Category: Corona Virus Vaccine

A lab in West Virginia University Hospitals Health Sciences Building has temporarily closed following the discovery of asbestos in dust.

WVU Hospitals risk management and safety director Roger Osbourn tells The Dominion Postthat the asbestos is an isolated incident. He says it most likely resulted when a pipe was bumped during renovations on the floor above the lab.

University environmental health and safety director John Principe says tests showed trace amounts of asbestos fibers. Air sample tests were negative.

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Health Care Leaders Look Back On Four Years Of COVID-19 - West Virginia Public Broadcasting

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In Florida in 2022, concurrent outbreaks of mpox, hepatitis A, and invasive meningococcal disease (IMD) were noted among men who have sex with men (MSM). A report on the outbreaks, published yesterday in Emerging Infectious Diseases, emphasizes the need to offer vaccination against these diseases among at-risk groups.

The authors explain that the global mpox outbreak arrived in Florida in the summer of 2022, amid ongoing outbreaks of IMD and hepatitis A, which began the previous year. Florida had the fourth-highest rates of mpox in the United States.

From November 1, 2021, to November 30, 2022, Florida health officials recorded 322 hepatitis A cases, of which 153 (48%) met the genotype outbreak case definition. Among the outbreak patients, 95% were male, 5% female, 74% MSM, and 21% had HIV. One death was noted.

The Florida Department of Health tracked 71 IMD cases during the period, of those, 44 (62%) were classified as outbreak-associated. Among the outbreak patients, 72% were MSM, 34% had HIV, and 20% died.

By the end of November 2022, Florida had recorded 2,845 confirmed or probable mpox cases. Eighty-eight percent were among MSM, and all but 14% were acquired locally. Fifty-two percent of patients were HIV-positive.

The three outbreaks overlapped substantially: Hepatitis A peaked in late March of 2022, IMD in May and June, and mpox in August.

Vaccination against hepatitis A, meningococcal disease, and mpox should be encouraged among MSM.

"We did not identify any instances of the same person being part of both the hepatitis A and IMD outbreaks. However, among mpox cases, 4 patients were also part of the hepatitis A outbreak, and 3 others were part of the IMD outbreak," the authors conclude. "Vaccination against hepatitis A, meningococcal disease, and mpox should be encouraged among MSM, consistent with national guidelines and, where feasible, offered with other program services to the same at-risk population."

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Stressing personal ownership may be key to COVID booster uptake - University of Minnesota Twin Cities

There has been much research released over the past few years on the COVID-19 pandemic and investigators have assessed the public health crisis impact on the population in several different areas of health care.

In 4 posters presented at the 2024 American Pharmacists Association Annual Meeting and Exposition, researchers examined fraudulent FDA-issued warning letters for COVID-19, vaccine hesitancy in college-aged adults, patient-health care provider communication regarding COVID-19, and comparisons of COVID-19 with peak influenza seasons.

Read more of our coverage from the 2024 APhA Annual Meeting & Exposition here.

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Slideshow: Assessing the COVID-19 Pandemic After its 2020 Peak - Drug Topics

Image source, Clifford Rodrigues/V's Punjabi Grill

The restaurant says some people have since returned to the restaurant to eat since they received their vaccination

23 March 2024, 07:08 GMT

A restaurant that was transformed into a vaccination centre during the pandemic has said it is still getting back on its feet.

One of the owners of V's Punjabi Grill, Clifford Rodrigues, said business had seen a decline in the four years since the first lockdown.

V's Punajbi Grill in Gravesend used an outdoor marquee to help deliver vaccines.

Mr Rodrigues said some people had returned to the restaurant to eat after receiving their vaccination there.

Raj Chopra, the other co-owner, turned the restaurant into a vaccine centre after his father, Jagtar Chopra, became unwell with Covid in December 2020.

The centre opened in January 2022 and they delivered vaccines to 10,000 people.

Mr Rodrigues said it had been difficult to recover since the lockdowns.

He said: "It has taken a long while to recover from the last few years.

"Things had been beginning to look good at the end of last year but then it has declined at the start of this year.

"It has been difficult to attract new customers, but if you have a product of real quality then people will bring new people to you."

Image source, Clifford Rodrigues/V's Punjabi Grill

The centre opened in January 2022 and they jabbed 10,000 people

He added that some people had less money to spend now than they did before the pandemic.

