Category: Corona Virus

Shubham Chandra left a well-paying job at a New York City start-up partly to manage the hundreds of medical bills resulting from his fathers seven-month hospitalization. His father, a cardiologist, died from coronavirus last fall.

For months he has spent 10 to 20 hours a week working through the charges, using his mornings for reading through new bills, and his afternoons for calls to insurers and hospitals. His spreadsheet recently showed 97 bills rejected by insurance with a potential of over $400,000 the family could owe. Mr. Chandra tells providers that his father is no longer alive, but the bills continue to accumulate.

A large part of my life is thinking about these bills, he said. It can become an impediment to my day-to-day. Its hard to sleep when you have hundreds of thousands of dollars in outstanding debts.

Some coronavirus patients are postponing additional medical care for long-term side effects until they can resolve their existing debts. They are finding that long-haul coronavirus often requires visits to multiple specialists and many scans to resolve lingering symptoms, but they worry about piling up more debt.

Irena Schulz, 61, a retired biologist who lives in South Carolina, became ill with coronavirus last summer. She has multiple lingering side effects, including problems with her hearing and her kidneys. She recently received a $5,400 bill for hearing aids (to help with coronavirus-related hearing loss) that she had expected her health insurance to cover.

She has eschewed trips to the emergency room when feeling ill because she worries about the costs. Shes managing her kidney-related pain by herself, at home, until she feels she can afford to see a specialist.

I keep on with Tylenol and drinking a lot of water, and Ive noticed it does help if I drink a lot of pineapple juice, she said. If the pain gets past a certain threshold, Ill see a doctor. Were retired, were on a fixed income, and there are only so many things you can accumulate on the credit card.

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Covid Killed His Father. Then Came $1 Million in Medical Bills. - The New York Times

With the rising number of COVID-19 cases in the country, it has become crucial to keep yourself updated about the terms linked with this infectious disease. From symptoms to tests, having knowledge about some common scientific term linked with coronavirus can help you in the early detection of disease and prevention. One such term that has now become part of the regular use is Ct value, indicated in COVID-19 Reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) tests, to determine if the patient is positive or not. What is the Ct value?Ct value, short of cycle threshold, is the marker of viral load in a patient infected with SARS-CoV-2. The number is reflected in the RT-PCR test report, which is considered a gold standard for detection of the presence of coronavirus. In simple words, the Ct value refers to the number of cycles after which the virus can be detected in the RNA collected from the swab of the patient. How is the Ct value determined?In the RT-PCR test, the RNA of the virus is extracted from the swab collected from the nose and throat of the patient. The collected RNA is then converted into DNA, which is later amplified. In the Amplification process, multiple copies of the DNA are created to improve the chances of detecting the presence of the virus. The process of amplification takes place in cycles and after multiple cycles, a detectable amount of virus is produced. Ct Value is referred to the number of cycles at which the fluorescent signal of the PCR product crosses the threshold and becomes detectable. Why is Ct value important?The Ct value in the RT-PCR test helps to determine the viral load in the patient. The higher the number of cycles, the lower the viral load and vice versa. If the virus is spotted after a few cycles that means higher viral load. Low Ct value also means that a high amount of virus is present in the throat and nose of the patient that can be transmitted to others easily. Also, there is no correlation between the Ct value and the severity of the case. The significance of the threshold of 35?Globally, the acceptable Ct value cut off for COVID-19 is between 35 and 40. This differs depending on the instructions from respective manufacturers of the testing equipment. In India, the IMCR has indicated taking the Ct value as 35 after considering the inputs from various virology labs.A patient is considered COVID-19 negative if the Ct value is 35 or more in the RT-PCR test. The number below 35 is considered COVID-19 positive. The limitationsThe Ct value is considered as the parameter to determine the viral load and contagiousness in most coronavirus cases, however, it might have some limitations. The Ct value may vary depending on the factors like the method of specimen collection, source, transportation, and the time gap in contracting the infection, collection, and analysis.

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Coronavirus test: What is the Ct value in the RT-PCR test? - Times of India

In Vermont, for example, that incentive comes in the form of a promise of an early return to a kind of normalcy.

Gov. Phil Scott announced Friday that all of the state's pandemic restrictions can be lifted if the vaccination rate reaches 80% of eligible residents age 12 and older, even if that's ahead of the governor's July 4 target date, a release from his office said.

"Let's keep our momentum going. Let's finish strong. Let's continue to show the nation, and the world, what this brave little state is capable of," Scott said.

In West Virginia, both those who sign up for a vaccine and those who have already gotten theirs can register to receive $100 in a savings bond or gift card.

And the prize for getting vaccinated could be a million dollars in Oregon, now that the state has started a lottery contest for every resident 12 and older who receives at least one dose by June 27.

The push to increase vaccinations has grown more urgent as the pace has been on the decline. The average daily rate of coronavirus vaccinations is down almost 50% from its April peak, according to US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data published Thursday.

