Category: Covid-19

COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) Have you thought about Malm, Kivik or Trotten?

Swedish retailer Ikea is known for the distinctive names of its flat-pack home products. The companys Norway branch wants to use the brands experience to help parents browsing the baby-naming department.

Ikea Norway has built a name bank with more than 800 listings available on its website. The names are drawn from ones Ikea has given to its furniture instead of product numbers since 1948.

After all these years, (Ikea) has built up a large catalog to pick from, Ikea Norway said in a statement.

Ikea names its products after Swedish towns, lakes and other geographical features, but also uses names that have traditionally gone to people.

The branch noted that while retailers saw both a shortage of raw materials and challenges with delivery times during the COVID-19 pandemic, there is at least no shortage of children in Norway.

The Scandinavian country registered the births of 56,060 babies last year, or 3,081 more than in 2020.

The increase creates a challenge in finding unique names, Ikea Norway said.

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Ikea Norway offers help with baby names after COVID-19 boom - The Associated Press

Study location

Localized in South America, Chile occupies a long and narrow coastal strip between the Andes Mountains range and the Pacific Ocean. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, and Argentina to the east. The country is divided into 16 regions, which are the first-level administrative division of the country. Each region is divided into provinces, which are the second-level administrative division, resulting in 56 provinces. The third level of the administrative division is the communes (or municipalities), totaling 346 communes, of which 147 were under lockdown during the study period; thus, they were considered in this study.

According to the Chilean National Institute of Statistics, the estimated country population was 19,458,173 inhabitants in 2020, much of it concentrated in the Metropolitan Region, whose capital city is Santiago. Regarding the communes, only 55 of 346 have more than 100,000 inhabitants, with the median population being 18,546 inhabitants (minimum 138, maximum 646,000). Chile is among the largest economy in Latin America; however, despite its economic progress and poverty reduction over the last few decades, the country has a Gini coefficient of 0.44, which represents a high social inequality. As elsewhere, the COVID-19 pandemic has severely impacted the Chilean economy. According to the World Bank4, the Chilean per capita gross domestic product decreased 5.8% between 2019 and 2020.

Factors associated with the duration of localized lockdowns during the COVID-19 pandemic in Chile were assessed using a retrospective cohort study design5. In this design, researchers select a group of study units (i.e., commune under lockdown) in such a way that they have been exposed to different levels of certain predictors, and then follow them retrospectively over time to record the occurrence or not of a predefined event. In this particular investigation, the main outcome corresponds to the time elapsed until the end of the lockdown (i.e., the lockdown duration). No formal sampling of communes under lockdown was performed since all lockdowns implemented between March 25th and December 25th, 2020 were included in this study. All methods were performed in accordance with relevant guidelines and regulations.

In follow-up studies, two types of data can be observed: information collected over time (longitudinal data) and time until an event of interest occurs (survival data). In this study, both were included as outcomes. For the time-to-event analysis, we considered the number of days a commune was under lockdown; to do so, we recorded the number and duration of lockdowns implemented in Chile between March 25th and December 25th, 2020. If a commune was still under lockdown on December 25th, it was considered a right-censored observation. In general, lockdowns were implemented at the commune-level; however, at the beginning of the pandemic, some lockdowns were established at the greater administrative division level (i.e., province), which implies that a set of communes followed the same schedule. In this study, lockdowns were considered as commune-level.

For the longitudinal analysis, we studied several epidemiological factors collected at the first or third levels of the administrative division. The number of new asymptomatic and symptomatic cases, the number of patients in ICU, and the number of PCR exams performed were collected at the regional division level. At the commune level, we observed the number of active cases and the deaths per COVID-19 according to their residence. An active case was defined as a living person who met the definition criteria of a suspected case with a positive sample of SARS-CoV-2, whose date of onset of symptoms in the notification was less than or equal to 11days, i.e., people capable of transmitting the infection. On the other hand, new symptomatic/asymptomatic cases correspond to new cases reported in a daily basis. All this information was considered as the number per 100,000 inhabitants. The original information used in this study was published by the Chilean Ministry of Science, Technology, Knowledge and Innovation and can be found on the GitHub repository available at https://github.com/MinCiencia/Datos-COVID19.

Based on the number of new asymptomatic and symptomatic cases and the number of PCR exams performed per region, we calculated a positivity index at the region level, which was expressed as the percentage of new cases relative to the number of PCR exams taken:

$$text{positivity index}=frac{text{number of asymptomatic cases }+text{ number of symptomatic cases }}{text{number of PCR exams}}.$$

As the epidemiological information varies over time, we used two strategies to include them in the model. The number of deaths was included as a weekly sum during the period the commune was under lockdown, while the others were considered as daily average within each week.

