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Minority Workers Who Lagged in a Boom Are Hit Hard in a Bust

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Minority Workers Who Lagged in a Boom Are Hit Hard in a Bust

“I am scared to death of coming back to work,” she said. “I don’t think I should have to make the choice between having a livelihood and having a life.”

[How do you feel about going back to work? Share your story.]

Ms. James knows that a spate of joblessness, especially during an economic downturn, can have a lifelong impact. She spent 13 years working for a government contractor, rising up the ranks, before losing her job in 2010. Ms. James was unemployed for six months before she took a job at a grocery store to get by. She eventually got back into her field, but has not found the kind of steady work she enjoyed before the last recession.

The pattern is familiar — blacks tend to be out of a job longer than whites.

“What we saw with the Great Recession was that it took much longer for black and Latino workers and black and Latino households to recover from that recession,” said Valerie Wilson, an economist at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute who was a co-author of a recent report on the impact of the virus on black workers. “And in fact some would argue that we didn’t see a recovery for those communities until the last three years.”

  • Updated June 5, 2020

    • How many people have lost their jobs due to coronavirus in the U.S.?

      The unemployment rate fell to 13.3 percent in May, the Labor Department said on June 5, an unexpected improvement in the nation’s job market as hiring rebounded faster than economists expected. Economists had forecast the unemployment rate to increase to as much as 20 percent, after it hit 14.7 percent in April, which was the highest since the government began keeping official statistics after World War II. But the unemployment rate dipped instead, with employers adding 2.5 million jobs, after more than 20 million jobs were lost in April.

    • Will protests set off a second viral wave of coronavirus?

      Mass protests against police brutality that have brought thousands of people onto the streets in cities across America are raising the specter of new coronavirus outbreaks, prompting political leaders, physicians and public health experts to warn that the crowds could cause a surge in cases. While many political leaders affirmed the right of protesters to express themselves, they urged the demonstrators to wear face masks and maintain social distancing, both to protect themselves and to prevent further community spread of the virus. Some infectious disease experts were reassured by the fact that the protests were held outdoors, saying the open air settings could mitigate the risk of transmission.

    • How do we start exercising again without hurting ourselves after months of lockdown?

      Exercise researchers and physicians have some blunt advice for those of us aiming to return to regular exercise now: Start slowly and then rev up your workouts, also slowly. American adults tended to be about 12 percent less active after the stay-at-home mandates began in March than they were in January. But there are steps you can take to ease your way back into regular exercise safely. First, “start at no more than 50 percent of the exercise you were doing before Covid,” says Dr. Monica Rho, the chief of musculoskeletal medicine at the Shirley Ryan AbilityLab in Chicago. Thread in some preparatory squats, too, she advises. “When you haven’t been exercising, you lose muscle mass.” Expect some muscle twinges after these preliminary, post-lockdown sessions, especially a day or two later. But sudden or increasing pain during exercise is a clarion call to stop and return home.

    • My state is reopening. Is it safe to go out?

      States are reopening bit by bit. This means that more public spaces are available for use and more and more businesses are being allowed to open again. The federal government is largely leaving the decision up to states, and some state leaders are leaving the decision up to local authorities. Even if you aren’t being told to stay at home, it’s still a good idea to limit trips outside and your interaction with other people.

    • What’s the risk of catching coronavirus from a surface?

      Touching contaminated objects and then infecting ourselves with the germs is not typically how the virus spreads. But it can happen. A number of studies of flu, rhinovirus, coronavirus and other microbes have shown that respiratory illnesses, including the new coronavirus, can spread by touching contaminated surfaces, particularly in places like day care centers, offices and hospitals. But a long chain of events has to happen for the disease to spread that way. The best way to protect yourself from coronavirus — whether it’s surface transmission or close human contact — is still social distancing, washing your hands, not touching your face and wearing masks.

    • What are the symptoms of coronavirus?