Some businesses can rely on e-sales and web sales, but food is where the money is. If people are not buying food, then it is difficult to survive in this game, he said.

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Gravesend restaurant and ex-vaccine centre reflects on Covid - BBC

From spring break parties to Mardi Gras, many people remember the last major normal thing they did before the novel coronavirus pandemic dawned, forcing governments worldwide to issue stay-at-home advisories and shutdowns.

Even before the first case of COVID-19 was detected in the U.S., fears and uncertainties helped spur misinformations rapid spread. In March 2020, schools closed, employers sent staff to work from home and grocery stores called for social distancing to keep people safe. But little halted the flow of misleading claims that sent fact-checkers and public health officials into overdrive.

Some peoplefalselyasserted COVID-19s symptoms were associated with 5G wireless technology. Faux cures anduntested treatmentspopulated social media and political discourse. Amid uncertainty about the viruss origins, some evenproclaimedCOVID-19 didnt exist at all. PolitiFact named downplay and denial about the virus its2020 Lie of the Year.

Four years later, peoples lives are largely free of the extreme public health measures that restricted them early in the pandemic. But COVID-19 misinformation persists, although its now centered mostly on vaccines and vaccine-related conspiracy theories.

PolitiFact has publishedmore than 2,000 fact-checksrelated to COVID-19 vaccines alone.

From a misinformation researcher perspective, [there has been] shifting levels of trust, said Tara Kirk Sell, senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security. Early on in the pandemic, there was a lot of: this isnt real, fake cures, and then later on, we see more vaccine-focused mis- and disinformation and a more partisan type of disinformation and misinformation.

Here are some of the most persistent COVID-19 misinformation narratives we see today:

COVID-19 vaccines were quickly developed, with U.S. patients receiving the first shots in December 2020, 11 months after the first domestic case was detected.

Experts credit the speedy development with helping tosave millions of livesand preventing hospitalizations. Researchers at the University of Southern California and Brown University calculated thatvaccines saved 2.4 million livesin 141 countries from January 2021 to August 2021 alone. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data shows there were 574 U.S. deathsattributed to COVID-19the week of March 2, down from nearly 26,000 at the pandemics height in January 2021, as vaccines were just rolling out.

But on social media and in some public officials remarks, misinformation about COVID-19 vaccine efficacy and safety is common.U.S. presidential candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr. built his 2024 campaign on a movement that seeks to legitimize conspiracy theories about the vaccines. We made that our2023 Lie of the Year.

PolitiFact has seen claims that spike proteins from vaccines arereplacing spermin vaccinated males. (ThatsFalse.) Weve researched the assertion that vaccines can change your DNA. (Thatsmisleading and ignores evidence). Social media posts poked fun at Kansas City Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce for encouraging people to get vaccinated, asserting that the vaccine actually shuts off recipients hearts. (No, it doesnt.) And some people pointed to an American Red Cross blood donation questionnaire as evidence that shots are unsafe.(We rated that False.)

Experts say this misinformation has real-world effects.

A Nov. 2023 survey byKFF found that only 57% of Americanssay they are very or somewhat confident in COVID-19 vaccines. And those who distrust them are more likely to identify as politically conservative: Thirty-six percent of Republicans compared with 84% of Democrats say they are very or somewhat confident in the vaccine.

Immunization rates for routine vaccines for other conditions have also taken a hit. Measles had been eradicated for more than 20 years in the U.S. but there have been recent outbreaks instates including Florida,Maryland and Ohio. Floridas surgeon general has expressedskepticismabout vaccines andrejectedguidancefrom the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention about how to contain potentially deadly disease spread.

The vaccination rate among kindergarteners has declined from 95% in the 2019-20 school year to 93% in 2022-23, according to theCDC. Public health officials have set a 95% vaccination rate target to prevent and reduce the risk of disease outbreaks. The CDC also foundexemptions had risen to 3%, the highest rate ever recordedin the U.S.

PolitiFact has seen repeated and unsubstantiatedclaims that COVID-19 vaccines have caused mass numbers of deaths.

A recent widely shared post claimed17 million people had diedbecause of the vaccine, despite contrary evidence from multiple studies and institutions such as the World Health Organization and CDC that the vaccines are safe and help to prevent severe illness and death.

Another online post claimed the booster vaccine hadeight strains of HIVand would kill 23% of the population. Vaccine manufacturers publish theingredient lists; they do not include HIV. People living with HIV were among the peoplegiven priority accessduring early vaccine rollout to protect them from severe illness.