Demographic and socioeconomic factors were considered as predictors for the time-to-event model. These consisted of population size (in scale of 100,000 inhabitants), number of immigrants (per 100,000 inhabitants), population density (number of people per km2), overcrowding (number of people over the number of households), a socioeconomic development index (SDI, ranging from 0 to 1), and a rural index of the communes (ranging from 0 to 1). For calculating SDI, which is performed by the Universidad Autnoma de Chile, different indicators are aggregated, including economy (monthly per capita income and poverty), education (average years of schooling), and housing and sanitation (good and acceptable housing material and sewerage or septic tank)6. For the calculation of the rural index, computed by the Ministry of Social and Family Development, it is considered the percentage of the rural population, the proportion of local employment occupied in primary sectors, and the population density. Then, an average of these three values was calculated, resulting in the rural index. Polanco7 has provided details about how to calculate such measure. Besides, we considered whether the commune held the regional or province city capital and whether a commercial airport or harbor exist in it. Apart from demographic and socioeconomic factors, we also included a binary covariate indicating if it was the first or second time that the commune was under lockdown.

The two sources of information presented in this study are often analyzed separately through a survival analysis and a longitudinal analysis. However, in some situations, one may also be interested in the association between longitudinal measurements and the event of interest. In these cases, a joint approach is indicated, where information is shared between two or more models and each part provide relevant knowledge to the other. This procedure depends on the type of time-dependent covariates8. When this information is exogenous, i.e., variables whose cause is external to the model, an extended Cox model can be used9. On the other hand, when the longitudinal covariates are endogenous, i.e., variables that are changed or determined by their relationship with others, it is necessary to use a new class of models known as joint models10.

The idea behind joint modeling of longitudinal and time-to-event data is to couple a model for repeated measurements with a survival model to explain the event of interest. The most common joint model specification is to connect a mixed-effects sub-model fitted to describe the evolution of the longitudinal information with a proportional hazard sub-model fitted to the survival information. This approach had been limited to a single longitudinal and a single time-to-event outcome for a long time. However, a model with multiple longitudinal and/or multiple time-to-event outcomes can also be considered11,12. Thus, a joint model for (k) longitudinal outcomes can be formulated as follows:

$$left{ begin{array}{l} y_{{ik}} left( t right) = m_{{ik}} left( t right)~ + ~varepsilon _{{ik}} left( t right) = ~x_{{ik}} ^{T} left( t right)~beta _{k} + z_{{ik}} ^{T} left( t right)~b_{{ik}} + ~varepsilon _{{ik}} left( t right), hfill \ h_{i} left( t right) = h_{0} left( t right)exp left{ {{{gamma }}^{T} {text{w}}_{{text{i}}} + {{~alpha ~}}m_{{ik}} left( t right)} right}, hfill \ end{array} right. $$

where ({y}_{ik}left(tright)=({{y}_{i1}}^{T}(t), dots , {{y}_{il}}^{T}(t))) represents the k-variate vector of continuous longitudinal measurement for the (i)th commune at time (t) with (k=1, dots , l). This vector is modeled by a mixed-effects sub-model, where ({beta }_{k}) denotes the regression coefficients associated with the design vector for the fixed effects ({x}_{ik}(t)). Besides, ({z}_{ik}(t)) denotes the design vector for the random ({b}_{ik}) for the commune (i). Finally, ({varepsilon }_{ik}left(tright)) represents the model error term. The longitudinal sub-model included fixed intercepts and random slopes. The joint model is completed with the time-to-event sub-model. In this case, the outcome is modeled by a proportional hazard. This kind of strategy focuses directly on the hazard function ({h}_{i}left(tright)), considering the baseline hazard function, ({h}_{0}left(tright)), and a second term that includes baseline covariates, ({text{w}}_{text{i}}), and the true and unobserved value of longitudinal outcome for the commune (i) at time (t), which is denoted by ({m}_{ik}left(tright)) and modeled by the longitudinal sub-model. Finally, represents the association between the longitudinal and time-to-event outcome.

In this study, we were interested in investigating the time until a Chilean commune comes out of lockdown, which motivated the use of time-to-event sub-model. In addition, we wanted to add epidemiological information to the study; such information was obtained at the commune-level and over time during the follow-up period. Consequently, the most indicated strategy was to build a mixed longitudinal sub-model. Finally, the joint approach connected both parts, including the information obtained by the longitudinal model in the time-to-event model. Active cases, ICU patients, and deaths were logarithmically transformed for joint analysis, while the positivity index was handled as proportion.

The model was built in two stages. First, we fitted univariate joint models for each longitudinal factor (active cases, ICU patients, deaths, and positivity index). At this point, we identified that the association between the number of deaths and the duration of lockdown was not statistically significant, i.e., the p-value was higher than 0.05. Then, a bivariate joint model was fitted, considering pairs of the significant variables. Finally, a multivariate joint model was fitted; however, the association between ICU patients and the duration of lockdown was not statistically significant. Consequently, the bivariate model, including the number of active cases and the positivity index, was considered the final version.

