Category: Covid-19

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President Biden appeared to claim he was vice president during the coronavirus pandemic and that former President Barack Obama had dispatched him to Detroit to help with the response.

In comments first reported by the New York Post, Biden addressed an NAACP campaign event in Michigan Sunday night, where he repeatedly railed against his presumptive Republican opponent, former President Trump, while offering an aside about the contagion which began in 2019 while the latter was in office.

"When I was vice president, things were kind of bad during the pandemic," Biden said near the beginning of his remarks.

"And, what happened was Barack said to me: Go to Detroit help fix it."

BIDEN BIZARRELY ENDS CONNECTICUT SPEECH WITH GOD SAVE THE QUEEN, MAN

Going on to reference Detroit Democratic Mayor Mike Duggan, who was seated to Biden's right, the president continued, "Well, the poor mayor he's spent more time with me than he ever thought he's going to have to."

Duggan then rose and shook Biden's hand.

The pandemic, numbered COVID-19 due to global health officials having deemed it an outbreak in 2019, transpired in the latter years of Trump's term, not Obama's. Biden succeeded Trump during the denouement of the pandemic.

Elsewhere in the speech, Biden referenced working with civil rights activists in his youth, and quipped that Detroit helped "put food on" his family's table, as his father, Joseph Biden Sr., was in the automobile business.

BIDEN DROPS EMBARRASSING GAFFES DAYS AFTER LIBERAL MEDIA HYPES SOTU PERFORMANCE

Reserving much of his remarks to criticize Trump, Biden claimed at one juncture that "MAGA Republicans" want to engage in book-banning and other endeavors he described as extremist.

"All that progress is at risk. Trump is trying to make the country forget just how dark things were when he was president," Biden said.

"We will never forget him lying about how serious the pandemic was, telling Americans just inject bleach I think that's what he did. I think that's why he's so screwy."

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In another jab, Biden warned against his predecessor potentially nominating more justices to the Supreme Court: "Do you think he'll put anybody [there] who has a brain?"

"It's clear when he lost in 2020, and I mean this sincerely: something snapped in Trump. He just can't accept he lost That's why Jan. 6 happened."

A mid-April Fox News Poll in Michigan found 46% of registered voters there support Biden, while 49% support Trump. Trump gained two percentage points in that survey over a similar one conducted in February. Two years prior, Biden led Trump by eight percentage points in the Great Lakes State.

Fox News Digital reached out to the White House for comment but did not receive a response by press time.

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Biden suggests he was vice president during COVID-19 pandemic: 'Barack said to me, go to Detroit' - Fox News

COVID-19 infections are now likely growing in at least 12 states and the District of Columbia, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated Friday, as health authorities are watching for signs the virus might be starting to accelerate again after a springtime lull.

Based on data analyzed by the agency from emergency department visits, CDC modeling suggests COVID-19 infections are increasing in Alaska, Arizona, California, Washington D.C., Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Minnesota, Nevada, New Jersey, Oregon, Texas and Washington state.

The uptick comes as nearly all parts of the country remain at "low" or "minimal" levels of so-called "respiratory illness activity" under the CDC's benchmarks, similar to previous years' slowdowns in COVID-19's spread over the spring and early summer.

An average of 0.3% of emergency room patients through May 10 were diagnosed with COVID-19 nationwide, far below last summer's peak at nearly 3% in late August. Reported COVID-19 cases in nursing homes also remain close to record lows nationwide.

Preliminary data from the CDC's COVID-19 wastewater surveillance also estimates that levels of the virus remain "minimal" nationwide, though virus levels appear to be trending up in sewersheds from the West.

The dominant strains of the virus circulating at the moment are known as KP.2 and KP.1.1, informally nicknamed the "FLiRT" variants. Health officials have said the two strains are closely related to the JN.1 variant from this past winter's wave, apart from two minor changes that might be enabling them to spread.

A CDC spokesperson said on May 10 that the agency does not think the variants are "causing an increase in infections as transmission of SARS-CoV-2 is low."

"Based on current data there are no indicators that KP.2 would cause more severe illness than other strains. CDC will continue to monitor community transmission of the virus and how vaccines perform against this strain," the spokesperson had said.

Alexander Tin is a digital reporter for CBS News based in the Washington, D.C. bureau. He covers the Biden administration's public health agencies, including the federal response to infectious disease outbreaks like COVID-19.