      Common symptoms include fever, a dry cough, fatigue and difficulty breathing or shortness of breath. Some of these symptoms overlap with those of the flu, making detection difficult, but runny noses and stuffy sinuses are less common. The C.D.C. has also added chills, muscle pain, sore throat, headache and a new loss of the sense of taste or smell as symptoms to look out for. Most people fall ill five to seven days after exposure, but symptoms may appear in as few as two days or as many as 14 days.

    • How can I protect myself while flying?

      If air travel is unavoidable, there are some steps you can take to protect yourself. Most important: Wash your hands often, and stop touching your face. If possible, choose a window seat. A study from Emory University found that during flu season, the safest place to sit on a plane is by a window, as people sitting in window seats had less contact with potentially sick people. Disinfect hard surfaces. When you get to your seat and your hands are clean, use disinfecting wipes to clean the hard surfaces at your seat like the head and arm rest, the seatbelt buckle, the remote, screen, seat back pocket and the tray table. If the seat is hard and nonporous or leather or pleather, you can wipe that down, too. (Using wipes on upholstered seats could lead to a wet seat and spreading of germs rather than killing them.)

    • Should I wear a mask?

      The C.D.C. has recommended that all Americans wear cloth masks if they go out in public. This is a shift in federal guidance reflecting new concerns that the coronavirus is being spread by infected people who have no symptoms. Until now, the C.D.C., like the W.H.O., has advised that ordinary people don’t need to wear masks unless they are sick and coughing. Part of the reason was to preserve medical-grade masks for health care workers who desperately need them at a time when they are in continuously short supply. Masks don’t replace hand washing and social distancing.

    • What should I do if I feel sick?

      If you’ve been exposed to the coronavirus or think you have, and have a fever or symptoms like a cough or difficulty breathing, call a doctor. They should give you advice on whether you should be tested, how to get tested, and how to seek medical treatment without potentially infecting or exposing others.

Owning a business or being self-employed has not insulated African-Americans from the pandemic’s economic fallout, because they are often concentrated in personal service activities, running barbershops and beauty shops that have had to close so as not to become sources of infection.

The next wave of the crisis could hit one of the underpinnings of the black middle class: state and local government jobs. Even as other sectors recorded some gains last month, an additional 571,000 state and local government employees, many of them teachers, lost their jobs.

In April, there were nearly a million job losses, and economists say many more are expected as the collapse in tax revenue ripples through statehouses and city halls.

African-Americans — particularly women — are disproportionately employed in those positions, said Christian E. Weller, an economist at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, who wrote a report on the systemic obstacles facing black job seekers for the Center for American Progress.

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Coronavirus Shutdowns: Economists Look for Better Answers

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Coronavirus Shutdowns: Economists Look for Better Answers

In Europe, France and Spain have adopted versions of a plan put forth by Bary S.R. Pradelski, an economist at Oxford University, and Miquel Oliu-Barton, a mathematician at the Université Paris-Dauphine, to divide countries into dangerous red and safer green zones, and allow travel within and between the green while strictly curtailing it in the red.

The researchers are pushing for the European Union to reopen the tourism business that is so critical for southern European countries by allowing travel between green areas that have low infection rates, hospital capacity to spare, and effective testing and tracing systems. Governments could focus their resources on the red areas of most economic importance, increasing testing and adding hospital capacity to turn them green.

“The impact of not having any tourism in the summer would bring Greece, Italy and Spain to an economic situation like they experienced in the Great Recession,” Mr. Pradelski said. Spain, for instance, has agreed to open the island of Majorca to tourists from some countries, including Germany and France, while keeping it closed to travel to and from the Spanish mainland.

In the United States, a group of researchers including Ms. Baicker is following a different track: using cellphone data and surveys to identify which businesses are more crowded, as well as how much of their business is conducted indoors, and how much interaction it involves, either person to person or via touching shared surfaces.

Customers tend to linger longer in a Chuck E. Cheese than in a Chick-fil-A, increasing their risk of contagion if somebody nearby is infected. Chick-fil-A, however, receives a lot more customers per square foot, bringing more people in contact with one another. Nail salons involve more personal interaction than lawn and garden stores. Some restaurants are packed at certain times, while others receive a steady trickle throughout the day.