The second stage was aimed to select the social and demographic covariates included in the bivariate joint model. To do so, we used the stepwise backward elimination approach, starting from a full model, which included all the predictors described in the previous section. Covariates with the highest p-values were removed from the model one at a time until all predictors were below the significance threshold (p-value0.05). Finally, the joint model included two longitudinal information, number of active cases and positivity index, and one demographic and socioeconomic factor, overcrowding. All the statistical analyses were performed with R statistical software (version 4.1.0), with the level of significance set at 5%. Package joineRML was used to fit the joint model extended to multiple continuous longitudinal measures11.

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Factors associated to the duration of COVID-19 lockdowns in Chile | Scientific Reports - Nature.com

Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz visited one of the states three COVID-19 community testing sites that will offer a test-to-treat option on Thursday.

The first one will open Friday in Brooklyn Park, the second site will open Monday in Moorhead, with the third opening Tuesday in Duluth.

Walz stopped at the Brooklyn Park site Thursday morning.

Anyone who tests positive at one of the sites and is determined to be high-risk will receive a prescription for medication at the same time.

The antivirals are free to Minnesotans.

One of Vault Healths operations managers said any patient can be evaluated at the sites to see if they are a fit for the antiviral pill. She added that those who are approved for it will take the pill twice a day for five days, and many patients have reported feeling much better within 24 hours of starting the treatment.

The state will add additional test-to-treat sites in the future.

As for a special session, Walz said legislative leaders are meeting about some topics, including public safety, and the governor said he remains hopeful agreements can be reached.

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Gov. Walz visits COVID-19 community test-to-treat site - KSTP

Our results suggest that people who already have M1 macrophages activated in the lungs when infected with COVID-19 might be more likely to develop very severe inflammation from the virus, said Chen.

Elderly people and those with certain conditions like hypertension or diabetesalready known to be prone to more severe COVID-19 symptomsmay have higher levels of the M1 macrophages, she added.

Her team went on to show that antibodiessimilar to those already used clinically to treat COVID-19helped M2 macrophages clear the SARS-CoV-2 virus. More work is needed to show whether the observations hold true in humans, but the findings could help inform the prevention or treatment of severe COVID-19 in the most at-risk patients. And Chen is already thinking ahead to her next experiments with the stem cell-derived organoids.

This model system is useful for decoding the molecular mechanisms behind not only COVID-19, but other infectious diseases, said Chen.

In the future, her group hopes to make more complex mini-organs that include not only lung and immune cells, but blood vessels, nerves, and other supporting cell types.

Citation: Differential effects of macrophage subtypes on SARS-CoV-2 infection in a human pluripotent stem cell-derived model, Lian QZ et al,Nature Communications, April 19, 2022. DOI:10.1038/s41467-022-29731-5

Funding: National Institute of Health, Cancer Research Foundation Young Investigator Award, Janet D. Rowley Discovery Fund, Hong Kong Health and Medical Research Fund, Guangzhou Women and Childrens Medical Centre, Shenzhen Science and Technology Program, Tsinghua University Spring Breeze Fund, the National Key R&D Program of China and the National Natural Science Grant of China.

Adapted from an article by Sarah C.P. Williams first published by the Pritzker School of Molecular Engineering.

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Hunting for the immune cells that predispose people to severe COVID-19 - UChicago News

Hello Neighbor:

To limit the impact of increasing COVID-19 cases on hospitalizations, the Alameda County health officials announced that masks will be required in most indoor public settings beginning Friday, June 3, 2022. This order applies to most cities within Alameda County, including the City of Oakland.

Alameda County will not require masking in K-12 school settings through the end of the 2021-22 school year, but masking is still strongly recommended. Masks will be required in all other children and youth settings, including childcare, summer school, and youth programs, as practicable.

Daily reported COVID-19 cases have exceeded the peak of last summers Delta wave and are now approaching levels seen during the winter 2020-21 wave, at comparable lab-reported testing levels. Reported cases are an underestimate of the total due to home testing and unidentified infections.

Hospitalizations are also rising after remaining stable during the early weeks of this wave. Daily new admissions of patients with COVID-19 rapidly increased in recent days and now exceed last summers peak. We expect to reach CDCs High COVID-19 Community Level soon, given current trends.

In addition, when COVID-19 cases started to rise again in April, we did not observe in our data the disproportionate impacts on communities of color. That is no longer true and Hispanic/Latino residents now have the highest case rate in Alameda County among the largest race/ethnicity groups.

While COVID-19 vaccination, boosters, prior infection and available medications provide protection against severe illness, the virus that causes COVID is circulating at very high levels in Alameda County. Even with strong protections, such high numbers of infections put more people at risk and in the hospital.

Masking provides an added layer of protection against infection from a virus that spreads through the air. Wearing a high-quality mask protects both the wearer and those around them, and having more people masked will help slow the spread of COVID-19. Children under age 2 should not mask.