We have also seen COVID-19 vaccines blamed forcausing Alzheimersandcancer. Experts have found no evidence the vaccines cause either conditions.

You had this remarkable scientific or medical accomplishment contrasted with this remarkable rejection of that technology by a significant portion of the American public, said Paul Offit, director of the Vaccine Education Center at the Childrens Hospital of Philadelphia.

About 70% of Americans have completed a primary series of COVID-19 vaccination, more than three years after they became available,according to CDC figures. About 17% have gotten the most recentbivalent booster.

False claimsoften pullfrom and misuse datafrom theVaccine Adverse Event Reporting System. The database, run by the CDC and Food and Drug Administration, allows anybody to report reactions after any vaccine. The reports themselves are unverified, but the database is designed to help researchers find patterns for further investigation.

ANovember 2023 surveypublished by Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania found 63% of Americans think it is safer to get the COVID-19 vaccine than the COVID-19 disease that was down from 75% in April 2021.

Betty White, Bob Saget,Matthew Perry, andDMXare just a few of the many celebrities whose deaths were falsely linked to the vaccine. The anti-vaccine filmDied Suddenly tried to give credence to false claims that the vaccine causes people to die shortly after receiving it.

Dr. Cline Gounder, editor at large for public health at KFF Health News and an infectious disease specialist, said these claims proliferate because of two things cognitive bias and more insidious motivated reasoning.

Its like saying I had an ice cream cone and then I died the next day, the ice cream must have killed me, she said. And those with pre-existing beliefs about the vaccine seek to attach sudden deaths to the vaccine.

Gounder experienced this personally when her husband, the celebrated sports journalist Grant Wahl, died while covering the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. Wahl died of a ruptured aortic aneurysm but anti-vax accounts falsely linked his death to the COVID-19 vaccine, forcing Gounder topubliclyset the record straight.

It is very clear that this is about harming other people, said Gounder, who was aguestat United Facts of America in 2023. And in this case, trying to harm me and my family at a point where we were grieving my husbands loss. What was important in that moment was to really stand up for my husband, his legacy, and to do what I know he would have wanted me to do, which is to speak the truth and to do so very publicly.

We continue to see false claims that thepandemic was plannedby government leaders and those in power.

At any given moment, Microsoft Corp. co-founder and philanthropist Bill Gates, World Economic Forum Chair Klaus Schwab and former director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases Dr. Anthony Fauci are blamed for orchestrating pandemic-related threats.

In February, Rep. Matt Rosendale, R-Mont., falsely claimed Fauci, brought the virus to his state a year before the pandemic. There isno evidenceof that. Gates, according to the narratives, is using dangerous vaccines to push a depopulation agenda. ThatsFalse. And Schwab has not said he has an agenda to establish a totalitarian global regime using the coronavirus to depopulate the earth and reorganize society. Thats part of aconspiracy theorythats come to be calledThe Great Resetthat has beendebunkedmanytimes.

The United Nations World Health Organization is frequently painted as a global force for evil, too, with detractors saying it is using vaccination to control or harm people. But the WHO has not declared thata new pandemicis happening, as some have claimed. Its current pandemic preparedness treaty is in no way positioned to remove human rights protections or restrict freedoms, asone post said. And the organization has not announced plans to deploy troops to corral people andforcibly vaccinate them. The WHO is, however, working on a new treaty to help countries improve coordination in response to future pandemics.

This fact check was originally published by PolitiFact, which is part of the Poynter Institute. See the sources for this fact check here.

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Four years after shelter-in-place, COVID-19 misinformation persists - Poynter

In a recent study published in BMJ Public Health, researchers investigated whether generalized joint hypermobility (GJH), which indicates varying connective tissue, was associated with self-reported severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection recovery failure.

Long coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) presents a severe therapeutic issue and public health burden, with symptoms ranging from fatigue and trouble focusing to muscular pains and shortness of breath. To date, over 200 symptoms have been associated with delayed recovery after acute SARS-CoV-2 infection. The potentially deleterious effects associated with long COVID-19, combined with the prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 infection history among the general population, emphasize the importance of identifying factors predisposing an individual to long COVID.

Demographic variables such as age and female sex, as well as pre-existing activity-limiting health disorders or impairments like fibromyalgia, irritable bowel syndrome, migraines, allergies, anxiety, depression, and back pain, increase the likelihood of prolonged COVID-19.