The researchers’ idea is that businesses could retrofit in ways suited to each — say, spacing out tables or limiting foot traffic — while safeguarding health. Moreover, with access to real-time information, consumers could avoid riskier businesses and shop when their preferred stores might be less crowded.

The New York City study also relied on cellphone data. That research, by Mr. Birge and Ozan Candogan of the University of Chicago and Yiding Feng of Northwestern University, is based on the premise that residents of one neighborhood can become infected, or infect others, while at work in another — depending on how long they spend there and the infection rate in both. The risk of spreading the virus by opening a given neighborhood to business also rises with the size of its susceptible population.

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Daily Aspirin Not A Good Choice for Healthy People

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Daily Aspirin Not A Good Choice for Healthy People

FRIDAY, June 5, 2020 (HealthDay News) — Taking a daily aspirin to prevent heart disease has more risks than benefits in healthy people, a new study finds.

The researchers reviewed published evidence on the benefits of taking low-dose aspirin, CNN reported. The study was published Wednesday in the British Journal of Clinical Pharmacology.

Researchers concluded that the risk of bleeding caused by aspirin’s blood-thinning effect far outweighed any benefit the drug might have.

Both the American College of Cardiology and the American Heart Association say that only people who have had a heart attack, stroke or open-heart surgery should be taking a daily aspirin.

Researchers found that while a daily aspirin lowered the risk of heart attack or stroke by 17%, the risk for gastrointestinal bleeding was increased by 47% and by 34% for brain bleeding.

“Our paper confirms that there is no evidence for taking aspirin in primary prevention, i.e. in healthy people,” researcher Dr. Lee Smith, a reader in Physical Activity and Public Health at Anglia Ruskin University in the U.K., told CNN.

“The take-home message of our paper is that low dose aspirin is [only] good when you already have a cardiovascular condition,” Smith added.


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Could Heartburn Med Pepcid Ease COVID-19 Symptoms? – MedicineNet Health News

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Could Heartburn Med Pepcid Ease COVID-19 Symptoms? – MedicineNet Health News

By Dennis Thompson
HealthDay Reporter

FRIDAY, June 5, 2020 — An over-the-counter heartburn remedy is showing some potential as a symptom reliever for COVID-19, a small study finds.

Famotidine, sold under the brand name Pepcid, appeared to improve symptoms in a group of 10 patients diagnosed with COVID-19, researchers reported online June 4 in the journal Gut.

The patients’ self-reported symptoms began to feel better within a day or two of taking famotidine, the study authors said.

“A clinical trial is now needed to formally test if famotidine works against COVID-19,” said lead researcher Dr. Tobias Janowitz, a medical oncologist and cancer researcher with Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York.

But don’t rush out to stock up on Pepcid just yet, warned Dr. Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar with the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security in Baltimore.

“This is a very small study that was observational in nature,” Adalja said. “It is very hard to draw any conclusions from it.”

A clinical trial in which Pepcid’s effectiveness is compared against a placebo is essential to prove that the medication works, since it is being used in mild to moderate cases of COVID-19, Adalja said.

“These are mild cases and mild cases do get better over time, so these cases have to be compared to placebo in order to see if this was actually just the natural course of infection or the famotidine,” Adalja explained.

Famotidine is an H2 blocker, a type of heartburn medication that works by decreasing the amount of acid the stomach produces.

Early in the outbreak, doctors found that many older people in Wuhan, China, who survived COVID-19 had been taking heartburn medications, researchers said.

Reviewing patient records, the investigators found that survivors suffering from chronic heartburn had been taking Pepcid rather than the more expensive omeprazole (Prilosec), Northwell Health Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research president Dr. Kevin Tracey told the Science journal in April.

Hospitalized COVID-19 patients who’d been taking Pepcid were dying at about half the rate of those not taking the drug, 14% versus 27%, Tracey said.

Janowitz said, “Patients who were taking this medication coincidentally were having less severe COVID-19.”

For the new study, Janowitz and his team used a symptom tracking method used for patients with cancer, in which sick people chart how they’re feeling day by day.