Originally posted here:

COVID "likely growing" in D.C. and 12 states, CDC estimates - CBS News

State leaders issued a report touting Illinois abandonment of representational government in favor of executive fiat during the pandemic as effective. They failed to take responsibility for job recovery lagging the nation by a year and seeing public schools suffer.

Illinois was one of the last states in the country to end COVID-19 executive orders. We had some of the toughest restrictions on businesses and individuals, as well as some of the longest-lasting school closures.

So, it was surprising to read state bureaucrats think, for the most part, the states response to the pandemic was pretty good. The state of Illinois quietly released a report to that effect during a Friday afternoon news dump May 10. To their credit, they acknowledged the need to produce an after-action report, studying what went well and what could be improved.

For instance, the report flags bureaucratic hiring processes as a hindrance to Illinois ability to navigate the pandemic. But the analysis doesnt include a review of how the states response to COVID-19 impacted Illinois economy, its students or its population.

It also doesnt answer the most important question of all: Did the states drastic lockdown rules keep Illinoisans safe? According to The New York Times COVID-19 data tracker, Illinois all-time pandemic death rate per 100,000 people was higher than Texas, which remained more open during the pandemic.

Anyway, none of that was in the report. Instead, report authors touted Illinois high vaccination rate among Black and Hispanic residents, as well as its effective use of executive orders.

The report reads: Illinois acted early and effectively in using its legal authorities to support the response. The Governors Emergency Declaration materially sped up procurement to acquire needed Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) in early days, with limited reports of increased serious fraud or abuse.

Its fair to say Gov. J.B. Pritzkers use of emergency orders expedited decision-making, but thats about the best that can be said. And Pritzker was not the only official handing down mandates: local governments and individual school districts did have some variation in terms of the severity of restrictions. Still, the governor enforced school closure guidelines that restricted districts ability to operate, and the Department of Public Healths rules drastically hindered business ability to stay afloat. Regardless of whether you were pro- or anti-masking, pro- or anti-vaccine mandate, or your position on any of the other countless, polarizing issues that arose during COVID-19, its hard to argue Illinois schools and business climate are not still struggling to recover from the pandemic and ensuing lockdowns.

Illinois didnt recover pandemic-era job losses until July 2023, a year after the rest of the country. Reading and math scores among Illinois students are improving, thankfully, but still have not recovered from 2019. Chronic absenteeism is at nearly 30% statewide. Research shows districts where classes were closed longer lost significantly more students. Illinois public schools have seen enrollment drop by 127,000 students. Whats worse is experts are now reporting school closures did not effectively prevent disease activity.

Infectious disease leaders have generally agreed that school closures were not an important strategy in stemming the spread of COVID, Dr. Jeanne Noble, who directed the COVID-19 response for the emergency department at the University of California San Francisco Parnassus medical center, told The New York Times.

An all-encompassing after-action report would account for the economic, academic and population-related issues Illinois faced during more than three years of COVID-19 emergency orders. Illinois sluggish jobs recovery from the pandemic was made even worse because of our ongoing population loss. Illinois population decline continued for its 10th consecutive year in 2023 as the states population dropped by 32,826 residents from July 2022-July 2023. This exodus is being driven by people leaving for other states 97% of those who moved away left for lower-tax states such as Texas and Florida. From 2021-2022, Illinois lost 37,217 residents ages 5-18. When school enrollment figures for 2023 come out later this year, well see if the state continued to lose school-age children to other states, which could help explain the enrollment drop in our public schools.

Pritzkers emergency powers lasted 1,155 days. He issued 42 executive orders. In May 2023, Illinois was one of just six states still under emergency powers. Wheres the cost-benefit analysis of those decisions, not to mention the abdication of responsibility by state lawmakers who after the first month should have debated and granted these executive powers if warranted?

Should one person be allowed to set the rules for an entire state this way for more than three years?

Pritzker was allowed to extend 30-day disaster proclamations without the approval of both chambers of the General Assembly. Thats not the norm is most states. Most other states lawmakers have the power to terminate a governors emergency powers by a joint resolution passed by both chambers. Arizona, Louisiana and Virginiaall enacted laws in 2022 increasing legislative oversight of executive powers.Our democracy is not intended to extend such unilateral authority to the executive branch, and certainly not for years and years.

