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  • Mental Health of America’s Children Only Getting Worse | Health News

    Mental Health of America’s Children Only Getting Worse | Health News

    By Alan Mozes HealthDay Reporter

    (HealthDay)

    MONDAY, March 14, 2022 (HealthDay Information) — A refreshing evaluate of new authorities surveys implies the effectively-being of 73 million American children is under pressure and looks to be getting worse.

    The upshot: stress and anxiety, despair and behavioral issues show up to be on the rise, whilst the quantity of time youngsters used staying physically active or acquiring preventive treatment has been on the decline.

    Parental emotional perfectly-being and mental wellness — as well as the means of caregivers to satisfy the requires of parenting — were also uncovered to be suffering in tandem.

    And that was all pre-pandemic. When the pandemic struck, the evaluation uncovered, behavioral troubles appeared to worsen even a lot more. That was accompanied by even steeper declines in accessibility to pediatric preventive treatment an uptick in unaddressed health and fitness care wants amid youngsters, and a rise in the variety of mothers and fathers who selected to adjust work or decline function exclusively because of urgent child treatment wants.

    “Our analysis highlights a essential need to have to aid the two little ones and their caregivers to boost families’ psychological and emotional nicely-currently being,” claimed analyze creator Dr. Michael Warren, an affiliate administrator with the Maternal and Child Wellness Bureau of the U.S. Wellbeing Means and Solutions Administration (HRSA) in North Bethesda, Md.

    “This consists of guaranteeing obtain to well timed health care products and services, and addressing social determinants of overall health to support children and families’ over-all properly-becoming,” Warren included.

    In the research, Warren and his colleagues looked at new outcomes from the U.S. Nationwide Survey of Kid’s Health and fitness.

    The survey is performed each calendar year, to achieve a wide snapshot of baby overall health in terms of accessibility to care, wellbeing care use styles, behavioral tendencies and in general mental and actual physical well being status.

    Psychological well being declines for children, caregivers

    The researchers pored about surveys introduced amongst 2016 and 2020, which include information on almost 175,000 young children up to the age of 17.

    The analyze team observed that the last study stretched into January 2021 and bundled info gathered for the duration of the initially calendar year of the pandemic.

    Childhood overall health worries protected by the survey included bronchial asthma, headaches and migraines, nervousness, despair, behavioral concerns, autism, interest deficit hyperactivity dysfunction (ADHD), dental troubles, weight problems and distinctive treatment needs.

    The survey also appeared at childhood overall health behaviors deemed effective and/or vital, this kind of as each day reading through routines, exercise patterns, access to overall health treatment (preventive care, specially), and over-all effectively-staying of the family members.

    Obstacles to health treatment access had been assessed in phrases of insurance coverage standing and remarkable healthcare personal debt, among other issues.

    In the stop, the team uncovered that between 2016 and 2019, childhood diagnoses of nervousness rose by 27{fe463f59fb70c5c01486843be1d66c13e664ed3ae921464fa884afebcc0ffe6c}, though depression danger rose by 24{fe463f59fb70c5c01486843be1d66c13e664ed3ae921464fa884afebcc0ffe6c}. But the evaluation also suggests that about a fifth of little ones who need mental overall health services are not receiving them, a figure that held continual across all surveys.

    At the very same time, actual physical exercise ranges plummeted by much more than 24{fe463f59fb70c5c01486843be1d66c13e664ed3ae921464fa884afebcc0ffe6c} and parental or caregiver psychological wellness cratered by nearly 70{fe463f59fb70c5c01486843be1d66c13e664ed3ae921464fa884afebcc0ffe6c}. The potential to cope with the calls for of parenting dropped almost as significantly (67{fe463f59fb70c5c01486843be1d66c13e664ed3ae921464fa884afebcc0ffe6c}).

    The team more found that when compared with the calendar year foremost up to the pandemic, the very first 12 months of the pandemic saw an just about 21{fe463f59fb70c5c01486843be1d66c13e664ed3ae921464fa884afebcc0ffe6c} additional rise in childhood behavioral and perform difficulties.

    The pandemic also appeared to cause a additional than 9{fe463f59fb70c5c01486843be1d66c13e664ed3ae921464fa884afebcc0ffe6c} rise in the onset of disruptions to youngster treatment that undermined the ability of mother and father to work — all through the pandemic there was a 34{fe463f59fb70c5c01486843be1d66c13e664ed3ae921464fa884afebcc0ffe6c} rise in the proportion of little ones whose parents resolved to quit, alter work opportunities or drop operate altogether mainly because of child care needs.

    Silver lining: child poverty charge dropped during pandemic

    At the exact same time, the bottom ongoing to drop out on entry to preventive pediatric wellness treatment, which dipped by another 9{fe463f59fb70c5c01486843be1d66c13e664ed3ae921464fa884afebcc0ffe6c}. Preventive dental treatment also dropped by 7{fe463f59fb70c5c01486843be1d66c13e664ed3ae921464fa884afebcc0ffe6c} among the young children, while the proportion of youngsters with unmet health-related desires rose 32{fe463f59fb70c5c01486843be1d66c13e664ed3ae921464fa884afebcc0ffe6c} overall.

    The study crew did not take a look at which things may possibly be driving the trends extra investigation will be necessary to uncover what exactly is afoot.

    “[But] as the president created obvious in the Point out of the Union, children’s psychological health and fitness demands are a nationwide precedence,” reported HRSA administrator Carole Johnson.

    “Today’s results enhance the president’s contact for action to support youngsters and their families’ mental wellbeing and very well-getting,” Johnson added. “At the Well being Methods and Expert services Administration, we are answering his get in touch with by concentrating on increasing pediatric psychological health companies, schooling far more mental health and fitness care companies, and building psychological health a vital section of most important care to make certain that young children get the excellent care they require and deserve.”

    The findings were being printed on the web March 14 in the journal JAMA Pediatrics.

    As for the pandemic’s job in all of this, Dr. Paul Clever and Dr. Lisa Chamberlain, both from Stanford University Faculty of Medication, available a cautiously optimistic consider on the findings.