Link to the Alameda County Press Release

Link to Masking Reinstatement News Coverage

My Work to Provide COVID-19 Data-Driven Policy and Resources

I have been working to help protect the public health from the dangers of COVID, including ensuring that the City of Oakland provides quality masks-- N95, KN95, KF94, or the equivalent at city facilities to protect people from transmission and prevent a COVID-19 surge, and to provide protection. Additionally, on Friday, May 13, 2022, Councilmember Dan Kalb and I wrote a letter to the Bay Area County Health Officers and CDPH Director urging them to reinstate masking requirements in indoor crowded public areas, such as on public transportation.

Link to Letter from Kaplan and Kalb

According to a February 2022 report on the CDC website, Consistent use of a face mask or respirator (N95/ KN95) in indoor public settings was associated with lower odds of a positive SARS-CoV-2 test result. Use of respirators (N95/KN95) with higher filtration capacity was associated with the most protection, compared with no mask use.

Since the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic, I have continued to provide and develop data-driven policy and resources. As early as March 2020 at the first virtual council meeting due to the shelter-in-place, I passed a resolution requesting that the City Administrator acquire shelter-in-place buildings and supplies -- including Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) for our unhoused community to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Additionally, before the governor established the mask mandate, I ,along with our essential workers, organized to demand that frontline workers be provided PPE, such as masks

When the vaccine became available, I led the efforts to organize and call for the State of California to open the first FEMA-supported large scale COVID vaccination project. The large COVID vaccination site was headquartered at the Oakland Coliseum. The project included additional community-based outreach mobile vaccination sites to reach hard-hit communities.

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Important COVID-19 Prevention Update from Vice - City of Oakland

Seven-day COVID-19 case averages in Virginia have been climbing over the spring, from about 700 cases a day in early April to nearly 3,000 daily last week.

Hospitalizations, currently with a seven-day average of 573, have seen a comparatively modest increase, but tend to lag behind case counts as infections take time to develop and worsen. Though overall case numbers and hospitalizations arent close to the surge seen over the winter, the test positivity rate18.9 percentis hovering near the peaks in both the initial wave and Delta wave of the pandemic, even though the figure only includes lab PCR tests and not the at-home rapid tests that are widely used by people to diagnose infections.

The CDC has categorized 77 of the states 133 localities as having either medium or high community COVID-19 transmission levels. A medium transmission level is triggered automatically in any area where there have been more than 200 cases for every 100,000 people within the past seven days. A high level takes into account seven-day case averages and hospitalization capacity as well.

But in an interview last week with the Virginia Mercury, State Health Commissioner Dr. Colin Greene said that the priority should be trying to get back to something approaching normal life, and that individuals should assess their own risk tolerance and medical situation when determining how they should conduct their lives amid the virus.

At some point we have to go back to living our lives, Greene said. But we want people to be reasonable.

He urged every adult to get the vaccine, as well as children whose parents choose to have them do so. As of Monday, 73.8 percent of Virginians are fully vaccinated for COVID-19 and of them, 49 percent have gotten boosted with a third dose.

Greene emphasized that we need to return to something resembling our normal human interaction, part of which means being able to see somebodys face. The CDC, however, recommends that those in places with high community levels should wear a mask indoors regardless of vaccination status, including 12 counties in Virginia.

Children under 5, who constitute just under 6 percent of the state population, could be able to get vaccinated as early as the end of June, per an announcement by the White House coronavirus response coordinator Dr. Ashish Jha.

This latest surge in case numbers seems to be the result of a war for dominance between subvariants of the omicron variant, which itself was extremely infectious and led to the highest case numbers seen at any point in the pandemic. Less than two weeks after the BA.2.12.1 subvariant became the dominant permutation of the virus in new cases, cases of the BA.4 and BA.5 subvariants have already increased almost 80 percent in the U.S. However, these still only made up 6.1 percent of new cases as of last week.

BA.2.12.1 is thought by the CDC to be about 30 percent more transmissible than its BA.2 parent, which itself is an estimated 33 percent more transmissible than the original omicron BA.1. An early paper claims that the BA.4 and BA.5 is four times more resistant to antibodies, better evading the immune response even of those with a booster shot or previous Omicron infection.

Experts emphasized that current vaccines continue to do a good job of mitigating against serious outcomes from the virus, such as hospitalizations or death.

I think what were seeing is a reflection that there is a pretty good foundation of immunity that is lessening the impact of this current wave of the pandemic, said Dr. William Petri, the chief of the division of infectious diseases and international health at UVA Medical School. Most people have either been vaccinated, or they have had omicron.

He also pointed to the development and distribution of the miracle antiviral drug Paxlovid, a treatment which can dramatically reduce the chance of hospitalization and death and is broadly available by prescription, generally for those at high-risk of developing severe COVID-19. .

Dr. Lisa Thanjan, public health physician at the Virginia Department of Health, also said vaccines protect most people from serious illness or death, but pointed out that even vaccinated people can have complications. A recent CDC study shows that 1 in 5 of those under 65 whove had a COVID-19 infection have some lingering condition that could be attributed to that previous infection.