The group in the study included six men and four women ranging in age from 23 to 71. They came from a diverse range of ethnic backgrounds, and most had chronic health conditions that increase a person’s risk of severe COVID-19.

The researchers developed a 4-point scale for five common COVID-19 symptoms, and the patients scored those symptoms every day.

Nearly all patients reported improvement in these symptoms after taking famotidine — cough, fatigue, headaches, loss of smell or taste, and shortness of breath, the researchers said.

Five patients also reported that their body aches improved after they began taking famotidine, and three felt less chest tightness, the study findings showed.

“This method of quantifying symptoms and tracking them over time, which we use in cancer medicine, may be of help to understand the natural course of COVID-19,” Janowitz said.

A clinical trial of famotidine’s effectiveness with COVID-19 is underway at Northwell Health in New York City, Tracey noted.

Janowitz said that he could not say why famotidine appears to help patients with COVID-19 symptoms, nor could he say whether other heartburn drugs in its class might also work.

Theoretically, the drug is structured in a way that it might hamper coronavirus from replicating, Tracey told Health.com. Famotidine might bind to an enzyme needed by the virus to replicate itself.




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Clinical trials and more lab work will be needed to shed more light on the way the drug might work, Adalja concluded.

“It is also important to look at viral loads or other biomarkers to determine if there is objective evidence that an antiviral or immune-modulatory effect is being exerted by the drug,” Adalja said. “At best, this is hypothesis-generating, and further use of the drug for this purpose should await a randomized, controlled trial to understand whether there is an actual benefit.”

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Copyright © 2020 HealthDay. All rights reserved.

References


SOURCES: Tobias Janowitz, MD, PhD, medical oncologist and cancer researcher, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory, Cold Spring Harbor, N.Y.; Amesh Adalja, MD, senior scholar, Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, Baltimore; Gut, June 4, 2020, online

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Pandemic-Battered U.S. Economy Makes Rebound, As Jobless Numbers Fall

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Pandemic-Battered U.S. Economy Makes Rebound, As Jobless Numbers Fall

By Robin Foster and E.J. Mundell
HealthDay Reporters

FRIDAY, June 5, 2020 (HealthDay News) — Federal data released Friday offered signs of hope on the economic front, as jobless numbers actually fell — from 14.7 percent in April to 13.3 percent in May.

The economy, hit hard by stay-at-home orders and shuttered businesses tied to the coronavirus crisis, ended up adding 2.5 million job in May, as some Americans warily crept back to work, The New York Times reported.

It was very welcome news: According to the Times the unemployment rate in April was the highest seen since the federal government began keeping record afters World War II.

Many economists expect that unemployment numbers will slow further as states reopen and more employees return to work.

However, none of the good economic news has curbed the onslaught of SARS-CoV-2, the virus behind COVID-19.

By Friday, the U.S. coronavirus case count had topped 1.8 million and the death toll passed 108,000. And a new review shows that crowded protests against police brutality have occurred in every one of the 25 U.S. communities with the highest concentrations of new COVID-19 cases.

The Associated Press analysis also found that some cities — Minneapolis, Chicago, Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles among them — have witnessed protests on multiple days. In some communities, such as Minneapolis where the protests started, the number of people hospitalized with COVID-19 has also been rising, the news agency added.

The close proximity of protesters and their failure in many cases to wear masks, along with police using tear gas, could fuel new transmissions.

Tear gas can cause people to cough and sneeze, as can the smoke from fires set in some instances, the AP said. Both factors can also prompt protesters to remove their masks.

Putting arrested protesters into jail cells can also increase the risk of spread, and an AP tally shows that more than 5,600 people have already been taken into custody.

Many free coronavirus testing sites closed following damage during protests

Protests have also forced 70 free coronavirus testing sites to close because of looting or damage, the Washington Post reported Thursday.

According to figures from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, at least nine health centers in five states have been damaged, including in Sacramento, Denver and Philadelphia and parts of Minnesota. And at least six health centers in five states have been closed because of their proximity to protests.

The 70 testing sites — there are 424 in the program — that closed are in 17 states, plus the District, the Post reported.

