Category: General Interest

Categories : COVID General InterestTags :

Pope Appoints New Personal Doctor After Predecessor Died of COVID

On By ModernMedia

The 84 year-old Pope Francis today appointed a new personal doctor to replace his previous one, 78 year-old Fabrizio Soccorsi, who passed away on January 9 from COVID related complications. He had served in the role since 2015.

Dr Soccorsi had been admitted to Rome’s Gemelli hospital on 26 December because of cancer, but died due to “pulmonary complications” caused by COVID. Pope Francis had held a funeral service on 26 January for the late Dr Soccorsi.

During his medical career, he had been head physician of the hepatology ward in Rome’s San Camillo-Forlanini hospital and director of its department of liver diseases, the digestive system and nutrition; he also taught immunology at medical schools.

His replacement, Roberto Bernabei, is an expert in health care for the elderly. Dr Bernabei, 69, leads the geriatrics and rehabilitative medicine department at Rome’s Gemelli, which is the Catholic hospital where popes traditionally go to be treated.

It is believed the pontiff remains in good health, despite having had part of his lung removed after developing pleurisy as a young man. He received a COVID vaccine in early January alongside former pope Benedict.

Source: Eyewitness News

Categories : COVID General InterestTags :

Recent Mother With COVID to Have Life Support Withdrawn

On By ModernMedia

In the UK, a comatose woman with COVID who had recently delivered her son via caesarean section should be allowed to die, a judge has ruled.

Mr Justice Hayden said that doctors should cease the woman’s life support treatment as it was no longer preserving her life but rather dragging out her death.

He said that the situation was “a tragedy of an almost unimaginable dimension” and was told there was “zero” chance of the woman making any meaningful recovery.

The woman (whose identity is withheld) was rushed to hospital a month ago while 32 weeks pregnant, after falling ill with COVID at home.

The judge was told that she had Addison’s disease, an acquired primary adrenal insufficiency from bilateral autoimmune damage to the adrenal cortex. The woman’s pancreas had ceased to function and one of her lungs had “died”, with a specialist saying that she had “essentially no normal lung function”.

The woman, who is of the Muslim faith, has a husband and a three year old son. Her husband and sister opposed the decision to withdraw life support as it was against their beliefs.

“To unplug the machine, this is for us like asking someone to kill us,” the woman’s sister said. “When God has written our death, that is when we will die.”

In an urgent court application, the judge took the case in a virtual hearing held late on Tuesday. The judge concluded that ending the woman’s life was in her best interests, adding that doctors had prepared a palliative care plan.

“This family is seeking a miracle,” he said. “This is a very young mother in circumstances of almost unspeakable sadness.”

Source: The Guardian

Categories : COVID General InterestTags :

Confusion Results in Vaccine Priority for ‘6.2cm’ Tall UK Man

On By ModernMedia

As a result of an error at his GP surgery, a healthy man aged 32 was offered an early COVID vaccination because his height was recorded as 6.2cm – giving him a calculated Body Mass Index (BMI) of 28 000.

Liam Thorp, political editor at The Liverpool Echo’s, said he was left “really confused” after he was offered the vaccine ahead of the government’s rollout, sharing the “frankly surreal” experience in a Twitter thread.  Vaccinations are not expected to begin until later in the year for the UK’s under-50s without underlying health conditions, perhaps as soon as March.

Manchester Evening News politics and investigations editor, Jennifer Williams, replied: “Should they not have been in touch before to see how the man the size of a thumb was getting on?” And palliative care doctor Rachel Clarke said: “This, for me, is the single best tweet of the entire pandemic, Liam. And may I please commend your decency in not exploiting your remarkable BMI to jump the queue?”

Despite being “on the chunky side”, Thorp didn’t think of his himself as obese. He said he was “uneasy”, thinking that he still ought to accept the invitation for vaccination, he contacted his GP about the situation whereupon he learned of the error which resulted in his height being recorded as 6.2cm – a mixup of his height as 6ft 2in (188cm). This resulted in his bizarre BMI of 28 000.

“If I had been less stunned, I would have asked why no one was more concerned that a man of these remarkable dimensions was slithering around south Liverpool. But he was very apologetic and really nice and I think he was just relieved that I found it so funny,” recalled Thorp.

