Two new studies paint a comprehensive picture of current long COVID cases in the United States, and both suggest the condition limits daily activities for a significant proportion of those affected.
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How America Lost Control of the Bird Flu, Setting the Stage for Another Pandemic
Keith Poulsen’s jaw dropped when farmers showed him images on their cellphones at the World Dairy Expo in Wisconsin in October. A livestock veterinarian at the University of Wisconsin, Poulsen had seen sick cows before, with their noses dripping and udders slack.
But the scale of the farmers’ efforts to treat the sick cows stunned him. They showed videos of systems they built to hydrate hundreds of cattle at once. In 14-hour shifts, dairy workers pumped gallons of electrolyte-rich fluids into ailing cows through metal tubes inserted into the esophagus.
“It was like watching a field hospital on an active battlefront treating hundreds of wounded soldiers,” he said.
Nearly a year into the first outbreak of the bird flu among cattle, the virus shows no sign of slowing. The U.S. government failed to eliminate the virus on dairy farms when it was confined to a handful of states, by quickly identifying infected cows and taking measures to keep their infections from spreading. Now at least 875 herds across 16 states have tested positive.
Comments closedAvian flu detected in Manitoba for the 1st time this year
Manitoba has confirmed its first case of avian influenza in domestic birds for 2024 at a commercial poultry operation in Portage la Prairie.
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency said the viral infection was detected on Nov. 26. Similar cases have previously been detected in the province in 2022 and 2023.
CFIA has set a primary control zone in the area where the disease was detected.
Comments closedJudge certifies Nova Scotia COVID-19 lawsuit as a class action
⚠️ Content warning: mention of deaths.
A Nova Scotia judge has certified a class action lawsuit against Northwood, a company that was described as at the epicentre of COVID-19 deaths in the province at the height of the pandemic in 2020.
Some 53 people died in the Northwood complex in north-end Halifax.
A lawsuit was launched shortly after the deaths. On Thursday, Nova Scotia Supreme Court Justice Scott Norton certified it as a class action.
Comments closedWhy doesn’t Doug Ford’s government want you to know if you have this dangerous disease?
Comments closedTransparency is crucial to public health, but far too little effort has gone into informing the public about the long-term health hazards posed by repeated COVID-19 infections. That needs to change. A good place to start is by providing free rapid tests to enable Ontarians to gauge their risk and that of their loved ones. Its messaging would be clear: Results still matter.
America’s Public Health Breakdown Is Just Getting Started
The United States has a health-care system that is terrible and getting worse. It also has a health science system that is the best in the world and about to be dismantled.
The impending return of Donald Trump to the White House seems likely to collapse American health science, with consequences as disastrous for the rest of the world as for the approximately 340 million Americans in the U.S. Canada may be able to soften the impact here, but it will not be easy.
Comments closedGov. Newsom declares state of emergency over bird flu to boost California’s response
California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Wednesday declared a state of emergency to boost the state’s response to the avian flu, which has infected more than 600 dairy herds and 34 people in the state amid a national outbreak that began in the spring.
The proclamation gives state and local agencies additional flexibility on staffing, contracting and other rules to support the H5N1 response, according to a statement from the governor’s office.
CDC confirms first severe case of H5N1 bird flu in U.S.
A person in Louisiana has the first severe illness caused by bird flu in the U.S., health officials said Wednesday.
The patient had been in contact with sick and dead birds in backyard flocks, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) said. Agency officials didn’t immediately detail the person’s symptoms.
Previous illnesses in the U.S. had been mild and the vast majority had been among farm workers exposed to sick poultry or dairy cows.
Comments closedOttawa Public Health warns of very low risk of hepatitis A exposure at south-end Tim Hortons
Ottawa Public Health is warning residents about a possible risk of exposure to hepatitis A at a local Tim Hortons in the city’s south end.
OPH says it is investigating a confirmed case of hepatitis A in an employee at the Tim Hortons at 372 Hunt Club Rd.
Comments closedInvalidation of a landmark study on COVID-19 published by a French doctor
“Concerns have been raised” relating to respect for “publication ethics” of the journal’s publisher, and “the appropriate conduct of research involving human participants, as well as concerns raised by three of the authors themselves regarding the article’s methodology and conclusions,” stated Elsevier, the publisher of the scientific journal International Journal of Antimicrobial Agents, in a lengthy note justifying this rare retraction.