“Our urban areas are being disparately hit by the virus, and then they are getting disparately hit by the violence,” said Michael Caputo, HHS’s assistant secretary for public affairs. “And the result is a community that is truly in need for testing capacity losing that capacity.”

Despite the collateral damage of the protests, a new poll shows that a majority of Americans still think it’s more important to control the virus’ spread than to restart the economy.

While nearly 6 in 10 Americans say the pandemic has taken a heavy economic toll on their communities, a majority still believes that containing COVID-19 infections is paramount, the Post-ABC News poll showed.

And nearly 7 in 10 Americans say they are worried about the possibility of a second wave of coronavirus infections in the fall, the poll showed.

Concerns about hydroxychloroquine continue

Meanwhile, safety concerns over a malaria drug that President Donald Trump has touted as a coronavirus treatment persist.

A new study published Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine journal showed that hydroxychloroquine does not live up to its hype.

Unlike some prior studies, this new trial was a “gold standard” prospective, randomized clinical trial. It found that hydroxychloroquine could not prevent COVID-19 any better than a sugar pill.

Worse, 40% of those taking hydroxychloroquine developed side effects including nausea, upset stomach or diarrhea. Fortunately, no serious side effects or heart problems occurred in the study, the researchers noted. An uptick in risk for potentially dangerous heart rhythm abnormalities had been noted in prior studies in which COVID-19 patients received hydroxychloroquine as a treatment.

Regardless, Trump said he took a two-week course of the malaria drug to guard against COVID-19 infection after two White House staffers tested positive for the coronavirus.

And the White House announced this week it has sent 2 million doses of hydroxychloroquine to Brazil to battle the spread of coronavirus in that country. Not only that, the two countries are embarking on a joint research effort to study whether the drug is safe and effective for the prevention and early treatment of COVID-19, the Trump administration said.




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Disappointing drug trials

Hopes for another drug being tested against coronavirus infection have dimmed, after a major new study found the drug on its own won’t be enough to significantly curb cases and deaths.

The study, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, found that, “given high mortality [of patients] despite the use of remdesivir, it is clear that treatment with an antiviral drug alone is not likely to be sufficient.”

The study does suggest that remdesivir works better when given earlier rather than later in the disease course. “Our findings highlight the need to identify COVID-19 cases and start antiviral treatment before the pulmonary disease progresses to require mechanical ventilation,” the researchers said.

Early evidence had suggested that remdesivir might help fight coronavirus illness, so the U.S. Food and Drug Administration gave it “emergency use authorization.”

Already, combinations of remdesivir and other drugs are being tried, to see if dual-drug treatments might boost outcomes even more. For example, one federally funded clinical trial is combining remdesivir with a potent anti-inflammatory drug called baricitinib, while a trial from biotech firm CytoDyn is pairing it with an antiviral called leronlimab.

Vaccine efforts continue

Meanwhile, the search for an effective vaccine goes on. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) said in late May that it would provide up to $1.2 billion to the drug company AstraZeneca to develop a potential coronavirus vaccine from Oxford University, in England.

The fourth, and largest, vaccine research agreement funds a clinical trial of the potential vaccine in the United States this summer with about 30,000 volunteers, the Times reported.

The goal? To make at least 300 million doses that could be available as early as October, the HHS said in a statement.

The United States has already agreed to provide up to $483 million to the biotech company Moderna and $500 million to Johnson & Johnson for their vaccine efforts. It is also providing $30 million to a virus vaccine effort led by the French company Sanofi, the Times reported.

On Wednesday, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation’s top infectious diseases expert, sounded a note of optimism about a future vaccine for coronavirus.

He told the American Medical Association that 100 million doses of a coronavirus vaccine will be available by year’s end, CNN reported.

“Then, by the beginning of 2021, we hope to have a couple hundred million doses,” Fauci added.

It’s still not clear which vaccine will be effective, but “I’m cautiously optimistic that with the multiple candidates we have with different platforms, that we are going to have a vaccine that will make it deployable,” Fauci said.

According to a Times tally, the top five states in coronavirus cases as of Friday are: New York with nearly 380,000; New Jersey with over 162,500; Illinois with over 125,000; California with more than 122,000, and Massachusetts with over 102,000.