Even though we see more mild illness, it is still best to try to avoid a COVID-19 infection, even in people who are not high risk, Thanjan said. Thats because of long COVID or these lasting effects from a COVID 19 infection. Were seeing that this happens even in people that have a mild illness. This could be cardiac issues, neurologic issues or respiratory issues.

However, Greene, the former director of the Lord Fairfax Health District in northwest Virginia who was appointed by Youngkin in January, said the risk of infection has dropped substantially to the point where the benefit from stricter prevention measures is just not that great anymore.

I think the main thing right now is people need to understand that, while the risk is not zero and for particularly susceptible people they still need to be on guard, for most people, particularly younger and healthier ones, it is not 2020 anymore, said Greene. Were reaching a more steady state situation with this virus the epidemiologists refer to it as an endemic stage. Were going to reach an end stage, and we need to adjust, we need to adapt, we need to decide how were going to live our lives.

The Biden administration in an effort to advocate for an additional $22 billion it is seeking from Congress for pandemic mitigation warned last month of models predicting that almost one-third of Americans could be infected with COVID-19 through the fall and winter if more funding for testing, vaccines and treatment is not secured. An estimated 130 to 140 million Americans were infected during the omicron surge.

Greenes approach leaves the responsibility to individuals to make judgements about risk and stay on top of information such as fluctuating infection data, adapting public health guidance and emerging variants.

There are many more factors, theres a lot of information to keep up with for sure, said Thanjan. Its difficult to stay on top of some of the vaccination guidance, but you know the CDC has a website on staying up to date and when to get those boosters and whos eligible. Thats really the most important thing at this time.

Some experts, including Greene, believe that COVID-19 will become endemic, meaning that it will likely stay in a steady state and continue circulating in the population. However, Dr. Petri points to the global efforts to eradicate polio through vaccination as a source of optimism. Key to such an effort would be to develop a vaccine that has broadly neutralizing protection that would prevent the virus from mutating its way past the immunization, as omicron and its subvariants have.

I think its quite possible to eliminate SARS-CoV-2, said Dr. Petri. This year, in the entire world, theres only been eight cases of wild polio so weve gone from hundreds of thousands of children being paralyzed every year to a handful and so thats evidence that we can do this. Its going to take a huge international effort.

Virginia Mercury columnist Roger Chesley contributed reporting.

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COVID-19 cases have climbed in Virginia over the spring - Virginia Mercury

Mike Stucka and David Panian| USA TODAY NETWORK

Michigan reported far fewer coronavirus cases in the week ending Sunday, adding 19,535 new cases. That's down 24.8% from the previous week's tally of 25,968 new cases of the virus that causes COVID-19.

Lenawee County reported 170 cases and zero deaths in the latest week. A week earlier, it had reported 278 cases and one death. Throughout the pandemic it has reported 25,864 cases and 325 deaths, a USA TODAY Network analysis of Johns Hopkins University data shows.

The updated data moved Lenawee County back into the "low" community COVID-19 level, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In the "low" level, people the CDC recommends staying up to date with vaccinations and to wear a mask if you have symptoms, a positive test, or exposure to someone with COVID-19.

Michigan ranked 22nd among the states where coronavirus was spreading the fastest on a per-person basis, according to the Johns Hopkins University data. In the latest week coronavirus cases in the United States increased 10.9% from the week before, with 770,895 cases reported. With 3% of the country's population, Michigan had 2.53% of the country's cases in the last week. Across the country, 22 states had more cases in the latest week than they did in the week before.

>> See how your community has fared with recent coronavirus cases

Within Michigan, the worst weekly outbreaks on a per-person basis were in Baraga County with 414 cases per 100,000 per week; Washtenaw County with 345; and Clinton County with 307. The Centers for Disease Control says high levels of community transmission begin at 100 cases per 100,000 per week.

Three of Lenawee County's neighboring counties Monroe and Washtenaw in Michigan and Lucas in Ohio remain in the "high" COVID-19 community level, where the CDC recommends wearing a mask while at indoor, public places. Jackson and Hillsdale counties are in the "low" level, and Fulton County in Ohio is in the "medium" level, where people at high risk of serious illness from a COVID-19 infection are recommended to wear a mask while at indoor, public places.

The community COVID levels are based on the number of new cases per 100,000 population, new hospital admissions and the number of hospital beds occupied by COVID patients each week.

In Michigan, 50 people were reported dead of COVID-19 in the week ending Sunday. In the week before that, 139 people were reported dead.

A total of 2,547,366 people in Michigan have tested positive for the coronavirus since the pandemic began, and 36,407 people have died from the disease, Johns Hopkins University data shows. In the United States 84,762,022 people have tested positive and 1,008,585 people have died.

Note: In the Johns Hopkins University coronavirus data, cases and deaths for the Michigan Department of Corrections and the Federal Correctional Institution separately from Michigan counties.