    In an accompanying editorial, Smart and Chamberlain wrote that COVID-19 had clearly “disrupted the material of family and group everyday living.”

    But the editorial also pointed out that for the duration of the pandemic, childhood poverty “has fallen to historic lows,” from 14{fe463f59fb70c5c01486843be1d66c13e664ed3ae921464fa884afebcc0ffe6c} in 2018 to significantly less than 5.6{fe463f59fb70c5c01486843be1d66c13e664ed3ae921464fa884afebcc0ffe6c} by 2021. That is mainly because of to new coverage initiatives that have substantially expanded the federal safety net.

    However at the same time, the authors warned that numerous of all those massively beneficial initiatives have currently expired — this sort of as the Kid Tax Credit score — or are slated to expire if new action just isn’t taken.

    Resources: Michael Warren, MD, MPH, associate administrator, maternal and youngster overall health bureau, Well being Means and Providers Administration (HRSA), U.S. Division of Wellbeing and Human Services Carole Johnson, administrator, Health Means and Expert services Administration, U.S. Division of Wellness and Human Solutions, North Bethesda, Md. JAMA Pediatrics, March 14, 2022

    Copyright © 2022 HealthDay. All legal rights reserved.

  • Health Care Under Siege: Voices From the War in Ukraine | Health News

    Health Care Under Siege: Voices From the War in Ukraine | Health News

    (HealthDay)

    THURSDAY, March 10, 2022 (HealthDay Information) — As the war in Ukraine enters its 3rd 7 days, the scale of the devastation is putting the wellbeing of all Ukrainians — and the country’s well being care technique by itself — in peril.

    “It really is mind-boggling,” reported James Elder, a spokesperson for UNICEF, who arrived in the western city of Lviv just two times immediately after the Russian invasion commenced.

    Given that then, “a million small children who are refugees have experienced to flee the country — in 13 days. Consider the anxiety and the trauma. The planet has not observed everything like this due to the fact World War II,” he pointed out.

    “But it is also seriously essential to recall people who are at risk trapped in-nation, as much as we see this big outflux of individuals,” Elder added. “Persons who are unable to go. Persons in hospitals who are on drips. Infants in incubators. Individuals who are trapped in bunkers. I visited a clinic here in Lviv just yesterday that took in 60 young children, some wounded in Kyiv, other folks just unwell following hiding out for days in a chilly basement.”

    Compounding the issue is the direct menace to hospitals on their own.

    Health professionals Devoid of Borders famous that intentional wartime assaults on medical staff, hospitals and health care services are a immediate violation of the Geneva convention.

    On Tuesday, the Ukrainian Overall health Minister Viktor Liashko declared that since Russia introduced its invasion, 61 hospitals through the nation have essentially been “set out of action,” intentionally or not. In accordance to the Ukrainian Defense Minister Oleksii Reznikov, 34 of them ended up destroyed by Russian bombardments.

    That range grew on Wednesday, when a Russian airstrike strike a maternity healthcare facility in the besieged metropolis of Mariupol. Three people have been killed in the blast, together with a baby, even though 17 were being hurt.

    These attacks set Ukrainian public health officers — these kinds of as Shorena Basilaia in the funds metropolis of Kyiv and Svyatoslav Linnikov in the southern port city of Odessa — on the front lines of the struggle.

    While Lviv has so significantly been anything of an oasis from the kind of weighty bombardment that has engulfed towns in the japanese and southern sections of the state, the funds metropolis of Kyiv (population 3 million) and its surroundings haven’t been so fortunate.

    Deputy director of Kyiv’s Town Medical center for Grownups No. 27, Basilaia tries to strike a can-do tone, irrespective of the apparent threats that occur with making certain continued entry to well being care in the coronary heart of a war zone.

    The 270-mattress healthcare facility she helms — which has mostly been attending to COVID-19 clients of late — “has not been hit [by missiles] so significantly, and I hope it continues to be like this,” Basilaia stated, introducing that clinical provides are even now on hand.

    “We do have medications, no lack so significantly,” she explained, while she points out that healthcare facilities in other sections of the nation are in considerably more dire straits. For now, her staff continues to be “practical and all set for all sorts of situations,” she mentioned.

    Even so, the circumstance is “incredibly tense and complicated correct now,” Basilaia acknowledged.

    “War has a adverse outcome on almost everything, such as the wellbeing technique,” she pointed out. For illustration, safety issues have built it difficult for some of her team to even make the journey into work. And all those who do get to do the job obtain themselves on constant alert, completely ready to scramble at the seem of an air raid siren — not to mention the start of precise shelling — as they race sufferers into the protection of a bunker below.

    “It’s insane,” agreed Linnikov. He directs the office of overall health marketing at Odessa’s Regional Centre for Community Wellbeing (RCPH), a regional equivalent of the U.S. Centers for Ailment Management and Prevention.

    “I am not a warrior,” he pressured. “I have never held a gun. But I come to feel like I’m in a movie. In fact, ‘The War of the Worlds,’ with Tom Cruise. Simply because, if you recall, in that motion picture the initially alien assault was in Ukraine.”

    But Slava, as he is recognized, is not a Hollywood film star. A indigenous son of Odessa, he’s a surgeon by teaching. Pre-war —and pre-pandemic — his major role at the RCPH was to market and teach public overall health interventions aimed at decreasing the possibility for each infectious illnesses, this kind of as HIV and viral hepatitis, and non-communicable illnesses these types of as heart and vascular sickness, strokes and most cancers.

    “But with the onset of the coronavirus pandemic I begun battling a new threat,” he stated, immediately shifting his awareness in direction of prepping supplies on an infection prevention, facilitating vaccinations and debunking pandemic misinformation.

    According to the Globe Overall health Firm, the country of about 44 million has registered 5 million verified COVID-19 instances and about 112,000 fatalities, a populace-wide demise charge comparable to that of Italy.

    Linnikov pointed out that he and his colleagues have expended substantially of the past two a long time on a countrywide effort “aimed at preserving people’s lives from the coronavirus” with considerable success: Right up until now, Ukraine experienced managed to administer around 31.5 million vaccinations.