Nations grapple with pandemic

In Asia, where the coronavirus first struck, several countries are finally returning to a new normal.

In the Chinese city of Wuhan, where the coronavirus first emerged, officials said Wednesday that they had finished a massive effort to test almost all of its 11 million residents, the Times reported.

Nearly 9.9 million people were tested during the drive, which began in mid-May and has not been matched in scale or speed elsewhere. The result? Only about 300 asymptomatic infections were detected.

Meanwhile, South Korea has seen a spike in new cases, the AP reported.

The Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said 67 of the 79 new cases reported were from the Seoul metropolitan area, where about half of South Korea’s 51 million people live. The government has shut public facilities such as parks, museums and state-run theaters in the metropolitan area for the next two weeks, to stem any further spread of the virus.

Elsewhere, the situation remains challenging. On Friday, the United Kingdom’s coronavirus death count neared 40,000, the second highest in the world, according to a Johns Hopkins University tally. Britain has now surpassed Italy, Spain and France for COVID-19 deaths in Europe. With Prime Minister Boris Johnson easing lockdown measures, schools across England reopened this week amid fierce debate over whether the move is premature, the Post reported.

Brazil has become a hotspot in the coronavirus pandemic. By Friday, the South American country had reported over 34,000 deaths and nearly 620,000 confirmed infections, according to the Hopkins tally. Only the United States has more cases. Trump has issued a ban on all foreign travelers from Brazil because of the burgeoning number of COVID-19 cases in that country, CNN reported.

Cases are also spiking wildly in Russia: As of Friday, that country reported the world’s third-highest number of COVID-19 cases, at over 449,000, the Hopkins tally showed.

Worldwide, the number of reported infections passed 6.6 million on Friday, with more than 391,500 deaths, according to the Hopkins tally.

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‘Psychological Distress’ Has Tripled in U.S. During Pandemic, Survey Shows

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‘Psychological Distress’ Has Tripled in U.S. During Pandemic, Survey Shows

FRIDAY, June 5, 2020 (HealthDay News) — COVID-19 is taking a heavy toll on Americans’ mental health, a new nationwide survey shows.

Overall, psychological distress more than tripled between 2018 and this spring — from 4% of U.S. adults in 2018 to 14% in April.

Beth McGinty, an associate professor at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, said the findings, from a survey of 1,500 adults, suggest the need to prepare for a wave of mental illness once the pandemic passes.

“It is especially important to identify mental illness treatment needs and connect people to services, with a focus on groups with high psychological distress including young adults, adults in low-income households, and Hispanics,” McGinty said in a university news release.

The survey used a scale to gauge feelings of emotional suffering as well as symptoms of anxiety and depression.

It found that distress was especially acute among younger adults. Among 18- to 29-year-olds, 24% reported feelings of distress this spring, compared to 4% in 2018, researchers found.

Lower-income households also were keenly feeling the impact of the pandemic. Distress rose from less than 8% in 2018 to 19% in homes with a yearly income of less than $35,000, the survey found.

And 18% of Hispanics reported psychological distress in 2020, up from 4% in 2018.

Among Americans age 55 and older, psychological distress nearly doubled between 2018 and April — rising from nearly 4% to over 7%.

“The study suggests that the distress experienced during COVID-19 may transfer to longer-term psychiatric disorders requiring clinical care,” McGinty said.

The findings were published online June 3 in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

— Steven Reinberg

MedicalNews
Copyright © 2020 HealthDay. All rights reserved.





QUESTION


What is the Wuhan coronavirus?
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References


SOURCE: Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, news release, June 4, 2020

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High Blood Pressure Might Raise COVID-19 Death Risk

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High Blood Pressure Might Raise COVID-19 Death Risk

FRIDAY, June 5, 2020 (HealthDay News) — Among patients in China with COVID-19, researchers found that those with high blood pressure had twice the risk of death from the coronavirus compared with patients who didn’t have high blood pressure.

And patients with high blood pressure who were not taking drugs to control it were at even higher risk, the findings showed. However, the study only found an association and could not prove cause-and-effect.

