Tag: COVID19

Why public health experts say it’s unlikely that COVID-19 lockdowns return

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Why public health experts say it’s unlikely that COVID-19 lockdowns return

Variant-driven COVID-19 cases are increasing and a few U.S. schools and businesses have temporarily reinstated mask mandates to mitigate the virus’s spread.

Now, some are sounding the alarm that more severe restrictions are on the horizon.

“They’re gonna bring back draconian lockdowns. They’re gonna bring back the tortuous mask mandates in schools,” one person said in an Aug. 21 TikTok video. “They’re gonna bring back the injection mandates. They’re gonna close down churches, they’re gonna close down small businesses.”

Another TikTok video, shared Aug. 30, claimed, “If we let this lockdown happen, it’s gonna be permanent.”

Posts warning about the return of COVID-19 lockdowns and mask mandates are trending widely on social media, including TikTok, Facebook, Instagram and X, formerly Twitter.

We’ve seen these claims repeated by conservative commentators and politicians, including InfoWars founder and conspiracy theorist Alex Jones, former President Donald Trump, Fox News host Laura Ingraham and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis.

But public health experts say it’s highly unlikely the U.S. will reinstitute the nationwide mask mandates and travel restrictions that were common early in the pandemic. That’s partly because there is significantly more widespread immunity today than there was after the virus first emerged.

Experts say return to early pandemic restrictions is highly unlikely

Several public health and health policy experts told PolitiFact that it’s highly unlikely any level of government — local, state or federal — will reinstate broad mask mandates or stay-at-home orders in response to COVID-19.

“We’re just in a very, very different place (now). Those measures were put into place several years ago, before we had a vaccine, before we had any kind of treatments for COVID,” said Marcus Plescia, chief medical officer for the Association of State and Territorial Health Officials.

Immunity to the virus, either through vaccination or prior infection, is drastically higher now than it was at the pandemic’s onset. About 81% of all Americans have received at least one dose of the COVID-19 vaccine, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported in May. And the Food and Drug Administration approved Paxlovid as a treatment for COVID-19.

Returning to early pandemic mandates also wouldn’t be effective given today’s political climate, experts said.

It would be counterproductive from a public health standpoint to recommend or mandate restrictions to daily life that many people would not follow, said William Schaffner, infectious diseases professor at Vanderbilt

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Did Us residents Really Drink Bleach Through the COVID-19 Pandemic? | Health and fitness News

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Did Us residents Really Drink Bleach Through the COVID-19 Pandemic? | Health and fitness News

If accurate, the numbers had been alarming.

Again in 2020, the Facilities for Ailment Handle and Avoidance launched the effects of an world-wide-web study that found that 4% of grownup respondents stated they drank or gargled diluted bleach alternatives, soapy drinking water and other disinfectants in an energy to secure on their own from the coronavirus. Extrapolated to the U.S. population, that would mean that far more than 10 million adult Americans engaged in this kind of actions.

The study captured headlines – partly simply because it was a shocking acquiring but also for the reason that it was executed the month next previous President Trump’s infamous push briefing when he requested officers to analyze if disinfectants could be injected into the human body to treat the coronavirus.

“And then I see the disinfectant, wherever it knocks it out in one moment,” Trump stated from the White Property. “And is there a way we can do a little something like that, by injection inside or pretty much a cleansing, simply because you see it will get in the lungs and it does a remarkable quantity on the lungs. So it’d be fascinating to look at that, so that you’re likely to have to use professional medical health professionals with – but it appears appealing to me.”

Asked to explain his remarks, Trump extra: “It would not be by injections, pretty much a cleansing and sterilization of an spot.” Later on, he mentioned that he was staying sarcastic.

Cartoons on the Coronavirus

The remarks spurred so substantially confusion that even Lysol issued a statement urging people not to administer its disinfectants “into the human system.”

To some, the survey’s subsequent results meant that Trump’s comments could have inspired individuals to misuse bleach and other disinfectants. But have been the outcomes correct?

A peer-reviewed study released final 7 days in the journal PLOS A single located that in its attempt to replicate the CDC’s study benefits, experiences of ingesting home cleaners had been made by so-named “problematic respondents.”

Problematic respondents arrive in a selection of kinds. They could be inattentive or careless although filling out the study, picking responses that aren’t exact. They could be bots that are not truly reading through any of the queries. It could be people jogging study farms, churning out meaningless final results to obtain the reward delivers.

“Problematic survey respondents pose a elementary obstacle to all

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Well being Information Roundup: China reviews 59,938 COVID-associated clinic fatalities due to the fact Dec. 8 WHO says its main spoke with Chinese officers, welcomes COVID-19 info and much more

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Well being Information Roundup: China reviews 59,938 COVID-associated clinic fatalities due to the fact Dec. 8 WHO says its main spoke with Chinese officers, welcomes COVID-19 info and much more

Subsequent is a summary of current wellness information briefs.