Given Illinois painful path to recovery after the COVID-19 lockdowns, its worth forcing ourselves to relive what that time was like. We should consider adjusting the rules to make sure the people elected to represent us are truly representing us, rather than feeling relieved someone else is doing their job.

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Editorial: Illinois' very slow COVID-19 recovery painted as a win by state leaders - Illinois Policy

JIM KEITHLEY IS HERE TO TELL US HOW YOU CAN CHECK TO SEE IF YOU ARE OWED ANY MONEY. IT'S LIKELY PEOPLE THOUGHT IT WAS JUNK MAIL AND TOSSED THOSE CHECKS IN TRASH. MAINE STATE TREASURY SAYS 40,000 CHECKS TOTALING 19-MILLION DOLLARS WERE NEVER CASHED. WE HAVE GOOD NEWS TO REPORT - IT'S NOT TOO LATE. THE STATE WANTS TO GET THOSE PAYMENTS TO THEIR RIGHTFUL OWNERS - THROUGH THE MAINE'S UNCLAIMED PROPERTY SYSTEM. WE'VE POSTED THE LINK - MAINE UNCLAIMED PROPERTY DOT GOV - TO OUR WEBSITE. TYPE IN YOUR NAME AND YOU'LL FIND OUT YOU ARE AMONG THOSE 40,000 MAINERS WHO HAVE MONEY WAITING. THE STATE SENT OUT THREE CHECKS; IN 2021 - MAINE PEOPLE WHO WORKED DURING THE EARLY DAYS OF THE COVID-19 PANDEMIC WERE ISSUED A DISASTER RELIEF PAYMENT FOR $285. IN 2022 - $850 CHECKS WERE SENT OUT TO HELP PEOPLE DEAL WITH INCREASED COSTS DUE TO PANDEMIC- DRIVEN INFLATION. AND IN 2023 MAINE TAXPAYERS WERE ISSUED 450-DOLLAR CHECKS TO DEAL WITH RECORD-HIGH ENERGY COSTS. GO TO OUR WEBSITE WMTW.COM - CLICK ON THAT "MAINE UNCLAIM

Did you cash it? Tens of thousands of Maine relief checks have not been cashed

The state says more than $19 million in relief money has not been claimed

Updated: 4:31 PM EDT May 20, 2024

Did you ever cash your latest relief check from the State of Maine?On Monday, Gov. Janet Mills and State Treasurer Henry Beck said about 40,000 checks sent out as part of relief programs during and immediately following the COVID-19 pandemic have never been cashed. Those checks are worth a total of about $19 million.That money has now been turned over to the Maine Unclaimed Property program where people can claim it, or any other unclaimed property held by the state. You can also call (207) 624-7470.My Administration worked with the Legislature to deliver multiple relief payments to Maine people to help them through the economic hardships caused by the pandemic, said Mills. Now, like then, we want to make sure that money goes directly back into the pockets of Maine people. I urge you to check the Maine Unclaimed Property program to make sure you are not owed a relief payment or other unclaimed property held by the state. Nearly 2.3 million checks in total were sent out, including:$285 checks to 524,912 Maine people who worked during the early days of the COVID-19 pandemic$850 checks in 2022 to 876,283 people to help deal with increased costs driven by pandemic-driven inflation$450 checks in 2023 to 877,129 taxpayers to help deal with record-high energy costsOver 98% of the funds made it directly into the hands of Maine people to help with rising costs, said Beck. Now we want to do everything we can to get the remaining payments to their rightful owners and will be doing that through our unclaimed property system.

Did you ever cash your latest relief check from the State of Maine?

On Monday, Gov. Janet Mills and State Treasurer Henry Beck said about 40,000 checks sent out as part of relief programs during and immediately following the COVID-19 pandemic have never been cashed. Those checks are worth a total of about $19 million.

That money has now been turned over to the Maine Unclaimed Property program where people can claim it, or any other unclaimed property held by the state. You can also call (207) 624-7470.

My Administration worked with the Legislature to deliver multiple relief payments to Maine people to help them through the economic hardships caused by the pandemic, said Mills. Now, like then, we want to make sure that money goes directly back into the pockets of Maine people. I urge you to check the Maine Unclaimed Property program to make sure you are not owed a relief payment or other unclaimed property held by the state.

Nearly 2.3 million checks in total were sent out, including:

Over 98% of the funds made it directly into the hands of Maine people to help with rising costs, said Beck. Now we want to do everything we can to get the remaining payments to their rightful owners and will be doing that through our unclaimed property system.

