Tag: responds

  • After Amartya said she’s fit to be PM, Mamata responds: his advice an order

    After Amartya said she’s fit to be PM, Mamata responds: his advice an order

    After Nobel Laureate economist Amartya Sen explained that West Bengal Main Minister Mamata Banerjee has the capacity to be India’s upcoming Prime Minister but it is however to be viewed whether she will be in a position to pull the forces of general public dismay towards the BJP, Trinamool Congress supremo on Sunday reported that “his assistance was an order”.

    Before long immediately after Sen’s interview, CM Banerjee, talking to a information channel, responded, “Amartya Sen biswaborenyo pandit. Tnar porjobekkhon amader poth dekhay. Tnar upodesh amader kachhe aadesh. Desher bortoman poristhiti somporke tnar porjonekkhan o mulyaon nischoi soboike gurutuo diye bhabte hobe (Amartya Sen is a world-renowned mental. His insight exhibits us the route. His guidance is an purchase for us. His perception and evaluation of the present predicament of the state should really be taken critically by all people).”

    In an interview to information company PTI, the 90-yr-previous economist asserted that it “would be a mistake” to feel that the 2024 Lok Sabha election would be a a single-horse race in favour of the BJP, and that the purpose of a quantity of regional events would be “clearly important” for the forthcoming common election.

    Sen had mentioned, “I think the DMK and TMC are essential parties and the Samajwadi Celebration has some standing but no matter whether that could be prolonged I do not know. It would be a miscalculation to get the dismissive see that there is no other party that can take the place of the BJP considering that it has proven itself as a social gathering with a eyesight that is inclined in the way of Hindus around the relaxation of the country.”

    The BJP has substantially reduced the eyesight of India and narrowed the being familiar with of the region as just Hindu India in such a way that it would be unhappy if there is no different to the saffron social gathering, he included.

    “If the BJP looks sturdy and potent, it has several weaknesses as well. I assume other political events will be capable to come to a debate if they genuinely test. I do not know adequate to be in a position to dismiss the anti-BJP parties jointly,” he reported.

    On whether or not Banerjee could be the country’s up coming PM, Sen said she has the capacity.

    Sen expressed uncertainties about the Congress’ ability to gain the 2024 elections, which he thinks has “weakened”. He, on the other hand, claimed that it is the only get together to give an all-India vision.

    “The Congress appears to have weakened a lot and I do not know how substantially any person can count on it. On the other hand, the Congress definitely gives an all-India vision which no other bash can just take around. Then again, there are divisions within the Congress,” he said.

    BJP chief Samik Bhattacharya, in the meantime, said, “I pray for his (Amartya’s) superior health. But he will see the defeat of Mamata Banerjee in Bengal and the development of the BJP government.”

    CPM central committee member Sujan Chakraborty said, “Narendra Modi and Mamata Banerjee are amongst the number of names that are currently being promoted and discussed in the country’s political circles. The reason powering this is dollars and publicity. But the key obstacle lies in uniting anti-BJP forces. In fact, the TMC has generally helped the BJP.”

  • Depression responds to transcranial magnetic stimulation treatment in studies : Shots

    Depression responds to transcranial magnetic stimulation treatment in studies : Shots

    Eleanor Cole, Ph.D., demonstrates the treatment on trial participant Deirdre Lehman in May 2019 at the Stanford Brain Stimulation Lab.

    Steve Fisch for Stanford Medicine


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    Steve Fisch for Stanford Medicine


    Eleanor Cole, Ph.D., demonstrates the treatment on trial participant Deirdre Lehman in May 2019 at the Stanford Brain Stimulation Lab.

    Steve Fisch for Stanford Medicine

    After 40 years of fighting debilitating depression, Emma was on the brink.

    “I was suicidal,” said Emma, a 59-year-old Bay Area resident. NPR is not using her full name at her request because of the stigma of mental illness. “I was going to die.”

    Over the years, Emma sat through hours of talk therapy and tried numerous anti-depression medications “to have a semblance of normalcy.” And yet she was consumed by relentless fatigue, insomnia and chronic nausea.