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U.S. Food and drug administration, CDC see early signal of feasible Pfizer bivalent COVID shot backlink to stroke

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A protection checking procedure flagged that U.S. drugmaker Pfizer Inc and German partner BioNTech’s current COVID-19 shot could be linked to a form of brain stroke in older older people, according to preliminary info analyzed by U.S. health authorities. The U.S. Facilities for Disease Command and Prevention (CDC) and the Food items and Drug Administration (Fda) reported on Friday that a CDC vaccine databases had uncovered a achievable security challenge in which men and women 65 and older have been extra possible to have an ischemic stroke 21 times after acquiring the Pfizer/BioNTech bivalent shot, in comparison with times 22-44.

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China reviews 59,938 COVID-related medical center deaths given that Dec. 8

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China reported practically 60,000 individuals with COVID-19 had died in hospital given that it abruptly dismantled its zero-COVID coverage in early December, a large boost from formerly claimed figures that follows worldwide criticism of the country’s coronavirus facts. Among Dec. 8 and Jan. 12, the variety of COVID-linked fatalities in Chinese hospitals totalled 59,938, with an typical age of 80.3 among the deceased, Jiao Yahui, head of the Bureau of Healthcare Administration below the Nationwide Health Commission (NHC), informed a media briefing on Saturday.

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China, Hong Kong resume higher-velocity rail website link immediately after 3 several years of COVID curbs

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China resumed on Sunday higher-pace rail services amongst Hong Kong and the mainland for the initially time since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, as it dismantles travel curbs following Beijing scrapped quarantine for arrivals a 7 days before. The re-opening comes amidst a substantial wave of bacterial infections nationwide and a working day following authorities mentioned nearly 60,000 people today with COVID had died in healthcare facility, next very last month’s abrupt U-flip on “zero-COVID” plan in the wake of historic protests.

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WHO claims its chief spoke with Chinese officers, welcomes COVID-19 data

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The Environment Health Organization’s head has spoken with Chinese authorities and the company welcomed new information about the situation in the place, WHO mentioned on Saturday just after Beijing released new facts demonstrating a significant jump in COVID-19-similar fatalities. Director Standard Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus spoke with Ma Xiaowei, director of China’s National Wellbeing Fee, about the wave of infections which

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Biden Checks Favourable for COVID-19, Returns to Isolation

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Biden Checks Favourable for COVID-19, Returns to Isolation

By ZEKE MILLER and JOSH BOAK, Associated Push

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Joe Biden examined beneficial for COVID-19 all over again Saturday, marginally extra than a few days immediately after he was cleared to exit coronavirus isolation, the White Property explained, in a scarce scenario of “rebound” subsequent remedy with an anti-viral drug.

White Dwelling medical professional Dr. Kevin O’Connor explained in a letter that Biden “has knowledgeable no reemergence of symptoms, and continues to truly feel rather perfectly.” O’Connor stated “there is no rationale to reinitiate treatment method at this time.”

In accordance with Centers for Condition Handle and Avoidance suggestions, Biden will reenter isolation for at minimum 5 times. He will isolate at the White House right until he assessments destructive. The agency suggests most rebound scenarios continue to be delicate and that critical ailment in the course of that interval has not been noted.

Phrase of Biden’s constructive exam arrived — he experienced been destructive Friday morning — just two hrs after the White Household introduced a presidential check out to Michigan this coming Tuesday to emphasize the passage of a bill to promote domestic superior-tech manufacturing. Biden had also been scheduled to check out his house in Wilmington, Delaware, on Sunday morning, in which very first girl Jill Biden has been keeping while the president was positive. The two visits have been canceled as Biden has returned to isolation.

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Biden Checks Favourable for COVID-19, Returns to Isolation

Biden, 79, was dealt with with the anti-viral drug Paxlovid, and examined damaging for the virus on Tuesday and Wednesday. He was then cleared to go away isolation when sporting a mask indoors. His good exams places him between the minority of these recommended the drug to experience a rebound case of the virus.

White Residence COVID-19 coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha instructed reporters on July 25 that info “implies that between 5 and 8 p.c of people today have rebound” immediately after Paxlovid procedure.

“Acknowledging the potential for so-identified as ‘rebound’ COVID positivity noticed in a tiny proportion of sufferers handled with Paxlovid, the President increased his tested cadence, to guard folks all over him and to guarantee early detection of any return of viral replication,” O’Connor wrote in his letter.

