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r-peter-hotez-on-vaccine-disinformation/vi-AAOu9G8?ocid=msedgdhp&pc=U531>
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Doctors face hard choices at packed hospital; patients wait in their
cars for treatment. Duration: 05:52, 12 mins ago.
Dr. Kristen Solana Walkinshaw, chief of staff at Providence Family
Medicine Center in Anchorage, Alaska, the largest hospital in Alaska,
talks with Rachel Maddow about how the Covid surge has pushed her
hospital to implement crisis standards of care and what that means for
patients seeking treatment.
HERE’S WHAT ELSE IS HAPPENING:
TORONTO — The leader of the Canadian province of Alberta is apologizing
for his handling of the pandemic and says he is reluctantly introducing
a vaccine passport and imposing a mandatory work-from-home order two
months after lifting nearly all restrictions.
Alberta is declaring a public health emergency as Premier Jason Kenney
says the province might run out of beds and staff for intensive care
units within 10 days.
Indoor dining at pubs and restaurants is now banned.
Kenney says it is clear the provincial government was wrong to end
public health restrictions in the summer. He says COVID-19 is hitting
Alberta harder than anywhere else in Canada because it has the lowest
rate of vaccination in the country.
RENO, Nev. — The Nevada Hospital Association is urging people to avoid
going to emergency rooms except in true emergencies, especially in
northern Nevada where a resurgence in coronavirus infections is running
double the rate in the Las Vegas area.
Health officials say the 30-day average for daily new coronavirus cases
per 100,000 residents has increased fivefold in the Reno-Sparks area
over the past six weeks — from 354 at the beginning of August to 1,621
now. The statewide rate is 951, and it’s 720 in Clark County, which
includes Las Vegas.
The head of the hospital association says that as a result, “many
hospital emergency departments in northern Nevada are at capacity with
patients.”
State officials said Wednesday that 1,090 people were hospitalized at
the beginning of the week for confirmed or suspected cases of COVID-19,
the disease that can be caused by the coronavirus.
WASHINGTON — U.S. government advisers will debate Friday if there’s
enough proof that a booster dose of Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine is safe
and effective.
It’s the first public step toward deciding which Americans may get an
extra dose and when. The Food and Drug Administration on Wednesday
posted much of the evidence that it will ask outside experts to consider
at Friday’s meeting.
But the agency struck a neutral tone in reviewing the data and
discussing the rationale for boosters. That careful approach is notable
given that White House officials have been previewing a booster campaign
that they hoped to begin next week.
Pfizer is making the argument that while protection against severe
disease is holding strong in the U.S., immunity against milder infection
wanes somewhere around six to eight months after the second dose. The
drugmaker is pointing to data from Israel, which began offering boosters
over the summer.
The U.S. already offers an extra dose of the Pfizer or Moderna vaccines
to people with severely weakened immune systems.
WASHINGTON — The U.S. government will spend $470 million to learn more
about long COVID-19, its causes and potential treatments.
The National Institutes of Health announced the plans Wednesday with a
grant awarded to NYU Grossman School of Medicine and a goal of enrolling
up to 40,000 adults and children nationwide. The effort, dubbed RECOVER,
will involve researchers at more than 30 U.S. institutions.
‘’This is being taken with the greatest seriousness… at a scale that has
not really been attempted with something like this,’’ Dr. Francis
Collins, NIH director, said at a briefing Wednesday.
Collins says its estimated 10% to 30% of people infected with COVID-19
may develop persistent, new or recurring symptoms that can last months
or perhaps years.
Long COVID is an umbrella term for symptoms that linger, recur and show
up for the first time four weeks or more after an initial infection. It
also includes heart inflammation and multisystem inflammatory syndrome,
a rare but serious condition that can occur in children after a COVID-19
infection.
Pain, headaches, fatigue, brain fog, shortness of breath, anxiety,
depression, chronic coughs and sleep problems are among the reported
symptoms of long COVID. Possible causes include the virus lingers in
tissues and organs or it overstimulates the immune system.
ST. LOUIS — A child has died of COVID-19 in Missouri as the coronavirus
sickens record numbers of youths in the state.
According to officials with the St. Louis Metropolitan Pandemic Task
Force, the child died last week in the St. Louis area. The St. Louis
Post-Dispatch reports task force officials wouldn’t reveal more
information, such as the child’s age, citing privacy concerns.
The death brings the total number of Missouri children younger than 18
who have died from COVID-19 to six, according to state health department
spokeswoman Lisa Cox.
On Sept. 7, there were a record 1,133 positive test results for Missouri
children younger than 18, topping 940 set on Nov. 9, according to an
analysis released Tuesday by the Missouri Hospital Association.
Some local health departments in the St. Louis area have reported up to
a third of new cases are among children.
Dr. Clay Dunagan, chief clinical officer for BJC HealthCare, cited the
more infectious delta variant and schools not taking steps to reduce
spread, such as requiring masks. Children younger than 12 aren’t
eligible for vaccines, and vaccination rates among teens lags that of
adults.