The article, signed by 18 authors, notably Philippe Gautret, then a professor at the Marseille IHU, and Didier Raoult, who directed this institute, intended to demonstrate the efficacy of hydroxychloroquine, combined with an antibiotic – azithromycin – against COVID-19.
Comments closedCOVID-19 linked to more heart complications than flu, RSV
A new study published in BMC Cardiovascular Disorders shows that pediatric and young adult COVID-19 patients are more at risk for cardiac complications than flu or RSV patients of the same age.
The study was based on hospitalized US patients from 2020 through 2021 tracked through the National Inpatient Sample. In total 212,655 respiratory virus admissions were recorded, including 85,055 from COVID-19, 103,185 from RSV, and 24,415 from influenza.
Comments closedNew N.B. school air quality testing results are delayed. Here’s why
Annual school air quality test results haven’t been released on time because the former Higgs government ordered every school to be tested.
Usually the data, which measures carbon dioxide (CO2) levels in classrooms to indicate overall air quality, is released in the last few months of each year and focuses on several dozen schools without mechanical ventilation systems.
But this time, they’re all being tested.
Comments closedTrump nominees should ‘steer clear’ of undermining polio vaccine, McConnell says
Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, who had polio as a child, says any of President-elect Donald Trump’s nominees seeking Senate confirmation should “steer clear” of efforts to discredit the polio vaccine.
“Efforts to undermine public confidence in proven cures are not just uninformed — they’re dangerous,” McConnell said in a statement Friday. “Anyone seeking the Senate’s consent to serve in the incoming Administration would do well to steer clear of even the appearance of association with such efforts.”
The 82-year-old lawmaker’s statement appeared to be directed at Trump’s pick for health secretary, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., after a report that one of his advisers filed a petition to revoke approval for the polio vaccine in 2022. That vaccine is widely considered to have halted the disease in most parts of the world.
Comments closedOver 300 COVID outbreaks hit Alberta acute care facilities last year
Comments closedThe reality is that people are dying from COVID in our hospitals, and we really are doing very little to prevent them getting ill and getting infected. And we wouldn’t do the same for any other infectious disease.
Kennedy’s Lawyer Has Asked the F.D.A. to Revoke Approval of the Polio Vaccine
The lawyer helping Robert F. Kennedy Jr. pick federal health officials for the incoming Trump administration has petitioned the government to revoke its approval of the polio vaccine, which for decades has protected millions of people from a virus that can cause paralysis or death.
That campaign is just one front in the war that the lawyer, Aaron Siri, is waging against vaccines of all kinds.
Mr. Siri has also filed a petition seeking to pause the distribution of 13 other vaccines; challenged, and in some cases quashed, Covid vaccine mandates around the country; sued federal agencies for the disclosure of records related to vaccine approvals; and subjected prominent vaccine scientists to grueling videotaped depositions.
Comments closedGuelph wastewater testing will continue for COVID-19 and more by university researchers
Wastewater in Guelph will continue to be monitored for COVID-19, influenza and other illnesses through a new partnership between researchers at the University of Guelph and Wellington-Dufferin-Guelph Public Health.
The researchers will get samples of wastewater three times a week, then will submit their findings to public health, which will in turn publish it to a public online dashboard.
Provincial funding for wastewater testing was cut on July 31 with the Ontario government citing a federal program that tests wastewater; however, none of the testing sites are in Waterloo region or Guelph.
Comments closedWe can, and must, do more to protect students in higher education from the risks of post-COVID condition
Canada’s postsecondary institutions have a responsibility to protect students and others on campus from the risks of post-COVID condition as a matter of campus safety.
Canada’s Chief Science Advisor, Mona Nemer, recently released the report, Dealing with the Fallout: Post-COVID Condition and its Continued Impacts on Individuals and Society.
Post-COVID condition (PCC), also known as “long COVID,” refers to the poorly understood and often serious health damage left by the SARS-CoV-2 virus after the acute illness appears to have passed.
Universities, colleges and schools have a duty to take reasonable precautions to protect students, staff and faculty from foreseeable harms. They must ensure the water on campus is safe to drink. They must install fire and carbon monoxide detectors and make evacuation plans. Many have adopted a smoke-free policy on campus as part of a commitment to an international charter on health promotion in universities and colleges. Yet there is little pandemic health promotion on Canadian campuses.
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