Recent research has identified that joint hypermobility contributes to incomplete recovery after SARS-CoV-2 infection. However, further research is needed to elucidate the etiology of long COVID and identify cost-effective and timely therapeutics for patients.

In the present prospective-type observational study, researchers investigate whether widespread joint hypermobility is related to an increased risk of not fully recovering from SARS-CoV-2 infection.

To this end, the researchers examined the United Kingdom COVID-19 Symptom Study Biobank (CSSB) data, linked with demographic information, COVID-19 reports, and symptom ratings from ZOE Global's COVID-19 Symptom Study digital application. Researchers from Massachusetts Hospital, Uppsala and Lund Universities, and King's College London created the mobile application.

During August 2022, 81% of respondents experienced a minimum of one COVID-19-related illness and self-reported their recovery status. All study participants completed a five-component Hakim and Grahame questionnaire (5PQ) to determine widespread joint hypermobility.

The primary research outcome was a lack of self-documented recovery from SARS-CoV-2 infection. Secondary outcomes included 5PQ scores and self-documented fatigue levels.

Binary logistic regression analysis was performed to determine whether widespread joint hypermobility predicted non-recovery after SARS-CoV-2 infection. Age, gender, ethnicity, socioeconomic situation, educational attainment, and received COVID-19 vaccinations were considered as potential variables in the sequential models.

Linear regression was used to investigate the relationship between generalized joint hypermobility and fatigue. Furthermore, mediation studies using Hayes' technique allowed the researchers to explore potential mediation of the association between widespread joint hypermobility and COVID-19 non-recovery by fatigue levels.

Among 3,064 individuals who reported a minimum of one SARS-CoV-2-related infection, data on self-documented COVID-19 recovery were accessible for 2,854 participants, 82% of whom were female and 97% identified as white, with an average age of 58 years.

Among 32% of the study cohort who reported incomplete recovery from acute COVID-19, 269 individuals exhibited widespread joint hypermobility, 29% of whom were female. Among recovered individuals, 439 of 1,940 patients experienced widespread joint hypermobility.

Generalized joint hypermobility was not significantly associated with the reported SARS-CoV-2 infection risk. Nevertheless, joint hypermobility was strongly associated with incomplete recovery from acute COVID-19, with an odds ratio (OR) of 1.4. This association persisted in sequential modeling studies controlling for age, gender, ethnicity, educational attainment, multiple deprivation index, and COVID-19 vaccination doses received with an OR of 1.3.

Hypermobility also strongly predicted greater fatigue levels in models that controlled for all factors. Fatigue levels influenced the relationship between widespread joint hypermobility and COVID-19 non-recovery.

The study findings indicate that individuals with widespread joint hypermobility are 30% more likely to not recover from acute COVID-19. These observations provide critical information needed to identify long COVID phenotypes for screening, appropriate patient classification, and personalized treatment implementation.

Taken together, the current study emphasizes the importance of stratified individualized healthcare for individuals, which influences policy and interdisciplinary services for individuals with long-term COVID and related illnesses. These findings also have implications for clinical practice, future research, and population healthcare, including precision techniques.

There remains an urgent need to investigate predisposing variables and comorbidities associated with joint hypermobility. Future research is also needed to explore the role of pre-existing illnesses as possible risk factors, particularly those linked with numerous physical symptoms, including larger sample sizes, more diverse populations, and a stringent long COVID definition to improve the generalizability and validity of the study findings.

Journal reference:

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Joint hypermobility linked to longer COVID-19 recovery time - News-Medical.Net

From the very early days of the pandemic, brain fog emerged as a significant health condition that many experience after COVID-19.

Brain fog is a colloquial term that describes a state of mental sluggishness or lack of clarity and haziness that makes it difficult to concentrate, remember things and think clearly.

Fast-forward four years and there is now abundant evidence that being infected with SARS-CoV-2 the virus that causes COVID-19 can affect brain health in many ways.

In addition to brain fog, COVID-19 can lead to an array of problems, including headaches, seizure disorders, strokes, sleep problems, and tingling and paralysis of the nerves, as well as several mental health disorders.

A large and growing body of evidence amassed throughout the pandemic details the many ways that COVID-19 leaves an indelible mark on the brain. But the specific pathways by which the virus does so are still being elucidated, and curative treatments are nonexistent.

