Category: Covid-19

Timing of COVID-19 vaccination has been found to affect the menstrual cycle differently during distinctive phases, according to late-breaking research presented at the 2024 ACOG Annual Clinical and Scientific Meeting.

In an interview with Contemporary OB/GYN, Alison Edelman, MD, MPH, professor and ob-gyn at Oregon Health and Science University, shed light on the effects of COVID-19 vaccines on menstrual cycles, offering critical insights for both patients and health care providers.

As 1 of 5 teams sponsored by the National Institutes of Health during the pandemic, Edelman and her team investigated whether COVID-19 vaccines cause menstrual cycle disturbances. According to Edelman, their initial findings confirmed a signal indicating that the vaccines do cause changes, although temporary and minor. The latest research aimed to understand why these changes occur.

Key findings from the study revealed that the timing of vaccination during the menstrual cycle is crucial. Vaccination during the follicular phasethe beginning of the menstrual cyclecan lead to a slight lengthening of the cycle by approximately 1 day. However, vaccination during the luteal phasethe second half of the cycledoes not seem to affect cycle length. These findings align with existing knowledge that events occurring in the follicular phase can influence menstrual cycle length, said Edelman.

She emphasized the importance of these findings in addressing public concerns. "If we all remember back, [patients] had a lot of questions and were coming into the offices having questions about menstrual cycle disturbances, and we just didn't really have any information to offer them because this was something that hadn't really been looked at before," she said.

The study underscores the need for health care providers to listen to their patients, noted Edelman. "The number one thing is to be listening to your patients and, and if they do report a change, that very well could happen because of the COVID-19 vaccine," Edelman advised. While the data suggest that menstrual changes due to the COVID-19 vaccine are generally small and temporary, individual experiences may vary. Edelman advises clinicians to consider other causes if patients report prolonged or significant menstrual changes.

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COVID-19 vaccination and its impact on menstrual cycles - Contemporary Obgyn

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Changes in Emergency Department Utilization in Vulnerable Populations After COVID-19 Shelter-in-Place Orders - Cureus

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by Karen Kaplan, Los Angeles Times

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Since the earliest days of the pandemic, health officials have gauged the threat of COVID-19 by comparing it to the flu.

At first, it wasn't even close. People hospitalized in 2020 with the then-novel respiratory disease were five times more likely to die of their illness than were patients who had been hospitalized with influenza during the preceding flu seasons.

Immunity from vaccines and past coronavirus infections has helped tame COVID-19 to the point that when researchers compared the mortality rates of hospitalized COVID-19 and seasonal influenza patients during the height of the 202223 flu season, they found that the pandemic disease was only 61% more likely to result in death.

Now the same researchers have analyzed data for the the fall and winter of 2023 and 2024. Dr. Ziyad Al-Aly, director of the Clinical Epidemiology Center at the VA St. Louis Health Care System, and his colleagues expected to find that the two respiratory diseases had finally equalized.

"There's a narrative out there that the pandemic is over, that it's a nothingburger," Al-Aly said. "We came into this thinking we would do this rematch and find it would be like the flu from now on."

The VA team examined electronic health records of patients treated in Veterans Affairs hospitals in all 50 states between Oct. 1 and March 27. They zeroed in on patients who were admitted because they had fevers, shortness of breath or other symptoms due to either COVID-19 or influenza. (People who were admitted for another reason, such as a heart attack, and were then found to have a coronavirus infection weren't included in the analysis.)

The COVID-19 patients were a little older, on average, than the flu patients (73.9 versus 70.2 years old), and they were less likely to be current or former smokers. They were also more likely to have received at least three doses of COVID-19 vaccine and less likely to have shunned the shots altogether.

Yet after Al-Aly and his colleagues accounted for these differences and a host of other factors, they found that 5.7% of the COVID-19 patients died of their disease, compared with 4.2% of the influenza patients.

In other words, the risk of death from COVID-19 was still 35% greater than it was for the flu. The findings were published Wednesday in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

"There is undeniably an impression out there that (COVID-19) is no longer a major threat to human health," Al-Aly said. "I think it's largely driven by opinion and an emotional itch to move beyond the pandemic, to put it all behind us. We want to believe that it's like the flu, and we diduntil we saw the data."

Dr. Peter Chin-Hong, an infectious diseases specialist at UC San Francisco, said the study results are right in line with what he sees in his hospital.

"COVID continues to make some people in our community very ill and dieeven in 2024," he said. "Although most will not get seriously ill from COVID, for some people it is like 2020 all over again."

That's particularly true for people who are older, who haven't received their most recent recommended COVID-19 booster, and who haven't taken full advantage of antivirals such as Paxlovid. Chin-Hong noted that only 5% of the COVID-19 patients in the study had been treated with antivirals before they were hospitalized.