O’Connor cited destructive exams for Biden from Tuesday night, Wednesday early morning, Thursday early morning and Friday early morning, ahead of Saturday morning’s good consequence by antigen tests. “This in reality represents ‘rebound’ positivity,”

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Statement on the twelfth meeting of the International Health Regulations (2005) Emergency Committee regarding the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic

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Statement on the twelfth meeting of the International Health Regulations (2005) Emergency Committee regarding the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic

The WHO Director-General has the pleasure of transmitting the Report of the twelfth meeting of the International Health Regulations (2005) (IHR) Emergency Committee regarding the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic, held on Friday, 8 July 2022, from
12:00 to 15:30 CEST.

The WHO Director-General concurs with the advice offered by the Committee regarding the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic and determines that the event continues to constitute a Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC).

The WHO Director-General considered the advice provided by the Committee regarding the proposed Temporary Recommendations. The set of Temporary Recommendations issued by the WHO Director-General is presented at the end of this statement.

The WHO Director-General is taking the opportunity to express his sincere gratitude to the Chair, and Members of the Committee, as well as to its Advisors.

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Proceedings of the meeting

On behalf of the WHO Director-General, the Executive Director of the WHO Health Emergencies Programme, Dr Michael J. Ryan, welcomed Members and Advisors of the Emergency Committee, all of whom were convened by videoconference.

Dr Ryan expressed concern regarding the current global COVID-19 epidemiological situation. Cases of COVID-19 reported to WHO had increased by 30% in the last two weeks, largely driven by Omicron BA.4, BA.5 and other descendent lineages and the lifting
of public health and social measures (PHSM). This increase in cases was translating into pressure on health systems in a number of WHO regions. Dr Ryan highlighted additional challenges to the ongoing COVID-19 response: recent changes in testing policies
that hinder the detection of cases and the monitoring of virus evolution; inequities in access to testing, sequencing, vaccines and therapeutics, including new antivirals; waning of natural and vaccine-derived protection; and the global burden of
Post COVID-19 condition.

The Ethics Officer from the Department of Compliance, Risk Management, and Ethics briefed Members and Advisers on their roles and responsibilities. Members and Advisors were also reminded of their duty of confidentiality as to the meeting discussions
and the work of the Committee, as well as their individual responsibility to disclose to WHO, in a timely manner, any interests of a personal, professional, financial, intellectual or commercial nature that may give rise to a perceived or direct conflict
of interest. Each Member and Advisor who was present was surveyed. No conflicts of interest were identified.

The Representative of the Office of Legal Counsel briefed the Members and Advisors on their roles and responsibilities and

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WHO: Almost 15 million fatalities linked with COVID-19 | Health and Conditioning

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WHO: Almost 15 million fatalities linked with COVID-19 | Health and Conditioning

LONDON (AP) — The Environment Wellness Firm estimates that practically 15 million individuals had been killed possibly by coronavirus or by its influence on overcome well being techniques all through the 1st two yrs of the pandemic, a lot more than double the existing official dying toll of around 6 million.

Most of the fatalities happened in Southeast Asia, Europe and the Americas, in accordance to a WHO report issued Thursday.

The U.N. wellness agency’s director-typical, Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, explained the freshly calculated determine as “sobering,” stating it ought to prompt international locations to spend much more in their capacities to quell upcoming well being emergencies.

WHO tasked scientists with identifying the real quantity of COVID-19 deaths amongst January 2020 and the stop of last yr. They estimated that amongst 13.3 million and 16.6 million folks died both due to the coronavirus directly or mainly because of components somehow attributed to the pandemic’s affect on overall health techniques, this kind of as most cancers individuals who ended up unable to seek out treatment when hospitals have been total of COVID people.

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Based mostly on that selection, the researchers came up with an approximated complete of 14.9 million.

The estimate was centered on nation-noted details and statistical modeling, but only about 50 percent of international locations delivered details. WHO mentioned it wasn’t but ready to crack down the information to distinguish in between direct deaths from COVID-19 and those similar to consequences of the pandemic, but the company ideas a upcoming challenge examining death certificates.

“This might seem like just a bean-counting exercise, but possessing these WHO quantities is so significant to knowledge how we need to battle future pandemics and carry on to respond to this just one,” mentioned Dr. Albert Ko, an infectious disorders professional at the Yale School of General public Wellbeing who was not connected to the WHO investigation.

For instance, Ko explained, South Korea’s conclusion to devote closely in community wellness soon after it endured a significant outbreak of MERS allowed it to escape COVID-19 with a per-capita loss of life price about a 20th of the a person in the United States.

Accurately counting COVID-19 deaths has been problematic during the pandemic, as studies of verified conditions represent only a portion of the devastation wrought by the virus, mostly mainly because of confined

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