Its been another interesting week with the political conventions both Republican and Democratic finally coming to an end. What is left is for us to digest what we have heard over the past two weeks and see whose facts are correct and whose are incorrect. Who is telling the truth and who is telling lies. Who can effect a positive change for all of us and not just some of us.
A lot has been made about race and the violent lawless protests that have taken part using the BLM as a back drop. One party wants to address the violence, lawlessness and the disharmony these protests are sowing. One party refuses to acknowledge that they exist and that any violence is tantamount to people blowing off steam.
But what about the people who live in these cities. More specifically those who live in or near these police free zones. The businesses that have been looted, burned and destroyed within these zones. The reckless disregard by the civic leaders and political leaders to let this go on unchecked.
There are 180,000 police departments located throughout the country. There are over 800,000 police officers throughout the country. Is reform needed? Yes. Is more training necessary to deescalate certain situations? Yes. Do the bad officers need to be drummed out of the police force? Yes.
Most common sense ,reasonable and peaceful people agree that reform is needed among the police force. The peaceful BLM protesters support these positions as well. But the hostile element that hides within the ranks of the peaceful BLM movement sow the seeds of race conflict. The violence , rioting and looting caused by the radicals who hide behind the BLM movement are hurting any chance of meaningful reform or change. This radical violence is promoting racism and hate among its victims and those watching this lawless violence on TV. It is not promoting a peaceful resolution between all the races to develop a society where people are judged by the “Content of their character not the color of their skin. (MKK)”
We should realize that we all have more in common than what divides us.
Fact vs Hype
The 2019-20 flu season in the United States was mild, according to the C.D.C. But a mild flu season still takes a toll. In preliminary estimates, the C.D.C. says that cases ranged from 39 million to 56 million, resulting in up to 740,000 hospitalizations and from 24,000 to 62,000 flu-related deaths.
As public health officials look to fall and winter, the specter of a new surge of Covid-19 gives them chills. But there is a scenario they dread even more: a severe flu season, resulting in a “twindemic.”
The concern about a twindemic is so great that officials around the world are pushing the flu shot even before it becomes available in clinics and doctors’ offices. Dr. Robert Redfield, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has been talking it up
Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, has been imploring people to get the flu shot, “so that you could at least blunt the effect of one of those two potential respiratory infections.”
Flu can leave patients vulnerable to a harsher attack of Covid-19, doctors believe, and that coming down with both viruses at once could be disastrous.
What we know about COVID 19 is what we don’t know. Is it possible to get reinfected with COVID 19 if you have already had it. There is a case from Hong Kong that says it is possible. 33-year-old man in
Hong Kong may represent the first confirmed case of reinfection, researchers in Hong Kong said.
The man was diagnosed with COVID-19 on March 26, hospitalized, then recovered. He tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 again on August 15, and whole genome sequencing of viral isolates from the two episodes indicated they were from different clades, reported Kwok-Yung Yuen, MD, of the University of Hong Kong, and colleagues in a manuscript they said had been accepted for publication in Clinical Infectious Diseases, but not yet published.
An inflammatory signature may hold a clue to predicting both COVID-19 severity and poor clinical outcomes, researchers found.
A laboratory study that took serum samples of nearly 1,500 COVID-19 patients at hospital admission found that interleukin-6 (IL-6) and tumor necrosis factor (TNF)-α levels predicted both COVID-19 severity and death, after adjusting for other laboratory inflammation markers, as well as hypoxia and disease severity, reported Sacha Gnjatic, PhD, of Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City, and colleagues.
The United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) continues to encourage the development of new tests for SARS-CoV-2 in the fight to contain COVID-19. Thus far, the FDA has issued emergency use authorizations for 221 tests of which 179 are molecular, 39 are antibody, and three are antigen tests. The organization has also created a new website to showcase all resources for COVID-19 testing and testing of pooled samples. Testing is key to making informed public health decisions on reducing transmission of the novel coronavirus
'Rolling hotspots' of COVID 19 are the new normal: Sun Belt states see progress on coronavirus as rates drift up in the Midwest It seems that just as states start getting coronavirus cases under control in one geographic area, they start rising in another.
Sun Belt states hit hard by the coronavirus in summer -- including Florida, Texas, Arizona -- have finally started to see their numbers go down, only to have cases insidiously creep up across parts of the Midwest.
Experts say a patchwork of regulations at state and city levels, coupled with quarantine fatigue -- and the fact that the Midwest was spared at the start of the pandemic -- are all behind this alarming trend.
"You have governors, with varying degrees of expertise and who have secretaries of health with varying degrees of expertise, that are developing state level policies ... some of them don't necessarily address issues in the same manner," Dr. Amesh A. Adalja, senior scholar at Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, told CNN.