Even if the mortality rates for the COVID-19 and flu patients had been equal, COVID-19 would still be the bigger health threat because it is sending more people to the hospital, Al-Aly said.

Between Oct. 1 and the end of March, 75.5 out of every 100,000 Americans had been hospitalized with influenza, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. During that same period, the hospitalization rate for COVID-19 was 122.9 per 100,000 Americans, the CDC says.

"COVID still carries a higher risk of hospitalization," Al-Aly said. "And among those hospitalized, more will die as a result."

Yet Al-Aly noted with frustration that while 48% of adults in the U.S. received a flu shot this year, only 21% of adults are up to date with their COVID-19 vaccinations, according to the CDC.

Chin-Hong added that more than 95% of adults hospitalized with COVID-19 this past fall and winter had not received the latest booster shot, according to the CDC.

Considering all the tools available to prevent hospitalizations and deathsand especially the fact that they are readily available to patients in the VA systemthe 35% relative risk of death from COVID-19 compared with the flu was "surprisingly high," Chin-Hong said.

And it's not like the flu is a trivial health threat, especially for senior citizens and people who are immunocompromised. It routinely kills tens of thousands of Americans each year, CDC data show.

"Influenza is a consequential infection," Al-Aly said. "Even when COVID becomes equal to the flu, it's still sobering and significant."

The researchers also compared the mortality rates of VA COVID-19 patients before and after Dec. 24, when the omicron subvariant known as JN.1 became the dominant strain in the United States. The difference was not statistically significant.

In just the last two weeks, JN.1 appears to have been overtaken by one of its descendants, a subvariant known as KP.2. It's part of a family of subvariants that's taken on the nickname "FLiRT," a moniker that references some of the mutations that have cropped up on the viruses' spike proteins.

So far, there's no indication that KP.2 is any more dangerous than JN.1, Al-Aly said.

"Are the hospitals filling up? No," he said. "Are ER rooms all over the country flooded with respiratory illness? No." Nor are there worrying changes in the amount of coronavirus detected in wastewater.

"When you look at all these data streams, we're not seeing ominous signs that KP.2 is something the general public should worry about," Al-Aly said.

It's also too early to tell whether KP.2or whatever comes after itwill finally erase the mortality gap between COVID-19 and the flu, he added.

"Maybe when we do a rematch in 2025, that will be the case," he said.

More information: Yan Xie et al, Mortality in Patients Hospitalized for COVID-19 vs Influenza in Fall-Winter 2023-2024, JAMA (2024). DOI: 10.1001/jama.2024.7395

Journal information: Journal of the American Medical Association

2024 Los Angeles Times. Distributed by Tribune Content Agency, LLC.

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Despite its 'nothingburger' reputation, COVID-19 remains deadlier than the flu - Medical Xpress

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A Chicago nurse has been liberated from her own mind, thanks to a brain-tapping technology called deep TMS.

Gulden, who requested to omit her surname for privacy reasons, worked as a nurse for more than 40 years before COVID-19 rocked the hospital system and took a toll on her mental health.

The mother of four worked at Advocate South Suburban Hospital in Hazel Crest, Illinois, as an ICU and ER nurse.

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE NOT ALWAYS HELPFUL FOR REDUCING DOCTOR BURNOUT, STUDIES SUGGEST

In an interview with Fox News Digital, Gulden described the "massive chaos" that the 2020 coronavirus pandemic brought to the hospital.

"No matter what we did, it was like a failure," she said. "We were not prepared [for] the onslaught of patients."

Housekeeper Tonia Harvey changes a bed in the Roseland Community Hospital intensive care unit after a COVID-19 patient passed away, April 17, 2020. (E. Jason Wambsgans/Chicago Tribune/Tribune News Service via Getty Images)

"The predictable outcome of coming in through the ER and leaving in a body bag was just devastating."

Despite her many years of medical work, New York City-born Gulden admitted that she "could not cope with it."

By Sept. 2020, she was a "different person," she said.

"I was on autopilot. I lived at work and when I came home, I was not functioning My organization and concentration skills were gone."

NURSES CALL FOR CHANGE AS MANY REVEAL THEY'RE EXTREMELY LIKELY TO LEAVE PROFESSION: EMOTIONAL, STRESSFUL

"It was very, very unlike me, because I'm a single mom. I've raised four kids all by myself but I started to notice that I could not let go of what had transpired during the day."

Gulden told her primary care provider about her symptoms, including "horrible nightmares" that prevented her from sleeping and constant "weeping" that came "from her soul."

Gulden, pictured here, said that working in a hospital during the coronavirus pandemic turned her into a "different person." (Melanie Eilers)

In the span of two years, the doctor prescribed Gulden eight different medications for sleep, PTSD and major depressive disorder, along with cognitive behavior therapy but nothing worked.