Read more from the original source:

Tens of thousands of Maine relief checks have not been cashed - WMTW Portland

As we head into summer, theres a new dominant COVID-19 variant thats infecting people across the United States. KP.2 now represents 28% of COVID-19 infections in the country, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

KP.2 is one of several variants being referred to as FLiRT variants, named after the technical names for their mutations, Dr. Purvi Parikh, an immunologist at NYU Langone Health, told HuffPost via email. KP.2 is a descendent of the JN.1 strain from the winter, Parikh added.

Specifically, the FLiRT variants have a similar mutation in the spike protein, said Dr. Donald Dumford, an infectious disease physician at Cleveland Clinic Akron General in Ohio. That spike protein is what the virus uses to actually attach to and penetrate our lung cells.

It has new mutations which may evade antibodies (this is normally how viruses evolve and survive), Parikh explained.

Currently, COVID-19 cases are low, according to the American Medical Association, but its worth knowing the signs of spring COVID infections and how best to protect yourself from getting infected with KP.2 or another FLiRT variant. Below, experts share the common COVID-19 symptoms theyre seeing this spring and their tips to stay healthy:

The symptoms are really no different than what were seeing with other COVID variants at this point, Dumford said.

Most people who get infected will generally feel unwell and have symptoms such as a sore throat, fever and cough, Parikh said. A runny nose is also common, noted Dumford, as is fatigue, headache and muscle aches, according to the CDC. If you have symptoms such as trouble breathing, confusion and a fever above 103 degrees, you should see a doctor immediately.

Right now, what were seeing is most people are having relatively mild illness, and thats just because almost all of us its reported as over 95% of us have some amount of immunity to COVID viruses at this point, said Dumford, either from prior infections or vaccinations.

This means that even if you do become exposed to a new COVID-19 variant, you have some background immunity that can quell your symptoms if not stopping the infection altogether, he said.

Just because COVID infections tend to be more mild now doesnt mean you should discount the virus. Even these less severe illnesses can last weeks and make one feel miserable, not to mention theres a risk of long [COVID], said Parikh.

Long COVID can lead to health issues including heart palpitations, shortness of breath, brain fog and joint pain. Certain groups of people are at higher risk of hospitalization or death due to a COVID infection, too.

I think we do have to highlight that we still do see the severe cases of COVID occasionally in the hospital, Dumford said, noting that its usually people in vulnerable populations. Those over the age of 60, those with other respiratory conditions like emphysema and COPD, people with immune system problems, pregnant patients .... I think even though were seeing mild cases, we still have to remember theres people out there that can get really sick from it.

Halfpoint Images via Getty Images

Im always a proponent of vaccines ... the most recent vaccine recommendations is that those over the age of 65 should have gotten an additional booster this spring, said Dumford. If they havent, theres still an opportunity to do that. There is expected to be a new COVID vaccine that targets the circulating strains in the fall, which you should also get.

Parikh added that hand-washing and masking can help bolster your protection from getting sick, too.

COVID is now an endemic virus [thats] here to stay, and we must continue to take simple steps to protect ourselves and others and reduce transmission, especially to avoid long-term effects like long [COVID], Parikh said.

If you do get sick, be sure to follow the isolation guidelines.

Essentially now theyre doing COVID isolation similar to all respiratory viruses ... so, if you have symptoms [or] you have a fever, you should stay home until [the symptoms] are improving and also that youre fever-free for 24 hours without fever reducing medication, Dumford said.

Once you end isolation, you should wear a tight-fitting mask for five days to keep from getting those around you sick, he noted.

Compared with the infection spikes earlier in the pandemic, COVID-19 cases now are (thankfully) way down, but it doesnt mean you can throw caution to the wind. I just want to make sure people know its still circulating, and you have to think about it and take take appropriate precautions, Dumford said.

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Our journalists will continue to cover the twists and turns during this historic presidential election. With your help, we'll bring you hard-hitting investigations, well-researched analysis and timely takes you can't find elsewhere. Reporting in this current political climate is a responsibility we do not take lightly, and we thank you for your support.

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The Most Common COVID Symptoms Doctors Are Seeing This Spring - HuffPost

Long COVID is likely much more prevalent than indicated in electronic health record (EHR) diagnostic or referral codes, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine researchersreport in eClinicalMedicine.