    Then, the unthinkable occurred.

    “On Feb. 24, at 5 a.m., I was awakened with the most awful words: ‘Get up. The war has started. They are bombing our cities.’” Linnikov admits that he and his buddies to begin with reacted to the “surreal” Russian invasion with shock and disbelief. “In the to start with several hours after the start off of the war, it turned rather tricky to recognize what to do following,” he claimed.

    “It is not possible to put together on your own for war,” he mentioned. “Your brain will not want to imagine it.”

    But Russia’s assault on Ukrainian sovereignty dates again to the annexation of Crimea in 2014, so the shock promptly light.

    “Soon after five several hours from the beginning of the war, the initially teams of volunteers appeared. We start out to accumulate aid for the initial victims, and search for ammunition for volunteers, and sort warehouses for humanitarian assist,” Linnikov claimed.

    Top of mind was also the conviction that the function of community health cannot just end when bombs commence falling. Nor can making sure that the chronically unwell have ongoing accessibility to significant remedy. “War is a danger to actual physical health and fitness in this article and now. Our principal process now is to give uninterrupted medical care to people who require it,” Linnikov said.

    “We are talking about clients with diabetes who need every day insulin,” he explained. “Or people today who live with HIV. It is extremely hard for them to be left with out medicine for a solitary day. So, now medical doctors across all Ukraine are doing all the things to present them with medicines.”

    Healthcare supplies, coaching paramount

    “It is really all about materials,” agreed Elder, one of about 130 UNICEF personnel doing work in Ukraine right now. “It can be definitely essential. More than this earlier weekend by yourself, we acquired 60 tons of medical provides into the nation: surgical kits, resuscitation kits and midwife kits, mainly because gals are now having toddlers in bunkers and basements,” he observed.

    “Of class, getting these supplies to individuals who are getting shelled and attacked — acquiring food items and h2o and medical interest to complete people, who in some instances have been trapped with out drinking water for days on conclude — is a major challenge,” Elder reported. “What we will need — the surest and quickest way out of this — is for the bombing to prevent. But if not, then we need to have humanitarian corridors, to deliver in lifesaving support and to bring out the susceptible. It has to materialize.”

    Further than that, Linnikov claimed that the Ukrainian health and fitness treatment system must also now consider on the extra obligation for “training the civilian inhabitants the skills of initial assist, survival in essential problems, maintaining mental health and adapting to anxiety,” in addition to continuing the COVID vaccination plan “the place it is nevertheless achievable and protected.”

    For now, Odessa (which is 300 miles south of Kyiv) has not nevertheless skilled a massive-scale attack. But with Russian land forces only 80 miles to the east and Russian naval ships poised just outside the strategic city’s territorial waters, Linnikov implies that the at any time-current sense of risk and dread is by itself posing a health possibility, undermining the psychological welfare of an complete country.

    “The uncertainty is frightening,” he explained, incorporating that he fears this is just the quiet prior to the storm.

    “Odessa is my house. It is really wonderful and it is really a extremely significant image in our state, like L.A. for The us. But it is really in a really dangerous situation now and of class we want to fight,” reported Linnikov. “We want to secure the metropolis. We want to support people today, offer the care they need. But we also want to run, for the reason that we know it will be really harmful for my mates and me to remain there.”

    Ukrainians are now caught on an emotional seesaw, teetering in between anger and rage and fatigue and panic.

    But “there is no despondency, no powerlessness,” Linnikov hastened to incorporate. “There is no time for despair proper now. Put up-traumatic pressure syndrome, melancholy and other psychological troubles will occur later.”

    Continue to, the war has profoundly shifted the ground beneath his ft.

    “I no lengthier experience the days of the 7 days,” Linnikov said. “Or the dates of the months. Now there are only several hours. The several hours of war: 24, 48, 168…”

    There is much more comprehensive details on the war’s impact on health in Ukraine at UNICEF.

    Sources: Svyatoslav (Slava) Linnikov , MPH, PhD candidate, head, division of well being marketing, Odessa Regional Centre for General public Health, Odessa, Ukraine James Elder, UNICEF spokesperson, Lviv, Ukraine Shorena Basilaia, deputy director, City Healthcare facility for Adults No. 27, Kyiv, Ukraine

    Copyright © 2022 HealthDay. All legal rights reserved.

  • Friday, March 11, 2022 | Kaiser Health News

    Friday, March 11, 2022 | Kaiser Health News

    How Many Have Died From Covid? Toll May Be Triple The Confirmed Tally

    The global death toll from the covid-19 pandemic has been alarmingly undercounted, researchers find. They estimate the total to be 18.2 million people.


    Bloomberg:
    Covid Study Finds 18 Million Deaths, Three Times Official Tally

    The pandemic’s death toll may be three times higher than official Covid-19 records suggest, according to a study that found stark differences across countries and regions. As many as 18.2 million people probably died from Covid in the first two years of the pandemic, researchers found in the first peer-reviewed global estimate of excess deaths. They pointed to a lack of testing and unreliable mortality data to explain the discrepancy with official estimates of roughly 5.9 million deaths. (Gale, 3/10)


    USA Today:
    ‘Very Sobering’: Global Deaths From COVID May Be More Than 3 Times Higher Than Official Toll, Study Says

    As the U.S. approaches the grim milestone of one million COVID-19 deaths, a team of researchers published the first peer-reviewed study looking at excess death estimates on a global scale. The results are alarming, health experts say. Excess deaths is the difference between the number of recorded deaths from all causes and the number of expected deaths based on past trends. Researchers at the University of Washington’s Institute of Health Metrics and Evaluation found an estimated 18.2 million people may have died by the end of 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, more than three times the official toll of 5.9 million, according to the study published Thursday in The Lancet. (Rodriguez, 3/10)

    In more news about covid cases —


    Detroit Free Press:
    Michigan COVID-19 Death Rates By County: Education, Age, Trump Factors