For the study, researchers in China and Ireland analyzed data on nearly 2,900 COVID-19 patients who entered one hospital in Wuhan, China, between Feb. 5 and March 15. Nearly 30% of these patients had a history of high blood pressure.

The analysis revealed that 4% of patients with high blood pressure died versus 1% of other patients, according to the report published June 5 in the European Heart Journal.

Among those not taking medication for their high blood pressure, 8% died. That compared with 3% of patients who were taking blood pressure medication.

The researchers, led by Fei Li and Ling Tao from Xijing Hospital in Xi’an, then pooled that data with data from three other studies involving 2,300 high blood pressure patients.

The investigators found that patients taking angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE) inhibitors or angiotensin receptor blockers (ARBs) were less likely to die than patients on other blood pressure drugs. But the researchers stressed that due to the size of the study, this finding could due to chance.

“It is important that patients with high blood pressure realize that they are at increased risk of dying from COVID-19,” Li said in a journal news release. “They should take good care of themselves during this pandemic and they need more attention if they are infected with the coronavirus.”

— Steven Reinberg

MedicalNews
Copyright © 2020 HealthDay. All rights reserved.





QUESTION


What is the Wuhan coronavirus?
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References


SOURCE: European Heart Journal, news release, June 5, 2020

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NIH Head Fears Some Will Bypass a COVID-19 Vaccine

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NIH Head Fears Some Will Bypass a COVID-19 Vaccine

FRIDAY, June 5, 2020 (HealthDay News) — Dr. Francis Collins, who heads the U.S. National Institutes of Health, is worried that anti-vaxxers will disrupt efforts to convince Americans to get vaccinated against the coronavirus, CNN reported Thursday.

“I’m a bit concerned to see there’s a fair amount of skepticism in the American public about whether or not they would take such a vaccine,” he told CNN. “We won’t get past COVID-19 unless we have a substantial majority of our public ultimately rendered immune.”

Some experts think the vaccine campaign, which President Donald Trump has dubbed “Operation Warp Speed,” makes it sound like speed outweighs safety, CNN reported.

“I want to assure everybody who’s heard the [words] ‘warp speed’ and worried that that means we’re cutting corners on safety, that we absolutely will not do this,” Collins said. “No vaccine is going to be put forward unless it’s been checked out very thoroughly, both in terms of is it safe and does it protect you.”

A vaccine is expected early in 2021. Collins said he hopes “the American public will embrace this as an opportunity to protect themselves, and the rest of their community, in order to get us all back to some sort of normal state.”


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What is the Wuhan coronavirus?
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Pets: Big Pandemic Stress Reducers

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Pets: Big Pandemic Stress Reducers

FRIDAY, June 5, 2020 (HealthDay News) — June is time for people to bond with their pets, the American Heart Association says.

Throughout the month, the AHA encourages people to make pets part of their workday as routines shift during the coronavirus pandemic.

Although your contact with other people may be limited, your pet can provide some of that missing emotional and mental support that can keep you healthy.

Here, the association offers five reasons pets can help mental health:

  • Pets help lower work-related stress. For 2 out of 3 employees, work stresses them out, and for 40% their job affects their health. Pets at work may help reduce stress, increase productivity and boost employee satisfaction.
  • Pets can help increase productivity. A dog in a meeting increases trust, team cohesion and camaraderie.
  • Pets help manage anxiety. They provide companionship and unconditional love.
  • Pets keep pet people active. Dog owners are likely to be more fit than those who don’t have a dog. Social distancing keeps people at home all day, but pets and their need for regular walks and exercise get owners outside for fresh air and activity.
  • Pets give a sense of togetherness. Bonding with a pet helps you not to feel alone. Seeing, touching, hearing or talking to animals can bring a sense of goodwill, joy, nurturing and happiness.

“Cardiovascular disease remains the No. 1 killer of all Americans. To turn the tide, we must tackle the problem in innovative ways,” said Dr. Glenn Levine, a volunteer medical expert for the American Heart Association’s Healthy Bond for Life.