The investigators analyzed National Health Service clinical data from more than 19 million adults in England on COVID-19 test results, hospitalizations, and vaccinations from November 2020 to January 2023. The aim was to detail trends in the documentation of 16 clinical codes tied to long COVID. Median follow-up was 2.2 years.

A total of 55,465 patients were flagged for long COVID, with20,025 diagnostic codes and 35,440 referral codes. The incidence of new long COVID rose steadily in the records during 2021, peaking in January 2022 and then declining.

"The pattern of long COVID recording over time did peak at the same time as SARS-COV-2 infections at a national level, but did not reflect the decline in infections in early 2021 or the waves of infections in 2022," the study authors wrote.

In comparison, 2.1 million people self-reported having long COVID in the proactively sampled Office for National Statistics community infection survey in January 2023

"If we assume a crude 10% of SARS-CoV-2 infections result in long COVID, as elsewhere,and with approximately 20 million recorded infections in Englandthe number of recorded long COVID cases in primary care is an order of magnitude below the estimated incidence of long COVID in England given the number of SARS-CoV-2 infections," the researchers wrote, meaning the true prevalence is 10 times higher.

The rate of long COVID per 100,000 person-years was 177.5 in women and 100.5 in men. Most patients with a long-COVID code (59%) didn't have documentation of a positive SARS-CoV-2 test in the previous 12 weeks or more, and 6.5% were hospitalized.

"There were systematic differences between those with and without a positive test amongst all participants with a long COVID record: those with a previous positive test result were more likely to be female, older, from a more deprived IMD [index of multiple deprivation] quintile, vaccinated, and to have not been hospitalised with COVID-19," the team wrote.

Crude rates of long-COVID codes were highest for women, those aged 40 to 60 years, White patients, those with at least one underlying medical condition, and people who continued to take infection-prevention precautions because they were at high-risk for severe COVID-19. Crude rates of long-COVID records were lowest in recipients of at least three vaccine doses and lower in those who received an mRNA vaccine as their first dose.

Our findings agree with previous work, that there are serious limitations with simply using EHR records as a measure of long COVID,and alternative approaches may be preferable.

But the raw rate of long-COVID codes was higher in those who received one or two vaccine doses. Also, crude rates of long COVID in the EHR depended on whether referral codes were included in the condition's definition.

"Our findings agree with previous work, that there are serious limitations with simply using EHR records as a measure of long COVID,and alternative approaches may be preferable," the investigators concluded."However, our analysis highlights that these other methods may be limited as well, especially if they depend on a recorded positive SARS-CoV-2 test result, since we found systematic differences between those with long COVID recorded, with and without a positive test result."

The authors said that validation of outcome measures is needed to better capture long-COVID cases. "National survey data suggests that many people in the UK suffer with long COVID, but relatively few cases are recorded in primary care," they concluded. "We have shown that using EHR diagnostic or referral codes unfortunately has major limitations in identifying and ascertaining true cases and timing that severely limit its utility in shedding light on causal pathways to prevent or treat Long COVID."

Original post:

Long-COVID codes in health record may dramatically underestimate its prevalence - University of Minnesota Twin Cities

Patients hospitalized with COVID-19 were more likely to die than those hospitalized with influenza during the fall and winter of 2023-2024, according to an analysis of Veterans Affairs data.

Among over 11,000 patients hospitalized for either illness during this past fall and winter, 5.7% of patients with COVID-19 died within 30 days of admission versus 4.24% of patients with influenza, reported Ziyad Al-Aly, MD, of the VA St. Louis Health Care System, and colleagues.

After adjusting for variables, the risk of death in people hospitalized for COVID-19 was 35% higher (adjusted HR 1.35, 95% CI 1.10-1.66), the authors detailed in a research letter in JAMA.

Al-Aly told MedPage Today that his group was actually surprised by the results. "We pretty much bought into the public narrative and drank the Kool-Aid like everybody, thinking that COVID is no longer [more deadly than the flu], although ... there was no data," he said. "But the verdict is out now, because we've analyzed the data from the 2023-2024 COVID season and clearly COVID mortality is still higher than the flu."

Moreover, the authors pointed out that the results of the study should be considered in light of the fact that there were nearly twice as many hospitalizations for COVID-19 compared with the flu for the 2023-2024 season, according to CDC surveillance data. In the study population, over three times the number of people were hospitalized for COVID-19 than for the flu.