Dr Fiona Lemmens, chair of NHS Liverpool clinical commissioning group, said: “I can see the funny side of this story but also recognise there is an important issue for us to address.”

Source: The Guardian

Categories : Diet and Nutrition General InterestTags :

Health Experts Call for a Sugar Tax Increase to 20%

On By ModernMedia

In advance of Finance Minister Tito Mboweni’s annual budget presentation on 24 February, health specialists have been calling for an increase in the health promotion levy from 11% to 20%. 

The health promotion levy (or ‘sugar tax’) was put into effect in April 2018, and imposes an 11% tax on sugar sweetened beverages. Specialists called for an increase in this tax on Tuesday at a webinar rub by the Healthy Living Alliance (Heala), saying that this was a prudent time to do it because the health sector is currently battling the COVID pandemic.

Most people hospitalised with COVID in SA have comorbidities such as diabetes and hypertension, said Karen Hofman, director of the Wits Centre for Health Economics and Decision Science (Priceless SA). Sugar, especially in liquid form, is a risk factor for obesity, diabetes, hypertension, cardiovascular disease, a number of common cancers and dental decay. She added that had those comorbidities had been prevented, the country could have been in a much better position.

Hofman said that people think they have “control over what [they] are eating and drinking”, but in fact don’t, having been heavily influenced by their environment from an early age. For the tax to have any effect, it should be increased to 20%, based on the World Health Organization and other health experts’ recommendations.

Heala head, Lawrence Mbalati, said the sugar tax had created R5.4-billion for the government within its first two years. This would have been enough to finance South Africa’s downpayment for COVID vaccines from the Covax facility almost 20 times over, in spite of its minimal contribution to the overall budget. 

A doubling of the sugar tax would net an additional R2 billion to help fight COVID, Mbalati said.

“This is a watershed moment for the country,” Mbalati continued. “Government revenues are under immense pressure and funding the fight against Covid-19, including vaccines, remains critical.”

Hofman said that research in other countries with a sugar tax had shown a fall in volume of taxable beverages by 51%, and a 29% reduction in sugar intake.

“SA must address commercially driven epidemics with taxes, mandatory food labelling and mandatory comprehensive marketing bans,” Hofman said.

Source: Mail & Guardian

Categories : COVID General InterestTags :

The Second Vaccine Dose Can Hit Hard

On By ModernMedia

The scuttlebut among healthcare workers is that the second dose of a COVID vaccine hits much harder than the first – unless you’ve had COVID, in which case the first is equally as bad.

TJ Maltese, DO, a neurologist in private practice on Long Island in New York state, was fine with the first dose of the Moderna vaccine but was flattened by the second one.

Dr Maltese got his second jab on a Friday at 4:30 pm. Within two hours his arm was sore. Overnight, he developed flu-like symptoms, and on Saturday experienced chills and body aches, with a lingering fever. He could have pushed through if he’d had to work, he said, but he rode out his symptoms on his couch with the help of the occasional painkiller.

By 9 pm on Saturday evening, Dr Maltese started to feel better, getting a good night’s sleep and on Sunday was fine again.

“I know plenty of people with minimal symptoms after the second dose, so it’s not definite you’ll feel side effects,” he wrote in a Facebook post. “But be prepared for the possibility.”

Immunology and the phase III clinical trial data from the vaccine backs up the view that the second dose is worse, and some hospitals have even altered their scheduling to allow time for recuperation after the second dose. Adverse reactions to the BCG vaccine in Brazilian school children, for example, have been reported to be common with the second dose, though still rare.  

Immunologists and infectious disease experts interviewed by MedPage Today and who shared their second-dose experiences said it’s not unexpected that second-dose reactions are more intense than the first. Typical reactions to the COVID vaccines include fever, headache and fatigue as the immune system responds to a vaccine’s antigens.

“The first time the immune system comes into contact with something, it’s getting primed,” said Purvi Parikh, MD, an immunologist at NYU Langone Health in New York City. “That goes for everything, from vaccines to allergies. It’s rare on the first time to have a strong reaction. After that, the immune system recognizes it, so you have a much stronger reaction.”

“We saw it in the trials, so it’s really not surprising,” Parikh added. “Now we’re seeing it in real time as the vaccines are being rolled out.”

More adverse effects were reported after the second dose in both Pfizer’s and Moderna’s phase III trial data. For Moderna, the rates were 54.9% versus 42.2% for placebo after the first dose and 79.4% versus 36.5% for placebo after the second dose.

