thats probably left a lot of people shoulding all over themselves as in shouldve, couldve, wouldve gotten treatment earlier. For example, a study recently published in BJU International estimated that the pandemic led to 20,000 missed prostate cancer diagnoses in England alone, in the words of the study authors.

Thats just England, which has a population of around 56 million, about a fifth of the U.S. population. Now handled it well wouldnt be the first words that you may think of when it comes to the U.S., the U.K., and the Covid-19 pandemic. The U.S. has had the most deaths (over 1.18 million) from Covid-19 in the world while the U.K. has had the sixth most (over 233,00). Both countries had leaders claiming that they pandemic was rounding the corner or we can turn the tide in 2020 when guess what neither happened.

Lets assume then that the U.S. had a similar rate of missed prostate cancer diagnoses as England did. The 20,000 in England number would mean that potentially well over a 100,000 men in the two countries have been or will be left wondering, What if? What if the U.S. and U.K. had better functioning healthcare systems during the pandemic? What if their prostate cancer had been detected one, two, or three years earlier? What if their disease had been detected before it had spread and potentially become less treatable?

To get the 20,000 number, investigators from the University of Surrey (Agnieszka Lemanska), the University of Oxford (Colm Andrews, Louis Fisher, Seb Bacon, Amir Mehrkar, Peter Inglesby, Simon Davy, Ben Goldacre, Brian MacKenna, and Alex J. Walker) and the OpenSAFELY Collaborative conducted analyzes on the OpenSAFELY-TPP dataset of 24 million patients, which comprised about 40% of Englands population. They graphed the monthly rates of prostate cancer incidence, prevalence, and mortality per 100,000 adult men that were reported from January 2015 through July 2023. Then they used statistical methods to extrapolate what the rates from March 2020 and beyond could have been had the Covid-19 pandemic not occurred.

These analyses showed a lot of shouldve, couldve, wouldves. The year 2020 saw a 4,772 (31%) drop in the reported incidence of prostate cancer while 2021 saw a 3,148 case drop. The patients average age at diagnosis moved up too from 71.3 in 2019 to 71.6 in 2020 and 71.8 in 2021. Adding the 4,772 and the 3,148 case numbers gives you about 8,000. Dividing that by 40% leaves you with around 20,000 cases.

Now its not as if some kind of miracle prostate cancer prevention method emerged in 2020. More people wearing denim, tiny glasses, and bucket hats in 2019 probably didnt help decrease the risk of prostate cancer in ensuing years. Therefore, you wouldnt have expected the actual incidence of prostate cancer to have dropped in 2020 and 2021. Or the age at which prostate cancer emerged to have risen either. Thus, these changes were probably for the most part due to delays in men getting proper prostate cancer screening such as their prostate-specific antigen (PSA) levels in the blood being checked and their getting digital rectal exams. In the end, this led to a whole lot of missed diagnoses.

The American Cancer Society recommends that men start screening for prostate cancer at age 50 if they have average risk of developing prostate cancer, age 45 if they are at high risk (e.g., African American men or men who have a first-degree relative diagnosed with prostate cancer before age 65) and age 40 if they are at even higher risk (meaning that they have had one first-degree relative diagnosed with prostate cancer before age 65). An elevated PSA, finding a nodule or mass on a prostate/rectal exam or both in many cases should prompt further evaluation such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) or biopsy of the prostate or both. Shawn Dason, MD, an Assistant Professor of Urology at The Ohio State University College of Medicine, described how the biopsy will help identify definitively whether there is cancer in the prostate and how aggressive the prostate cancer is. Delays in any of those possible steps could in turn delay diagnosis of prostate cancer.

And the timing of diagnosis is key in the treatment of any type of cancer and your odds of survival. Dason described prostate cancer as treatable but emphasized that a delay in diagnosis does increase the chance of it spreading to other parts of the body. This in turn influences treatment. Spread of the cancer beyond the prostate can significantly reduce your chance of survival and increase the scope and types of treatments that you need. So, unfortunately, a lot of men may now have to deal with worse odds and worse treatment effects.

It would be easy for political and business leaders to blame the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-COv-2) and simply say, No one expected the pandemic. But the pandemic wasnt like The Spanish Inquisition in that Monty Python skit. Many people were indeed warning political and business leaders about the threat of a pandemic in the decade preceding the Covid-19 pandemic. For example, in 2017, I wrote for Forbes about how our society is woefully underprepared for a bad pandemic and how Bill Gates was warning leaders about the possibility of a pandemic within the next 10 to 15 years. But as the chaos in the pandemic response in 2020 showed, not enough political and business leaders heeded such warnings.

Preparing for the next pandemic whenand not ifit comes should include shoring up the healthcare system so that it can continue to function at full capacity even when a pathogen is spreading all around. This means making sure that all clinics and hospitals have plentiful personal protective equipment (PPE) on hand, the appropriate infection control procedures in place, enough personnel to compensate for surges in demand and telehealth options implemented in a well-organized fashion as opposed to the meerkats-in-a-mosh-pit chaos of 2020 that spilled into subsequent years. Meanwhile, dealing with the Covid-19 pandemic present should include ways to make up for the delays in the care that have occurred and giving thousands upon thousands of patients what they havent had: proper healthcare.

