Bald Men At Higher Risk Of Severe Coronavirus Symptoms

New research is showing why a larger percentage of men—particularly bald men—are having worse Covid-19 outcomes than women.
Researchers at Brown University point to androgens, the group of hormones which causes hair loss in men. They’ve determined androgens are linked to severe cases of Covid-19 and suggest their discovery could be called the “Gabrin Sign,” named for the first U.S. physician to die of Covid-19 in the United States. Dr. Frank Gabrin was bald.
Lead author Dr. Carlos Wambier said, “We think androgens or male hormones are definitely the gateway for the virus to enter our cells. We really think baldness is a perfect predictor of severity.”
Wambier and his team conducted two studies in Spain. The results of one of those studies, published in the American Academy of Dermatology, showed that 79% of 122 men who tested positive for Covid-19 and admitted to three hospitals in Madrid were bald.
A separate study of 41 patients in Spain showed that 71% of them were bald.

Could androgens also signal a problem for some female patients?
The study that was published in the American Academy of Dermatology says, “it would be interesting to observe for severe Covid cases in female patients who present with increase androgens, for example, females with metabolic syndrome or whom are using birth control methods with progestogen hormones that bind to androgen receptor. Additionally, there are many medical conditions that could increase androgen activity in females and might correlate with increasing vulnerability to Covid-19.”

The investigation continues and Wambier and his colleagues believe if their theory is correct that anti-androgen therapy could be used as a Covid-19 treatment.
They write in the study, “A vaccine might ultimately be found for SARS-CoV-2; however, if a vaccine is not found or found to be ineffective, androgen suppression as a prophylactic treatment could reduce Covid-19 disease burden.”
https://www.forbes.com/sites/marlamilling/2020/06/06/bald-men-at-higher-risk-of-severe-coronavirus-symptoms/#15664a129e48

AstraZeneca blood cancer drug shows signs of helping COVID-19 patients

AstraZeneca’s cancer drug Calquence has shown initial signs of helping hospitalised COVID-19 patients get through the worst of the disease, as researchers scramble to repurpose existing treatments to help fight the deadly infection.
Results from the preliminary research involving 19 patients, which was backed by the United States National Institutes of Health, encouraged the British drugmaker to explore the drug’s new use in a wider clinical trial announced in April.
Eleven patients had been on oxygen when they started the 10-14 day Calquence course and eight of them could afterwards be discharged, breathing independently, according to results in a paper co-authored by Astra’s head of oncology research, Jose Baselga.

Eight patients were on mechanical ventilation when they were put on Calquence, and four of them could be discharged, though one died of pulmonary embolism.
“These patients were in a very unstable situation, they would have had a dire prognosis … Within one to three days the majority of these patients got better in terms of ventilation and oxygen needs,” Astra’s Baselga told Reuters.
Severe cases of COVID-19 are believed to be triggered by an over-reaction of the immune system known as cytokine storm and initial research has brought Calquence, and other drugs that suppress certain elements of the immune system, into play.

Autoimmune disease drugs that are being tested for their ability to quell the cytokine storm include Regeneron and Sanofi’s Kevzara, Roche’s Actemra as well as Morphosys and GlaxoSmithKline’s otilimab.
In its approved use, Calquence competes with AbbVie and Johnson & Johnson’s established treatment Imbruvica as a treatment for chronic lymphocytic leukaemia, a common type of adult leukaemia.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-astrazeneca/astrazeneca-blood-cancer-drug-shows-signs-of-helping-covid-19-patients-idUSKBN23C2P4