    Depression is the world’s leading cause of disability, partly because treatment options often result in numerous side effects or patients do not respond at all. And there are many people who never seek treatment because mental illness can carry heavy stigma and discrimination. Studies show untreated depression can lead to suicide.

    Three years ago, Emma’s psychiatrist urged her to enroll in a study at Stanford University School of Medicine designed for people who had run out of options. On her first day, scientists took an MRI scan to determine the best possible location to deliver electrical pulses to her brain. Then for a 10 minute block every hour for 10 hours a day for five consecutive days, Emma sat in a chair while a magnetic field stimulated her brain.

    At the end of the first day, an unfamiliar calm settled over Emma. Even when her partner picked her up to drive home, she stayed relaxed. “I’m usually hysterical,” she said. “All the time I’m grabbing things. I’m yelling, you know, ‘Did you see those lights?’ And while I rode home that first night I just looked out the window and I enjoyed the ride.”

    The remedy was a new type of repetitive transcranial magnetic stimulation (rTMS) called “Stanford neuromodulation therapy.” By adding imaging technology to the treatment and upping the dose of rTMS, scientists have developed an approach that’s more effective and works more than eight times faster than the current approved treatment.

    A coil placed on top of Emma’s head created a magnetic field that sent electric pulses through her skull to tickle the surface of her brain. She says it felt like a woodpecker tapping on her skull every 15 seconds. The electrical current is directed at the prefrontal cortex, which is the part of the brain that plans, dreams and controls our emotions.

    “It’s an area thought to be underactive in depression,” said Nolan Williams, a psychiatrist and rTMS researcher at Stanford. “We send a signal for the system to not only turn on, but to stay on and remember to stay on.”

    Williams says pumping up the prefrontal cortex helps turn down other areas of the brain that stimulate fear and anxiety. That’s the basic premise of rTMS: Electrical impulses are used to balance out erratic brain activity. As a result, people feel less depressed and more in control. All of this holds true in the new treatment — it just works faster.

    A recent randomized control trial, published in The American Journal of Psychiatry, shows impressive results are possible in five days of treatment or less. Almost 80{fe463f59fb70c5c01486843be1d66c13e664ed3ae921464fa884afebcc0ffe6c} of patients crossed into remission — meaning they were symptom-free within a month. This is compared to about 13{fe463f59fb70c5c01486843be1d66c13e664ed3ae921464fa884afebcc0ffe6c} of people who received the placebo treatment.

    For the control group, the researchers disguised the treatment with a magnetic coil that mimicked the actual treatment. Neither the scientist administering the procedure nor the patients knew if they were receiving the real or sham treatment. Patients did not report any serious side effects. The most common complaint was a light headache.

    Stanford’s new delivery system may even outperform electroconvulsive therapy, which is the most popular form of brain stimulation for depression, but while quicker, it requires general anesthesia.

    “This study not only showed some of the best remission rates we’ve ever seen in depression,” said Shan Siddiqi, a Harvard psychiatrist not connected to the study, “but also managed to do that in people who had already failed multiple other treatments.”

    Siddiqi also said the study’s small sample size, which is only 29 patients, is not cause for concern.

    “Often, a clinical trial will be terminated early [according to pre-specified criteria] because the treatment is so effective that it would be unethical to continue giving people placebo,” said Siddiqi. “That’s what happened here. They’d originally planned to recruit a much larger sample, but the interim analysis was definitive.”

    Nolan Williams demonstrates the magnetic brain stimulation therapy he and his colleagues developed, on Deirdre Lehman, a participant in a previous study of the treatment.

    Steve Fisch for Stanford Medicine


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    Steve Fisch for Stanford Medicine


    Nolan Williams demonstrates the magnetic brain stimulation therapy he and his colleagues developed, on Deirdre Lehman, a participant in a previous study of the treatment.

    Steve Fisch for Stanford Medicine

    Mark George, a psychiatrist and neurologist at the Medical University of South Carolina, agrees. He points to other similarly sized trials for depression treatments like ketamine, a version of which is now FDA-approved.