Even after the pandemic began to slow down, the nurse described how she hit a "spiral" when she realized COVID-19 created a "chain reaction."

AMERICANS NEED MORE SLEEP, LESS STRESS, EXPERTS SAY, AS GALLUP POLL REVEALS TROUBLING FINDINGS

"[There] was a 51-year-old who had bilateral tumors and needed a mastectomy," she shared. "She'd gone through all her chemo and radiation, and she was ready for her mastectomy, but she had to wait like 11 months."

Added Gulden, "By the time she came back, her tumors had grown back, and that's when I was like, This is never going to be over."

Gulden mentioned that screenings for major health complications were down at least 84% during the pandemic, feeding into a "ripple" of patients who received care too late.

Tamara Jones gives antibiotics to James Davis as he recovers from COVID-19 in the intensive care unit at Roseland Community Hospital on Dec. 16, 2020, in Chicago, Illinois. (Scott Olson/Getty Images)

The nurse said through tears that she decided to leave the hospital and retire, since she "just couldnt function there."

After leaving, she fell into a "hibernation state" of sleeping 16 to 18 hours a day.

"The only reason I got up was to go to the bathroom," she said. "And I'm embarrassed to say I would go weeks without showering."

KETAMINE THERAPY SHOWN EFFECTIVE IN TREATING SEVERE DEPRESSION IN VETERANS, STUDY FINDS

"I lost 54 pounds I got to the point where I couldn't eat, because everything in the refrigerator reminded me of what was on patients trays."

Gulden's "incredibly vivid, horrible nightmares" continued along with other symptoms, including the inability to stay awake. She called it a "complete shutdown."

Gulden received deep TMS treatment at Relief Mental Health in Orland Park, Illinois. (Melanie Eilers)

After Gulden spent three years in "hibernation," a friend introduced her to a new type of mental health treatment called deep TMS (transcranial magnetic stimulation) a magnetized tapping of the brain used to treat various disorders and diseases.

Gulden agreed to visit Dr. Teresa Poprawski, the chief medical officer of Relief Mental Health in Orland Park, Illinois, who helped "put the threads together" on what was triggering her PTSD and other symptoms.

Dr. Aron Tendler, a psychiatrist and chief medical officer of BrainsWay, a brain disorder treatment company, discussed how the therapy works in an interview with Fox News Digital.

Tendler is based in West Palm Beach, Florida and was not involved in Gulden's care. He said the brain is primarily an "electrochemical organ" that sends messages to different parts of the body.

PANDEMIC SKIP, A COVID MENTAL HEALTH PHENOMENON, COULD DELAY MAJOR MILESTONES, EXPERTS SAY

Most symptoms, including depression and anxiety, are controlled by changes in the brain, Tendler said, which can be treated electrically.

Deep TMS is a more "targeted" approach than electroshock therapy, he told Fox News Digital.

Gulden described the sensation of deep TMS as "tapping on specific parts of the brain." (iStock; BrainsWay)

"Transcranial magnetic stimulation uses the principle of electromagnetic induction, where magnetic pulses induce an electrical current inside of neurons," he said.

"Essentially, we are changing the electrical activity in a group of neurons in an area of the brain."

COVID-19 PANDEMIC HAS CAUSED COLLECTIVE TRAUMA AMONG US ADULTS, NEW POLL SAYS

These magnetic pulses only stimulate a specific area of the brain for "a brief period of time," he said, with treatments lasting anywhere from six to 20 minutes. Patients undergo treatments for a series of days, depending on whats necessary.

Tendler described the therapy as a "learning experience" that changes "the state of the brain" through repetitive treatment.

Deep TMS interrupts activity in the brain that is creating unwanted patterns, an expert said. (BrainsWay)

Gulden received deep TMS treatments for five days a week, for six to eight weeks. She described the sensation as "tapping on specific parts of the brain."

After three weeks, she reported a noticeable difference in her cognitive state.

"I realized, Oh my gosh, its been three years since Ive heard the birds," she said. "I see life again. I see my flowers. Before, I couldnt even look at the flowers because they just reminded me of funerals."

PASTOR BASED IN DALLAS SHARES DEPRESSION JOURNEY, URGES OTHERS TO SEEK HELP: DONT HESITATE

Gulden described her quality of life as "just so much better" since receiving treatment.

She still attends cognitive behavioral therapy sessions to hone her coping skills, she said.

"And if I need deep TMS again, I will be back there in a heartbeat," she added.

Deep TMS is covered by "every insurer" across the country, according to one expert. (BrainsWay)

Gulden's goal is to teach others to not feel ashamed about seeking help for their mental health struggles.