    Who died of COVID-19 in Michigan during the first two years of the coronavirus pandemic was heavily influenced by demographics like age, education level, the county where they lived, vaccination rates — and even who got their vote in the 2020 presidential election. As Michigan marked the grim two-year anniversary Thursday of the day when the first cases were identified, a Free Press analysis of state and federal data shows a higher death rate in counties where a larger share of people voted for Donald Trump in the 2020 presidential election. “I would expect to see significant correlation,” said Peter Jacobson, professor emeritus of health law and policy at the University of Michigan School of Public Health. (Jordan Shamus and Tanner, 3/11)


    The Boston Globe:
    Number Of COVID-19 Deaths In Mass. Will Drop Under State’s New Counting Method

    The official count of COVID-19 deaths in Massachusetts will decline by about 3,700 under a new surveillance system that state health leaders say more accurately captures the true toll from the virus. “We think this is an absolutely critical step in improving our understanding of who COVID has impacted most significantly during the pandemic,” Dr. Catherine Brown, the state’s epidemiologist, said at a media briefing Thursday. Currently, the state’s reported confirmed and probable deaths total about 23,700. Under the new method, that could drop to about 20,000. But Brown said a team at the state’s health department is still crunching the numbers and would release them Monday. (Lazar, 3/10)


    AP:
    Nevada Shifting To Weekly COVID Stats As Cases Keep Falling 

    State health officials are moving from daily to weekly reporting of COVID-19 statistics as the public health emergency fades and new infections and hospitalizations continue to fall to their lowest levels in Nevada since last June. Beginning next week, they’ll also be changing the way they track the spread and response to the coronavirus, including dropping regular reporting of positivity rates that are increasingly skewed due to widespread use of home-testing results. (Sonner, 3/10)


    Crain’s New York Business:
    NYC Says It Is Ready To Take On ‘Test To Treat’ Initiative

    Despite modest stockpiles of oral COVID treatments, New York City says it is ready to carry out the new federal initiative to treat patients who test positive on the spot. The Department of Health and Human Services on Tuesday outlined details for the “Test to Treat” initiative, introduced by President Joe Biden in his State of the Union address last week. The program allows individuals who receive a positive COVID test result to receive treatment with antiviral pills on the spot. It kicked off Monday, and participating pharmacy-based clinics, federally qualified health centers and long-term-care facilities are eligible to receive direct distributions of molnupiravir and Paxlovid from HHS. Molnupiravir was developed by Merck and Ridgeback Biotherapeutics and Paxlovid comes from Pfizer. (Sim, 3/10)

    The ‘Deltacron’ Variant — Something To Worry About, Or Just A ‘Scariant’?

    Experts say it’s too soon to worry about deltacron and that it appears unlikely to spread as easily as omicron. In other covid news, a database created by the Federation of State Medical Boards shows that at least 26 states have proposed or passed legislation that would make it easier for patients to get ivermectin, USA Today reported.


    USA Today:
    A New COVID Variant Called Deltacron? Here’s What We Know

    A potential new COVID-19 variant, a combination of the delta and omicron variants – you can call it “deltacron” – has been identified. The World Health Organization said Wednesday that the new COVID-19 combination has been detected in France, the Netherlands and Denmark. It’s also been found in the U.S., according to a new report soon to be published on research site MedRxiv, and viewed by USA TODAY. The San Mateo, California-headquartered lab Helix, which works with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to track COVID-19, sequenced 29,719 positive COVID-19 samples collected Nov. 22 to Feb. 13 from across the U.S., according to the research team, which included the University of Washington Medical Center and testing company Thermo Fisher Scientific. (Snider, 3/10)


    Deseret News:
    Should You Worry About The New ‘Deltacron’ Variant?

    Society has had a run-in with a “deltacron” variant before. In January, scientists in Cyprus said they had discovered a COVID-19 variant that mixed the omicron and delta variants, per Bloomberg News. However, the medical community — including biologist Eric Topol of the Scripps Research Translational Institute — disputed the science behind “deltacron.” Experts called it a “scariant” of COVID-19 that wouldn’t pose much of a threat, but made for a scary headline in the news. (Scribner, 3/10)


    The Atlantic:
    So … What Will The Next Variant Look Like?

    Let’s start with the worst-case scenario, because it’s also probably the least likely. A new variant checks each of the Big Three boxes: more transmissible, more deadly, and much more evasive of the defenses that vaccines and other SARS-CoV-2 flavors have laid down. In this version of events, even immunized people could suffer high rates of severe disease; additional boosters might not mount a sufficient blockade. The chasm in protection between the vaccinated and unvaccinated would start to close—perhaps rapidly, if the new variant collides with us when many people aren’t up-to-date on their shots and population immunity is low. (Wu, 3/9)

    In other pandemic news —


    Axios:
    Axios-Ipsos Poll: Media Habits Defined The COVID Culture War

    The key factor determining how Americans have handled COVID-19 — more than race, education or even political affiliation — is where they get their news, according to an analysis of two years of data from our Axios/Ipsos Coronavirus Index. Partisan divisions weaken U.S. leaders’ ability to deal with such existential crises — and the modern media landscape feeds that cycle. In March 2020, when everything changed, roughly nine in 10 Americans, regardless of their preferred media outlet, said they trusted the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Within weeks, though, that trust was plunging among Americans who mostly watch Fox News or other conservative outlets, as well as those who cited no source. (Talev, Bettelheim and Alberti, 3/11)


    The 19th:
    Moving In With Other Adults Has Become A Lifeline For Single Moms Hit ‘Tenfold’ By The Pandemic

    As a single parent, Gabriela Villagomez-Morales faces one question with uncomfortable regularity: What are you willing to do for your kids? It’s the question Villagomez-Morales’ own mother asked her when, at the start of the pandemic, her job at a child care facility ended indefinitely. Other workers could tap into coronavirus relief, including enhanced unemployment payments, to keep the lights on and a roof over their heads. But despite being a taxpayer who contributes to that system, Villagomez-Morales and other undocumented immigrants couldn’t access those programs. Without those payments, she had no way to make rent in the home she shared with her four children, ages 20, 18, 10 and 9. So when her mom posed the question, they both knew the answer. (Carrazana and Mithani, 3/10)

    And in news about covid vaccines and treatments —


    USA Today:
    Lawmakers Push Legislation To Protect Doctors Who Prescribe Ivermectin For COVID-19. Can They Do That?