Health Bigs Urge Mass Meets As ‘White Supremacy’ More Lethal Than Covid-19

1200 public health experts have signed an open letter asserting that Black Lives Matter mass gatherings should be encouraged because “white supremacy” is a bigger health threat than COVID-19.
Yes, really.
“White supremacy is a lethal public health issue that predates and contributes to COVID-19,” states the letter, before adding, “Black people are twice as likely to be killed by police compared to white people, but the effects of racism are far more pervasive,” (a claim which is completely misleading given that black people are far likelier to be involved in violent confrontations with police).
The letter goes on to basically assert that COVID-19 isn’t a threat, so long as people are protesting against racism, which is a bigger threat, a completely ludicrous assertion that sounds like it came straight from a far-left protest group, not 1200 public health experts.
“As public health advocates, we do not condemn these gatherings as risky for COVID-19 transmission,” states the letter. “We support them as vital to the national public health and to the threatened health specifically of Black people in the United States.”
The letter then claims that ‘stay-at-home’ protests shouldn’t be treated the same because they “not only oppose public health interventions, but are also rooted in white nationalism and run contrary to respect for Black lives.”
The health experts then go on to assert that BLM protesters shouldn’t be arrested, shouldn’t be held in vans and that tear gas shouldn’t be used against them due to the threat of it exacerbating symptoms of people infected with COVID-19.
The letter also says that facemasks should be ‘celebrated’ and not seen as an easy way for criminals and looters to hide their identity.
In the space of 10 days, leftists and even public health officials have gone from demanding police arrest ‘stay-at-home’ protesters for the crime of gathering outside, to demanding the abolition of police and encouraging mass gatherings of people outside.

You’re bad and “killing granny” for participating in a protest while remaining inside your car, but tens of thousands of people gathering in close proximity in cities across America is good because “racism” or something.
No, this isn’t an episode of the Twilight Zone, it’s 2020.
http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/WtWuObmIzrI/1200-public-health-experts-advocate-mass-gatherings-because-white-supremacy-bigger-threat

Long term care facilities are where most COVID-19 deaths occur

Long-term care facilities (LTCFs) are a major driver of total COVID-19 deaths. Reported today in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society, Boston Medical Center (BMC) and Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) geriatricians Rossana Lau-Ng, Lisa Caruso and Thomas Perls studied the past month’s case and death data reported by the Massachusetts Department of Health’s COVID-19 daily Dashboard along with data provided by the Kaiser Family Foundation and other countries. As the pandemic drags on, the proportion of COVID-19 deaths in Massachusetts that occur in LTCFs (nursing homes and group homes) has climbed from 54 percent to 63 percent as of May 29t.
Some states have even higher proportions of COVID-19 deaths in LTCFs. According to Kaiser Family Foundation data, as of May 28, 81percent of COVID-19 deaths in Minnesota and Rhode Island had occurred in nursing homes. In Connecticut the proportion was 71 percent and in New Hampshire it was 70 percent. Another 22 states reported that 50 percent or more of their COVID-19 deaths occurred in LTCFs. Despite these lopsided figures, 11 states (Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Hawaii, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, New Mexico, North and South Dakota) continue to not report the number of COVID-19 deaths occurring in LTCFs, which has contributed to a vast underestimation of the total number of COVID-19 deaths in the United States.
Other causes of under-reporting nursing home COVID-19 deaths include incomplete data collection by states and that up through mid-April, many states and the Centers for Disease Control did not accept a diagnosis of COVID-19 without substantiation by a positive test. Thus, many deaths were not reported because tests for COVID-19 were largely unavailable to nursing homes. Now, officials are going back to see if many deaths can be categorized as probable COVID-19 based upon the medical presentation and history of exposure. As of May 28, New York reported the lowest proportion of COVID-19 deaths in LTCFs at 21 percent, yet the rate is three-four times higher in other Northeastern states. “Once we get accurate counts of the COVID-19 deaths in all states, we will likely see a big increase in the total number of deaths in the United States,” says Thomas Perls, MD, professor of medicine at BUSM and a study co-author.
Other countries are reporting that the majority of their COVID-19 deaths are also occurring in LTCFs. In early May, Canada indicated that 82 percent of its deaths are in LTCFs. The World Health Organization estimates that half of all COVID-19 deaths in Europe and the Baltics happen in nursing and care homes.
However, there are other countries and regions that are bucking the trend. Hong Kong reports no LTCF COVID-19 deaths and South Korea and Singapore each report fewer than 20 such deaths. New Zealand, because it closed its borders early and with its strict quarantining policy, also reports fewer than 20 LTCF COVID-19 deaths.
So why are most LTCFs so vulnerable to COVID-19? In Massachusetts, almost 90 percent of LTCFs have had at least one COVID-19 case. Lisa Caruso MD, assistant professor of medicine at BUSM and another author indicates, “the asymptomatic spread of this virus allows it to easily sneak in to these facilities where essential staff go from nursing home to nursing home, like x-ray technicians, phlebotomists, nurses and nursing assistants who have to work more than one job to make ends meet.” Caruso, a geriatrician at BMC, goes on to say, “Checking temperatures of visitors and staff is obviously not enough. Everyone visiting or working in a LTCF needs to either be found to have immunity to the virus or to be regularly tested.”
Beyond the untenable deaths, the pandemic is exacting a terrible psychological and social toll on families, residents and staff. Author Rossana Lau-Ng, MD, instructor of medicine at BUSM remarks, “Our residents are now isolated in their rooms and families who can’t visit are terribly worried. We are doing all we can to maintain some semblance of the home-like environment that we had previously strived to achieve but that is now so very challenging.” Just as the community at-large must adapt to a new norm during this pandemic, LTCFs have emerged as the front line and must be even more vigilant for the foreseeable future.
https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2020-06/buso-ltc060420.php