And with residents in some states moving indoors as the weather heats up, particularly in the South, experts worry what will happen if the decline isn't reversed.

"If we have large numbers of unvaccinated people in those states, we may very well see a surge in those states, so I think a lot of us are worried about that," Dr. Ashish Jha, dean of the Brown University School of Public Health, told CNN's Chris Cuomo this week.

Navigating Covid-19 protection beyond initial doses

Experts have touted vaccinations as an important part of overcoming the pandemic, but the push for protection may continue even after the US reaches an acceptable vaccination level.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said he is planning on the possibility of people getting booster shots, though experts are still unsure if and when that may happen.

"The fact is we don't know, but it would really be foolish not to plan for the possibility that we might have to boost people, but there's no set rule now that says in six months or in a year we're going to require a boost," he said on CBS This Morning.

In the meantime, experts will have to keep tabs on the immune response of vaccinated people to see how durable it remains, he said.

The CDC has said that the protection is strong enough that vaccinated Americans don't have to wear masks indoors. But, Fauci said, it is not irrational if some choose to keep them on anyway.

"You can understand that when people have been following a certain trend for a considerable period of time that it may take time for them to adjust," said Fauci, the chief medical adviser to President Joe Biden. "I would not say that's irrational. I would say that's understandable."

CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said that it was understandable that some people are unsure about the new guidance.

"For 16 months we've been saying that it's important to wear these masks to protect yourselves, and now what we're saying is it's going to be hard to get back to life as we knew it without these masks," she said during the White House briefing on Friday. "We're going to do so by dipping our toe in the water and having everybody move at their own pace."

Returning to school safely

One milestone of normalcy for many is a resumption of in-person learning for students, but this has been hindered by limited vaccine eligibility.

Currently, the youngest Americans approved to receive the vaccine are 12-years-olds, and studies for vaccine safety in younger children are still ongoing. But those that are now eligible are showing up in disproportionately high numbers.

Adolescents 12 to 15 comprise about 5% of the US population but accounted for nearly a quarter of people to receive their first dose of a vaccine in the past week, according to CDC data.

For those that are still not old enough for inoculation, a CDC study finds that school testing programs can help in-person instruction and extracurriculars to continue.

In the study published Friday, the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report detailed two Utah programs in which students were either tested every 14 days to be allowed to continue their extracurriculars or were tested in response to outbreaks.

Over the course of the study, 59,552 students were tested as part of the two programs. Only 3.2% of students tested returned a positive test result.

Researchers credited these programs with preserving 95% of planned athletic events, and for saving an estimated 109,752 days of in-person instruction among all the students tested in participating schools.

Staff wearing masks and better ventilation in schools could also be helpful to mitigate cases in elementary schools, another CDC study said.

Case numbers in elementary schools appear to be 37% lower when teachers and staff are required to wear masks, and 39% when air ventilation is improved, that CDC study found.

CNN's Rebekah Riess, Travis Caldwell, Melissa Alonso, Andy Rose, Naomi Thomas, Jacqueline Howard, Deidre McPhillips and Virginia Langmaid contributed to this report.

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From lifted restrictions to lottery rewards, states are finding new ways to incentivize Covid-19 vaccinations - CNN

In the past 20 years, new coronaviruses have emerged from animals with remarkable regularity. In 2002, SARS-CoV jumped from civets into people. Ten years later, MERS emerged from camels. Then in 2019, SARS-CoV-2 began to spread around the world.

For many scientists, this pattern points to a disturbing trend: Coronavirus outbreaks aren't rare events and will likely occur every decade or so.

Now, scientists are reporting that they have discovered what may be the latest coronavirus to jump from animals into people. And it comes from a surprising source: dogs.

When the COVID-19 pandemic first exploded, Dr. Gregory Gray started to wonder whether there might be other coronaviruses out there already making people sick and threatening to trigger another outbreak.

The problem was that he didn't have a tool to look for them. The test for COVID-19, he says, is extremely limited. It tells whether one particular virus SARS-CoV-2 is present in a person's respiratory tract, and nothing else.

"Diagnostics are very specific. They generally focus on known viruses," says Gray, an infectious disease epidemiologist at Duke University's Global Health Institute.

So he challenged a graduate student in his lab, Leshan Xiu, to make a more powerful test one that would work like a COVID-19 test but could detect all coronaviruses, even the unknown ones.

Xiu not only rose to the challenge, but the tool he created worked better than expected.

In the first batch of samples tested last year, Gray and Xiu found evidence of an entirely new coronavirus associated with pneumonia in hospitalized patients mostly in kids. This virus may be the eighth coronavirus known to cause disease in people, the team reports Thursday in the journal Clinical Infectious Diseases.