    Dozens of state lawmakers push bills that would make it easier for doctors to prescribe ivermectin for COVID-19, even though the anti-parasitic has not been proved effective at preventing or treating the disease. As of Thursday, at least 26 states have proposed or passed legislation that would increase patient access to the drug, according to a database created by the Federation of State Medical Boards. Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, chair of the department of medical ethics and health policy at the University of Pennsylvania’s Perelman School of Medicine, said the bills “drive (him) nuts.” (Rodriguez, 3/10)


    CIDRAP:
    Study: Third COVID MRNA Vaccine Dose Needed Against Omicron

    mRNA COVID-19 vaccines are highly effective in preventing adult hospitalizations from the Alpha, Delta, and Omicron SARS-CoV-2 variants, but three doses are needed to reach the same efficacy against Omicron as two doses offer against the first two strains, suggests an observational test-negative study yesterday in BMJ.A team led by University of Michigan at Ann Arbor and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) researchers prospectively estimated the effectiveness of the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna vaccines against COVID-19 hospitalization among 5,728 adult COVID-19 patients and 5,962 uninfected controls at 21 US hospitals. (Van Beusekom, 3/10)


    The Boston Globe:
    Scientists Say We Need Universal Coronavirus Vaccines, But Will They Arrive In Time?

    Over the last several months, the COVID pandemic has become an exercise of vaccination whack-a-mole. A variant arises, and the vaccine manufacturers figure out how to tweak their product to address it — but not quickly enough. New variants keep arising, making the variant-specific shots outdated before we even get a chance to use them. But what if scientists could develop one universal vaccine that could address all variants? That work is underway at academic labs and biotech firms, including several in Boston, and in recent months, progress has picked up speed. (Cross, 3/10)


    The Atlantic:
    Vaccinating Kids Has Never Been Easy

    In September 1957—two years after church bells rang in celebration of the new polio vaccine, two years after people rejoiced in the streets, two years after Americans began lining up for their shots—the proportion of children fully vaccinated against polio remained at about 50 percent. Supply was not the problem. Nor were doubts about the vaccine’s safety or efficacy, concluded a report from around that time by the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, now known as the March of Dimes, which had funded research into the vaccine. But the “initial excitement” had nevertheless “faded,” and vaccine proponents found themselves in an incremental slog to reach the remaining unvaccinated Americans. Well into the 1960s, doctors held “Sabin Oral Sundays,” dispensing sugar cubes dosed with a drop of the oral vaccine invented by Albert Sabin. It would ultimately take more than two decades to go from ringing church bells to polio eradication in the U.S. (Zhang, 3/10)


    FiercePharma:
    Novavax, Eyeing The COVID ‘Vaccine Hesitant’ And Kids, Unveils New Education Campaigns As Nuvaxovid Nears US Finish Line 

    Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson were quickest off the mark in getting COVID vaccines into American arms, but Novavax is hoping to add another pandemic vaccine to the U.S. mix soon—and it’s pushing new campaigns to get the word out. The biopharma, which has approvals and authorizations in Europe and around the world, is now on the cusp of a potential green light in the U.S. And with a market comes the need for marketing. (Adams, 3/10)

    In related news —


    FiercePharma:
    Moderna CEO’s Pay Jumps 41{fe463f59fb70c5c01486843be1d66c13e664ed3ae921464fa884afebcc0ffe6c} To $18.2M As COVID Vaccine Giant Expands Globally

    Moderna’s business took flight in 2021 thanks to authorizations for its COVID-19 vaccine, and so did its CEO’s pay. Moderna is hiking CEO Stephane Bancel’s 2021 pay by 41{fe463f59fb70c5c01486843be1d66c13e664ed3ae921464fa884afebcc0ffe6c} to $18.2 million, citing “unprecedented growth” at the mRNA specialist, a securities filing (PDF) shows. The CEO pay bump comes as the Massachusetts biotech generated $18.5 billion in revenues last year, a massive increase over the prior year when it recorded $803 million. (Liu, 3/10)

  • 2 Years Later: Where Does the COVID-19 Pandemic Stand? | Health News

    2 Years Later: Where Does the COVID-19 Pandemic Stand? | Health News

    It is been two several years considering the fact that the Planet Wellness Corporation sounded the alarm on the coronavirus, declaring that a virus Americans experienced apprehensively watched from afar as it emerged from China, surfaced in Europe and struck decisively on the West Coast was, in reality, a world wide pandemic.

    “We have rung the alarm bell loud and very clear,” Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO director basic, reported at a news meeting in March 2020.

    At that time, couple could have imagined how the planet would adjust. Now, right after a transformative period that noticed business, instruction, overall economy and journey occur to an unthinkable halt as authorities enforced curfews, limits and criteria of hygiene, the globe is struggling to force ahead from the pandemic – the ramifications of which are proving to be long lasting and can probably be most effective measured in decline: decline of daily life, loss of cash flow and loss of have confidence in.

    “This Friday marks two many years because we stated that the world-wide spread of COVID-19 could be characterized as a pandemic,” Tedros explained at a press meeting this week, adding a sobering assessment of how significantly the planet has occur. “As a reminder, we manufactured that evaluation six months after we declared COVID-19 a international wellbeing emergency – when there ended up much less than 100 cases and no fatalities outside the house China. Two several years afterwards, extra than 6 million persons have died.”

    In the U.S., the dying toll is approaching 1 million. But analysis demonstrates that the true world demise toll could be extra than 3 instances better than the formal figures owing to questions about details and constrained testing.

    President Joe Biden made an effort to sketch out a submit-pandemic America, not long ago urging Americans to return to their places of work in a thinly veiled work to enable the financial state, which was roiled by the pandemic and is now shaken by war in Ukraine.