However, the results did reveal that the risk of mortality in patients hospitalized with COVID-19 had fallen when compared to the previous 2022-2023 season. In their 2023 study, using the same database and methods, Al-Aly's group found that in the fall and winter of 2022-2023, COVID was about 60% more deadly than the flu in patients hospitalized for the illnesses.

"We should continue to take COVID seriously," Al-Aly emphasized. "I know we're all sick and tired of this pandemic and all of us have pandemic fatigue, but COVID is still more of a threat to health than the flu."

Reassuringly, there appeared to be no significant difference in the risk of death among patients hospitalized for COVID-19 before and during the emergence of the JN.1 variant of SARS-CoV-2 (adjusted HR 1.07, 95% CI 0.89-1.28), suggesting that JN.1 may not be more severe than other recent variants, they posited. The JN.1 variant became predominant beginning in late December 2023.

The study looked at data from VA electronic health records across all 50 states. Researchers identified people admitted to the hospital with a diagnosis of COVID-19 or influenza between Oct. 1, 2023 and March 27, 2024, along with a positive test 2 days before or up to 10 days after admission. Patients with either illness who were hospitalized for another reason were excluded. The study's cohort included 8,625 participants hospitalized for COVID-19 and 2,647 participants hospitalized for seasonal influenza.

After propensity score weighting, the mean age of the two cohorts was about 74 and 95% were male. About 19% were Black and 65% were white. Approximately 47% were infected before the JN.1 variant emerged. Also, of patients hospitalized for COVID-19, about 65% had received three or more shots of a COVID-19 vaccine, but approximately 15% had not received any COVID-19 vaccine. Approximately 44% of the study population had been vaccinated for influenza.

Only about 5.3% of people with COVID-19 had been treated with an outpatient antiviral, such as nirmatrelvir-ritonavir (Paxlovid), molnupiravir (Lagevrio), or remdesivir (Veklury). In contrast, 8% of patients hospitalized with the flu had received outpatient oseltamivir (Tamiflu).

The authors acknowledged that the VA study population was older and predominantly male, so the results may not be generalizable to other populations. Also, the causes of death were not examined.

Katherine Kahn is a staff writer at MedPage Today, covering the infectious diseases beat. She has been a medical writer for over 15 years.

Disclosures

The study was funded by the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Al-Aly and co-authors disclosed no relationships with industry.

Primary Source

JAMA

Source Reference: Xie Y, et al "Mortality in patients hospitalized for COVID-19 vs influenza in Fall-Winter 2023-2024" JAMA 2024; DOI: 10.1001/jama.2024.7395

Read more from the original source:

COVID Still Deadlier Than the Flu -- But the Gap Is Narrowing - Medpage Today

Alix Martichoux and The Hill

3 days ago

(NEXSTAR) On March 11, 2020, the director-general of the World Health Organization told the world that COVID-19 can be characterized as a pandemic.

At the time, fewer than 4,500 people were thought to have died from the virus, but it was spreading quickly, appearing in new cities and countries every day.

Fast forward to 2024, and the virus has taken an estimated 7 million lives. Its still mutating and sparking new variants, sickening thousands of people, and ultimately killing hundreds every day. But we also have far more tools than we did in 2020. We have several effective vaccines and anti-viral treatments to help combat the disease.

With all that in mind, is COVID-19 still considered a pandemic-level threat?

A WHO spokesperson told Nexstar the word pandemic is not binary, its not on or off. To make things even more complicated, theres not one universal agreed-upon definition of a pandemic.

Columbias Mailman School of Public Health says a pandemic begins when a disease is spreading exponentially and across international borders. This wide geographical reach is what makes pandemics lead to large-scale social disruption, economic loss, and general hardship.

On the other hand, a disease is endemic when its consistently present but limited to a particular region.

With COVID-19, its been consistently present for years, but isnt limited to any particular area or population. It still has wide geographical reach, but case counts arent exploding out of control.

The WHO wont make a ruling on when the pandemic is over, a spokesperson told Nexstar. However, they did declare an end to the Public Health Emergency of International Concern (PHEIC) in May 2023. Unlike the term pandemic, a public health emergency is clearly defined under international health regulations.

While the WHO stopped short of determining whether or not COVID-19 still constitutes a pandemic, the agency made it clear the virus remains a global health threat.

