Month: May 2021

U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Rochelle Walensky Tuesday said the United States appears to be on a path out of the pandemic, noting the most recent seven-day average of new COVID-19 cases and deaths is the lowest since the pandemic began.

During a White House COVID-19 Response Team briefing, Walensky said the most recent figures indicate “we should all have cautious optimism.”

Senior White House COVID-19 adviser Andy Slavitt added to the good news, noting case numbers this past week were down in all 50 states also for the first time in the pandemic.

While vaccination rates have slowed, Walensky said the U.S. continues to vaccinate 1.5 and 2 million people per day. She said in less than a week since the U.S. Food and Drug Administration and the CDC authorized and recommended use of the Pfizer vaccine for adolescents 12 and older, more than 600,000 young people received the vaccine.

Walensky also noted that 60% of all Americans 18 or older have received at least one shot, a good sign the nation will easily meet U.S. President Joe Biden’s goal of having 70% with at least one shot by the 4th of July.

During the same briefing, Senior White House Medical Advisor Anthony Fauci sought to reassure Americans about the efficacies of the COVID-19 vaccines. He presented recent studies showing the current vaccines available in the U.S. are proving effective in providing protection against variant strains of the virus, including the B.1.6.7 variant, originally identified in India.

Walensky said the CDC is working on its guidance for U.S. school-age children for when they return to school later this year or, perhaps, attend summer camps in the next few months. She said the guidelines will be based on how many young people may be vaccinated in the next few months, so they are still being developed.

Source: Voice of America

With little more than two months to go before the opening ceremony of the Tokyo Olympic Games, a major Japanese medical association is calling for the cancellation of the event due to the current surge of new COVID-19 infections.

The Tokyo Medical Practitioners Association posted an open letter Monday to Prime Minister Yoshihide Suga warning that hospitals in the Japanese capital city “have their hands full and have almost no spare capacity.”

The group that represents about 6,000 primary care doctors and hospitals urged Suga to convince the International Olympic Committee that holding the games would be “difficult” and that it should be called off.

The current surge has prompted authorities to place Tokyo and several other prefectures under a state of emergency, leading to a growing demand among the general public to cancel the Olympics, which are scheduled to begin July 23 after a one-year delay because of the pandemic.

A public opinion poll published Monday by Asahi Shimbun newspaper revealed more than 80% of Japanese are opposed to the games, with 43% wanting them canceled and another 40% calling for them to be postponed again.

Only 14% of those want the games to proceed as scheduled.

The outbreak has also caused the Japanese economy to contract 5.1% in the first three months of 2021.

Taiwan to close schools

Meanwhile, health officials in Taiwan said Tuesday it will close all schools and education centers in the island due to the surge of new coronavirus infections. The closures, which also include all daycare centers, take effect Wednesday and last through May 28.

The self-ruled island had been held up as one of the world’s few success stories in containing the spread of the coronavirus, with just 2,017 total cases and 12 deaths, according to Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center. But it has been dealing with an outbreak of new infections which authorities have connected to outbreaks among flight crews with state-owned China Airlines and a hotel at Taoyuan International Airport.

Taipei reported 240 new COVID-19 cases Tuesday, down from Monday’s record-high 335 new infections. COVID-19 is the disease caused by the coronavirus.

Pfizer, Moderna vaccines

On the vaccine front, a group of U.S. scientists say the COVID-19 vaccines developed by Pfizer and Moderna are highly effective against the B.1.617 and B.1.618 variants first detected in India. The lab-based preliminary study conducted at New York University’s Grossman School of Medicine used serum samples collected from eight people who had recovered from COVID-19, six people fully vaccinated with the Pfizer vaccine and three people fully vaccinated with Moderna’s.

The researchers found the antibodies from people who had been vaccinated were working “well above” the serum level from those who had recovered from COVID-19.

The study has not been peer-reviewed.

Meanwhile, the European Union’s drug regulator announced Monday the Pfizer vaccine can be stored much longer at temperatures higher than previously recommended. The European Medicines Agency said unopened vials of the two-shot vaccine can be stored between five and 30 days at temperatures between 2 and 8 degrees Celsius, as opposed to ultra-cold temperatures between minus 70 and 80 degrees Celsius.

The new storage recommendations will make it easier to distribute the vaccine among the EU’s 27-member states, many of whom have been mired in slow inoculation rates.

Johns Hopkins is reporting more than 163.6 million total COVID-19 infections worldwide, including more than 3.3 million deaths. The United States leads the world with more than 32.9 million confirmed infections and 586,359 deaths. India has topped 25 million total infections, putting it second behind the U.S., while Brazil is third with more than 15.6 million confirmed cases.

Brazil is in second place in total deaths with 436,537, while India is third with 278,719 deaths.

Source: Voice of America

GENEVA – A growing number of people around the world are dying from heart disease and stroke because of overwork, a new World Health Organization-International Labor Organization study says. The study is based on data from more than 2,300 surveys collected in 154 countries from 1970 to 2018.

The study says those working at least 55 hours a week are at higher risk of dying from heart disease and stroke. In 2016, the data show 1 in 10 people around the world, or 450 million, worked excessively long hours, leading to 745,000 heart disease and stroke deaths.

Frank Pega, a technical officer in WHO’s department of environment, climate change and health, says this is a 29% increase since 2000.

“We know that this burden disproportionately affects men,” said Pega. “Seventy percent of all death deaths? from cardiovascular disease occur occurs? in men, according to our official estimates. Also, the regions that are most affected are Southeast Asia and the Western Pacific. And we can tell you that it appears that middle-aged and older workers are disproportionately burdened.”

The study reports most recorded deaths are among those aged 60 to 79 who have worked for 55 hours or more per week. The lowest recorded number is in Africa, which has a young population.

It says Europe and North America have the lowest occupational disease rates. It says this is because people in these regions are largely covered by employment protections that limit the number of hours they work.

The new analysis highlights the impact the COVID-19 pandemic has on workers, who increasingly are working from home. Pega says teleworking and the digitization of work appear to be speeding the trend toward long working hours.

“We have some evidence that shows that when countries go into national lockdown, the numbers of hours work increased by about 10%. … We also have … a sort of massive increase in digitization of work, and digitization of work might actually make it harder to disconnect,” said Pega. “… Rest periods and personal periods might need to be scheduled when you are working online, because otherwise you might be working very long hours.”

Health and occupational safety officials urge nations to consider the well-being of their populations as the world enters the post-COVID recovery period. They say governments must ensure that recovery measures are not pursued at the expense of the health of workers.

They say governments should introduce and enforce laws that ban mandatory overtime and ensure limits on maximum working times.

Source: Voice of America