"I want people to know that there are interventions," she said.

"The meds did not work for me. Had I not had this treatment today, I don't know where Id be."

Although deep TMS technology was developed in the 1980s, the first treatment application for depression was FDA-cleared in 2009. (BrainsWay)

Most patients experience a 40% to 50% improvement after four weeks of treatment, according to Tendler.

After completing a typical course of 36 treatments, patients have shown 75% to 80% improvement, he said.

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Deep TMS is "not a cure," Tendler said but many patients are able to regain normal function for months or years at a time.

The electrical therapy doesn't have the potential side effects that antidepressants and other treatments can cause, Tendler said, noting that the brain manipulation is "temporary."

"Had I not had this treatment today, I don't know where Id be," Gulden said. (Melanie Eilers)

"I know this might sound like a disadvantage, but it is also an advantage," he said. "We don't do anything to the person's brain that's permanent. We're changing the state of the brain temporarily."

He added, "Generally, we get you out of the state that you were in and then nature takes its course."

Deep TMS can also be paired with other medications, such as antidepressants, Tendler added.

Fox News medical contributor Dr. Marc Siegel cautioned that deep TMS could potentially cause some cognitive and behavioral changes, but called it a "very useful tool" overall. (Dr. Marc Siegel)

Fox News medical contributor Dr. Marc Siegel cautioned that deep TMS could potentially cause some cognitive and behavioral changes, but called it a "very useful tool" overall.

He told Fox News Digital that deep TMS is also "very useful for movement disorders like Parkinson's, with a high rate of success."

"We're changing the state of the brain temporarily."

Siegel cautioned that deep TMS could potentially cause some cognitive and behavioral changes, but called it a "very useful tool" overall.

"[Deep TMS is] still being investigated for various purposes to interrupt aberrant nerve conduction," he said.

CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP

For other medical professionals suffering from mental health issues, Gulden stressed the importance of having a "healthy health care team," especially following the pandemic.

"I don't care how tough you think you are," she said. "You need to know what the signs are, and you need to know what treatments are available."

For more Health articles, visit foxnews.com.com/health.

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Chicago nurse is finally free of COVID-19-related PTSD and depression after electrical brain tapping therapy - Fox News

COVID-19, which killed 1.1 million Americans and destroyed the lives and livelihoods of millions more, is a man-made virus that escaped from a Chinese lab partly funded by the US government.

Even today, youre not suppose to say that even though its the only plausible scenario.

No, fact checkers will rush in to claim that eminent scientists deny this. Which is because those scientists have too much invested in money, in time, in their own beliefs to admit the truth.

But as Congress continues to probe, that truth is coming out, little by little, and the lies are being exposed:

China tried to deflect blame immediately by saying the virus supposedly began in a wet market of animal meat in Wuhan.

Dr. Anthony Fauci repeatedly argued it evolved in nature and then jumped species in the spring of 2020.

Since then both long investigations and government reports have concluded that the virus is man-made. Fauci grudgingly admitted it could be true.

Anyone who questioned this claim including The Post were censored online in 2020. The reason? A statement published in Lancet by 27 scientists calling it a conspiracy theory.

We now know that statement was drafted by Peter Daszak, president of EcoHealth Alliance, the company working on research in the Wuhan lab. He was just trying to cover his own complicity.

All signs point to a lab leak. The only reason we cant say it conclusively is because China has been allowed to destroy all evidence.

Scientists sometimes experiment with viruses, making them easier to catch or more deadly as a way to determine what might happen or what vaccines may be needed.

But in May 2021, Fauci stated unequivocally that the US has not ever and does not now fund gain-of-function research in the Wuhan Institute of Virology.

On Thursday, NIH Deputy Director Lawrence Tabak directly contradicted that. US taxpayers did fund EcoHealth, which was working on gain-of-function research in Wuhan.

Tabaks new excuse? Gain of function doesnt mean what weve always been told it means. Its perfectly safe, he claimed.

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On cue, the National Institute of Health has changed the definition of the term on its website to make it sound benign.

Except it isnt benign. EcoHealth was specifically working in China because such work was not allowed in the United States. What researchers were doing with coronaviruses was very dangerous.

And while there may be a scientific debate about whether such inquiries are worthwhile, deadly viruses have leaked from Chinese labs before. It is the height of irresponsibility for the US to be involved.

The Heritage Foundation has called the coverup of the origins of COVID The Lie of Century. We agree. This is a scandal of colossal scale, one that requires a complete overhaul of the entire National Institutes of Health.

They lied about a weapon that devastated our country. They cant be allowed to get away with it.