A twindemic, per the Times, is the possibility of a severe flu season coinciding with a surge in COVID-19 cases. Even a mild flu season is concerning, given that the inevitable serious cases of the flu tax the medical system each year, Amesh A. Adalja, MD, senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security,
We are anticipating a very vigorous winter respiratory virus season, with COVID-19 out there, perhaps increasing even more, and with influenza coming on the scene,” William Schaffner, MD, an infectious disease specialist and professor at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, tells Health. “There are other respiratory viruses, too.”
Even when you just look at the flu and COVID-19, “it will be challenging for doctors to distinguish one from the other,” Dr. Schaffner says.
A huge concern of doctors is the risk that the medical system will be overloaded trying to care for both COVID-19 and flu patients at once. “This is a real risk,” Richard Watkins, MD, an infectious disease physician in Akron, Ohio, and a professor of internal medicine at Northeast Ohio Medical University, tells Health.
“Even if we have to deal with a moderate-sized flu epidemic—which all by itself can stress hospital facilities—at the same time as the pandemic, we may be in for a quite rough winter,” Dr. Schaffner says.
Experts stress the importance of getting your flu shot. “People should definitely get the flu vaccine, because the last thing they need is to get COVID-19 and the flu,” Dr. Watkins says.
As for when to get the vaccine, Dr. Adalja recommends aiming for some time in October to make sure it protects you throughout the season. However, if you need to get it earlier (or later, if you miss the October deadline), he says that’s OK, too.
Finally, experts stress the importance of keeping up known methods of preventing the spread of COVID-19, like social distancing, wearing masks, and washing your hands regularly. “They help protect against COVID-19 and the flu,” Dr. Schaffner says.
A bad flu season coupled with continued COVID-19 outbreaks could increase people's risk of fatal illness and overwhelm hospital capacity in communities already scrambling to treat coronavirus patients, experts say.
"I think it's definitely a possibility and it's something we're all worried about," said Dr. Eric Cioe-Pena, director of global health at Northwell Health in New Hyde Park, N.Y. "The trifecta of a bad flu season, a bad COVID resurgence and an Atlantic hurricane is our doomsday scenario. You could add in civil unrest around the election as a four-way doomsday scenario."
The concern is so great that officials worldwide have been pressing for folks to get this year's flu shot, even though it's only now hitting the market.
Getting your flu shot "could at least blunt the effect of one of those two potential respiratory infections," Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the U.S. National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told The New York Times.
Last year's flu season was relatively mild, but still resulted in between 39 million and 56 million cases of flu, as many as 740,000 hospitalizations, and between 24,000 and 62,000 flu deaths, according to preliminary CDC estimates.
"You have to remember those viruses are going to compete for the same hospital beds, ICU beds, ventilators, personal protective equipment and even diagnostic test reagents," Adalja said.
Doctors are particularly worried about people who catch one of the viruses and then the other, back-to-back.
"I would say a sequential infection could be really a major problem for somebody, to get hit twice in a row. They might have sustained lung damage from COVID and now have to deal with influenza," Adalja said. "I would think the lung damage one would induce would make you more susceptible to a severe outcome with the other one."
The flu vaccine contains particles of three to four different strains of flu that officials guess will be the ones most in circulation during the influenza season in any given year. Even if the vaccine is not an exact match to the flu that winds up being most common, it primes the body to produce an immune response that will limit the severity of a person's illness.
"People say I took it one year and I got the flu anyways," Cioe-Pena said. "What you will notice is there are very few people who say, 'My loved one or I got the flu shot and then I was on a ventilator with pneumonia.' Even when it doesn't prevent the illness, it is still the best tool we have at attenuating the effects of the flu."
In the most severe recent flu season, 2017-2018, the flu vaccine only had an overall estimated effectiveness of 38% across three strains, and was particularly weak against the H3N2 strain, the CDC reported.
Nonetheless, the CDC estimated that the imperfect vaccine still prevented 7.1 million illnesses, 3.7 million medical visits, 109,000 hospitalizations and 8,000 deaths that season.
"It does prevent severe flu," Javaid said, "and that is going to be the critical element in this situation. I have seen people get flu and COVID back-to-back, and I can tell you that people who were vaccinated had much better outcomes."
During the six influenza seasons from 2010 through 2016, the flu vaccine prevented as many as 6.7 million cases of flu, 3.1 million doctor's visits, 87,000 hospitalizations and 10,000 deaths, the CDC said in its report on this year's flu vaccine.
Vaccine producers are preparing for a record 98 million flu shots to be handed out in the United States, about 15% more than last year, the Times reported.
However, Americans remain vaccine-hesitant. In the 2018-2019 flu season, only 45% of U.S. adults got the vaccine, with rates particularly low among those aged 18 to 50, the Times noted.
"The best way to prevent this twindemic is to have as high a vaccination rate for influenza as we can, so there is room to take care of these COVID patients and we don't have to worry about dual infections or sequential infections," Adalja concluded.