    “It’s time for The usa to get again to work and fill our excellent downtowns again with folks,” Biden claimed in the course of his Point out of the Union handle. “People working from property can experience harmless and start to return to their workplaces.”

    He also known as for an conclusion to college shutdowns, which sent mother and father scrambling to put into action remote studying at quite a few details during the pandemic.

    “Our faculties are open up,” Biden claimed. “Let’s maintain it that way.”

    The optimism was effectively-gained in the U.S., which not only bore the brunt of documented conditions and deaths but also watched as the virus lease its lifestyle involving all those who adhered to (occasionally shifting) scientific advice and these who have been skeptical of the virus’ ravaging consequences. People today came to search at states, businesses, superstars, politicians, athletes and even neighbors otherwise, based on their acceptance or rejection of issues like lockdowns, masks and vaccines.

    Cartoons on the Coronavirus

    Now, coronavirus bacterial infections and deaths are on the decrease both in the U.S. and all over the world after waves in which the fatal delta variant overwhelmed the wellness care technique and the highly transmissible omicron variant despatched caseloads higher than ever recorded. And Many governments are eager to relax mitigation actions. In the U.S., far more than 90{fe463f59fb70c5c01486843be1d66c13e664ed3ae921464fa884afebcc0ffe6c} of the inhabitants lives in parts where by they can quit sporting a mask indoors, in accordance to direction from the Centers for Disorder Management and Prevention.

    In spite of populations keen to contemplate a future outside of the coronavirus, some say it’s too before long for the environment to fall mitigation steps – and to seem past a virus that carries on to kill an average of extra than 7,000 folks in a specified day.

    “Although reported circumstances and deaths are declining globally, and a number of nations around the world have lifted limits, the pandemic is significantly from about – and it will not be around everywhere until finally it is above just about everywhere,” Tedros mentioned.

    Though U.S. officials cited “widespread inhabitants immunity” amid the relaxing of mitigation measures, industry experts are rapid to point out that immunity from each vaccination and infection fade, and measures may well need to be reimplemented in the upcoming. And there’s normally the lingering anxiety that the more time the virus spreads the bigger the probability of a new and even far more lethal variant.

    Keri Althoff, an epidemiologist at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg University of Public Well being, suggests that Individuals ought to be conscious that there could be a time when popular masking is required once again – even in just the upcoming 12 months, possibly.

    “We are definitely not out of the woods nevertheless. And I believe we have to keep on to be vigilant in excess of the program of the subsequent number of yrs and keep on to be versatile, so that we can develop this population immunity ample to control the virus and get to a spot exactly where modern society agrees that we are taking care of it with fewer daily disruption to our life,” Althoff states.

    Althoff states that a person lesson to be uncovered from the past two several years is the job that misinformation performs in shaping peoples’ beliefs. The enhancement critically undermines rely on in public health and fitness officials, she provides.

    “Misinformation is so potent, and it spreads so quickly,” says Althoff. “To say that there has been a decrease in the have confidence in of experts and public overall health – destruction done by a ton of misinformation – is probably an understatement. I imagine rebuilding that believe in and serving to individuals to recognize and feel critically when confronted with all this facts is seriously likely to be crucial as we proceed to move forward.”

    As coronavirus vaccines had been made and rolled out in document time, many scientists have been caught off guard by the level of hesitancy observed. Even now, just 65{fe463f59fb70c5c01486843be1d66c13e664ed3ae921464fa884afebcc0ffe6c} of the complete U.S. populace is absolutely vaccinated and appreciably fewer have gotten their booster pictures irrespective of popular vaccine availability.

    According to the most recent Kaiser Family Foundation details, roughly 16{fe463f59fb70c5c01486843be1d66c13e664ed3ae921464fa884afebcc0ffe6c} of Individuals say they “definitely” won’t get the shot – a variety that has held primarily continuous in excess of the past many months.

    “We’ve bought to figure out how to address this hesitancy and how to extra correctly converse,” Althoff suggests.

    And it is critical to try to remember that not everybody has access to the pictures but. In the U.S., shots for kids beneath 5 have confronted multiple setbacks, delaying an authorization a lot of mothers and fathers hoped would have come months ago.

    “Those young children and their family members have borne a substantial burden in this pandemic,” Althoff claims. “It’s been a whole lot, and individuals folks are however ready for a vaccine.”

    Vaccination prices and obtain also fluctuate extensively worldwide.

    As minimal as 14{fe463f59fb70c5c01486843be1d66c13e664ed3ae921464fa884afebcc0ffe6c} of people in lower-income countries have gained their first shot, in accordance to just one estimate.

    “We have to don’t forget our entire world is not but vaccinated,” Althoff claims, introducing that transmission of the virus offers it a possibility to mutate and produce new variants.

  • A widow’s mission to change NC dental sedation rules

    A widow’s mission to change NC dental sedation rules


    By Anne Blythe

    When Shital Patel accompanied her husband Henry to a dental appointment in Leland on July 30, 2020, she was told it would not be long before he returned to the lobby of Mark Austin’s oral surgery practice.

    Hemant “Henry” Patel, a cardiologist with ties to the New Hanover Regional Medical Center, had gone to Austin Oral and Maxillofacial Surgery for a tooth implant procedure.

    “They told me, it’s going to be 20 minutes ma’am, he’ll be in and out, no problem,” Patel recounted to the North Carolina State Board of Dental Examiners at a meeting in February. “Twenty, 30 minutes go by, I ask, ‘Hey, can you update me?’ They said, ‘Oh we got a late start,’ which I completely understand being married to a physician. Wait another 15, 20, 30 minutes, and I ask again. They say, ‘We already told you, we got a late start.’”

    Patel’s anxiety grew.

    “The next time I asked, I demanded ‘I want to see my husband,’” Patel told the board at its Feb. 3 meeting. “That’s the point they stepped out and they started ushering everyone else out of the lobby except me, and that’s when I started rushing through the door. And as soon as I got past that, there were more people to stop me, and all I ask is: ‘Is he breathing? Is he breathing?’ … They’re like ‘ma’am, we’re on it. We have a crash cart. We called 911.’”