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We now know the likely truth about COVID, and how scientists lied - New York Post

The city employee was asked to leave the office 'temporarily' after returning from a trip to Hong Kong during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The City of Richmond did not discriminate against an employee by asking herto leave the office temporarily while awaiting instructions on COVID-19 protocols, according to a B.C. Human Rights Tribunal decision.

Winnie Smrekar, a city employee, had filed a human rights complaintclaiming she was racially discriminated against by her supervisor, Monique Markham, and the city when she tried to return to work following a trip to Hong Kongin 2020.

She claimed she was asked to leave the workplace "because she had the same ethnic origin as those infected by COVID-19 in Wuhan, China," reads thedecision issued on April 25.

The city, on the other hand,denied discrimination and applied to dismiss Smrekar's complaint.

The alleged incident took place on Jan. 28, 2020, one day after Smrekar returnedfrom a trip to Hong Kong, according to the decision.

Markham had met Smrekar in the hallway as she was about to enter the office, asked her how she was feeling, and informed her of concerns about her return to work, according to Smrekar.

"Ms. Smrekar says she told Ms. Markham that she did not visit mainland China, the cases of COVID-19 in Hong Kong were due to travellers arriving from Wuhan, and there was no Health Canada directive to quarantine, nor had she been intercepted at the airport when she returned the day before," wroteB.C. Human Rights Tribunal memberIjeamaka Anikain her decision.

Staff members in the same department, who lived with vulnerable family members,had expressed concern prior to Smrekar's return about working in close proximity with Smrekar due to the spread of COVID-19 from China, according to the decision.

In the days leading up to the incident, the Public Health Agency of Canada had issued a warning for travellers to China; on Jan. 22, Canada implemented a screening protocol for those returning from China.It was unclear whether Hong Kong was included in the advisories.

The first COVID-19 case in B.C. was announced on Jan. 25, 2020.

According to Markham and her manager, they sought direction from occupational health and safety for guidance on health and safety risks and protocols but did not receive a response before Smrekar got back to the office.

As such, Markham's manager advised her to ask Smrekar to leave the office temporarily until she received direction on how to proceed.

Smrekarthen "left the building upset and waited in her car for less than 30 minutes" until Markham told her she could go back in, wrote Anika.

Although Markham apologized to Smrekar the next day and acknowledged the situation "could have been handled better," Smrekar filed a complaint with the city. An external investigator ultimately found Markham didnot breachcity workplace policies.

In the decision, Anikasided with the city and dismissed Smreka's complaint.

She found Smreka did not experience an adverse impact within the meaning of theHuman Rights Codeand her allegation had "no reasonable prospect of success."

The parties did not dispute Smrekar's description of herselfas Chinese by race, colour and ancestry with Hong Kong being her place of origin.

However, in the city's application to dismiss Smrekar's complaint, it argued Smrekar did not experience an adverse impact because she was allowed to return to the office less than 30 minutes after she was asked to leave and it had taken Smrekar's complaint "seriously" and resolved it "effectively."

Anika agreed with the city, stating the "subjective impact" of the incident alone was not enough to prove adverse impact and Smrekar was out of the office for less than 30 minutes.

"Both Ms. Markham and the manager apologized to Ms. Smrekar for the inconvenience and Ms. Smrekar does not allege any further adverse impact either when she returned to the office or anytime afterwards," she wrote.

"On the evidence, the context of the incident could not support the finding of adverse impact that rises to the level of discrimination at a hearing."

While she accepted Smrekarmay have felt "particularly vulnerable" at the time due to personal circumstances, the fact that Smrekar found the incident to be "emotionally upsetting and subjectively stressful" was not enough to show a reasonable prospect she would be able to prove adverse impact during a full hearing.

Got an opinion on this story or any others in Richmond?Send us a letteror email your thoughts or story tips to[emailprotected]. To stay updated on Richmond news, sign up for ourdaily headline newsletter.

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City of Richmond cleared of discrimination in employee COVID-19 protocol case - Richmond News

If youre looking for an arts and music festival that takes health and community care seriously, look no further than the Mutual Air Festival happening at the Rotunda next Wednesday. The effort is a collaboration between Filter Philly and Philly Breathes, and is a fundraiser for Philly Clean Air Mutual Aid.

Funds from the event will go toward supporting the community with free masks, air filter rentals, and future COVID-safer events.

READ MORE: This is going to hit most people. The COVID state of emergency has ended but the need for support hasnt.

Organizers are asking that all attendees take a COVID-19 test the day of the event and stay home and watch the Instagram livestream if they arent feeling well. And, after they arrive at the festival, they should be prepared to mask up both indoors and outdoors (when not eating, drinking, or taking a COVID test outside). High filtration masks and rapid COVID tests will be available free at the door.

One of our goals is to make this event as accessible as possible not just regarding airborne diseases like COVID.