The samples came from patients at a hospital in Sarawak, Malaysia, taken by a collaborator in 2017 and 2018. "These were deep nasal swabs, like doctors collect with the COVID-19 patients," says Gray.

The patients had what looked like regular pneumonia. But in eight out of 301 samples tested, or 2.7%, Xiu and Gray found that the patients' upper respiratory tracts were infected with a new canine coronavirus, i.e., a dog virus.

"That's a pretty high prevalence of a [new] virus," Gray says. "That's remarkable." So remarkable, in fact, that Gray actually thought maybe he and Xiu had made a mistake. Perhaps Xiu's test wasn't working quite right. "You always wonder if there was a problem in the lab," he says.

To find out, he sent the patients' samples over to a world expert on animal coronaviruses at Ohio State University. She was also dubious. "I thought, 'There's something wrong,' " says virologist Anastasia Vlasova. "Canine coronaviruses were not thought to be transmitted to people. It's never been reported before."

Nevertheless, Vlasova went to work. She tried to grow the coronavirus in the lab, using a special solution she knew worked for other dog coronaviruses. Lo and behold, "the virus grew very well," she says.

With a lot of virus on hand, Vlasova could decode its genome. From the virus's gene sequences, she could see that the virus had likely infected cats and pigs at one point. But it likely jumped directly from dogs into people. "The majority of the genome was canine coronavirus," she says.

Then she found a disturbing clue about the virus's future. "We did discover a very, very unique mutation or deletion in the genome," Vlasova says. That specific deletion, she says, isn't present in any other known dog coronaviruses, but it is found somewhere else: in human coronaviruses. "It's a mutation that's very similar to one previously found in the SARS coronavirus and in [versions of] SARS-CoV-2 ... [that appeared] very soon after its introduction into the human population," Vlastova says.

This deletion, she believes, helps the dog virus infect or persist inside humans. And it may be a key step required for coronaviruses to make the jump into people.

"Apparently the deletion is somehow associated with [the virus'] adaptation during this jump from animal to human," she says.

Altogether, this genetic data suggest that Vlasova and her colleagues are catching this new coronavirus early on in its journey in people, while it's still trying to figure out how to infect people efficiently and possibly, before it can spread from person to person and trigger a big outbreak.

"There's no evidence yet of transmission from human to human," says virologist Xuming Zhang at University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences. But it's not known how these patients became infected with the virus or whether they had direct contact with infected animals.

Zhang has studied coronaviruses for more than 30 years. He thinks it's too early to call this new virus a human pathogen. "As the authors are careful to say in their paper, they have not proven what's called Koch's postulates," he says. That is, Vlasova, Gray and colleagues haven't shown that the new coronavirus causes pneumonia; so far, it has only been associated with the disease.

"To do that, strictly, they need to inject the virus into humans and see if it reproduces the disease," he says. "Of course [for ethical reasons], we cannot do that."

Instead, Zhang says, they can look to see how common the virus is in pneumonia patients around the world and they can test to see whether it makes mice or another animal sick.

Yet Zhang says he wouldn't be surprised if this dog virus is, in fact, a new human pathogen. He thinks that the more scientists look for unknown coronaviruses inside pneumonia patients, the more they are going to find. "I believe there are many animal [coronaviruses] out there that can transmit to humans."

And in order to stop a future coronavirus pandemic, he says, scientists need to do more testing in people and seek out these strange, hidden infections before they become a problem.

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A New Coronavirus May Be Making People Sick. And It's Coming From Dogs : Goats and Soda - NPR

Good evening. Im Kiera Feldman, and its Friday, May 21. Heres the latest on whats happening with the coronavirus, plus ways to spend your weekend and a look at some of the weeks best stories.

Weve had June 15 marked on our calendars as the day California would reopen its economy, but we didnt have many details about what exactly that would mean. That even goes for those of us whove been following things like its their j-o-b.

Well, everything just got a little less TBD. Officials on Friday unveiled eagerly anticipated guidelines for a world that will look nothing like the California of the last year-plus.

Businesses will be able to serve customers without any limits on capacity or requirements for physical distancing. People who are fully vaccinated will no longer need to wear masks in most situations.

The state isnt considering an official vaccine passport system to verify immunization status, said Dr. Mark Ghaly, Californias health secretary. But businesses and event organizers may decide on their own to require that customers prove theyve either been vaccinated or recently tested negative for the coronavirus.

Big, crowded indoor events will have the most stringent rules under the new plan organizers will need to verify that attendees have been vaccinated or recently tested negative if more than 5,000 people are there.

At outdoor events with more than 10,000 people, the state will recommend, but not require, the same verification. (People who havent been vaccinated or tested recently can still attend, as long as they wear a mask.)

If youre like me and still a bit queasy at the thought of being around 10,000 other people, heres some good news: The data about so-called breakthrough infections after vaccination are looking better and better.

