Tag: COVID-19

Number of COVID long-haulers who were never hospitalized surprises researchers

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Declining infections signal a new phase, but not the end of pandemic’s impact. 

Larry Farber couldn’t walk a mile last month without stopping three times to catch his breath, the aftereffect of a COVID-19 illness so severe that the 64-year-old was hospitalized twice and received powerful steroids and oxygen support to breathe.

Amy Crnecki wasn’t hospitalized for COVID-19, but the 38-year-old still can’t dance with her daughter without fear of crushing fatigue.

“I just want to be able to play outside with my kids,” she said, “and play a game of basketball and not feel winded and feel like, ‘I shouldn’t have done that.’ ”

The two Minnesotans, diagnosed with COVID-19 during the same week in November, are part of a poorly understood group of people whose health has suffered long after infection and who could continue to struggle after the pandemic recedes. The number of COVID “long haulers” remains a mystery in a pandemic that otherwise has been one of the most measured, modeled and mapped events in human history. Continue reading.

Gov. Walz and Lt. Gov. Flanagan Update: May 14, 2021

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Following New CDC Guidance, Governor Walz Announces End to Statewide Face Covering Requirement

Sleeves Up, Masks Off!

On Thursday, Governor Walz announced the end of Minnesota’s statewide mask requirement, aligning Minnesota with new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidance on face coverings. Minnesotans who are not fully vaccinated are strongly recommended to wear face coverings indoors.

“This great day is possible because vaccines have proven to be effective,” said Governor Walz. “Once you are fully vaccinated you are protected. You can confidently return to the people you love and things that you miss – all without a mask. The message is clear — get vaccinated and let’s put the pandemic behind us once and for all.”

Continue reading “Gov. Walz and Lt. Gov. Flanagan Update: May 14, 2021”

Long-haul COVID-19 patients surprise Mayo researchers

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Fatigue and continued breathing problems were most common symptoms along with neurological and cognitive issues. 

Lingering breathing problems and complications in the weeks and months after suffering COVID-19 illnesses were most common in women and in patients who didn’t need hospitalizations or suffer severe initial infections, a new Mayo Clinic study found.

The roundup report offered several surprises about the first 100 patients to receive care through Mayo’s rehabilitation program for so-called “long haul” post-COVID symptoms. Only 25% of the patients had been hospitalized for COVID-19, according to the study by Dr. Greg Vanichkachorn and colleagues that was published in Mayo Clinic Proceedings.

“We are not seeing that hospitalization is a huge risk factor for this prolonged COVID state,” said Vanichkachorn, medical director of Mayo’s COVID-19 Activity Rehabilitation Program (CARP). Continue reading.

How America’s partisan divide over pandemic responses played out in the states

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Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, a partisan divide has existed over the appropriate government response to the public health crisis. Democrats have been more likely to favor stricter policies such as prolonged economic shutdowns, limits on gathering in groups and mask mandates. Republicans overall have favored less stringent policies.

As political scientists and public health scholars, we’ve been studying political responses to the pandemic and their impacts. In research published in the summer of 2020, we found that “sub-governments,” which in the U.S. means state governments, tended to have a bigger impact on the direction of pandemic policies than the federal government. Now, as data on last year’s case and death rates emerge, we’re looking at whether the political party in the governor’s office became a good predictor of public health outcomes as COVID-19 moved across the country.

Looking at states’ COVID-19 case and death rates, researchers are finding the more stringent policies typical of Democratic governors led to lower rates of infections and deaths, compared to the the pandemic responses of the average Republican governor. In preparation for future pandemics, it may be worth considering how to address the impact that a state government’s partisan leanings can have on the scope and severity of a public health crises. Continue reading.

Biden lauds Minnesota for ‘meeting the moment’ on vaccinations

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He praised the state’s 64% rate of adult vaccinations. 

Hours after talking with President Joe Biden and select governors about ways to show the benefits of COVID-19 vaccination, Gov. Tim Walz stood on the sunbathed terrace at CHS Field in St. Paul and marveled at a prime example.