For those who want to attend but may be overwhelmed by the sights and sounds of a festival, there will be an outdoor chill zone, complete with a low-sensory craft table and livestream of the event going on inside.

The festival will include programming such as a gallery featuring work from visual artist Wit Lpez, a grief space facilitated by Raani Begum, and poetry and music performances. The schedule is as follows:

6 p.m. - 6:50 p.m.: Grief space.

7 p.m. - 8 p.m.: Poetry (Sarena Brown, Liv Zusya Grace, and Uriah aka Gamblin Black Media) and music (Meet the Bug and Ther).

Gallery artists, viewing until 9 p.m.: Wit Lpez and Uriah aka Gamblin Black Media.

Liv Zusya Grace, one of the poets who will be reading on Wednesday and a member of Philly Breathes, hopes that this event will encourage more mask-required shows, poetry readings, gallery showings, and other community events in Philly. As a chronically ill and immunocompromised person, Grace has been deeply affected by COVID.

We are showcasing some amazing artists, musicians, and poets who take COVID precautions. The festival is a place to meet other folks who believe in community care and mutual aid, whether you attend in-person or virtually through our livestream, Grace told The Inquirer by email.

One of our goals is to make this event as accessible as possible not just regarding airborne diseases like COVID, but also regarding fragrance/chemical sensitivities, sensory needs, fat-friendly seating, wheelchair access, and more.

Accessibility accommodations will include:

Required masking

Air purification

Barrier-free entrance, with a ramp toward the back of the building

Accessible, all-gender restrooms

Live captions

And a livestream on Instagram

The idea for the Mutual Air Festival came from a brainstorming session about fundraising initiatives. With both groups having an influx of artists and community facilitators, it was only natural that the event became one that would celebrate these members as well as raise funds to continue supporting the community.

READ MORE: The COVID-19 emergency may be declared over, but resources are still available. Heres where to find help in Philadelphia.

All members of Filter Philly and Philly Breathes are volunteers, and the organizations are non-hierarchical. Philly Breathes operates under the 10 Principles of Disability Justice.

Philly Breathes focuses on distributing masks and is concerned with COVID as well as other environmental issues, such as allergens, pollution, and smoke. Filter Philly currently focuses on lending out air purifiers to create safer spaces and air equity for all.

What were trying to show with putting this festival on is that its not a burden to create COVID-safer spaces, said Selena Yip, a volunteer with Filter Philly. We really want to showcase that its not difficult to require masking. Its not difficult to show community care.

Yip comes from a background of event organizing and, like Grace, is immunocompromised.

I would say that a lot of public spaces are no longer as safe for me to be in, especially community spaces, Yip said.

Its not difficult to show community care.

This particular event is showing that it is possible to create really inclusive and disability justice-centered public spaces and that community care is really important.

Mutual Air Festival will be held at the Rotunda at 4014 Walnut St. in Philadelphia on Wednesday, May 22, starting at 6 p.m. Cost of entry is donation-based and pay-what-you-wish. RSVP at bit.ly/mutualairfest.

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Mutual Air Festival at The Rotunda wants everyone to breathe easier - The Philadelphia Inquirer

Covid inquiry

Former civil servant who investigated Partygate says power-sharing executive was prone to silo working and leaks

Thu 16 May 2024 13.44 EDT

Northern Irelands government lacked cohesion and failed to be proactive during the Covid-19 pandemic, according to Sue Gray, the former senior civil servant who investigated the Downing Street Partygate scandal.

Gray, who is now Keir Starmers chief of staff, said the power-sharing executive at Stormont was prone to silo working and leaks that would have been a terrible thing if replicated at Westminster.

She made the comments on Thursday on the last day of Covid inquiry hearings in Northern Ireland that exposed blunders, dysfunction and infighting between the Democratic Unionist party (DUP) and Sinn Fin.

Three weeks of testimony from officials and politicians painted a damning picture of disarray and partisanship at the height of the pandemic, prompting a barrister for bereaved families to tell Stormont to bloody well get on and fix its flaws.

Michelle ONeill, the Sinn Fin first minister, and Arlene Foster, the former DUP first minister, admitted making mistakes, under questioning that was critical of their handling of the crisis.

Gray was the top official in Stormonts Department of Finance during the outbreak of Covid in early 2020 before transferring to the Cabinet Office in London in May 2021, making her the most senior official to have worked in both administrations during the pandemic.

The Stormont executive had just reformed after a three-year hiatus when the pandemic began, Gray said. Relationships were still being formed between ministers and the civil service, and the assembly was now back. I think it was a reactive nature.