In L.A. County, the chances of becoming infected after youre vaccinated are exceedingly rare. Out of 3.3 million fully vaccinated people, only 933 later tested positive for the coronavirus, according to Public Health Director Barbara Ferrer. Thats just 0.03%.

Among those breakthrough infections, 71 people had to be hospitalized, and 12 later died. Four of them had severely weakened immune systems, Ferrer noted.

We now have mounting proof that these vaccines really work, she said.

California cases, deaths and vaccinations as of 6:12 p.m. Friday:

Track Californias coronavirus spread and vaccination efforts including the latest numbers and how they break down with our graphics.

See the current status of Californias reopening, county by county, with our tracker.

Too blue for school

For communities hit hard by the pandemic, reopening schools involves far more than rearranging desks and opening windows. My colleague Melissa Gomez brings us this story of one school district that opted to stay closed for the remainder of the year because the trauma and loss from COVID-19 were too great.

We cant just pick up where we left off, said Frances Esparza, the superintendent of El Rancho Unified School District serving Pico Rivera. Some of the students in El Rancho lost a parent, a grandparent, and some even lost both in just a few days. The staff of El Rancho Unified have also suffered the losses of family, friends and coworkers.

High school senior Hailey Moreno lost both her father and her grandmother to COVID-19. Even logging into Zoom classes can be an emotionally wrought experience, because thats how she last spoke to her father.

Its hard. You see other kids your age ... you hear from them, and teachers, and its just, their lives seem so normal, she said. Its not. Nothing is normal.

Many students have needed counseling for anxiety, depression, grief and loss, and school aides and teachers will receive training to identify signs of trauma or mental health issues before summer school programs begin.

We need to deal with what has happened, Esparza said.

Guinea pigs for hire

Within the first few months of the pandemic, jobs dried up in South Koreas restaurants, bars and supermarkets. So young people in need of cash there turned to a gig of last resort: enrolling in clinical trials, my colleague Victoria Kim reports.

Paying test subjects for the trouble and risk of swallowing, being injected with or bedaubed with drugs or other medical substances is accepted practice worldwide. In South Korea, though, clinical trials have become an easy hustle for college students, struggling freelancers and the unemployed.

You lie there for two nights, three days and have your blood drawn, staring at your phone, and you make money, said Jeong Hyung-jun, a physician who is policy chair of the Korean Federation of Medical Activist Groups for Health Rights.

But some see the clinical trials as exploitative in a society that has failed to create worthwhile employment. Kim Nam-hee, a clinical professor at the Seoul National University School of Law, said the studies raise ethical questions about whether subjects are truly free to withdraw if they feel unsafe.

Its taking advantage of the subjects physical, economic vulnerability, for minimal compensation, she said. Its the pharmaceutical companies that reap the benefits. Structurally, there is an ethical problem.

A woman wearing a glove as a precaution against the coronavirus holds a vial as she waits in a line at a testing site in Seoul in April.

(Lee Jin-man / Associated Press)

Mission not yet accomplished

California is weeks away from returning to a largely pre-pandemic life, but the mission accomplished vibe overlooks the fact that people of color are still getting left behind, columnist Erika D. Smith reminds us. And once rules about masks, social distancing and capacity limits are relaxed or removed, the gap stands to grow further.

The reason: Nearly two-thirds of Black and Latino Californians still havent been vaccinated, and thats not likely to change very much by June 1, said Dr. Amon Rodgers, an assistant professor at Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science in South Los Angeles.

My concern is that the reopening happens before we get a higher rate of vaccinations in areas like Compton and South L.A., Rodgers said. I dont want this community to be left holding the bag and widening the disparity that we already have.

Like much of California, L.A. County has plenty of vaccine doses. But some people, particularly those without internet access or vehicles, still have a hard time finding a place to get the jab, Smith writes. Plus, many Black and Latino residents of South L.A. dont have a primary care physician.

If youve never had access to care, you cant have a one-on-one conversation with a healthcare provider to answer your questions, explained Dr. Roberto Vargas of Charles R. Drew University.

Mixing up the menu

Across L.A., restaurants are reopening their dining rooms, but the experience isnt necessarily the same as it was before. Many eateries have undertaken significant renovations to adhere to the rules of the yellow tier.

Marianna Caldwell, the sommelier and general manager of Cassia in Santa Monica, recalled the unsatisfying reopening last June, when the Southeast Asian restaurant had to close its doors just a week and a half after it reopened. This time around, the bar-like seafood station has been replaced with sleek, upholstered banquettes.

We wanted to take our time and do it right so that we wont have to shut back down again, she said. And I dont think L.A.s going to shut back down again.

Restaurateurs philosophies about reopening vary as widely as the cuisines. While some appreciated the time the pandemic gave them to reconfigure their menus and decor, others thought long and hard about how to reopen safely without straying from their roots.

That was the case for Mark Echeverria, whose family owns Musso & Frank Grill.

