COVID-19 Up

2021-02-01 21:11:54 Questions Surround AstraZeneca COVID-19 Vaccine Use for Elderly

@COVID19Up: The subject of a sometimes acrimonious row between the EU and Britain, the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine has also fueled debate over its effectiveness among the elderly.

Although the European Medicines Agency recommended the vaccine for adults of all ages last week, several countries have advised against administering the jab to older people.

Germany has already said it will not advise over 65s to get it.

Italy's medicines agency on Saturday approved the vaccine for all adults but recommended alternatives for people aged over 55.

"It is clear that seniors will not be vaccinated with this vaccine," Michal Dworczyk, the Polish government official in charge of vaccinations, told reporters on Monday. SOURCE

Join the discussion:
➔ @COVID1984chat Open / Comment

2021-02-01 20:30:36 UK COVID-19 Patients Dying Needlessly Due to Unfounded Fears About Ventilators

@COVID19Up: Critically ill COVID patients are dying unnecessarily because they are refusing to go on ventilators due to unfounded fears that the machines increase the risk of death, senior doctors have warned.

The Faculty of Intensive Care Medicine has seen an increase in patients wrongly believing that the devices will kill them.

The misconception appears to stem from the fact the death rate in ICUs has fallen at the same time as doctors have reduced their use of ventilators, which can take over the body’s breathing process when disease has caused the lungs to fail.

The machines were routinely used during the spring peak of the pandemic when death rates in ICUs were high. According to the Intensive Care National Audit & Research Centre, 75.9% of COVID patients were intubated within a day of arriving in ICU before the peak of first wave hospital admissions on April 1 last year.

This figure fell to 44.1% after the peak, coinciding with improved survival rates for COVID patients as the chances of dying in ICU dropped from 43% to 34% around the same time. SOURCE

Join the discussion:
➔ @COVID1984chat Open / Comment

2021-02-01 08:46:30 Two Million Australians in Lockdown After One Coronavirus Case Found

@COVID19Up: About 2 million Australians begun their first full day of a strict coronavirus lockdown on Monday following the discovery of one case in the community in Perth, capital of Western Australia state, but no new cases have since been found.

Authorities ordered a five-day lockdown of Perth after a security guard at a hotel used to quarantine people returning from overseas was found to have contracted the virus.

The state government said 66 people have been deemed close contacts of the unidentified guard and none of those already tested were infected. SOURCE

Join the discussion:
➔ @COVID1984chat Open / Comment

2021-02-01 07:48:02 Millions of COVID-19 Survivors Have Lost the Sense of Smell and Taste. Will They Come Back? Nobody Knows

@COVID19Up: Millions of people worldwide have suffered changes to their sense of smell or taste after contracting COVID-19. In most cases, the symptoms usually only last a few weeks.

But a year into the pandemic, researchers still aren't sure when some COVID-19 survivors may get their senses back—if ever—and many are struggling with the long-term safety, hygiene and psychiatric implications of the loss.

"As the pandemic has rolled on, we've gotten a better idea about the long-term, chronic effects of COVID on smell and taste," said Dr. Jay Piccirillo, an ENT and professor at the Washington University School of Medicine who studies the topic. "The things we've learned suggest that most people recover smell and taste, but not all." SOURCE

Join the discussion:
➔ @COVID1984chat Open / Comment

2021-02-01 05:34:53 January Saw Highest COVID-19 Hospitalization Average in U.S. of Any Month So Far

@COVID19Up: January saw the greatest number of COVID-19 fatalities and the highest average number of coronavirus hospitalizations of any month, according to the COVID tracking project.

An average of more than 120,000 people were hospitalized in the U.S. for coronavirus during the month of January, according to the COVID tracking project.

However, the tracking project noted on Twitter that the number of people currently hospitalized at the end of the month is over 37,000 fewer individuals than at its peak in the middle of the month.

At least 95,211 people died from COVID-19 in the U.S. in January. SOURCE

Join the discussion:
➔ @COVID1984chat Open / Comment

2021-02-01 04:24:21 "That Hurricane is Coming": Expert Warns U.S. to Brace for Virulent COVID Strain

@COVID19Up: A leading infectious disease expert predicted on Sunday that the deadlier British variant of COVID-19 will become the dominant strain of the virus in the US and could hit the country like a hurricane.

Epidemiologist Michael Osterholm, who served on Joe Biden’s transition coronavirus advisory board after the Democratic victory in the 2020 election, and is director of the center for infectious disease research and policy at the University of Minnesota, warned America to brace for the spread of the virulent strain this spring.