There are hundreds of thousands people with COVID-19 in hospital now and there are many suffering from Long COVID, the WHO said. What we can say for COVID-19, is that the crisis is over, but the threat is not and what we need now, is countries to pursue their response and to take action needed to save lives.

View post:

Is COVID-19 still a pandemic? - KNWA

A recent Brazilian study yielded alarming data about the effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on maternal health. In 2020, the rate of maternal mortality was 40% higher than the average of the previous years. In 2021, there was a surge in the number of cases, and COVID-19 was responsible for 60% of maternal deaths that year.

These data suggest that the pandemic has disproportionately affected pregnant women and postpartum women, according to the investigators. The maternal mortality rate observed in 2021 significantly exceeded the global target of the Sustainable Development Goals for this indicator (70 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births), reaching a level of approximately 110 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births. This level was similar to the levels that Brazil recorded in the 1980s.

Another Brazilian study showed that the country's northern and northeastern regions were most affected by excess maternal mortality in 2020. In 2021, the impact was greater in the midwestern and southern regions. The worst scenario occurred between March and June 2021 nationwide, with an excess of 413% in the mortality of mothers between ages 35 and 49 years in the southern region.

Brazil's numbers are significantly higher than those of other developing countries. In Chile, for example, maternal mortality increased from 19.2 to 28.1 per 100,000 live births. In countries in Central Asia, maternal mortality ranged from 18.5 to 36.5 per 100,000 live births during the pandemic, which was higher than in previous years. Colombia, which already had a high maternal mortality rate of 80 per 100,000 live births before the pandemic, saw an increase to 87 per 100,000 live births.

The data from the United States are also noteworthy. The maternal mortality rate, which was 20.1 per 100,000 live births in 2019, rose to 23.8 in 2020 and to 32.9 in 2021. Racial issues are important here: Among the Black population, maternal mortality reached 69.9 per 100,000 live births, which is more than two and a half times the rate in the White population (26.6 per 100,000 live births).

In addition, a US study conducted in the first year of the pandemic showed that the incidence of maternal mortality coincident with a confirmed COVID-19 infection ranged from 79.1 to 232.9 per 100,000 deliveries between April and December 2020. These numbers are more than 10 times higher than those for maternal mortality unrelated to COVID-19.

Maternal mortality is influenced by the quality of care, which involves issues such as access and availability of resources; prenatal, childbirth, and postpartum practices; and social, economic, and ethnic disparities in women's health overall.

The difference between the Brazilian numbers and those of other countries cannot be explained by biologic factors alone. During the pandemic, Brazil experienced significant strain on its healthcare system, including difficulty promoting prenatal care for pregnant women, barriers to accessing childbirth assistance, and the low availability of intensive care beds. The occurrence of a critical period in 2021 also suggests the slow adoption of measures to control and mitigate the effects of the pandemic, such as vaccinating pregnant women and postpartum women.

In 2022, the rate of maternal mortality decreased to 57.7 per 100,000 live births. The statistics for 2023 are not yet available. But much work remains to be done before the country reaches its target, as part of the Sustainable Development Goals, of fewer than 30 maternal deaths for every 100,000 live births.

Many of the women who died during the pandemic left behind families and children. A 2022 Brazilian study showed that in the first 2 years of the pandemic, over 40,000 children were left motherless. This phenomenon has implications for the well-being and structure of families and increases children's vulnerability to emotional and behavioral issues, even in the long term.

Finally, Brazil may observe changes in its population in the coming years as a consequence of the pandemic. There is an expectation, for example, that the observed population decline may accelerate. It may be too early to state that the excess of maternal deaths will have a population-level impact, but it is certainly something to monitor closely.

This story was translated from the Medscape Portuguese edition using several editorial tools, including AI, as part of the process. Human editors reviewed this content before publication.

Excerpt from:

Maternal Mortality Soars in Brazil During the Pandemic - Medscape

More than 150 years ago, some 15,000 Chinese workers arrived in the U.S. to help construct the countrys first transcontinental railroad, which connected the West Coast with the East Coasts rail network.

These Chinese laborers received lower wages than their white counterparts for the same job and endured worse living conditions.

Over the past century and a half, discrimination against Asians has persisted.

During World War II, the U.S. incarcerated hundreds of thousands of Japanese Americans; after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, hate incidents against Middle Eastern and South Asian communities soared; following the coronavirus outbreak, hatred directed at people of Asian heritage spread across the globe.