For Mussos, being 102 years old, it wasnt necessarily about us pivoting and trying to make something work; it was more about remaining unchanged, he said.

Patrons enjoy dinner at Cassia as the much loved restaurant reopens its indoor dining room.

(Jason Armond / Los Angeles Times)

Stranded students

Many American college students have spent the pandemic zooming into classes from their childhood bedrooms. International students stuck in their home countries have faced the added hardships of time zone differences that forced them to log on for midnight classes.

Now that the coronavirus is ebbing in the U.S., these students are eager to return to their stateside campuses. But huge barriers are in their way, my colleague Teresa Watanabe reports. International students are panicked that huge backlogs for visa requests, shuttered consulates and bureaucratic rules that limit access to the U.S. may derail their long-awaited return.

UC Berkeley student Ruhi Jha began her college career remotely from her home in New Delhi. Last month, she and her family members contracted and survived COVID-19. The experience was terrifying, but now shes feeling anxious about whether shell be able to get to California in time for the fall term. Berkeley also requires students to get the COVID-19 vaccine, but trying to land an appointment for one in the worlds second most populous country amid a devastating outbreak so far has been frustrating and fruitless.

I dont think Ive ever been in such a stressful situation in my life, she said. There have been quite a few moments of tears, but you just have to stay positive and scrape through whatever life is showing you.

Get outside. Try a hike from our list of the 50 best hikes in L.A. Or get inspiration from South L.A. and turn your yard into a microfarm. And next week, a total lunar eclipse is happening in the early hours of Wednesday, which would be a great time to head to the newly designated dark-sky community of Julian to see the super flower blood moon. Subscribe to The Wild for more on the outdoors.

Watch something great. Our weekend culture watch list includes Mad Max: Fury Road, Jurassic Park, Moana and more at local theaters, pop-ups and drive-ins. And in his Indie Focus newsletters roundup of new movies, Mark Olsen recommends the French film Spring Blossom. Written, directed by and starring 19-year-old Suzanne Lindon, the film tells the story of a teenager who engages in a flirtatious, chaste relationship with a 35-year-old actor. Critics have raved about this coming-of-age narrative that reckons with the French culture of sexualizing teenage girls.

Eat something great. Feast on moles and other Oaxacan food in Koreatown at Guelaguetza, winner of the 2021 Gold Award from The Times. Or savor a 10-course tasting menu at Phenakite, named restaurant of the year by The Times. Bill Addison also recommends his favorite L.A. restaurants for outdoor dining in the latest issue of the Tasting Notes newsletter.

Go online. Heres The Times guide to the internet for when youre looking for information on self-care, feel like learning something new or interesting, or want to expand your entertainment horizons.

USC students participate in commencement exercises at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum.

(Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)

Members of USCs Class of 2020 finally got to wear their caps and gowns one year after they graduated.

The university held 14 different commencement ceremonies over seven days to celebrate the classes of 2020 and 2021. A total of 21,000 students took part in the ceremonies, which were held outdoors at the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum for the first time in 71 years.

Masked students sat eight feet apart on the field, while spectators were socially distanced in the stands. Photographer Al Seib brought back a series of shots that captured the elation of the collective celebration.

Aleeson Eka, Josephine Nwokedi and Lawrence Rolle, left to right, celebrate their dual degrees in medicine and business.

(Al Seib / Los Angeles Times)

Resources

Need a vaccine? Sign up for email updates, and make an appointment where you live: City of Los Angeles | Los Angeles County | Kern County | Orange County | Riverside County | San Bernardino County | San Diego County | San Luis Obispo County | Santa Barbara County | Ventura County

Need more vaccine help? Talk to your healthcare provider. Call the states COVID-19 hotline at (833) 422-4255. And consult our county-by-county guides to getting vaccinated.

Practice social distancing using these tips, and wear a mask or two.

Watch for symptoms such as fever, cough, shortness of breath, chills, shaking with chills, muscle pain, headache, sore throat and loss of taste or smell. Heres what to look for and when.

Need to get tested? Heres where you can in L.A. County and around California.

Americans are hurting in many ways. We have advice for helping kids cope, resources for people experiencing domestic abuse and a newsletter to help you make ends meet.

Weve answered hundreds of readers questions. Explore them in our archive here.

For our most up-to-date coverage, visit our homepage and our Health section, get our breaking news alerts, and follow us on Twitter and Instagram.

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Coronavirus Today: What to expect on June 15 - Los Angeles Times

Coronavirus: Canada catches up to US in giving out first doses of vaccine - as it happened  Financial Times

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Coronavirus: Canada catches up to US in giving out first doses of vaccine - as it happened - Financial Times

Each week, we answer frequently asked questions about life during the coronavirus crisis. If you have a question you'd like us to consider for a future post, email us at goatsandsoda@npr.org with the subject line: "Weekly Coronavirus Questions." See an archive of our FAQs here.

