Year: 2021

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

PRAYAGRAJ – Police are reaching out to villagers in northern India to investigate the recovery of bodies buried in shallow sand graves or washing up on the Ganges River banks, prompting speculation on social media that they were the remains of COVID-19 victims.

In jeeps and boats, the police used portable loudspeakers with microphones asking people not to dispose of the bodies in rivers. “We are here to help you perform the last rites,” police said.

On Friday, rains exposed the cloth coverings of bodies buried in shallow sand graves on the riverbank in Prayagraj, a city in Uttar Pradesh state.

Navneet Sehgal, a state government spokesman, on Sunday denied local media reports that more than 1,000 corpses of COVID-19 victims had been recovered from rivers in the past two weeks. “I bet these bodies have nothing to do with COVID-19,” he said.

He said some villagers did not cremate their dead, as is customary, due to a Hindu tradition during some periods of religious significance and disposed of them in rivers or digging graves on riverbanks.

K.P. Singh, a senior police officer, said authorities had earmarked a cremation ground for those who died of COVID-19 on the Prayagraj riverbank and the police were no longer allowing any burials on the riverfront.

Sehgal state authorities have found “a small number” of bodies on the riverbanks, he said, but didn’t give a figure.

Ramesh Kumar Singh, a member of Bondhu Mahal Samiti, a philanthropic organization that helps cremate bodies, said the number of deaths is very high in rural areas, and poor people have been disposing of the bodies in the river because of the exorbitant cost of performing the last rites and a shortage of wood. The cremation cost has tripled up to 15,000 rupees ($210).

Health authorities last week retrieved 71 bodies that washed up on the Ganges River bank in neighboring Bihar state.

Authorities performed post mortems but said they could not confirm the cause of death due to decomposition.

A dozen corpses were also found last week buried in sand at two locations on the riverbank in Unnao district, 40 kilometers (25 miles) southwest of Lucknow, the Uttar Pradesh state capital. District Magistrate Ravindra Kumar said an investigation is underway to identify the cause of death.

India’s two big states, Uttar Pradesh and Bihar, with nearly 358 million people in total, are among the worst hit in the surge sweeping through the country with devastating death tolls. Hapless villagers have been rushing the sick to nearby towns and cities for treatment, many of them dying on the way, victims of India’s crumbling health care.

After hitting record highs for weeks, the number of new cases was stabilizing, said Dr. V.K. Paul, a government health expert.

The Health Ministry on Sunday reported 311,170 confirmed cases in the past 24 hours, down from 326,098 on Saturday.

It also reported 4,077 additional deaths, taking the total fatalities to 270,284. Both figures are almost certainly a vast undercount, experts say.

Source: Voice of America

The largest U.S. union of registered nurses has condemned the Centers for Disease Control’s recent announcement that fully vaccinated people do not need to wear masks in most settings.

“This newest CDC guidance is not based on science, does not protect public health, and threatens the lives of patients, nurses, and other frontline workers across the country,” National Nurses United Executive Director Bonnie Castillo said in a statement. “Now is not the time to relax protective measures, and we are outraged that the CDC has done just that while we are still in the midst of the deadliest pandemic in a century.”

NNU President Jean Ross said, “if the CDC had fully recognized the science on how this deadly virus is transmitted, this new guidance would never have been issued.”

The union called on the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to issue emergency temporary standard (ETS) on infectious diseases “without delay.”

“If OSHA does not issue a Covid ETS immediately, we will undoubtedly see more unnecessary, preventable infections and deaths, as well as long Covid cases among nurses and other frontline workers,” said NNU President Zenei Triunfo-Cortez,

Saturday, the CDC also said it is refining its coronavirus guidelines and announced when schools open this fall, students from kindergarten through 12th grade should wear masks because all students will not be fully vaccinated. The agency said masks should be worn while riding buses and while inside schools. It also urged students and teachers to maintain 6 feet of social distancing.

The Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine was approved earlier this month for children, ages 12 and older.

Surge sweeps rural India

India’s daily count of new COVID infections continues a downward trend, but numbers are still dangerously high. On Sunday, the health ministry said there were 311,170 new cases and 4,077 deaths in the previous 24-hour period.

The virus is spreading aggressively in rural areas, where two-thirds of the country’s 1.4 billion people live.

Amid news reports of sick people in rural areas being rushed to towns and cities for treatment, Prime Minister Narendra Modi ordered his government to mobilize all resources to distribute oxygen supplies and other medical aid to hard-hit rural areas.

India has 24.6 million COVID cases, but public health experts believe India has undercounted the infections. Only the U.S. has more cases than India with nearly 33 million, according to the Johs Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center. The global COVID count is 162.5 million cases, Johns Hopkins says.

Lockdown in Caribbean

A surge in COVID-19 cases and deaths is prompting a state of emergency and curfew beginning early Sunday in Trinidad and Tobago. According to Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center, the twin island state has seen 2,659 new cases of COVID-19 and 69 new deaths in the past week. Both are records.

Health officials say the variant first found in Brazil, which is highly transmissible, is partly to blame. More than 61,000 shots have gone into arms in Trinidad and Tobago, but only 1,179 people are fully vaccinated.

Source: Voice of America