After witnessing a surge in anti-Asian hate incidents during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Ethnic Studies Professor Jennifer Ho collected a diverse range of stories from authors of Asian heritage worldwide and released the edited volumeGlobal Anti-Asian Racism in February.

If you know someone who's Asian, living anywhere in this world, they have been subjected to and have thought about being the target of violence and racism, says Ho, a Chinese American woman who was herself subject to anti-Asian harassment at the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

May marks the 155th anniversary of the railroads completion and the annual celebration of Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI) Heritage Month. CU Boulder Today spoke with Ho, director of theCenter for Humanities & the Arts, about her new book and the importance of supporting AAPI communities year-round.

Jennifer Ho

The COVID-19 virus originated out of China. Thats really all it took, given the centuries-long circulation of yellow peril rhetoric, which describes the Western fears that East Asians would take over the West and disrupt Western values.

The peak of the recent wave of anti-Asian racism was in March of 2021 when a gunman in Atlanta, Georgia, killed eight people, six of whom were Asian women. Around the same time, we saw multiple videos of Asian elders being punched in the face in various Chinatowns across the U.S.

The recent events are specifically targeting Chinese or people who have East Asian features and are misidentified as Chinese. But this violence is rooted in a longstanding history of targeting Asians in the U.S.simply because they look different.

In the U.S. context, white supremacy is the main driving force of anti-Asian racism. White supremacy perpetuates the belief that Asians never inherently belong in U.S. spaces and that Asians are always hyphenated Americans. For example, I'm never going to be treated or seen as someone who is just plain American, because in the minds of most people in the U.S., an American is someone with a white face.

Thankfully, we have not had another kind of mass fatality after Atlanta and Indianapolis. But that's not to say that anti-Asian racism isn't happening. For example, Florida recently passed a law banning Chinese nationals from purchasing real estate. The kind of anti-Chinese rhetoric that is constantly in the news means that if there's ever some kind of security threat, whether through a virus or an Asian entity, we will likely see another uptick in anti-Asian racism.

Over the years, there has been a growing collective sense of what it means to be Asian American. About 15 years ago, a survey revealed only 20% of Asian Americans identified themselves as Asian American. Instead, the vast majority of people of Asian heritage in the U.S. identified first and foremost with their ethnic background, like Chinese, Chinese American, Indian, Indian American, South Asian and so on.

In response to the recent waves of anti-Asian racism, more people realized if you have East Asian features, you can be misidentified as Chinese and become the target of hate incidents. As a result, the attacks that happened against one Asian ethnic group become attacks against all Asian ethnic groups. This led to a greater understanding and awareness that Asian Americans, as a racial collective body, need to come together in solidarity to protect one another.

I had done a few public-facing pieces during COVID-19 on anti-Asian racism. After one of them was published, I was contacted by people from around the world asking me if there were resources that I knew of in their countries similar to the Stop AAPI Hate coalition in the U.S.

My expertise is very limited to a U.S. context, and I didn't have other resources to share. So when I was contacted to develop a volume on global anti-Asian racism, I was grateful to curate acollection of essays from a diverse array of scholars from around the world.

I do hope the book can reach out to a more general readership, outside of a classroom space, outside of the ivory tower of academia. I hope that people who have a curiosity about anti-Asian racism, whether they're Asian-identified or not, will read about various forms of anti-Asian racism that have happened around the globe.

During COVID-19, I saw colleagues step up and be interviewed by a number of news outlets, write opinion pieces and share their expertise on what they knew about anti-Asian racism with the world. I hope, very humbly, that this book can be my contribution.

Breaking stereotypes is always just hard. In the U.S., we really like binary systems, like our political parties. We prefer things to be categorized as either good or bad. But the reality is always more complicated than that.

But I do have hope. The way we are now starting to understand that gender is not binary but on a spectrum and fluid makes me hopeful that one day we can do that with race.

The stories of Asians in America is yet to be told publicly, broadly and widely. I wish more people would do stories about the communities, not just when there's something bad happening to Asian Americans in America, but out of genuine curiosity about who Asian Americans are.

We are this really wonderful, complex group. It's not like we're all good, or we're all bad. It's not like we all excel in school. But we have really interesting stories to tell. I wish more people wanted to tell the stories, and more of the public would be curious about these stories outside of AAPI month.

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From 'Yellow Peril' to COVID-19: New book takes unflinching look at anti-Asian racism - University of Colorado Boulder