    Henry Patel, 53 years old at the time, died5 from anoxic brain injury four days later on Aug. 3, 2020 in New Hanover Regional Medical Center, leaving a wide swath of mourners in the hospital, in the Wilmington area and around the world.

    His death also sparked an investigation that led to Austin’s permanent surrender of his dental license and a push for changes to sedation rules that have been contentious among some in the oral health profession.

    State Sen. Mike Lee, a Republican from Wilmington, put the wheels in motion in May last year after learning about Patel’s death and the sedation procedures in place at Austin’s practice.

    ‘No pulse’

    Austin was licensed to practice dentistry in North Carolina on July 17, 2001, according to the dental board order in which he consented to surrender his license. He was issued a permit on April 7, 2014 to administer general anesthesia.

    Austin administered anesthesia to Patel on July 30 before and during the implant procedure. Toward the end of the procedure, Patel’s oxygen saturation levels and his heart rate dropped to dangerously low levels, according to the order, and remained in that life threatening stage for at least 20 minutes.

    During that time, Austin tried unsuccessfully to insert an endotracheal tube to open Patel’s airway before calling 911, but according to the order, he didn’t attempt CPR or take any actions to restore his heart rate.

    By the time paramedics arrived, Patel did not have a pulse, the dental board’s investigation found. With their specialized equipment, the emergency workers were able to open an airway and do CPR, getting enough of a pulse going again to transport Patel to New Hanover Regional Health Center.

    He survived there for only four days.

    Call for new rules

    Lee, the senator from New Hanover County, informed the board last year that if its sedation rules were not amended through a process that requires review by legislative staff, public comment periods, hearings and a rules commission review, he would put forward a bill in the General Assembly to develop different standards of care.

    The board formed committees and considered and put forward a proposed rule change that among other things requires oral surgeons to have a certified registered nurse anesthetist (CRNA) or an anesthesiologist in the room any time a patient is put under deep sedation.

    Rob Harper, a cardiologist in Wilmington and a friend of Patel’s, joined his fellow cardiologist’s widow at the dental board meeting in February at which the public could comment on the proposed rule changes.

    Many oral surgeons came out to protest the requirement that a CRNA or anesthesiologist be present whenever deep sedation is administered. They described what happened to Patel as a rare occurrence and the oral surgeon who surrendered his license as an outlier. The consent order also noted that Austin had failed to keep track of the narcotics in his office, had improperly prescribed them to his staff, and had used them himself. As part of the consent order, Austin agreed to participate in a program for health care professionals with substance use problems.

    There have been six sedation-related deaths in North Carolina dental offices since 2014, according to Bobby White, the board’s chief executive officer. In each case, dentists were found to be in violation of the rules in place at the time.

    Oral surgeons and others described the controversial part of the proposed rule change as an overreaction to an anomaly.

    “No one should ever die in a dentist’s office from sedation-related complications,” Harper said.

    Sedatives such as ketamine and propofol should not be administered in an office setting, Harper contended. The drugs are used to reduce a person’s level of consciousness, to lower levels of nervousness, agitation and irritation, and are used together in emergency rooms.

    “Henry’s death has cast new light on what I believe to be a dangerous practice,” he said. “But let me be clear. This is not just about the case of Henry Patel. This is about the use of potent anesthetic agents in the office setting and the ability of dentists to recognize and rescue patients from emergency situations.”

    Insurmountable hardships?

    Wes Parker, an oral surgeon who works in Bermuda Run, Clemmons, Elkin, Statesville and Winston-Salem, provides care to children, elderly residents and people with special needs in the western part of the state who qualify for Medicaid. He also tends to the oral surgery needs of people with private insurance.

    Having a separate CRNA or anesthesiologist on-site, he said, would be cost-prohibitive for many of his patients. There are no outpatient surgery facilities in Davie County, where the Bermuda Run office is based. If he had to go to Novant, where he has privileges, it could take up to four weeks to schedule elective surgeries.

    “It will pose an undue hardship on patients,” Parker told the board.

    Maya Martin and Chris Martin, a husband-wife team at Village Dental Family and Sedation Care, encouraged the board to add another profession to the list that oral surgeons could choose from when administering deep sedation.

    Their practice uses EMTs, who are trained in emergency airway management. They provide care to a lot of people who show up at a dentist’s office with fear and anxiety. Providing sedation, they say, can be the difference between easing those patients into care or scaring them off with heightened fears and anxieties after an uncomfortable experience.

    “Further regulations, in my opinion, will hurt the weakest among us,” Chris Martin said. “Further regulations on anything …it’s not going to hurt us, it’s going to hurt the weakest among us.”

    On a mission

    If the proposed rule change continues on a path toward adoption without any bumps on the road ahead, the new sedation rules would go into effect no earlier than May. Rulemaking in North Carolina is anything but a linear process. State law requires that a rule-making body file any proposed rule to the state Rules Review Commission. If the commission adopts the rule and 10 or more people object to the rule in writing, requesting legislative review, the rule could bounce to the General Assembly where it can again be derailed.

    Patel plans to continue to advocate for the changes.

    “When tragedy hits us, we do not sit back, we do not let others tell us they’re doing a great job, although there’s got to be so much change here,” Patel said. 

    Though North Carolina would be the only state in the country to require a CRNA or anesthesiologist to be present for deep sedation procedures, Patel disputes the notion that her husband’s death was an outlier.

    “It’s not just outliers,” Patel said. “It’s something that needs to be changed on a national level, and I know a lot of you say none of the states are doing it. Well, you know what, North Carolina will be our first. We can make a difference right here and we should.”

    Henry Patel was described in obituaries as a passionate man who cared about his patients long after they no longer were in his care. His family described him as being full of life, a man of many interests and friends. As a child, he traveled between India and the United States. His interest in medicine was kindled when he was in the ninth grade.

    “Even though my husband was a physician, he never once considered, I better ask about anesthesia when I go to my dentist,” Patel said. “I never expected to walk out of there being a widow at age 47.”