Last year, the AHA began a campaign to bring your pet to work once a week, called “Best Friend Fridays.”

“The Best Friend Fridays concept is simple — human and pet interaction can lead to better physical and mental health,” Levine said in an AHA news release. “Studies have shown that pet ownership is associated with increased exercise and fitness levels, lower blood pressure and cholesterol levels, decreased stress and greater overall happiness and well-being.”

“If you’re feeling down or struggling with your mental health, your pet companion can help,” Levine said. “Spend some time with them playing or just petting them. You may find that you feel better, and your pet will love the bonding time, too.”

— Steven Reinberg

MedicalNews
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QUESTION


What is the Wuhan coronavirus?
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References


SOURCE: American Heart Association, news release, May 2020

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Wristband ‘Zapper’ Might Help Calm Tourette Syndrome

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Wristband ‘Zapper’ Might Help Calm Tourette Syndrome

By Steven Reinberg
HealthDay Reporter

THURSDAY, June 4, 2020 (HealthDay News) — A wristband that zaps a key nerve may help quell the uncontrollable tics of Tourette syndrome, according to British researchers.

“We think we’ve come up with a safe and effective piece of technology that we believe is relatively cheap that will give control over tics to people with Tourette syndrome,” said lead researcher Stephen Jackson, a professor of cognitive neuroscience at the University of Nottingham.

Tics are involuntary movements and sounds such as throat-clearing, blinking and even blurting out swear words associated with the disorder. Researchers say a technique called brain oscillation helps suppress the rhythmic electrical brain activity associated with tics.

“By delivering electrical pulses to the peripheral nervous system, we reduced both the frequency of tics and their intensity, as well as the self-perceived urge to tic so many people report having before they tic,” Jackson said.

Brain oscillation shuts down the brain impulses that cause tics and returns them to a quiet state, he said.

Jackson’s team tested the approach in 19 people with Tourette syndrome who wore a specialized wristband.

Participants were randomly given a minute of constant electric pulses to their right wrist and one-minute periods with no stimulation.

Stimulation reduced the tics and also the urge to tic, the researchers found. The benefit was greatest in participants with the most severe tics.

And the stimulation had a cumulative effect, Jackson said. The more times it was used, the bigger the benefit.

The need for this type of treatment is crucial, he said.

Medications used to treat Tourette have side effects and only work in about half of patients, Jackson said, so many parents don’t want their kids to take them. Another treatment, involving implantation of electrodes in the brain, is a surgical procedure with its own short- and long-term risks. And, he said, behavioral therapy can be hard to come by.

Jackson and his team are planning a larger trial with an aim of developing a wristband that patients can activate whenever they feel a tic coming on.

Dr. Alessandro Di Rocco, director of the movement disorders program at Northwell Health in Great Neck, N.Y., reviewed the findings.

“This is an exciting study with an intriguing rationale and promising preliminary clinical data,” he said, pointing to the disruptive effect that tics have on a person’s personal and psychological well-being.

In recent years, a growing body of evidence has linked abnormal patterns of brain activity to the behavioral impulses associated with tics, Di Rocco said.

This has led to attempts to regulate the abnormal pattern with brain stimulation techniques, including invasive surgical interventions such as deep brain stimulation.

“While there is evidence that these techniques may be effective, neurosurgical intervention can lead to potentially serious complications, while other forms of external stimulation require expensive setup and can only be administered in a clinic setting,” Di Rocco said.

Using this portable, seemingly easy-to-use device to stimulate the median nerve at the wrist may disrupt the abnormal brain activity and reduce tics with few risks or side effects, he said.

“If confirmed, this type of stimulation may become an innovative, inexpensive and transformative way to treat tics and possibly other involuntary movements associated with abnormal network activation,” Di Rocco said.

The report was published June 4 in the journal Current Biology.

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SOURCES: Stephen Jackson, Ph.D., professor, cognitive neuroscience, University of Nottingham, England; Alessandro Di Rocco, M.D., director, Movement Disorders Program, Northwell Health, Great Neck, N.Y.; Current Biology, June 4, 2020



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