    He says the new rTMS approach could be a game changer because it’s both more precise and kicks in faster than older versions. George pioneered an rTMS treatment that was approved by the federal Food and Drug Administration for depression in 2008. Studies show that it produces a near total loss of symptoms in about a third of patients; another third feel somewhat better and another third do not respond at all. But the main problem with the original treatment is that it takes six weeks, which is a long time for a patient in the midst of a crisis.

    “This study shows that you can speed it all up and that you can add treatments in a given day and it works,” said George.

    The shorter treatment will increase access for a lot of people who cannot get six weeks off work or cover child care for that long.

    “The more exciting applications, however, are due to the rapidity,” said George. “These people [the patients] got unsuicidal and undepressed within a week. Those patients are just clogging up our emergency rooms, our psych hospitals. And we really don’t have good treatments for acute suicidality.”

    After 45 years of depression and numerous failed attempts to medicate his illness, Tommy Van Brocklin, a civil engineer, says he didn’t see a way out.

    “The past couple of years I just started crying a lot,” he said. “I was just a real emotional wreck.”

    So last September, Van Brocklin flew across the country from his home in Tennessee to Stanford, where he underwent the new rTMS treatment for a single five-day treatment. Almost immediately he started feeling more optimistic and sleeping longer and deeper.

    “I wake up now and I want to come to work, whereas before I’d rather stick a sharp stick in my eye,” said Van Brocklin. “I have not had any depressed days since my treatment.”

    He is hopeful the changes stick. More larger studies are needed to verify how long the new rTMS treatment will last.

    At least for Emma, the woman who received Stanford’s treatment three years ago in a similar study, the results are holding. She says she still has ups and downs but “it’s an entirely different me dealing with it.”

    She says the regimen rewired her from the inside out. “It saved my life, and I’ll be forever grateful,” said Emma over the phone, her voice cracking with emotion. “It saved my life.”

    Stanford’s neuromodulation therapy could be widely available by the end of this year — that’s when scientists are hoping FDA clearance comes through. The technology is licensed to Magnus Medical, a startup with plans to commercialize it

    Williams, the lead researcher at Stanford, says he’s optimistic insurance companies will eventually cover the new delivery model because it works in a matter of days, so it’s likely more cost-effective than a conventional 6 week rTMS regimen. Major insurance companies and Medicare currently cover rTMS, though some plans require patients to demonstrate that they’ve exhausted other treatment options.

    The next step is studying how rTMS may improve other mental health disorders like addiction and traumatic brain injury.

    “This study is hopefully just the tip of the iceberg,” said Siddiqi. “I think we’re finally on the verge of a paradigm shift in how we think about psychiatric treatment, where we’ll supplement the conventional chemical imbalance and psychological conflict models with a new brain circuit model.”

    In other words, electricity in the form of rTMS could become one of the vital tools used to help people with mental illness.

  • COVID-19 live updates: AHS responds to over 3,000 health measure complaints; U.S. will open to travellers immunized with approved vaccines; health-care sector bracing for staff shortages

    COVID-19 live updates: AHS responds to over 3,000 health measure complaints; U.S. will open to travellers immunized with approved vaccines; health-care sector bracing for staff shortages

    Watch this page throughout the day for updates on COVID-19 in Edmonton

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    COVID-19 news happens rapidly, we have created this file to keep you up-to-date on all the latest stories and information on the outbreak in and around Edmonton.

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    What’s happening now



    Share your COVID-19 stories

    As Alberta grapples with a fourth wave of COVID-19 at the start of another school year, we’re looking to hear your stories on this evolving situation.

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    • Have you or a loved one had a surgery rescheduled or cancelled in recent weeks?
    • Are you someone who has decided to get vaccinated after previously being skeptical of the vaccines?
    • Have you changed your mind about sending your children back to school in person?
    • Have you enrolled your children in a private school due to COVID-19?
    • Are you a frontline health-care worker seeing new strains on the health system?
      Send us your stories via email at [email protected]

    1:33 p.m.