>> Track coronavirus cases across the United States

USA TODAY analyzed federal hospital data as of Sunday, June 5.

Likely COVID patients admitted in the state:

Likely COVID patients admitted in the nation:

Hospitals in 35 states reported more COVID-19 patients than a week earlier, while hospitals in 32 states had more COVID-19 patients in intensive-care beds. Hospitals in 29 states admitted more COVID-19 patients in the latest week than a week prior, the USA TODAY analysis of U.S. Health and Human Services data shows.

The USA TODAY Network is publishing localized versions of this story on its news sites across the country, generated with data from Johns Hopkins University and the Centers for Disease Control. If you have questions about the data or the story, contact Mike Stucka at mstucka@gannett.com.

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Lenawee County reported 170 additional COVID-19 cases this week - The Daily Telegram

FEDERAL DISASTER DECLARATION REQUESTED FOR MAY 6 FLOODINGAdditionally Monday, Gov. Justice announced that he has officially submitted a request to the President and FEMA for a Presidential Disaster Declaration for Cabell and Wayne counties due to the flooding that took place in West Virginia on May 6, 2022.

Gov. Justices request for a Presidential Disaster Declaration includes Individual Assistance with the possibility of receiving Hazard Mitigation Assistance and Small Business Administration Disaster Loans. The May 6 flooding event did not meet FEMAs threshold to request Public Assistance.

While Gov. Justice previously declared a State of Emergency for Cabell, Putnam, and Roane counties related to the May 6 flooding, only Cabell and Wayne counties reached the magnitude of damages to be part of West Virginias request for assistance. However, if the request is granted, all 55 West Virginia counties will be eligible to submit applications for hazard mitigation funding.

Im very hopeful that our request will be approved and, if its approved, Im hopeful that it will substantially help all the folks that we have hurting, Gov. Justice said. So lets be hopeful that the Biden administration will approve this.

The West Virginia Emergency Management Division (WVEMD) used innovative technology to rapidly collect data for this event. The most significant contribution to this was an online damage assessment tool, which allowed WVEMD to collect and validate damages more efficiently and meet the 30-day window to submit the request for a declaration.

In another move toward modernization, Cabell County Emergency Management used drone footage to assist during the active disaster and the damage assessment process. Using drone footage allowed WVEMD to display the extent and magnitude of the damages to federal partners as part of joint preliminary damage assessments.

Click here to read more

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COVID-19 UPDATE: Gov. Justice: We don't want this thing to keep sliding and getting worse - Governor Jim Justice

Babies born to mothers who suffered COVID-19 disease during pregnancy seem to exhibit differences in neurodevelopmental outcomes at 6 weeks, according to a preliminary analysis presented in the 30th European Congress of Psychiatry.

Project Leader Dr Rosa Ayesa Arriola said: "Not all babies born to mothers infected with COVID show neurodevelopmental differences, but our data shows that their risk is increased in comparison to those not exposed to COVID in the womb. We need a bigger study to confirm the exact extent of the difference".

Researchers found that babies born to mothers who had been infected show greater difficulties in relaxing and adapting their bodies when they are being held, when compared to infants from non-infected mothers, especially when infection took place in late pregnancy. Moreover, infants born from infected mothers tend to show greater difficulty in controlling head and shoulder movement. These alterations suggest a possible COVID-19 effect on motor function (movement control).

The results come from an initial evaluation of the Spanish COGESTCOV-19 project, which followed the course of pregnancy and baby development in mothers infected with COVID-19. The researchers are presenting the data on pregnancy and post-natal assessment at 6 weeks after birth, but the project will continue to see if there are longer-term effects. The group will monitor infant language and motor development between 18 and 42 months old.

The initial evaluation compared babies born to 21 COVID-positive pregnant women and their babies, with 21 healthy controls attending the Marqus de Valdecilla University Hospital in Santander, Spain. The mothers underwent a series of tests during and after pregnancy. These included hormonal and other biochemical tests (measuring such things as cortisol levels, immunological response, etc.) salivary tests, movement responses, and psychological questionnaires. All analyses were adjusted for infant age, sex, and other factors.

The post-natal tests included the Neonatal Behavioral Assessment Scale (NBAS), which measures the baby's movement and behavior.

Researcher Ms. gueda Castro Quintas (University of Barcelona, Network Centre for Biomedical Research in Mental Health), said:

"We found that certain elements of the NBAS measurement were changed in 6-week-old infants who had been exposed to the SARS-COV-2 virus. Effectively they react slightly differently to being held, or cuddled".

We have been especially sensitive in how we have conducted these tests. Each mother and baby was closely examined by clinicians with expert training in the field and in the tests.

We need to note that these are preliminary result, but this is part of a project following a larger sample of 100 mothers and their babies. They have also been monitored during pregnancy, and after birth. We also plan to compare these mothers and babies with data from another similar project (the epi-project) which looks at the effect of stress and genetics on a child's neurodevelopment".

gueda Castro Quintas continued:

"This is an ongoing project, and we are at an early stage. We found that babies whose mothers had been exposed to COVID did show neurological effects at 6 weeks, but we don't know if these effects will result in any longer-term issues, longer term observation may help us understand this.