“Why would you not be out here on a night like this watching baseball?” said Walz, in a Minnesota Twins jersey mismatched with a St. Paul Saints cap. “We need to continue to try to incentivize them.”

Biden earlier Tuesday invited Walz and five other governors from states with high rates of COVID-19 vaccination to discuss their successes and strategies to overcome recent slowdowns in public interest. Continue reading.

CDC says fully vaccinated people don’t have to wear masks indoors

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The CDC announced in new guidance Thursday that anyone who is fully vaccinated can participate in indoor and outdoor activities without wearing a mask or physically distancing, regardless of crowd size.

What they’re saying: “If you are fully vaccinated, you are protected, and you can start doing the things that you stopped doing because of the pandemic,” CDC Director Rochelle Walensky will say at a White House press briefing.

Caveats: The guidance does not apply to those traveling on planes or public transit, health care settings, correctional facilities or homeless shelters. Continue reading.

‘Completely incorrect’: Rand Paul gets obliterated after accusing Fauci of helping to ‘juice up’ viruses

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Sen Rand Paul (R-KY) once again attacked Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institutes of Health’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, with another grandstanding performance during a Senate hearing on the COVID-19 health crisis.

Taking up conspiracy theories spread by former White House trade adviser Peter Navarro, the Kentucky Republican spoke over Fauci after accusing him of helping to fund Chinese research into viruses that led to COVID-19.

Paul claimed that Dr. Ralph Baric, a virologist in the U.S., has been collaborating with scientists at a Wuhan virus laboratory, and that the research was funded by the U.S. National Institutes of Health. Continue reading.

Unreleased State Department review blames Trump for ‘delayed’ pandemic response: report

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An unreleased State Department report on the Trump administration’s handling of the coronavirus pandemic reportedly blames the former president for “delayed” warnings to Americans and a “void of U.S. international leadership.” 

According to excerpts of the State Department’s draft COVID-19 Interim Review obtained by Politico, diplomats and other career agency officials expressed frustrations with former President Trump’s response to the virus. 

The draft document reportedly argues that Trump’s withdrawal from international forums weakened U.S. global leadership in responding to the health crisis. Continue reading.

Fox Promotes Disgraced Trump CDC Appointee Who Minimized Covid Crisis

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In the last few months, Fox News’ Laura Ingraham has repeatedly hosted Paul Alexander, former science adviser at the Department of Health and Human Services under President Donald Trump and key aide to Trump loyalist and former HHS Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Michael Caputo. While working for Caputo at HHS, Alexander sought to politicize public health guidance from inside the government bureaucracy, seeking to alter reports from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention which reflected poorly on the Trump administration.

Politico reported in September 2020 that Alexander “was effective at delaying the famed Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Reports and watering down guidance” from the CDC. (The reports are a key CDC communications product that provides updates on the state of the pandemic, among other things.) In one email reported by Politico, Alexander wrote, “Infants, kids, teens, young people, young adults, middle aged with no conditions etc. have zero to little risk….so we use them to develop herd…we want them infected.” This strategy is deadly flawed, to say the least.

The erroneous political hackery of Alexander makes him the ideal guest for Ingraham, Fox’s worst COVID-19 misinformer. In fact, Alexander has pushed misinformation during every one of his seven appearances on The Ingraham Angle: Continue reading.

Opinion: A lousy myth about moms, kids and work makes a comeback. Republicans are running with it.

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The April unemployment numbers showed that women got hit very hard. Almost all of the job gains went to men. The female workforce remains where it was in the late 1980s.

The increased burdens of family in the covid-19 pandemic play a major role in this. Many schools, after-school programs and child-care centers remain closed, or not open for full-time, in-person learning. Someone needs to take care of the kids at home. And, yes, mothers are taking on the bulk of the responsibilities, as they almost always do.

As if on cue, a lousy old myth about women, motherhood and work is making a return, too: that many of these women are better off for cutting their (paid) work hours and downscaling their professional aspirations in favor of tending to family responsibilities. Continue reading.