Now, two new studies published in the New England Journal of Medicine shed further light on the profound toll of COVID-19 on cognitive health.

I am a physician scientist, and I have been devoted to studying long COVID since early patient reports about this condition even before the term long COVID was coined. I have testified before the U.S. Senate as an expert witness on long COVID and have published extensively on this topic.

Here are some of the most important studies to date documenting how COVID-19 affects brain health:

Large epidemiological analyses showed that people who had COVID-19 were at an increased risk of cognitive deficits, such as memory problems. Imaging studies done in people before and after their COVID-19 infections show shrinkage of brain volume and altered brain structure after infection. A study of people with mild to moderate COVID-19 showed significant prolonged inflammation of the brain and changes that are commensurate with seven years of brain aging. Severe COVID-19 that requires hospitalization or intensive care may result in cognitive deficits and other brain damage that are equivalent to 20 years of aging.

Laboratory experiments in human and mouse brain organoids designed to emulate changes in the human brain showed that SARS-CoV-2 infection triggers the fusion of brain cells. This effectively short-circuits brain electrical activity and compromises function.

Autopsy studies of people who had severe COVID-19 but died months later from other causes showed that the virus was still present in brain tissue. This provides evidence that contrary to its name, SARS-CoV-2 is not only a respiratory virus, but it can also enter the brain in some individuals. But whether the persistence of the virus in brain tissue is driving some of the brain problems seen in people who have had COVID-19 is not yet clear.

Studies show that even when the virus is mild and exclusively confined to the lungs, it can still provoke inflammation in the brain and impair brain cells ability to regenerate.

COVID-19 can also disrupt the blood brain barrier, the shield that protects the nervous system which is the control and command center of our bodies making it leaky. Studies using imaging to assess the brains of people hospitalized with COVID-19 showed disrupted or leaky blood brain barriers in those who experienced brain fog.

A large preliminary analysis pooling together data from 11 studies encompassing almost 1 million people with COVID-19 and more than 6 million uninfected individuals showed that COVID-19 increased the risk of development of new-onset dementia in people older than 60 years of age.

Most recently, a new study published in the New England Journal of Medicine assessed cognitive abilities such as memory, planning and spatial reasoning in nearly 113,000 people who had previously had COVID-19. The researchers found that those who had been infected had significant deficits in memory and executive task performance.

This decline was evident among those infected in the early phase of the pandemic and those infected when the delta and omicron variants were dominant. These findings show that the risk of cognitive decline did not abate as the pandemic virus evolved from the ancestral strain to omicron.

In the same study, those who had mild and resolved COVID-19 showed cognitive decline equivalent to a three-point loss of IQ. In comparison, those with unresolved persistent symptoms, such as people with persistent shortness of breath or fatigue, had a six-point loss in IQ. Those who had been admitted to the intensive care unit for COVID-19 had a nine-point loss in IQ. Reinfection with the virus contributed an additional two-point loss in IQ, as compared with no reinfection.

Generally the average IQ is about 100. An IQ above 130 indicates a highly gifted individual, while an IQ below 70 generally indicates a level of intellectual disability that may require significant societal support.

To put the finding of the New England Journal of Medicine study into perspective, I estimate that a three-point downward shift in IQ would increase the number of U.S. adults with an IQ less than 70 from 4.7 million to 7.5 million an increase of 2.8 million adults with a level of cognitive impairment that requires significant societal support.

Another study in the same issue of the New England Journal of Medicine involved more than 100,000 Norwegians between March 2020 and April 2023. It documented worse memory function at several time points up to 36 months following a positive SARS-CoV-2 test.

Taken together, these studies show that COVID-19 poses a serious risk to brain health, even in mild cases, and the effects are now being revealed at the population level.

A recent analysis of the U.S. Current Population Survey showed that after the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, an additional 1 million working-age Americans reported having serious difficulty remembering, concentrating or making decisions than at any time in the preceding 15 years. Most disconcertingly, this was mostly driven by younger adults between the ages of 18 to 44.

Data from the European Union shows a similar trend in 2022, 15% of people in the EU reported memory and concentration issues.

Looking ahead, it will be critical to identify who is most at risk. A better understanding is also needed of how these trends might affect the educational attainment of children and young adults and the economic productivity of working-age adults. And the extent to which these shifts will influence the epidemiology of dementia and Alzheimers disease is also not clear.