Co-researcher Nerea San Martn Gonzlez, added:

"Of course, in babies who are so young there are several things we just can't measure, such as language skills or cognition. We also need to be aware that this is a comparatively small sample, so we are repeating the work, and we will follow this up over a longer period. We need a bigger sample to determine the role of infection on offspring's neurodevelopmental alterations and the contribution of other environmental factors In the meantime, we need to stress the importance of medical monitoring to facilitate a healthy pregnancy, discussing any concerns with your doctor wherever necessary".

Commenting, Project Leader Dr Rosa Ayesa Arriola said:

"This is the right moment to establish international collaborations that would permit us to assess long-term neurodevelopment in children born during the COVID-19 pandemic. Research in this field is vital in understanding and preventing possible neurological problems and mental health vulnerabilities in those children in the coming years".

In an independent comment, Dr Livio Provenzi (University of Pavia, Italy) said:

"There is a great need to study both direct and indirect effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the health and well-being of parents and infants. Pregnancy is a period of life which shapes much of our subsequent development, and exposure to adversity in pregnancy can leave long-lasting biological footprints. These findings from Dr Rosa Ayesa Arriola's group reinforces evidence of epigenetic alterations in in infants born from mothers exposed to pandemic-related stress during pregnancy. It shows we need more large scale, international research to allow us to understand the developmental effects of this health emergency, and to deliver better quality of care to parents and infants".

Dr Provenzi was not involved in this work.

Continue reading here:

Infants exposed to COVID-19 in the womb exhibit differences in neurodevelopmental outcomes - News-Medical.Net

With help from Daniel Lippman

Editors Note:POLITICO Pulse is a free version of POLITICO Pro Health Care's morning newsletter, which is delivered to our subscribers each morning at 6 a.m. The POLITICO Pro platform combines the news you need with tools you can use to take action on the days biggest stories.Act on the news with POLITICO Pro.

Biden officials are considering what Covid-19 death metric the country must reach to declare the pandemic under control.

The CDC is analyzing long Covid mortality, part of a broader quest to understand the evolving disease.

Monkeypox cases are expected to rise, as the CDC warns that the rare virus may now be passing person to person in the U.S.

WELCOME TO MONDAY PULSE On social media, even the new Gerber baby is a target, as the contest becomes the latest staging ground for angsty parents. Send news and tips to [emailprotected] and [emailprotected].

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Nearly half of insured Americans who take prescription medicines encounter barriers that delay or limit their access to medicines. In a new report, learn more about the abusive insurance practices that can stand between patients and the care they need.

The number of 200 daily deaths or fewer was kicked around in discussions across the administration. | Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

HOW MANY COVID DEATHS ARE OK? Recently, Biden administration officials have been privately mulling the number of daily Covid-19 deaths at which the virus could be considered to be under control, POLITICOs Rachael Levy reports.

The number of 200 daily deaths or fewer was kicked around in discussions across the administration until it was ultimately decided not to formally incorporate it into pandemic planning, sources said.

Fewer than 200 people dead a day would translate to about 73,000 deaths a year, slightly more than what the U.S. experiences during a bad flu season.

The discussions, though described as purely exploratory, underscore the delicate balance the administration walks between trying to minimize Covid-19s harm and encouraging Americans to live with it, even as the CDC expects deaths to rise in the weeks ahead as cases are forecast to surge nationwide.

On June 3, the average daily number of Covid-19 deaths was 414. At no point since the pandemics first weeks have fewer than 200 Americans died a day at a sustained rate.

WHILE WERE ON THE SUBJECT The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is analyzing more than 100 deaths that could be attributed to long Covid, reports POLITICOs Erin Banco.

The CDCs National Center for Health Statistics is reviewing death certificates from across the country from 2020 and 2021 that cite long Covid or similar terminology, such as post Covid.

Its unclear whether the people who died had underlying health issues and whether long Covid was the cause of their deaths or a contributing factor. The center is expected to release preliminary data from the review shortly.

Why it matters: Doctors and public health officials are scrambling to assess the risk that long Covid poses to Americans and the world. A recent CDC study found that as many as one-fifth of adults infected with Covid-19 had at least one lingering health problem, meaning that millions of Americans are potentially impacted.

The conditions severity ranges greatly, from minor symptoms that improve within weeks or months to severely debilitating health problems that dramatically affect patients lives.

What the research says: Few studies have examined the relationship between long Covid and mortality. A study of European cancer patients, published in The Lancet in November 2021, found that about 15 percent of those who survived Covid-19 had long Covid symptoms and their survival outcomes were significantly worse.

MONKEYPOX AND COMMUNITY SPREAD Health officials warn that monkeypox may be spreading person to person in the U.S. and that cases are expected to rise as the government calls on doctors to stay vigilant for symptoms of the rare disease.