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    by Anne Blythe, North Carolina Health News
    March 10, 2022

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  • Durham Queer Health Fair serving LGBTQ NCians

    Durham Queer Health Fair serving LGBTQ NCians


    By Elizabeth Thompson

    It was only about a decade ago when the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the first medication that provided pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) to lower people’s risk of catching HIV, Truvada. 

    Scotty Elliot still remembers the stigma that followed people who chose to get on the medication.

    “Guys who took it were called ‘Truvada whores,’” said Elliot, an infectious disease social worker at Duke Academy for Health Professions Education and Academic Development. He said the disparagement was “just a horrible way to start a movement of getting care with people, so they are protected from HIV.” 

    That stigma against people with HIV and members of the LGBTQ community, which was disproportionately impacted by HIV, still exists, Elliot said. 

    However, as he stood holding a sign of two men kissing with big bold letters saying “DON’T WAIT, GET PrEP TODAY” in the heart of downtown Durham, Elliot marveled at the progress.

    Scotty Elliott poses with a sign promoting PrEP to prevent HIV. Photo credit: Elizabeth Thompson

    “The last five people that have come up, I said, ‘Do you know about PrEP?’” Elliot said, “and they said, ‘Yeah.’”

    Elliot was out and about downtown as the LGBTQ Center of Durham held a Queer Health Fair on Sunday in an effort to bridge gaps in health care across the community. Advocates ranging from community workers in HIV and AIDs prevention, to yoga teachers, to culture-specific LGBTQ organizations came to represent how the LGBTQ community can access all aspects of health.

    Reducing the stigma around STIs

    From information on PrEP and a rapid sexually transmitted infection (STI) testing booth, the fair was full of resources to reduce stigma around STIs.

    Also available at the Queer Health Fair was free rapid HIV/STI testing. Photo credit: Elizabeth Thompson

    Having information out in the open is key to reducing stigma, said Matt Martin, grassroots advocacy manager at the NC AIDS Action Network.

    “I think events like this are a huge way [to reduce stigma] by just normalizing it, talking about it openly,” Martin said. “I think that we’re taught, especially here in the South, to not talk about these things and they become taboo.”

    One common misconception about HIV is that it only affects gay men. A 2018 CDC study found that 24 percent of new HIV diagnoses were among heterosexual people and 7 percent were among people who inject drugs. The rest, 69 percent, were among gay and bisexual men. 

    The NC AIDS Action Network is trying to raise awareness that women are also greatly impacted by HIV, and they can also access PrEP. Black women, in particular, are disproportionately impacted by HIV and make up nearly 60 percent of new HIV infections in U.S. women. 

    Conversations about health equity for people with HIV are about more than just their treatment, said Janeen Gingrich, interim executive director at NC AIDS Action Network.

    “Folks are so much more than just one singular diagnosis,” Martin said. “We have to take care of the person and their full health, mental health, physical health, not just their HIV.”

    Expanding health conversations

    Education about STIs is just one part of the health conversation for the LGBTQ community, Martin said, and the fair was a great way to see the full spectrum of health needs.

    LGBTQ people have been historically marginalized in medicine, and to this day, health isn’t as accessible to the LGBTQ community compared to other groups. Within the LGBTQ community, some people have easier access to the care they need than others.

    Organizations such as El Centro Hispano have programs to give support to LGBTQ people in the Latin community. Their programs include Mujeres en Accion, a program for lesbian and bisexual Latina women, Entre Nosotr@s, a social group for transgender Latina women in North Carolina and HOLA Latino, a program for gay and bisexual Latino men, said Oscar Pineda, El Centro Hispano’s community director.

    El Centro Hispano has programs for LGBTQ North Carolinians in the Latinx community. Photo credit: Elizabeth Thompson

    Transgender people can also be left out of healthcare when they have to fear being misgendered at the doctor’s office.

    Something as simple as providers asking people their pronouns makes health just a little bit safer and more accessible for the LGBTQ community, said Tatiana Cambio, a UNC Chapel Hill dentistry student at the fair’s UNC LGBTQIA+ Oral Health Booth.

    UNC Dentistry students help make oral health more accessible at the school’s Pride Clinic, Cambio said.

    “We really work with our volunteers to make sure that they’re using current pronouns,” Cambio said, “and that’s something that people who are not super well connected with the queer community need to use a lot more practice on or be more aware of.”

    Health is about more than physical health, which is why mental and spiritual health advocates were also present at the fair.

    Durham-based Global Breath, a yoga studio, offers free drop-in classes to Black, Indigenous and people of color, transgender and gender-nonconforming people in order give promote more accessible self-care and healing, said yoga teacher Devon Pelto, who is also part of the studio’s leadership team.

    Devon Pelto, yoga teacher and member of Global Breath’s leadership team. Photo credit: Elizabeth Thompson

    “Any opportunity we have to practice slowing down is really helpful,” Pelto said. “I teach trauma-informed yoga, so it’s just to help people be back in their bodies and feel their bodies and create that safe place feeling again, because a lot of us, that has been taken away.”

    Having a health fair devoted to LGBTQ people gives them a seat at the table, Martin said.

    “Queer folks are often left out of health conversations,” Martin said. “So I think it’s really important for the community to take control of their own personal health.”

    Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.

    X

    Republish this article

    As of late 2019, we’re changing our policy about reprinting our content.

    You are free to use NC Health News content under the following conditions:

    • You can copy and paste this html tracking code into articles of ours that you use, this little snippet of code allows us to track how many people read our story.





    • Please do not reprint our stories without our bylines, and please include a live link to NC Health News under the byline, like this:

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    • Finally, at the bottom of the story (whether web or print), please include the text:

      North Carolina Health News is an independent, non-partisan, not-for-profit, statewide news organization dedicated to covering all things health care in North Carolina. Visit NCHN at northcarolinahealthnews.org. (on the web, this can be hyperlinked)

    by Elizabeth Thompson, North Carolina Health News
    March 8, 2022

    1