    Alberta Health Services responds to more than 3,000 COVID-19 health measure complaints

    Anna Junker

    The Alberta Health Services building in Calgary, Feb. 24, 2021.
    The Alberta Health Services building in Calgary, Feb. 24, 2021. Photo by Brendan Miller/Postmedia

    Alberta Health Services has received more than 3,000 COVID-19 related complaints or requests in recent weeks.

    The calls have come in between Sept. 16 and Oct. 5, said spokesman Kerry Williamson. They include requests from the public asking for AHS Environmental Public Health (EPH) to check if businesses, facilities, operators or events are complying with current COVID-19 public health measures, including masking, capacity and gathering limits, and compliance with the Restrictions Exemption Program.

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    “If AHS is made aware of a complaint, Public Health Inspectors carry out an education or advisory role as an initial step when responding. AHS does not issue tickets or fines,” Williamson said.

    “The goal of AHS’ Safe Healthy Environments team is to protect the health and safety of the Albertans. AHS Public Health Inspectors always seek to work collaboratively with businesses and organizations to ensure compliance with CMOH orders and current public health measures.”

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    11:52 a.m.

    U.S will open to travellers immunized with vaccines approved by WHO, FDA and CDC

    The Canadian Press

    A U.S. and a Canadian flag flutter at the Canada-United States border crossing at the Thousand Islands Bridge, in Lansdowne, Ont., Sept. 28, 2020.
    A U.S. and a Canadian flag flutter at the Canada-United States border crossing at the Thousand Islands Bridge, in Lansdowne, Ont., Sept. 28, 2020. Photo by Lars Hagberg /Reuters

    The United States will accept international travellers immunized with COVID-19 vaccines approved by the World Health Organization and the Food and Drug Administration.

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    The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention confirmed the decision today in an email and said more guidance will be provided as requirements are finalized.

    White House officials said last month the U.S. would begin welcoming fully vaccinated international travellers in November, but they did not say which vaccines would be accepted.

    The news means Canadians immunized with the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine will be able to travel to the U.S. when new travel rules come into play next month.

    The AstraZeneca vaccine is approved by the World Health Organization, but not by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

    The CDC says it began informing airlines of its decision last week.


    Sunday

    Canada’s overworked health-care sector brace for staff shortages as vaccine mandates loom

    National Post

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    An ICU team helping to intubate a patient suffering from COVID-19 at Humber River Hospital in Toronto.
    An ICU team helping to intubate a patient suffering from COVID-19 at Humber River Hospital in Toronto. Photo by Cole Burston / AFP

    Canada’s health and long-term care industries are bracing for staff shortages and layoffs, as deadlines for vaccine mandates loom across the country with unions pushing federal and provincial governments to soften hard-line stances.

    For hospitals and nursing homes, a shortage of workers would strain the already overburdened workforce dealing with nearly two years of the pandemic.

    The uncertainty sparked by vaccine mandates underscores the challenges on the road to recovery. Devon Greyson, assistant professor of public health at the University of British Columbia, said officials are steering into uncharted waters with mass vaccine mandates and it’s not clear how workers will respond.

    “A shortage of workers can mean people’s health and well being. It’s scary,” Greyson said.

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    However, he added, “we’re in an ethical situation where it’s also scary not to ensure that all health workers are vaccinated. So it’s a bit of a catch-22.”

    To tackle staff scarcity, at least one province is offering signing bonuses to nurses. Provinces including Quebec and British Columbia have made it mandatory for healthcare workers and nursing staff to be vaccinated to continue working in their respective fields.

    Prime Minister Justin Trudeau also unveiled one of the strictest vaccine mandates in the world last week, saying unvaccinated federal employees will be sent on unpaid leave and making COVID-19 shots mandatory for air, train, and ship passengers.

    Layoffs have already started to hit, with one hospital in southern Ontario last week dumping 57 employees, representing 2.5 per cent of staff, after its vaccine mandate came into effect. A long-term care home in Toronto put 36 per cent of its staff on unpaid leave after they refused to get vaccinated, the Canadian Broadcasting Corp reported.