Stanley Weiss, MD, an infectious disease specialist and epidemiologist at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School, told MedPage Today that because his institution served as a Moderna trial site, the primary investigator was able to give an early update on what to expect following vaccination.

“They said there was a very high rate of fatigue after the second dose, so we encouraged administrators … to figure that many healthcare workers getting the vaccine might not be well enough to work the day after the second dose,” Dr Weiss said.

Drs Weiss and Parikh both experienced a stronger response to the second COVID dose. 

Zubin Damania, MD, aka ZDoggMD, said he was knocked out by the second dose of Moderna vaccine, joking on his show that, “I couldn’t sleep, I had a fever, rigors, body aches, a headache — full-on man-flu.”

Paul Offit, MD, said that he also experienced fever and fatigue after taking the second dose of the Pfizer vaccine.

“That reaction is less common in people over 65, and I’m over 65, so I’m thinking I’m not going to suffer that, but I did,” Dr Offit said.

Older people are not expected to have as intense a reaction due to their weaker immune systems. According to Dr Parikh, “The idea is that their immune system is not as robust as a young person’s.”
The same immunological underpinnings of why reactions to the second dose are worse also apply to those who’ve had COVID.
Victoria Arthur, MD, of Lexington Pediatrics in Massachusetts, had suspected she had contracted COVID in March 2020 but could not prove it. When she received the Moderna vaccine, she felt much worse than her colleagues.

“How I felt was how everyone else was describing their second vaccine,” Dr Arthur told MedPage Today. Within three hours of her jab, she was suffering from a headache, neck pain, and cognitive fog. She awoke at 3am with nausea and stomach cramps, and spent the whole of the next day in bed. 

“I’m always grateful when I have a reaction, that means the body is doing its thing,” she said. “I’m very fortunate to have been given the vaccine, so any side effect is worth it.”

In spite of the side effects, these health care professionals all expressed gratitude at having been vaccinated.

Dr Weiss said that people shouldn’t be discouraged by the side effects from the second dose and not get vaccinated: “The benefits greatly overwhelm the risk of side effects. It’s not a reason to delay.”

Source: MedPage Today

Categories : COVID General InterestTags :

WHO Team in China Denied Key COVID Information

On By ModernMedia

The World Health Organization team sent to China to investigate the origins of the COVID virus have been frustrated in their efforts to secure key data.

Team member Dominic Dwyer, infectious disease expert, said that they had only been given a summary instead of the raw patient data that they had requested.

Raw, anonymised patient data is part of standard outbreak investigation, Dwyer said, and this was particularly important because half of the initial 174 patients had no contact with the wet market.

“That’s why we’ve persisted to ask for that,” said Dwyer. “Why that doesn’t happen, I couldn’t comment. Whether it’s political or time or it’s difficult.”

Although Wuhan is the site of the initial outbreak, China has sought to cast doubt on its origin there, pointing to a source outside the country that may have come in with frozen food.

US national security adviser Jake Sullivan said that he had “deep concerns” over the initial findings of the investigation, saying that “It is imperative that this report be independent, with expert findings free from intervention or alteration by the Chinese government.”

Peter Ben Embarek, the WHO delegation leader, said that the virus likely had an animal origin and may have taken a “very long and convoluted path involving also movements across borders”. The possibility that it may have travelled in frozen food is worth investigating, he added.

After their two week quarantine, the WHO team members were only allowed to go on visits organised by their Chinese hosts. Thea Kolsen Fischer, an immunologist and another WHO team member, said to the New York Times that she saw the investigation as “highly geopolitical”.

“Everybody knows how much pressure there is on China to be open to an investigation and also how much blame there might be associated with this,” she said.

Team member Peter Daszak, and president of the EcoHealth Alliance, said that it “was not my experience”.

“As lead of animal/environment working group I found trust and openness with my China counterparts. We did get access to critical new data throughout,” he tweeted.

“New data included environmental and animal carcass testing, names of suppliers to Huanan market, analyses of excess mortality in Hubei, range of Covid-like symptoms for months prior, sequence data linked to early cases and site visits with unvetted live question and answer.”

