Should I skip Thanksgiving if I feel sick?

December 6, 2022 Vera

By Rose Hoban

The number of travelers on the move for the Thanksgiving holiday is up with airports expected to screen as many as 2.5 million passengers nationwide today, and possibly surpass that number on Sunday, Nov. 27, according to the federal Transportation Security Administration.

“We expect to be busier this year than last year at this time, and probably very close to pre-pandemic levels,” said TSA Administrator David Pekoske. “We are prepared to handle the projected increase in travel volumes.”

People are eager to get back to their holiday rituals after years of pandemic restrictions, but what happens if just as the holiday approaches, you find yourself sneezing, sniffling, coughing and maybe even testing positive for a COVID-19 infection?

“The name of the game for the last couple of years has been COVID, COVID, COVID. And now there’s a lot less masking and a lot less distancing,” said Laura Murray, an intensive care medicine specialist from the Cone Health Medical Group in Greensboro. “People are, you know, rejoicing and being in public together, maybe not being as careful about covering coughs or masking.”

At this point in the pandemic, the worry is likely not so much about COVID, but about the other respiratory viruses that have been circulating with a vengeance. For older friends and family, or people who are immunocompromised, flu and RSV (respiratory syncytial virus) are real dangers.

If you’re sick this week, it’s likely that you’ll be sick on turkey day. So, the question becomes, should you stay at home? Or go? And if you go, how should you act?

A surge in RSV, flu

Pulmonologist Brad Drummond who works at the main UNC Hospital in Chapel Hill said there’s a steady trickle of coronavirus cases in the intensive care unit, but it’s only one or two beds out of 30.

“During the Delta wave, it was ‘you’re young and healthy and sick as stink,’” he told NC Health News last week. “The COVID that’s being admitted now is ‘you’re on chemo or have chronic immunocompromised condition.’”

Instead, it’s Flu A that’s making people sick. To him, it felt like it was doubling every week.

He’s not far off. Positive flu tests went from being about two percent positive reported to North Carolina’s hospital-based surveillance network in the beginning of October to being 27 percent positive in the week ending Nov. 12.

“Not all of

Plant-dependent BS! Fifty percent of People in america feel living ‘healthy lifestyle’ would make them miserable

July 28, 2022 Vera

NEW YORK — Almost half of Individuals acknowledge that subsequent their concept of what a “healthy lifestyle” seems like would eventually make them depressing (48%).

A study of 2,000 adults seemed at the negative standing sugar has and found that, similarly, 49 p.c imagine they have to give up parts of their life style in purchase to be healthier. Approximately all of people respondents would like that was not the circumstance (89%). Final results also showed that many people are still underneath the impression that ingesting balanced implies feeding on foods that doesn’t style superior but is great for their bodies (59%) and signifies generally taking in fruits or veggies (39%).

Respondents shared that when they believe of healthy lifestyles, suggestions that arrive to head are someone who is aware of information and facts about what they are consuming (43%) and routines about four occasions a week. When it arrives to staying healthful, 55 % are misled by the strategy that they require to avoid sugar at all expenses and 64 per cent declare that they try out to maintain sugar out as considerably as doable to maintain that strategy of being “healthy.”

The information, gathered by OnePoll for One Manufacturers, also located that while 68 per cent believe they know precisely what belongs on a “healthy” plate of meals, lots of skipped the mark when putting their know-how to the take a look at.

Failing the ‘healthy plate’ take a look at

When it will come to what “eating healthy” seems to be like, the normal particular person thinks a “healthy” plate is 27 % protein, 19 percent grains, 17 per cent fruits, 17 p.c veggies, 10 p.c dairy, and 10 p.c fats.

On the other hand, in accordance to the U.S. Section of Agriculture, a normal “healthy” plate ought to be closer to 20 % protein, 30 percent grains, 30 % veggies, 20 % fruits, and healthier oils and dairy in moderation. Additional than a third of the poll didn’t know that nutrient requirements differ by overall body type (42%), gender (40%), and age (34%).

When 58 per cent believe they eat nearer to the right sum of all meals teams than the normal human being, the exact same proportion acknowledge they don’t take in as a great deal protein as they need to, and even additional exposed they could be ingesting far more veggies (63%).

“Everyone’s dietary

Age discrimination: Seniors say they feel devalued when interacting with health care providers

October 18, 2021 Vera

There was the time several years ago when she told an emergency room doctor that the antibiotic he wanted to prescribe wouldn’t counteract the kind of urinary tract infection she had.

He wouldn’t listen, even when she mentioned her professional credentials. She asked to see someone else, to no avail. “I was ignored and finally I gave up,” said Whitney, who has survived lung cancer and cancer of the urethra and depends on a special catheter to drain urine from her bladder. (An outpatient renal service later changed the prescription.)

Then, earlier this year, Whitney landed in the same emergency room, screaming in pain, with another urinary tract infection and a severe anal fissure. When she asked for Dilaudid, a powerful narcotic that had helped her before, a young physician told her, “We don’t give out opioids to people who seek them. Let’s just see what Tylenol does.”

Whitney said her pain continued unabated for eight hours.

“I think the fact I was a woman of 84, alone, was important. When older people come in like that, they don’t get the same level of commitment to do something to rectify the situation. It’s like ‘Oh, here’s an old person with pain. Well, that happens a lot to older people,'” she said.

Whitney’s experiences speak to ageism in health care settings, a long-standing problem that’s getting new attention during the Covid-19 pandemic, which has killed more than half a million Americans age 65 and older.

More organ transplant centers require patients to get Covid-19 vaccine, or get bumped down waitlist

Ageism occurs when people face stereotypes, prejudice or discrimination because of their age. The assumption that all older people are frail and helpless is a common, incorrect stereotype. Prejudice can consist of feelings such as “older people are unpleasant and difficult to deal with.” Discrimination is evident when older adults’ needs aren’t recognized and respected or when they’re treated less favorably than younger people.

In health care settings, ageism can be explicit. An example: plans for rationing medical care (“crisis standards of care”) that specify treating younger adults before older adults. Embedded in these standards, now being implemented by hospitals in Idaho and parts of Alaska and Montana, is a value judgment: Young peoples’ lives are worth more because they presumably have more years left to live.

Justice in Aging, a legal advocacy group, filed a civil rights complaint with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in September, charging that Idaho’s crisis standards