Newest Health Blogs (955)

I just hope for everyone's sake that they're not making a huge mistake.I watch the news reports from
Gov. Mike Dewine every afternoon.


COVID-19 threat remains, Ohioans encouraged to take preventative measures as state reopens
CORONAVIRUS
by: Natasha Anderson

Posted: Apr 23, 2020 / 02:01 PM EDT / Updated: Apr 23, 2020 / 04:06 PM EDT
COLUMBUS, Ohio (WJW) — Ohio’s leaders are reminding residents to take preventative measures as the state prepares to begin its gradual reopening.

As of Thursday, there were 14,694 confirmed and probable cases of the virus in Ohio. The Ohio Department of Health said 656 people have died from COVID-19 in the state.

During a Thursday afternoon news briefing, Governor Mike DeWine shared more details on how the state plans to proceed by elaborating on the end to Ohio’s elective surgery ban.

He said the biggest concern is for those who had surgeries postponed and have been waiting. He has encouraged health care providers to reach out to their patients and assess how to proceed moving forward.

The Governor says Ohio will begin the process of opening dentist offices and other medical facilities in the near future.

“Our healthcare facilities across the state are doing a great job at implementing infection control practices within their environment to reduce the risk of transmission of COVID-19,” said DeWine. “They are making it as safe as possible to be in a healthcare environment by wearing of masks; practicing good hand hygiene; screening staff, patients, and visitors for symptoms of COVID-19, and many other measures. But, with all that being said, we are not ready for the entire healthcare system to turn back on again. We’re working on our plan to identify the steps we must take to move forward with healthcare.”

Meanwhile, Lt. Governor Jon Husted addressed the state’s rising unemployment. He said 5.6 million people were working in Ohio at the beginning of March.

Husted reminds Ohioans that currently 866 companies are looking to hire in Ohio. He says there are over 50,000 jobs posted right now on the government’s website. Click here for job postings.

The Lt. Governor also reiterated that just because businesses are beginning to reopen doesn’t mean the coronavirus is no longer a threat. Ohio Department of Health Director Dr. Amy Acton said earlier this week that Ohioans could be living with coronavirus over the next 18 months.

Ohioans were encouraged by public health experts to wear masks and to take as many steps as possible to protect yourself and others. These steps include practicing social distancing, regularly cleaning and practicing good hygeine.

Click here for information regarding the use of multiple protective barriers.

Ohio will start its gradual reopening on May 1. Reopening will begin with businesses that can create a safe environment. Employers were instructed to utilize masks, sanitizer, soap and 6 feet of safety.

Officials say they know these strategies will work and additional guidance would be coming in the days ahead.

This morning my wife was listening to a documentary in English which is unusual as nearly everything she listens to is in Chinese. It was about the use of TCM in the cure for COVID-19. Traditional Chinese Medicine (TCM) takes the approach to strengthen the body's immune system to block the effects of the virus.
In the past months she's mentioned they have been successfully using Chinese medicine on people with COVID-19 virus. The English version video was for my benefit. Her phone was purchased in China and it doesn't appear to be running Android. All the apps are in Chinese. She was able to save the video to her cellphone and I was able to upload it to my computer, but I'm unable to figure out the actual link where the video came from as she uses QQ which is a Chinese based social media system similar to WhatsApp.
The video has a watermark: china.org.cn and I'll search the site (later for the link)

The benefits of using TCM is it's reported to be highly effective, especially when administered early on in the first stage of the virus and low cost.

Every night I read the dashboard results for the COVID-19 data in the state of Florida. I'll do a screenshot and check it again in the morning to see changes as the numbers are usually higher. Probably a recount or late entry from the previous day causing the numbers to change.
The website data can do a detailed map by zip code. Because the area where I live has several communities packed in high density, the amount of reported cases are higher here than a few miles away that is used for farming. However, it's many people in a few square miles that concerns me.

It's mandatory to have some form of face covering when in public. Security won't let you into the grocery store without one. Many of the stores have added plastic barriers at the cash registers. Every building entrance and register has 6' markings on the floor as distancing reminders. I went to the Post Office on Saturday and they have a plastic curtain from ceiling to counter all the way across the service area.