I had COVID. Do I need to get the vaccine?

Yes! While natural infection does seem to provide some immunity, studies suggest that it is short term: Protection can wane 90 days post-infection, says Dr. Jill Weatherhead, assistant professor of adult and pediatric infectious diseases at Baylor College of Medicine.

We also don't know enough yet about how well natural immunity protects you from variants of the virus, she says.

On the other hand, she says, "currently available vaccines in the United States [from Pfizer, Moderna and Johnson & Johnson] will provide a more robust immunity that lasts a minimum of six months and vaccines to date have shown clinical efficacy against all variants of concern."

There's another compelling reason, says Charlotte Baker, assistant professor of epidemiology at Virginia Tech. "You can get COVID more than once," she says, although the phenomenon is rare. "And some people who early on got COVID and then got it again had much worse outcomes."

The scant research on reinfection has shown mixed outcomes, but a small study from March showed more severe cases among 33 Brazilian health care workers with recurrent COVID, including one fatality.

So, does it matter when I get the shot?

If you've had COVID, wait until you are symptom-free and have completed the 10-day isolation period recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Out of respect for the health care workers volunteering to give you your inoculation, it's important not to go while you have an active case of COVID, Baker says.

"If you currently have COVID, you can pass COVID to health workers or other people who are giving vaccines or are in the same space," she says. "That's the biggest concern."

But don't hesitate after that isolation period, Weatherhead and Baker advise.

To ensure there are no gaps in your immunity, schedule your appointment within 90 days of your illness, Weatherhead says. When vaccines were scarce at the beginning of the year, the CDC said it was OK for people who had been sick with COVID to wait up to 90 days to get the shot, since the risk of reinfection is very low during those three months post-illness. Now, with widespread availability of the vaccine, most people don't need to wait until the end of that period.

If you received monoclonal antibodies or convalescent plasma as a COVID treatment, however, the CDC currently recommends waiting 90 days before getting a COVID-19 vaccine, to reduce any risk of the treatments interfering with the vaccine.

The vaccine should give you the same protection that it offers to those who haven't had COVID, and cover you from variants you weren't infected with, Baker says in addition to lasting longer. Natural immunity appears to only protect you from the version of COVID that you had.

The bottom line: "You getting COVID-19 may help protect a little for a little while, but the vaccine helps protect a lot for a longer time," Baker says.

I've heard that side effects from the shot can be worse for people who had COVID.

This may be true, though evidence is light so far. Baker has some personal experience with this:

"My brother had COVID really early on, and he and I got the vaccine the same day," she says. "My symptoms subsided in a day or so, but his lasted a week. But we've also seen some who got the vaccine after being sick and they were good to go."

Side effects might not be fun, but Baker says you can rest assured that they are a normal response (and usually subside quickly!). Data from clinical trials have shown that it is safe to receive the vaccine after natural infection, Weatherhead says.

And preliminary research has shown strong immune responses in people who have had COVID and the first dose of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines. So there's a chance that bigger, future studies could show that people who had the disease need just one shot of an mRNA vaccine because their natural infection likely jump-started their immune response. But remember, since studies haven't yet confirmed that, for now you need to get both shots to ensure you have full protection.

Sheila Mulrooney Eldred is a freelance health journalist in Minneapolis. She's written about COVID-19 for many publications, including Medscape, Kaiser Health News, Science News for Students and The Washington Post. More at sheilaeldred.pressfolios.com. On Twitter: @milepostmedia

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Should I Get The Vaccine If I Had COVID? : Goats and Soda - NPR

by: Char'Nese Turner, Nexstar Media Wire

US actor Tom Hanks and wife Rita Wilson arrive for the 92nd Oscars at the Dolby Theatre in Hollywood, California on February 9, 2020. (Photo by Robyn Beck / AFP) (Photo by ROBYN BECK/AFP via Getty Images)

(NewsNation Now) Actress Salma Hayek recently revealed that she had a near-fatal bout with COVID-19 last year.

Hayek told Variety she spent one seven-week period isolated in a room and had to be put on oxygen. She says she spent much of the year recovering at home in London.

Hayek joins a list of celebrities who have tested positive for the virus since the start of the pandemic.

Heres a short list ofstars who also contracted COVID-19.

At the start of the pandemic the famed actor announced via Twitter that he and his wife, actress and singer Rita Wilson, contracted coronavirus in Australia. After recovering from the virus the couple announced that they volunteered to donate blood and plasma toward a COVID-19 vaccine.

Last March the actor announced he had tested positive for coronavirus in an Instagram. He also donated plasma after recovering from the virus.

The actor announced his coronavirus diagnosis via Twitter on March 16, 2020. Elba said he was asymptomatic. His wife, Sabrina Dhowre, later contracted the virus after choosing not to quarantine away from her husband.