Source: The Guardian

Categories : COVID General InterestTags :

Chinatowns around the World Battle COVID and Xenophobia

On By ModernMedia

The BBC explores how the various Chinatowns around the world have been battling loss of business caused by COVID lockdowns, along with fear and xenophobia.

Sam Wo’s, a restaurant in San Francisco’s Chinatown, had been hit hard by COVID just like other businesses there.

The lockdowns had not yet happened but anti-Asian sentiment kept customers away. “All the Italian restaurants in North Beach were still busy and packed and then you went through the tunnel to Union Square and those guys had lines waiting to get in. And then you drive around Chinatown and it’s completely empty,”  Sam Wo’s co-owner Steven Lee told the BBC.

“So we know that xenophobia was affecting small businesses. Why would other districts be busy and we’re not?”

In the 12 months since, it has been forced to cut its staff numbers from 23 to three due to a lack of customers.

“People wouldn’t show up, they were just scared,” Mr Lee tells the BBC. “We had to rally and tell people to fight the virus, not the people and all this kind of stuff – but it didn’t help much.”

In the Japanese city of Yokohama, this went beyond mere avoidance; anti-Chinese notes were left on the doors of restaurants in March. Sales had plummeted to 10% of what they were the year before. The mayor of Yokohama railed against these notes, and locals voiced their support for their Chinatown, telling businesses to “hang in there” and promising to visit again.

In many Chinatowns, the lockdowns then worsened an already dire situation. 

“I know many businesses in Chinatown have closed. It’s terrifying,” Ying Hou, who runs Shandong MaMa in the Australian city of Melbourne, told the BBC. “There are gift houses where tourists come to buy souvenirs – most of them didn’t make it and have closed down.”

Ms Ying says her business is down 50%, but fortunately the shop is the only one in Chinatown to sell fish dumplings. Melbourne gave rent relief to many businesses, but this is now coming to an end. And now Melbourne is about to be plunged into a new five day lockdown surrounding the Australian Open. 

However, many are finding new answers to the problems posed by COVID. In New York, after Chinatown turned into a “ghost town” with the lockdowns closing down even essential businesses by May, Karho Leung took a page out of Hong Kong barber shops’ reactions to COVID and installed dividers and other measures. He advertised these safety enhancements, which went viral and resulted in a surge of business from pent-up demand.

Mr Leung added to his business and others that were struggling by embracing social media and online delivery companies such as Uber Eats. 
Organisations made up of ordinary citizens are also helping to keep their cities’ Chinatowns afloat as well. Send Chinatown Love is helping Chinatown businesses there with their online and social media presence to help generate business, creating “food crawls” to drum up foot traffic.

“Everything started happening around January, February of last year, which is the most lucrative and joyous and festive times for Chinatown. They took a hit with that business and lost most of it,” said Louise Palmer, who is a representative for the group. “So they ended up going into lockdown in March at a deficit, which kind of set a really terrible precedent for what the rest of the year would look like.”

Meanwhile, in San Francisco, in a hopeful development, business is picking up again since outdoor dining became allowed. Mr Lee said that Chinatown is booming again, and is planning to open a nightclub.

“We’re the oldest Chinatown in the country. We’re the tourist attraction that everybody comes to when they come to San Francisco. So we have to preserve it,” Mr Lee said.

Source: BBC News

Categories : Ageing COVID General InterestTags :

Europe’s Oldest Living Person, 116, Survives COVID

On By ModernMedia

A 116 year old French nun who is Europe’s oldest living person has survived COVID after testing positive.

French nun Sister Andrée had tested positive for COVID in her retirement home in Toulon, but had remained symptom-free. Most of the 88 residents at the home contracted the virus, 10 of whom died. 

Sister Andrée, who is blind and in a wheelchair, said that her main complaint was the solitude necessitated by being confined to her room.
“I didn’t even realise I had it,” she told Var-Matin newspaper:

David Tavella, a spokesperson for the nursing home, told the newspaper that she had no fear of the virus.

“She didn’t ask me about her health but about her routine. She wanted to know for example if the meal and bed times were going to change. She showed no fear of the illness, in fact she was more worried about the other residents,” Mr Tavella said.

When asked by France’s BFM Television if she had been scared of having COVID, she responded: “No, I wasn’t scared because I wasn’t scared to die … I’m happy to be with you, but I would wish to be somewhere else – join my big brother and my grandfather and my grandmother.”