I'm still in contact (by phone) with people I used to work with. They probably networked with a few hundred. Last month, I heard the wife of the warehouse supervisor who works in the medical field had tested positive for the virus. I didn't hear any more details on that. An associate who's wife works for an air conditioning service with more than 50 employees is able to do her job from home. She said none of their crew have been directly affected. Another friend's wife is a nurse and she recently tested negative. These are all good signs of containment.

Hearing of one episode about 2 weeks ago that annoyed me... a client went to the showroom without an appointment to see the sales rep to go over her order. When the rep said you need to make an appointment, the woman said it was her only opportunity as her son tested positive and is home under quarantine. The rep was angered and shouted "You tell me this? I've got family with young children at home. No we cannot have a meeting! Please leave." So far the rep is okay and has no symptoms.

The Condo Association president sent out a message (a few weeks ago) that anyone who has the virus MUST notify them and special precautions will be taken to disinfect hand rails, elevator interior and control panels, etc. I'm thinking that information should be noted on the condo bulletin board so the other residents can avoid those units. So far, I've seen no notices.

I came across a website that gets masks directly to healthcare workers 'on the front lines' where they don't have any. It sppears to be If you have masks (N95, surgical, etc.) and want to donate, they can arrange pickup to your door via the USPS. Since it's donation and volunteer you have to pay shipping. Need masks? The same site can find a match for you.

Their website now claims to have already delivered over 300,000 masks.

Today from Bloomberg;



Deaths are a lot easier to determine than infections, especially since adequate testing is unavailable and most people have not been tested. Indeed, some tests have proven to be faulty. While some areas have seen a reduction in deaths recently, other areas have seen an increase and the net this week was an increase.

It would be prudent to not ease back on social distancing for the near future, especially since we do not yet know who is infected.

Welcome back. Before we begin, just a bit on lecture hall decorum. At the Vierk Institute, our division for pedagogy has suggestions for seating, which several studies show contribute to a much better learning.environment. I am asking all young ladies to move closer to your director instructor, right here at the front of the hall. The males can all go to the back higher levels of the room. That's it. I may have a few suggestions on female attire at a later time as well.
I'll henceforth refer to epidemiology as Epid, to save time. Few in medicine would not agree that Epid forms the backbone of public health. The craft basically is a meld between clinical medicine, and biostatistics. In clinical nursing and medicine, the focus typically is on the individual patint. In Epid, it's on populations, of various sorts, and, specifically, on rates/proportions of disease or health indices in these populations, and of their exposures to various factors. Naming these populations, and the exposures, provides a format for better describing the field, as follows:
Broadly speaking, the craft can be understood as consisting of three sub fields, again with reference to populations. At a basic level, there is descriptive Epid, which attempts to study a population in terms of the rates of health/disease, and various exposures. Analytical Epid then attempts to understand how these are linked causally, using varioius study designs and analyses. Finally, clinical Epid applies various principles to understand and to predict how various interventions, individually, or on populations, affect health outcomes. In large part, much of the predictive work on just how to best respond to C-19 combines ideas from all three of these subfields, mostly of the last.
A listing of types of exposures and "outcomes" (illnesses/health), is one way to understand the various divisions of the field.
So, there are infectious and chronic disease branches of the field. Examples of these include the study of viruses, as now with C-19, in the former, and a focus on, say, cancers, or obesity, in the latter.. There's psychiatric Epid, to keep the beauticians of medicine busy. Epid of the workplace, of accidents, and so on. Likewise, the divisions of Epid can be cast in terms of exposures. So we have environmental, radiation, stressor, and other branches of the field. Even the best uses of health services yield to Epid study approaches.. Most recently, genetic and molecular parts of the science have become quite important.
OK, class dismissed, except for those three young ladies to my right, with high hemline skirts, deep cut tops, and the FM red high heels going. Please retreat to my office after class.

Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation

Vaccine Development and Surveillance

Strategy Overview

Our Goal:

Advance public goods for global health through technological innovation. We do this by accelerating the development and commercialization of novel vaccines and the sustainable manufacture of existing vaccines, defining the global disease burden through better primary data and world-class modeling, and reducing the threat of epidemics through the development and use of innovative tools.
The Challenge

At A Glance

Tackling diseases individually won’t solve many global health challenges. Working across disease areas allows us to identify the public goods that can accelerate global health impact and reduce the threat of epidemics.