The ESPN reporter contracted the virus in March 2020. Burke said her symptoms were extensive and she could not be out of bed for more than five minutes.

The singer and her three-year-old son tested positive for the virus last year after experiencing symptoms. This is going to sound crazy, but we had COVID last year, very early in March, and it was really, really bad and I rewrote my will,she said.

The actress wrote said via Instagram that she battled the virus for 21 days. After recovering, she said she still experienced lingering symptoms that lead to a diagnosis of clinical adrenal insufficiency and chronic migraine, which she says she did not have prior to contracting coronavirus.

The actress said she tested positive for the coronavirus in April 2020.

I had never been this kind of sick. Everything hurt. Loss of smell. It felt like an elephant was sitting on my chest. I couldnt breathe. I couldnt keep food in me. I lost 9 pounds in 2 weeks, Milano wrote on Instagram. I thought I was dying. It felt like I was dying. I will be donating my plasma with hopes that I might save a life.

Johnson, his wife, and their two young daughters tested positive for the coronaviruslast year.

I could tell you that this has been one of the most challenging and difficult things we have ever had to endure as a family, and for me, too, personally as well,he said in an Instagram video. I wish it was only me who tested positive, but it wasnt, it was my entire family, so this one was a real kick in the gut.

Stars like Hamiltons Nick Cordero, Big Angstar Linda Torres, actress Carol Sutton, Julie Bennett, and Tom Dempsey have died of complications with COVID-19.

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Celebrities who have tested positive for coronavirus - fox8.com

TAIPEI, Taiwan Closed schools and restaurants offering takeout only. Lines around the block at testing sites. Politicians on television urging the public to stay calm.

If the scenes around Taiwan this week have a distinctly early pandemic feel, it is because the coronavirus is only now washing up on the islands shores in force. A crush of new infections has brought a swift end to the Covid-free normality that residents had been enjoying for more than a year.

By shutting its borders early and requiring two-week quarantines of nearly everyone who arrives from overseas, Taiwan had been managing to keep life on the island mostly unfettered. But all that changed after enough infections slipped past those high walls to cause community outbreaks.

For most of the past week, the government has ordered residents to stay home whenever possible and to wear masks outdoors, though it has not declared a total lockdown. Local authorities are ramping up rapid testing, though some health experts worry that too few tests are being done to stay ahead of the viruss spread.

Taiwans latest numbers between 200 and 350 new infections a day for the past several days, and a few deaths are still low by the standards of the hardest-hit countries. On Thursday, it reported 286 new local infections. But the uptick has jolted a population that, until last Saturday, had recorded only 1,290 Covid-19 cases and 12 deaths during the entire pandemic.

Adding to the concern: Only around 1 percent of the islands 23.5 million residents have been vaccinated against the virus so far.

This day was bound to come sooner or later, said Daniel Fu-chang Tsai, a professor at the National Taiwan University College of Medicine. The slow pace of immunizations combined with more transmissible variants to create a perfect window, Professor Tsai said, for the island to experience a flare-up.

It did not help, he said, that more people had been leaving their masks at home and abandoning social distancing.

Its like Swiss cheese, Professor Tsai said. There were a few holes in the front and a big hole in the back. But this time, the blade happened to pierce straight through.

Before this month, Taiwan had spent the bulk of the pandemic happily shielded from its worst ravages.

Eight months passed last year without a single case of community transmission until an infection in December snapped the streak. Even after that, local infections cropped up only sporadically for months.

Then the tide shifted gradually, then suddenly.

On April 14, the government began allowing crew members for Taiwanese airlines to quarantine at home for just three days after arriving on long-haul flights, down from the previous requirement of five days.

A week later, China Airlines, Taiwans flag carrier, told the government that one of its pilots had tested positive in Australia. Health officials began expanding testing for airline workers. Soon, more pilots and their family members were testing positive, as were employees at a quarantine hotel.

May 21, 2021, 7:01 p.m. ET

On May 10, a pilot who had been in the United States tested positive after completing his three-day quarantine, but not before he had visited a pub and a restaurant in Taipei.

All China Airlines crew members were ordered into rolling 14-day home quarantines. But it was probably too late. A cluster of infections began to emerge among workers and patrons at so-called hostess bars in Taipeis Wanhua District.

By the end of the week, daily case numbers had soared into the triple digits.

So far, the search for new infections has been concentrated in the populous cities of Taipei and New Taipei, where more than 1,600 people can receive rapid testing each day. Hospitals are also providing slower testing services.

Dr. Chiang Kuan-yu, 37, a physician at Taipei City Hospital, went to Wanhua District on Monday to help run a testing site there. He said there had been big crowds over the weekend, when the case numbers first started to rise. Some people had to wait an extra day to get tested.

Now there are more resources for testing, so we can keep up better, Dr. Chiang said.

Officials are trying to use test centers efficiently by testing only those who are showing symptoms or may have come in contact with infected people.