Silo working was more pronounced at Stormont than Westminster and the executive struggled to contain leaks to the media, said Gray, who had been tasked with identifying the source. Asked what the reaction would be if such leaks were replicated at cabinet meetings in London, she said: I think that would be a terrible thing and it would be seen for that.

Gray said Stormont lacked defined rules on collective responsibility despite mandatory power sharing between nationalist and unionist parties, in contrast with London, where cabinet committees often resolved competing views. There tends to be a certain discipline, she said.

She lauded the great leadership of David Cameron and Nick Clegg in handling diverging views during the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition, when she worked in the Cabinet Office. It didnt break down in trust because actually it was a very honest and open and frank process.

Grays report on lockdown-breaking parties in and around Downing Street paved the way for Boris Johnsons resignation as prime minister in June 2022. Some Tories questioned her impartiality after she joined Labour and became Starmers chief of staff in the following year.

Her verdict on Stormont was mild compared with excoriations from Brenda Campbell KC, acting for the campaign group Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice Northern Ireland.

In closing submissions, Campbell said three weeks of devastating evidence had lifted the lid on a dysfunctional system whose omissions, oversights and failures had cost lives. Sinn Fin ministers, including ONeill, caused hurt and anger by attending a big funeral for the leading IRA figure Bobby Storey amid Covid restrictions, Campbell said.

Earlier this week, ONeill, who was deputy first minister during the pandemic, apologised for attending the funeral. I am sorry for going, she told the inquiry. ONeill also faced criticism for following Irelands lead on school closures and deleting WhatsApp messages despite the head of Northern Irelands civil service telling her not to.

Campbell criticised the DUP, led at the time by Foster, for using a cross-community vote mechanism to block necessary measures supported by other parties. Its impossible to divorce that unedifying debacle in November 2020 from the chaos in the run-up to Christmas and from that shocking spike in deaths in early 2021, she said.

Campbell exhorted Stormont to reform and quoted a former Northern Ireland secretary: In the words of the late Mo Mowlam, the message from the Northern Ireland bereaved to those who represent us is now: Bloody well get on and do it.

Brenda Doherty, whose mother, Ruth Burke, died from Covid, said the evidence showed that political leaders sleepwalked into the pandemic. Despite the loudest possible alarms being sounded, our representatives failed to act.

The inquirys chair, Heather Hallett, said she hoped its stint in Belfast had covered core decision-making and governance and that the inquiry would look in further detail at care homes, test and trace, mental health impacts and other issues. The report will take some time and I make no apologies for that. Its too important to rush and so I ask people to bear with us.

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NI government failed to be proactive in Covid pandemic, Sue Gray tells inquiry - The Guardian

COVID-19 cases and deaths internationally have fallen to their lowest levels in four years. The data now permits a comparison between the controversial laissez faire strategy of Sweden and the more restrictive approach of the United States, which emphasized lockdowns, a strategy also adopted by most of Western Europe.

The Swedish tack relied on personal responsibility and voluntary measures rather than government coercion and restrictions. This attitude, ultimately vindicated, was attacked at the time by health officials and the press in Western Europe and North America.

How did America and Sweden fare comparatively?

COVID-19 outcomes were similar. According to the statistics site Worldometer, in terms of officially reported cases since the beginning of the pandemic, Sweden had roughly 27 cases out of 100 people, the U.S. had 34 cases out of 100. This was only reported cases, and the best estimate is that considering all cases, whether reported or not, both countries had between 80 and 90 cases per 100, so the difference in infection rates disappears. Neither a lockdown-intensive nor a permissive strategy minimized the ultimate number of COVID-19 cases.

The numbers once again lean slightly toward Sweden, but it is likely the health of Swedish citizens versus that of the U.S. was responsible, instead of the superiority of the Swedish strategy. In the U.S. overall, there were 3.7 COVID-19 deaths per 1,000 people; in Sweden, 2.7 COVID-19 deaths per 1,000. Based on this, no one can claim the U.S. did better than Sweden, but it is not a ringing endorsement of the Swedish approach. Neither country protected high-mortality nursing home patients, especially early in the pandemic. Many countries, including their Scandinavian neighbors, had fewer COVID-19 deaths per population than Sweden. Norway, Denmark and Finland all quickly closed their national borders; Finland erected internal borders.

The lesson is that COVID-19 cases and outcomes are probably not primarily determined by national strategy. After four years, no major country avoided high COVID-19 infection rates. While approaches to protect high-risk patients may limit morbidity and mortality at the margins, COVID-19 deaths are related more to national health, age and demographic breakdown, and population immunity. Assessing lockdown strategies by measuring COVID-19 cases and deaths is fraught with error; counterexamples abound.