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    Letter of the day

    Covid-19 forces Captain Jason Kenney to walk the plank. (Cartoon by Malcolm Mayes)
    Covid-19 forces Captain Jason Kenney to walk the plank. (Cartoon by Malcolm Mayes) Malcolm Mayes

    It’s not surprising that Premier Kenney wants to take Alberta children back to the 19th century by making rote learning central to the curriculum. He is a rote thinker, apparently capable of only two ideas — low taxes and incentives for business — which are basically just one idea. He constantly parrots his one idea that everything else is secondary to business, and that more business is the solution to every problem. This blinkered thinking partially explains the current mess our province is in.

    With three grandchildren between the ages of four and nine, I am extremely concerned that children between five and nine are now increasingly contracting COVID, due to the government’s shortsighted decision to end contact tracing in schools and elsewhere. I am continually amazed at how my grandchildren have rolled with all the shocks and changes of the past year and a half, although who knows what the long-term effects on the mental and physical health of any of us will be. Children don’t need to memorize facts. They need to learn how to access facts in order to acquire knowledge and ideas, so they can become developed human beings and critical thinkers. I suggest that Premier Kenney take a break from politics, go back to school, and finish off that philosophy degree. He could come up with some new and useful ideas relevant to the 21st century.

    K.D. Grove, Edmonton

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    Saturday

    Pregnant patients can bring COVID-19-positive person for support while giving birth at Alberta hospitals

    Lauren Boothby

    The Alberta government is urging pregnant women and those who are trying to become pregnant to get the COVID-19 vaccine as soon as possible.
    The Alberta government is urging pregnant women and those who are trying to become pregnant to get the COVID-19 vaccine as soon as possible. Postmedia Wire

    Maternity patients giving birth in Alberta hospitals can bring a person infected with COVID-19 with them for support, Alberta Health Services (AHS) said in a series of tweets Saturday afternoon.

    AHS confirmed an exemption to quarantine rules allows a COVID-19 positive person to join a pregnant patient in exceptional circumstances and if the hospital is made aware ahead of time. A chief medical officer of health order in effect since July 29 says this designated support person must stay two metres away from everyone except the patient and infant.

    “These exemptions, which have been in effect since July 2021, are granted under exceptional circumstances and only at the request of the patient giving birth. We know the importance of having support at this time. This is a critical part of our approach to patient centred care,” reads an AHS tweet.

    Despite this, the provincial health authority says there are protocols in place to make sure people are safe.

    “The patient & essential support person will remain under contact & droplet isolation. This includes the facility providing access to bathroom facilities & food,” AHS says.

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    Saturday

    Alcohol-related illnesses in Alberta surging during COVID-19 pandemic

    Blair McBride

    Alberta is seeing a surge in alcohol-related illnesses that can be attributed to the COVID-19 pandemic
    Alberta is seeing a surge in alcohol-related illnesses that can be attributed to the COVID-19 pandemic Photo by Nicole Bengiveno /NYT

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    Alberta is seeing a surge in alcohol-related illnesses that can be attributed to the COVID-19 pandemic, experts say.

    Mental and behavioural disorders resulting from alcohol use as well as alcohol-related depression and withdrawal are among the few non-COVID causes of hospital admission that have increased in the province since March 2020, says Calgary physician Dr. Eddy Lang.

    An article co-written by Lang that was published in the medical journal PLOS ONE in June revealed alcohol consumption rose from the fifth-highest cause of hospitalization in the province to the third during the first six months of the pandemic.

    Alcohol-related illnesses accounted for 3.46 per cent of hospital admissions between March and September 2020, up from 2.65 per cent in that timeframe the previous year.

    “Considering the number of hospitalizations we have in Alberta, that’s a significant increase,” Lang said, attributing the rising drinking rates to heightened feelings of pandemic anxiety.