The growing body of research now confirms that COVID-19 should be considered a virus with a significant impact on the brain. The implications are far-reaching, from individuals experiencing cognitive struggles to the potential impact on populations and the economy.

Lifting the fog on the true causes behind these cognitive impairments, including brain fog, will require years if not decades of concerted efforts by researchers across the globe. And unfortunately, nearly everyone is a test case in this unprecedented global undertaking.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.

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Mounting research shows COVID-19 leaves its mark on the brain, including significant drops in IQ Alaska Beacon - Alaska Beacon

The Federal Police of Brazil accused former President Jair Bolsonaro of falsifying his COVID-19 vaccination record following investigations that began in January 2023. The Brazilian president was accused alongside 16 other people of forging his vaccination record and his daughters by inserting false information in the public health database in order to get false vaccination certificates that allowed them to travel to the US when the COVID-19 virus widely spread.

The charges brought by the police against Jair Bolsonaro are criminal association and insertion of false data into the public system. If convicted, the former president could spend up to 12 years in prison.

According to Bolsonaros lawyer Fabio Wajngarten, the whole case is a political persecution with the Brazilian police indictment being as absurd as the whale case, referring to an investigation against his client for harassing a humpback whale while taking a spin on his jetski during holidays. He pointed out that although the former Brazilian president was internationally known for his anti-vax opinion, he managed to provide over 600 million doses of vaccine during the pandemic. He also added that as president , Bolsonaro was exempted from presenting any kind of certificate proving that he had been vaccinated against COVID-19 during his travels. According to the lawyers words, it is all an attempt to empty Bolsonaro s enormous political capital that is only growing.

Jair Bolsonaro was one of the world leaders who was opposed to COVID-19 vaccination campaigns. He ignored health restrictions recommended by the World Health Organization (WHO), openly encouraging the public to do the same and ignore confinement measures. He was criticised both nationally and internationally for underestimating the pandemics severity. A group of Brazilian healthcare unionists filed a lawsuit against the former president to the International Criminal Court (ICC) in which they argued Bolsonaros response to the COVID-19 pandemic amounted to genocide. Furthermore, a report conducted in 2021 by Brazilian senators held Jair Bolsonaro responsible for COVID-19-related deaths of over 300,000 people.

Bolsonaro faces several other accusations aside from this indictment. He was subject to an investigation opened by the Minister of Justice and Public Security in January last year for allegedly committing genocide against the Indigenous Yanomami people in the Amazon and was recently accused by Brazils federal police of illegally spying on political opponents. Another investigation against the former Brazilian president relates to his involvement in a coup dtat to stay in power after he lost the December 2022 presidential elections against the current president Luiz Incio Lula da Silva, with claims that Bolsonaro was the person behind the events of what is known as the January 8 riots.

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Brazil police accuse former President Jair Bolsonaro of falsifying COVID-19 vaccination data - JURIST

As we mark the fourth anniversary of the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, its past time the federal government require uniform public health data and transparency standards at the state level both to reestablish public trust and to avoid the dangerous spread of misinformation during the next deadly outbreak.

One of the enduring lessons of the pandemic is that politics reigned over public health. Rather than asserting leadership at the federal level, former President Donald Trump left most of the decisions to the states. The absence of a coherent federal response meant state public health strategies varied widely. Some state and local officials manipulated data to fit their own narratives and the resulting mishmash of policies and advice given to residents including misinformation created mistrust among the public and allowed conspiracy theories to thrive.

No state better demonstrates the damage that can come when leaders put politics ahead of public health than Florida. Gov. Ron DeSantis was so determined to boost Trumps reelection campaign in the spring of 2020 that he kept residents in the dark about evidence that the virus was spreading because it contradicted the presidents claims that things were getting better.

While many states released information to the public on the number of COVID cases, hospitalizations and deaths in the early days of the pandemic, Florida only provided data that presented its outbreak in the most favorable light. The Florida Department of Health withheld data on nursing home deaths, and infection rates in schools and daycare centers. It ordered medical examiners to block the release of information on COVID-related deaths. News organizations had to file several lawsuits before the state released information on COVID cases and deaths in long-term care facilities and state prisons.

Records that were released by the Florida health department were often incomplete or changed without explanation. One public health expert considered the state data so misleading, he built his own Florida COVID-19 dashboard, using numbers augmented by federal data.