I am a writer, journalist, professor, systems modeler, computational, AI, and digital health expert, medical doctor, avocado-eater, and entrepreneur, not always in that order. Currently, I am a Professor of Health Policy and Management at the City University of New York (CUNY) School of Public Health, Executive Director of PHICOR (@PHICORteam) and Center for Advanced Technology and Communication in Health (CATCH), and founder and CEO of Symsilico. My previous positions include serving as Professor By Courtesy at the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School, Executive Director of the Global Obesity Prevention Center (GOPC) at Johns Hopkins University, Associate Professor of International Health at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Associate Professor of Medicine and Biomedical Informatics at the University of Pittsburgh, and Senior Manager at Quintiles Transnational, working in biotechnology equity research at Montgomery Securities, and co-founding a biotechnology/bioinformatics company. My work has included developing computer approaches, models, and tools to help health and healthcare decision makers in all continents (except for Antarctica). This has included serving as the Principal Investigator of over $60 million in research grants from a wide variety of sponsors such as the National Institutes of Health (NIH), Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), National Science Foundation (NSF), the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), UNICEF, USAID, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and the Global Fund. I have authored over 250 scientific publications and three books. In addition to covering health, healthcare, and science for Forbes, I maintain a blog "A Funny Bone to Pick" for Psychology Today, a Substack entitled "Minded by Science"and have written articles forThe New York Times, Time, The Guardian, The HuffPost, STAT, the MIT Technology Review and others. My work and expertise have appeared in leading media outlets such as The New York Times, ABC, USA Today, Good Morning America, Tamron Hall Show, BBC, The Los Angeles Times, Newsweek, CBS News, Businessweek, U.S. News and World Report, Bloomberg News, Reuters, National Public Radio (NPR), National Geographic, MSN, and PBS. Follow me on Twitter (@bruce_y_lee) but dont ask me if I know martial arts.

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Nearly 20,000 Prostate Cancer Diagnoses Missed In England Because Of Covid-19 Pandemic - Forbes

Four years ago this month, schools nationwide began to shut down, igniting one of the most polarizing and partisan debates of the pandemic.

Some schools, often in Republican-led states and rural areas, reopened by fall 2020. Others, typically in large cities and states led by Democrats, would not fully reopen for another year.

A variety of data about childrens academic outcomes and about the spread of Covid-19 has accumulated in the time since. Today, there is broad acknowledgment among many public health and education experts that extended school closures did not significantly stop the spread of Covid, while the academic harms for children have been large and long-lasting.

While poverty and other factors also played a role, remote learning was a key driver of academic declines during the pandemic, research shows a finding that held true across income levels.

Theres fairly good consensus that, in general, as a society, we probably kept kids out of school longer than we should have, said Dr. Sean OLeary, a pediatric infectious disease specialist who helped write school reopening guidance for the American Academy of Pediatrics in June 2020.

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What the Data Says About Pandemic School Closures, Four Years Later - The New York Times

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Republic of Marshall Islands Martinique Mauritania, Islamic Republic of Mauritius Mayotte Micronesia, Federated States of Moldova, Republic of Monaco, Principality of Mongolia, Mongolian People's Republic Montserrat Morocco, Kingdom of Mozambique, People's Republic of Myanmar Namibia Nauru, Republic of Nepal, Kingdom of Netherlands Antilles Netherlands, Kingdom of the New Caledonia New Zealand Nicaragua, Republic of Niger, Republic of the Nigeria, Federal Republic of Niue, Republic of Norfolk Island Northern Mariana Islands Norway, Kingdom of Oman, Sultanate of Pakistan, Islamic Republic of Palau Palestinian Territory, Occupied Panama, Republic of Papua New Guinea Paraguay, Republic of Peru, Republic of Philippines, Republic of the Pitcairn Island Poland, Polish People's Republic Portugal, Portuguese Republic Puerto Rico Qatar, State of Reunion Romania, Socialist Republic of Russian Federation Rwanda, Rwandese Republic Samoa, Independent State of San Marino, Republic of Sao Tome and Principe, Democratic Republic of Saudi Arabia, Kingdom of Senegal, Republic of Serbia and Montenegro Seychelles, Republic of Sierra Leone, Republic of Singapore, Republic of Slovakia (Slovak Republic) Slovenia Solomon Islands Somalia, Somali Republic South Africa, Republic of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands Spain, Spanish State Sri Lanka, Democratic Socialist Republic of St. Helena St. Kitts and Nevis St. Lucia St. Pierre and Miquelon St. Vincent and the Grenadines Sudan, Democratic Republic of the Suriname, Republic of Svalbard & Jan Mayen Islands Swaziland, Kingdom of Sweden, Kingdom of Switzerland, Swiss Confederation Syrian Arab Republic Taiwan, Province of China Tajikistan Tanzania, United Republic of Thailand, Kingdom of Timor-Leste, Democratic Republic of Togo, Togolese Republic Tokelau (Tokelau Islands) Tonga, Kingdom of Trinidad and Tobago, Republic of Tunisia, Republic of Turkey, Republic of Turkmenistan Turks and Caicos Islands Tuvalu Uganda, Republic of Ukraine United Arab Emirates United Kingdom of Great Britain & N. Ireland Uruguay, Eastern Republic of Uzbekistan Vanuatu Venezuela, Bolivarian Republic of Viet Nam, Socialist Republic of Wallis and Futuna Islands Western Sahara Yemen Zambia, Republic of Zimbabwe

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UCSF researchers find COVID-19 lingers years after infection | Health | sfexaminer.com - San Francisco Examiner