    “There’s been lots of lost employment and family separation. We know that people are managing that with alcohol and cannabis. That’s going to manifest with people going overboard,” he said. “Alcohol is like gasoline on the fire of mental illness. If you’re already depressed you might think alcohol will make you feel better but in long run it makes things worse because it contributes to suicidal thoughts.”

    Increased rates of drinking in Alberta are also showing up in liver health.

    Hospitalizations for alcoholic hepatitis rose by 90.5 per cent in the first wave of the pandemic, according to a study soon to be published in the journal Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology.

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    Saturday

    Albertans leave messages at UCP MLA offices to say no thanks to the government

    Gil McGowan (front, President, Alberta Federation of Labour), Jeffrey Strom, Beth Strom and Karen Kuprys (right, Secretary Treasurer, Alberta Federation of Labour) invited concerned citizens to Alberta UCP MLA Kaycee Madu’s office in Edmonton on Saturday, October 9, 2021, to leave messages voicing their disapproval to the Alberta government’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. Participants also shared their messages on social media with the hashtag #NoThanksGivenUCP. (PHOTO BY LARRY WONG/POSTMEDIA)
    Gil McGowan (front, President, Alberta Federation of Labour), Jeffrey Strom, Beth Strom and Karen Kuprys (right, Secretary Treasurer, Alberta Federation of Labour) invited concerned citizens to Alberta UCP MLA Kaycee Madu’s office in Edmonton on Saturday, October 9, 2021, to leave messages voicing their disapproval to the Alberta government’s handling of the COVID-19 pandemic. Participants also shared their messages on social media with the hashtag #NoThanksGivenUCP. (PHOTO BY LARRY WONG/POSTMEDIA) Photo by Larry Wong /Postmedia

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    Albertan have been leaving messages at UCP MLA offices to say no thank you to the government that has needlessly endangered peoples lives.

    In a Thursday news release, the Alberta Federation of Labour asked Albertans to leave messages at UCP MLAs offices saying no thank you for the government’s handling of COVID-19 outbreaks on Saturday. They could also leave comments on social media using #NoThanksGivenUCP

    The group says that Albertans are angry that hospitals are over capacity, health-care workers are being pushed to their breaking point, surgeries are being cancelled and many schools are facing outbreaks in the news release.

    “The UCP refuse to take needed actions to keep Albertans safe,” says the release.

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    Saturday

    ‘I see you ICU:’ Albertans express gratitude for health-care workers at Thanksgiving

    The Canadian Press

    Teams in a crowded Calgary intensive care unit tend to a COVID-19 patient on a ventilator.
    Teams in a crowded Calgary intensive care unit tend to a COVID-19 patient on a ventilator. Photo by Supplied by Alberta Health Services

    Hundreds of Albertans are sending coffee, gift cards and Thanksgiving meals to those working in intensive care units overwhelmed with COVID-19 patients.

    J’Val Shuster says she and her staff at Devour Catering will be delivering turkey dinners to 200 nurses, doctors and health-care staff at four Calgary hospitals on Sunday and more meals are to be delivered in the days to come. People have been paying $15 a meal through the company’s “I See You ICU” drive.

    “We’ve had over 1,700 people purchase a total of 6,000meals for doctors, nurses and staff,” Shuster said.

    “Nurses (have said) even if they don’t get the meals, they’re very uplifted just by the fact that people are showing their support and wanting to do something.”

    Shuster said she began the idea last month as she struggled to keep her business afloat. Support has been so overwhelming, she said, she has had to temporarily stop taking meal orders.

    “We’re going to co-ordinate with all the departments at what frequency they want the remaining ordered meals. We can’t prepare 6,000 meals at once.”

    Betty Wade of Calgary purchased 50 dinners for health-care staff.

    “I’m absolutely thankful for them, particularly now in this fourth wave,” said the retiree.

    “They’ll have something at the doorstep when they leave their shift that makes them realize that they are appreciated more than they know by so many people. We are very, very thankful for every one of them doing their job saving lives as best they can in this situation.”

    She recalled that at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic many cheered and clapped for workers on the streets.

    “But there’s a difference now … it’s the intensity in the ICU and in the hospitals,” she said.

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