As DeSantis downplayed the surge in coronavirus cases in the summer of 2020, he used the weight of his office to counter-program the narrative emerging on the ground. He overruled local government shutdown ordinances. He directed the state to spend $1 million on hydroxychloroquine, the discredited treatment advocated by Trump. DeSantis communications team leaked data to a local blogger who tried to cast doubt on Floridas COVID death count by suggesting that some people died with COVID, but not from COVID, a meaningless distinction. Finally, 10 days before the Nov. 3 general election, the state stopped including backlogged deaths in its daily counts, artificially lowering the numbers to match the governors upbeat narrative.

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The repercussions of having no consistent state standards was also demonstrated by the partisan handling of the COVID vaccines. DeSantis hired a state surgeon general who openly questioned the efficacy of the vaccines and recommended against boosters. He pushed legislation to ban mask and vaccine mandates in schools and businesses and penalized those that didnt comply.

By March 2023, Florida had the third-highest COVID mortality rate in the nation. DeSantis bragged about his handling of the crisis during his failed presidential campaign, claiming it was an example for the rest of the country, but he conveniently avoided any mention of the states higher than average death rate.

The explosion of misinformation and conspiracy theories also had a direct impact on public health. Some states made policy decisions based on data patterns that emerged from the disease, while far too often decisions were based on politics and the polarized tribalism that has come to represent America today.

Researchers found many Republican governors downplayed the impact of the virus and were more likely to be against mask and vaccine mandates. They found a strong correlation between political parties and COVID death rates, including one study where mortality was 43% higher for Republican voters, once vaccines were available. And a 2021 analysis by NPR found that people in counties that voted heavily for Trump in 2020 had much lower vaccination rates and were nearly three times as likely to die from COVID-19 than those in pro-Biden counties.

Yes, there were Democratic governors who also manipulated data. Then-New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo faced intense scrutiny and criticism after his administration was accused of downplaying the number of COVID deaths in the states nursing homes.

If the public is to comply with government guidelines, it must trust that the information its being given is accurate. A government that is transparent in releasing information and data allows the public to hold it accountable. That builds more trust in government and more citizen involvement. Its common sense.

But first we need federal standards and guidelines. A good place to start is the list of recommendations put together by researchers at the COVID Tracking Project. The project, an invaluable data collecting site run by The Atlantic that shut down in March 2021, concluded that lack of federal standards made it difficult to produce national summaries of COVID-19 statistics and compare situations between states.

Federalism is an important feature of American democracy but its not a public health strategy. We can no longer rely on a system that allows ambitious state politicians to discredit science and data for personal advantage. Its time states produce consistent, indisputable public health information that is publicly reported and routinely available.

Mary Ellen Klas is a politics and policy columnist for Bloomberg Opinion. A former capital bureau chief for the Times-Herald Tallahassee bureau, she has covered politics and government for more than three decades.

2024 Bloomberg. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

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Just ask Gov. DeSantis. Going it alone isn't a COVID strategy. - Tampa Bay Times

All vaccinated adults received a vaccine developed by Oxford/AstraZeneca, BioNTech/Pfizer, Janssen or Moderna from January to July 2021. Researchers focused on early outcomes from the first 30 days following SARS-CoV-2 infection as well as later outcomes from days 31 to 365 following infection.

Overall, the team found that COVID-19 vaccines were highly effective in protecting the cardiovascular health of adults with SARS-CoV-2 infections. Vaccinated adults with a SARS-CoV-2 infection experienced a substantial reduction in their risk of a variety of cardiovascular and thromboembolic complications compared to unvaccinated adults with a SARS-CoV-2 infection. This included significantly reduced short- and long-term risks of heart failure, venous thromboembolism and arterial thrombosis/thromboembolism. The impact was greatest during those initial 30 days following infection.

In line with previous studies, our findings suggest a potential benefit of vaccination in reducing the risk of post-COVID-19 thromboembolic and cardiac complications, the authors wrote. We included broader populations, estimated the risk in both acute and post-acute infection phases and replicated these using four large independent observational databases. By pooling results across different settings, we provided the most up-to-date and robust evidence on this topic.

Besora and colleagues added that these findings highlight yet another benefit of COVID-19 vaccination, though they did say additional research is still needed to learn more about this subject.

Click here to read their full analysis.

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'Highly effective': COVID-19 vaccines reduced risk of heart failure, other cardiovascular complications after infection - Cardiovascular Business