We believe technical innovation has a critical role to play in the design, development, and deployment of these public goods.

We invest in deep technical expertise and novel platforms in vaccine development and manufacturing to accelerate innovation for better, faster, and cheaper vaccines.

We also invest in building high-quality modeling and forecasting capabilities informed by trustworthy primary data. We make this information public to allow all experts to better prioritize our collective global health resources.

In global health, the focus we’ve put on fighting individual diseases has had enormous impact, yet many of the most stubborn challenges we face are shared across disease areas. Whether it’s accelerating the development of new vaccines, forecasting the global health challenges of tomorrow, or preparing for epidemics, we must work beyond the scope of one disease area and create durable public goods whose benefits permeate global health.

Vaccines are some of our most powerful tools in combating diseases. Yet despite substantial scientific advances and investment, bringing vaccines to market affordably and reliably remains a challenge. Promising candidates can fail late in development, and existing vaccines can face supply shortages, resulting in wasted time, investments, and missed opportunities to improve human health. The diseases of low-resource settings—whether they are entrenched, like malaria and HIV, or they are the next outbreak pathogen—are often some of the hardest to address scientifically. They are also often the least attractive commercially. These challenges mean vaccine development for low-resource settings will only be successful if we use innovation in technologies, platforms, processes, and business models to accelerate timelines and reduce costs.

Because developing new vaccines is a lengthy and expensive undertaking, it is particularly important that we understand how to prioritize our efforts. Some diseases lend themselves to vaccine intervention. Others, like the neglected tropical diseases, are best tackled through better deployment of existing interventions. And others, like noncommunicable diseases, require non-vaccine approaches. Unfortunately, because the quality of our primary data is so poor, it is difficult to answer questions such as how many deaths a malaria vaccine could prevent. Parents who experience the tragedy of losing a child may never know the true cause of death. The mystery behind these individual tragedies are then accumulated into a public health conundrum, making it impossible for product developers, governments, and funders to effectively prioritize the resources of global and public health.

The Opportunity

We believe we can accelerate the impact of vaccines in low-resource contexts by cultivating deep expertise in the vaccine-manufacturing process, quality control, and clinical evaluation. This expertise allows us to advise on more effective vaccine development programs and identify new areas of innovation to benefit multiple disease programs.

continued on the next page

Obviously, the people in Florida are not paying attention. Every day I check the numbers for new cases of COVID-19 and the numbers were dropping. Social distancing was actually working. Was is the operative.
The numbers are on the rise. We've lost a month now. Yesterday on local news they were talking about reopening some businesses. Not if this is what is happening. On a chart by county, I look at the age groups who are most affected.

The blue and dark blue areas in the bottom (east coast) is significant to me.
Dade County (Miami area) 45-54
Broward County (Hollywood, Fort Lauderdale area) 45-64
Palm Beach County (West Palm Beach, Boca Raton area) 55-74

There are many 55 and over communities in Palm Beach County where I now live. There was a spike last Saturday, dropped for a dew days and nearly doubled at the end of the week. This is raising the overall state numbers, but the activity is concentrated in these 3 counties.

Today in Bloomberg;


(continued in my first comment below)

Calling all men : when writing your profiles please beware: women 63-80 years old probably do not want kids to bore just for you. The latest on the kid issue for older women is: a 35 year old woman who wants kids is referred to in the medical profession as a "geriatric pregnancy", I am telling the truth.

Not a very complimentary comment but then life can be brutal, especially if technology or procedures to become pregnant are used.

When I read a profile about a man and he is 69 years old and wants kids, I being to wonder in what reality is he living? It is sad. Surely he must understand that for a 63 woman or older, it would a very big health risk not only for his partner but for the kid. Just because he can, does not mean he should.What about a lifetime of special needs for the kid?nothing and I mean nothing guarantees a safe, healthy baby. Please be truthful.

There are thousands of kids that should be adopted, they need a family.