Chen Shih-chung, Taiwans health minister and head of its Central Epidemic Command Center, has urged those with no Covid-19 symptoms and no history of contact to not even come to testing sites, lest they become infected there.

This only will slow down our search for possible spreaders, Mr. Chen said in a news briefing. Dont go there thinking, Oh, maybe Im infected, maybe its best that I get tested. You absolutely must not come.

But Dr. Wang Jen-hsien, an infectious disease specialist atChina Medical University Hospital in the central Taiwanese city of Taichung, called this an excessively frugal approach. He urged the government to consider locking down Wanhua District and testing all residents.

Before, Taiwan was a safe society. If you tested randomly back then, of course you would endanger public health, Dr. Wang said. But now if its a high-risk zone, then you cant do things this way. Your way of thinking has to change.

Taiwan received its first doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine in early March, and it has since been gradually immunizing health workers and other priority groups. Officials say doses of the Moderna vaccine will arrive soon. Several Taiwanese companies are also developing vaccines.

Taiwanese authorities began working with domestic vaccine producers in January 2020, after the coronaviruss genetic sequence was made available and before the Chinese city of Wuhan went into lockdown.

Taiwan got started extremely early, said Dr. Ho Mei-shang, a research fellow at the Institute of Biomedical Sciences at Academia Sinica in Taipei who was involved with the governments vaccine efforts. We said at the time, Whatever the vaccine ends up being, we want to make it ourselves as quickly as possible.

But Taiwans insistence on developing and producing its own immunizations may have made officials less quick to snap up overseas vaccines when those started becoming available, Dr. Ho said.

And then, she said, by the beginning of this year, when the pandemic was so severe in so many countries, we just said well wait a little.

Even after the AstraZeneca vaccine first became available in Taiwan, the low case count meant many people felt no urgent need to get immunized.

Still, Dr. Ho said she was heartened to see how quickly people in Taiwan were adjusting to the new restrictions on daily life, even after such a carefree past year.

Recently, she went for a run at 10 p.m. and forgot to wear her mask at first. But she noticed that even at that hour, everyone else who was out walking and exercising was masked up.

This is a state of affairs, she said, that really sets Taiwan apart.

Originally posted here:

Taiwan Faces a Surge in New Covid-19 Infections - The New York Times

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Gov. Greg Abbott told lawmakers Thursday evening that he would place the allocation of nearly $16 billion in federal funds for COVID-19 recovery on their plate during a special session in the fall.

Abbott already planned to call a special session later in the year for the Legislature to do its decennial redrawing of Texas political maps, which was delayed because of the Trump administration's handling of the census. But the allocation of the federal COVID-19 relief funds adds another item to their to-do list and allows the Legislature to participate in the administration of those funds.

House members were notified of the plan in an email Thursday evening. In a statement to The Texas Tribune, Abbott congratulated lawmakers for crafting a conservative and balanced budget that will secure a more prosperous future for Texas that keeps government spending under control.

As everybody knows, I will be calling a special session for redistricting in the fall, and have committed to Lt. Governor [Dan] Patrick, Speaker [Dade] Phelan, Chairs [Jane] Nelson and [Greg] Bonnen, and Vice Chairs [Eddie] Lucio and [Mary] Gonzalez that I will place the allocation of the nearly $16 billion in Coronavirus State Fiscal Recovery Relief federal funds on the same special call so the entire legislature can participate in the allocation process in a way that best serves all Texans, the statement said.

Lawmakers from both the left and the right had criticized Abbotts hold over federal coronavirus relief funds while the Legislature was not in session.

In their version of the $250 billion budget, House lawmakers had added a key provision to rein in the governor's spending power and ensure that the Legislature would participate in decisions over how to spend federal relief money. An amendment by Rep. Geanie Morrison, R-Victoria, which would have barred spending any federal relief funds without the approval of the Legislature, was approved 147-0.

But in a conference committee to reconcile the differences between the House and Senate versions of the budget, that amendment had was stripped, leading to grumblings from House lawmakers about forcing a potential special session. The only bill the Legislature is legally obligated to pass every two years is the budget.

The Morrison amendment, voted unanimously out of the house, allowing the entire legislature to decide how federal stimulus money would be used through out the state was stripped in the budget reconciliation with the Senate," Rep. Lyle Larson, R-San Antonio, wrote on Twitter. "The disrespect shown will put us in a special session."

By announcing that legislators will have some power over nearly $16 billion in federal relief funds in the fall, Abbott could stave off criticism that he is consolidating spending power in his office, in contradiction to the state constitution's mandate that the legislative branch control the state's purse.

But outside of that chunk of federal money, Abbott will still have the power to spend billions of dollars in unspent federal aid between now and a special session in the fall.

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Texas' $16 billion in coronavirus aid won't be allocated until fall - The Texas Tribune