Public health experts use the term excess deaths to describe deaths from all causes in a given interval when comparing with the number of expected deaths based on historic patterns. From 2020 to 2023, excess deaths were elevated in every developed country but were up only 5% in Sweden compared with between 10% and 15% in the U.S. The 5% figure is the lowest figure in any industrialized Western country, including the Scandinavian countries with lower COVID-19 mortality. Many excess U.S. deaths can be attributed to lockdowns and include deaths of despair suicides, drug overdoses and alcoholism and deaths resulting from delayed health care. Sweden almost certainly avoided many of the deaths associated with lockdowns in the U.S.

The economic figures during the pandemic tell a similar story. According to the Organization for Economic Co operation and Development, the U.S. economy, although fairly resilient, shrank by 1.2% after 2021 against what was forecast. (The Eurozones fell by 2.1%.) The Swedish economy grew by 0.4% against what was forecast. Inflationary pressures post-pandemic are not as severe in Sweden as in the U.S., where the government employed a greater, potentially inflationary fiscal stimulus.

The most important outcome difference between the U.S. and Sweden was in childrens education. Prolonged U.S. school closures caused educational damage to students not seen in Sweden. Beginning in March 2020, public schools in the U.S. closed, sending 50 million students home. Some private and religious schools, as well as some schools in Florida, opened up in the second half of 2020, but as many as half of all American public school students stayed out of school until the second half of 2021.

Several researchers from American universities found that by the spring of 2022, the average U.S. student lagged by approximately one-half year in math and one-third of a year in reading.

The Public Health Agency of Sweden recommended that secondary schools and universities switch to remote education for the final three months of the 2020 spring term, but schools opened in autumn. There was another two-month in-school hiatus in December 2020 and January 2021 during a variant outbreak, but almost all preschools and elementary schools remained open. Swedish researchers concluded there was no evidence of a learning loss in early reading skills in Swedish primary school students, and the decision to keep schools open benefited Swedish primary school students.

Taking into account all aspects of the pandemic excess deaths, economic health and childrens education the long view suggests that while not ideal, the Swedish strategy was superior. The coronavirus was so contagious and mutated so quickly that tight lockdowns were unsuccessful in controlling spread. And the longer the lockdowns, the greater harm to the populace from factors other than COVID-19.

The effectiveness of lockdowns during COVID-19 is an important question, scientifically and historically but not a definitive blueprint for the future. The next contagion may spread differently and require different measures.

The most important takeaway from the Swedish COVID-19 experience is not that Sweden controlled COVID-19 better, but that any national strategy must account for the effects on the countrys economic, social, educational and mental health.

Dr. Cory Franklin is a retired intensive care physician and co-author of the new book The COVID Diaries 2020-2024: Anatomy of a Contagion As It Happened. He wrote this column for the Chicago Tribune.

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Cory Franklin: Was Sweden's COVID approach superior to the U.S.? - St. Paul Pioneer Press

Covid-19 remained a bigger killer than the flu last winter, despite hopes the pandemic virus would eventually blend into the background with other respiratory germs that cause seasonal epidemics, a US study showed.

Patients hospitalised for Covid-19 had a 35 per cent higher risk of dying within 30 days than influenza patients, Ziyad Al-Aly and colleagues at the clinical epidemiology centre of the Veterans Affairs St Louis Health Care System in Missouri found.

Covid posed a 60 per cent higher mortality risk than flu in hospitalised patients during the 2022-2023 season, the same researchers showed last year.

The findings, published Wednesday in JAMA, should be interpreted in the context of nearly twice as many hospitalisations for Covid-19 compared with seasonal flu from October 2023 to March 2024, they said.

Although the death rate among Covid-19 patients declined to 5.7 per cent in that period from 6 per cent a year earlier, the study indicates that Covid-19s propensity to cause more damage outside the lungs still makes it a more dangerous pathogen, even as immunity to the virus builds.

We did the 2024 Covid-versus-flu rematch thinking that we may find that risk of death in Covid may have sufficiently declined to become equal with the risk of death from flu, Al-Aly told Bloomberg. But the reality remains that Covid carries a higher risk of death than the flu.

The findings were based on an analysis of electronic health records from US veterans across all 50 states. Although most Veterans Affairs users are older, white males, the data included hundreds of female and non-white patients.

Patients with either Covid-19 or flu hospitalised for another reason or those hospitalised for both illnesses were excluded from the study.

Among Covid-19 patients, there was no significant difference in the risk of dying before and during the period in which JN.1 predominated around Christmas 2023, suggesting that the Omicron subvariant may not have a materially different severity profile than those that immediately preceded it, the researchers said.

Overall, I think this means that we still need to take Covid seriously, Al-Aly said. Trivialising it as an inconsequential cold, as we often hear, doesnt mesh or align with reality.

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Covid-19 remains a worse killer than the flu, US study finds - South China Morning Post