In addition to being Europest oldest living person, she is also the world’s second oldest living person. The oldest living person in the world is Kane Tanaka in Japan, who turned 118 on January 2. Having lived through the First World War as a child, Sister Andrée will turn 117 on Thursday.

Source: The Guardian

Categories : Ageing General Interest Neurodegenerative DiseasesTags :

Legendary Singer Tony Bennett Diagnosed with Alzheimer’s

On By ModernMedia

Music legend Tony Bennett, 94, revealed in an interview that he was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease 4 years ago.

The singer’s career has spanned seven decades, he had continued his initial success in the 1950s across multiple genres, becoming a hit with the MTv generation, and in more recent years collaborating with popular artists like Amy Winehouse and Lady Gaga.

Alzheimer’s disease is an age-related, irreversible neurodegenerative condition. In more than 90% of patients, it begins after age 65, although it can occur as early as in the 30s. It is marked by memory loss and confusion that seem like the normal cognitive decline of older age, but it is more rapid and severe, eventually resulting in death. As people live longer and the risks of developing this disease increase with age, the burden of this disease is expected to increase in the future. In the US, the number of people with Alzheimer’s is expected to nearly triple from 5.5 million to 14 million by 2060.

Mr Bennett has been able to work over the past four years but the toll is perceptible. He still recognises his family members but his short-term and long-term memory have drastically deteriorated. Interviewer John Colapinto noted Mr Bennett gazing at his lavishly illustrated book, “Tony Bennett Onstage and in the Studio” (2018). “He stared into its pages not with the air of warm reminiscence but like a man struggling to recall why these images seemed familiar.” His wife, Susan, added that Mr Bennett is “not always sure where he is or what is happening around him. Mundane objects as familiar as a fork or a set of house keys can be utterly mysterious to him.”

Over the past two years, Mr Bennett recorded a second album of duets with Lady Gaga, a follow-up to the hit album with Gaga in 2014. While he had been known to be a “meticulous and hard-driving perfectionist in the studio,” Mr Bennett was much more subdued. speaking rarely, his words coming haltingly and seeming lost or bewildered. Gaga, who considers Mr Bennett to be “an incredible mentor, and friend, and father figure” is seen breaking down in tears as Tony sings a solo passage of a love song.

The album is due to be released this spring, but Mr Bennett will be unable to do promotional interviews. Mr Bennett, together with his wife and son (who is also his manager) decided to break the news, in the hopes that as many fans as possible know about what will likely be his final record. The neurologist who diagnosed Bennett in 2016,  Gayatri Devi, MD, said: “He is doing so many things, at 94, that many people without dementia cannot do. He really is the symbol of hope for someone with a cognitive disorder.”

Source: MedPage Today

Categories : General InterestTags :

Chinese Actress’ Ordeal Reveals Dangers of Unqualified Cosmetic Clinics

On By ModernMedia

Following a suggestion from her friend, actress and singer Gao Liu went to have cosmetic surgery, but the results proved disastrous. 

The young star had enjoyed a rising career but after being silent for a number of months decided to show what had happened to her as a warning about the dangers of unregulated cosmetic surgery.

Ms Gao had been out of the public eye recently, but returned to Weibo, the leading Chinese social media platform, to explain her absence due to a “cosmetic surgical incident”, where the tip of her nose had turned necrotic. She posted pictures of her ordeal, to which internet users in China have reacted with horror.

She had decided to “get a slight trim” based on suggestions, in order to improve her career. “The entire procedure lasted four hours. I thought that in these four hours, I would be made more beautiful,” she related to her followers.

“I didn’t expect these four hours to be the beginning of a nightmare.”
She said that after the procedure, her nose felt “irritated and tingly” and then became repeatedly infected.

“The skin on the tip of my nose… became darker and darker, and my nose became necrotic,” she said, also experiencing thoughts of suicide. She was hospitalised for two months, and lost out on work. Because of the extent of the necrotic damage, she said reconstructive surgery would not be possible for at least a year.

There is an enormous demand for cosmetic surgery in China, especially from young people, including high school graduates who hope that it will boost their careers or romantic opportunities. In 2019, 20 million people in China went for cosmetic surgery, of whom two-thirds were under 30 years of age.

As a result of this huge demand, there are some 60 000 unqualified cosmetic surgery clinics, compared to about 10 000 qualified ones.

Source: BBC News