“The surge that is likely to occur with this new variant from England is going to happen in the next six to 14 weeks," Osterholm told NBC on Sunday.

“That hurricane is coming,” Osterholm warned NBC. SOURCE

Join the discussion:
➔ @COVID1984chat Open / Comment

2021-02-01 04:05:09 WHO Investigators Finally Visit Wuhan Seafood Market as Search for Origins of Coronavirus Continues

@COVID19Up: A World Health Organization team has visited the seafood market linked to the earliest COVID-19 cases in Wuhan on the third day of field work in a long-awaited mission to China to investigate the origins of the pandemic.

A procession of vehicles carrying the team, made up of 14 scientists and WHO officials, was seen entering the barricaded Huanan Wholesale Seafood Market in midafternoon on Sunday.

WHO team member Peter Daszak wrote on Twitter that the trip to Huanan market and another wholesale market visited earlier in the day were “very informative & critical for our joint teams to understand the epidemiology of COVID as it started to spread at the end of 2019."

“As you walk around Huanan market you feel the sense of historical importance of this place & a sympathy for the vendors & community who lost their livelihoods due to COVID,” said Daszak, a disease ecologist and president of US-based EcoHealth Alliance. SOURCE

Join the discussion:
➔ @COVID1984chat Open / Comment

2021-02-01 02:57:27 Israel Extends Lockdown, Sees Delay in COVID-19 Turnaround

@COVID19Up: Israel extended a national lockdown on Sunday as coronavirus variants offset its vaccination drive and officials predicted a delay in a turnaround from the health and economic crisis.

Highlighting Israel's challenges in enforcing restrictions, thousands of ultra-Orthodox Jews attended the Jerusalem funerals of two prominent rabbis on Sunday, drawing criticism from Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's coalition partners.

Netanyahu has promoted a speedy vaccination of Israel's most vulnerable cohorts—around 24% of 9 million citizens—and the lockdown as dual pathways to a possible reopening of the economy in February.

But a projected mid-January turnaround in curbing the pandemic did not transpire. Serious cases have surged among Israelis who have not yet been vaccinated. Officials blame that on communicable foreign virus strains and on lockdown scofflaws. SOURCE

Join the discussion:
➔ @COVID1984chat Open / Comment

2021-02-01 00:56:32 Debate Over Use of Ivermectin for COVID-19 Rages in South Africa

@COVID19Up: Ivermectin, touted in South Africa, Zimbabwe and other parts of the world, as a possible treatment for COVID-19, has primarily been used by cattle farmers for their herds and by veterinarians, since 1975.

With the outbreak of COVID-19 in 2020, the world has been scrambling to find a treatment for the pandemic with many pharmaceutical firms jumping to produce an effective vaccine—at a hefty price to wealthy and poor countries. Many of the world's poor nations have been left behind in the procuring of vaccines for their citizens, with the WHO calling on those nations who are by the means, to assist.

Now Ivermectin—a cheap, available drug, is getting a mention by the South African Health Products Regulatory Authority (SAHPRA), when it said that it would "facilitate a controlled compassionate access programme" to the drug Ivermectin, for use for patients with COVID-19. This after South African authorities slammed the use of the drug and shut down pharmacies and hospitals that were advocating and administering its use.

Mark Heywood for Daily Maverick writes: "The one concern that is likely to be heard in coming days, is how fast SAHPRA moves to institute this programme and how it works with doctors to assist their applications. Even while there is acceptance that the evidence is incomplete, many would argue that for those severely ill with COVID-19 today, whether they get access this week or next week may literally be a matter of life and death. That is what health activists said they would continue to monitor." SOURCE

Join the discussion:
➔ @COVID1984chat Open / Comment

2021-01-31 23:57:25 Woman Tests COVID Positive No Less Than 31 Times; Leaves Doctors Baffled

@COVID19Up: A 35-year-old woman in Rajasthan's Bharatpur has been posing a unique challenge to medical theories on COVID-19, after testing positive 31 times in the last five months.

Her results have been contradicting the novel coronavirus' incubation cycle that is believed to end in 14 days, officials said.

All of her tests, including 17 RT-PCR and 14 rapid antigen tests, have come out positive. Her first positive test result was conducted on September 4 and the last one on January 7. SOURCE

Join the discussion:
➔ @COVID1984chat Open / Comment