The CDC reports 24 confirmed cases in 12 states, Krista writes.

I want to emphasize that this could be happening in other parts of the United States, said Jennifer McQuiston, the incident manager for CDCs monkeypox response, on Friday. There could be community-level transmission that is happening, and thats why we want to really increase our surveillance efforts.

The CDC says the risk to Americans public health remains low in the unusual global outbreak. Monkeypox is rarely seen outside West and Central Africa, where it is endemic. Since May, more than 900 cases have been reported in nonendemic countries in Europe, North America and South America and in Australia.

So far, no deaths have been reported in those regions, unlike in the Democratic Republic of Congo where the disease is endemic and 1,200 cases and 58 deaths have been reported since the beginning of the year.

The World Health Organization has characterized the risk to global public health as moderate and said it suspects the virus was spreading between individuals in Europe weeks before it was reported in early May.

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FIRST IN PULSE The American Medical Associations CEO James Madara sent a letter on Sunday to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy to oppose a bill that would allow nurse practitioners and physician assistants to diagnose, prescribe, treat, and certify an injury and extent of disability for purposes of compensating federal workers under the Federal Employees Compensation Act.

Current law says only doctors can make such determinations. In a letter shared first with Pulse, Madara writes that the skill sets of NPs and PAs are not interchangeable with that of fully educated and trained physicians and by removing doctors from the process, H.R. 6087 (117) jeopardizes the care of federal workers.

The organizations head cites concerns with the standardization of NP and PA programs and particularly with the increased prevalence of online learning, which means students have less in-person instruction and hands-on training than they do with in-person learning.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis applauded the Special Olympics' move. | Marta Lavandier, File/AP Photo

SPECIAL OLYMPICS BOWS TO FLORIDA VAX PRESSURE The Special Olympics reversed its Covid-19 vaccine mandate for upcoming competitions in Orlando after Florida threatened event organizers with a $27.5 million fine, POLITICOs Arek Sarkissian reports.

The Special Olympics, which kicked off on Sunday and are expected to attract 4,000 athletes, issued a statement saying it will lift its mandate as directed by state officials on May 27 based upon the Florida Department of Healths interpretation of Florida law.

The day before, the Florida Department of Health sent a letter to Special Olympics International threatening the fine. The letter states the Special Olympics had asked 5,500 people to provide proof of vaccination to gain access into the 2022 USA Special Olympics Games, which violates a state ban on requiring proof of vaccination.

FDA RAISES CONCERNS OVER NOVAVAX VACCINE FDA reviewers have signaled concerns that Novavaxs Covid-19 vaccine could be associated with an increased risk of heart inflammation, POLITICOs Lauren Gardner reports.

On Tuesday, an external advisory panel will consider Novavaxs application for emergency use authorization for its two-dose primary series in people 18 and older.

In its briefing document, Novavax said the vaccine has 90 percent efficacy against mild, moderate and severe disease and has a positive benefit-risk profile. The company also said that observed cases of inflammation of the heart muscle, called myocarditis, and its lining, called pericarditis, were within expected incidences of myocarditis in the general population without any vaccine administered.

The FDA was concerned enough with the recorded cases to ask Novavax to mark the two heart conditions as an important identified risk something the company hasnt yet agreed to do, the agency said in papers released ahead of the Tuesday meeting.

IN DEFENSE OF ACCELERATED APPROVAL A new analysis from the Partnership to Fight Chronic Disease says that drugs approved under the FDAs accelerated approval program dont drive up Medicaid spending.

In light of efforts to limit coverage of drugs approved via the accelerated pathway, the study estimated the impact that accelerated approved drugs had on Medicaid spending growth nationally and state by state between 2007 and 2020.

On both levels, it found those drugs accounted for about 1 percent or less of annual Medicaid spending yearly, and in 2020, they consumed well less than one dollar for every one hundred dollars of total Medicaid spending, and similarly contributed a minimal amount to Medicaid spending growth in all states.

Beth Cameron, the former National Security Council senior director for global health security and biodefense, has been appointed as senior adviser for global health security at the U.S. Agency for International Development.

Tim Manning has left the White House, where he was Covid-19 supply coordinator. He is returning to academia and the private sector.

Natasha Silva is now senior director of federal government relations at the National Multiple Sclerosis Society. She previously was legislative director for Rep. Bill Keating (D-Mass.) and is a Stephen Lynch alum.

Chelsea Conaboy reports for POLITICO Magazine how a Dutch doctor may become Americas most controversial abortion provider.

The Associated Press reports on the unsung work of the countrys youngest Covid-19 caregiver.

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According to data just released, insurance isn't working for too many patients. Despite paying premiums each month, Americans continue to face insurmountable affordability and access issues:

Americans need better coverage that puts patients first. Read more in PhRMAs latest Patient Experience Survey.

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Is there an acceptable number of Covid-19 deaths? - POLITICO