COVID-19 safety recommendations to reduce deaths of elders in nursing homes

Seeking to address estimates that more than a third of COVID-19 deaths nationally have occurred in nursing homes and long-term care facilities–more than 38,000 – the American Medical Directors Association published recommendations for reducing the spread of the pandemic virus among residents and staff.
Among the recommendations were the creation of COVID-specific units, screenings of residents twice daily, discontinuing of drug delivery modes (e.g. nebulizers) that might spread the virus, and reviews with patients and families of do-not-intubate and do-not-hospitalize advance directives.
“The scope and speed of the COVID-19 pandemic brought continual changes in healthcare protocols as providers learned more about the disease’s transmission,” said Paula Lester, MD, FACP, CMD, a geriatrician at NYU Winthrop Hospital and the corresponding author of the consensus recommendations, which were recently published online in Journal of American Medical Directors Association (JAMDA).
“The time has come to consolidate our learnings as a field in terms of caring for at-risky elderly and implement uniform, best practices, especially as we prepare for a potential second wave of infections in the coming months, as well as for future pandemics,” adds Lester, who along with her co-authors, serves as a skilled nursing facility (SNF) certified medical director.
Recommended protocols for facility staff also include COVID testing on a serial basis–three tests one-week apart–to enable identification of newly infected staff. Also recommended is to have staff assigned to specific units to permit easier contact tracing in the event of COVID cases, and to have staff that are assigned to COVID-19 units not work elsewhere in the facility.
The report also states that the authors “do not support the mandatory admission of COVID-19 patients from hospitals to nursing homes as it may force unprepared facilities to provide care to COVID patients without the necessary resources or precautions.”
The consensus guidelines in the report – titled “Policy Recommendations Regarding Skilled Nursing Facility Management of COVID-19: Lessons From New York State” – are endorsed by the Executive Board of the New York Medical Directors Association and the Board of the Metropolitan Area Geriatrics Society. The authors noted, however, that the suggestions in the report should not take precedence over local Department of Health or Centers for Disease Control recommendations.
https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2020-06/nlh-csr060520.php

COVID-19, 1918 Influenza Pandemic, and Racial Disparities

Abstract

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic is exacting a disproportionate toll on ethnic minority communities and magnifying existing disparities in health care access and treatment. To understand this crisis, physicians and public health researchers have searched history for insights, especially from a great outbreak approximately a century ago: the 1918 influenza pandemic. However, of the accounts examining the 1918 influenza pandemic and COVID-19, only a notable few discuss race. Yet, a rich, broader scholarship on race and epidemic disease as a “sampling device for social analysis” exists. This commentary examines the historical arc of the 1918 influenza pandemic, focusing on black Americans and showing the complex and sometimes surprising ways it operated, triggering particular responses both within a minority community and in wider racial, sociopolitical, and public health structures. This analysis reveals that critical structural inequities and health care gaps have historically contributed to and continue to compound disparate health outcomes among communities of color. Shifting from this context to the present, this article frames a discussion of racial health disparities through a resilience approach rather than a deficit approach and offers a blueprint for approaching the COVID-19 crisis and its afterlives through the lens of health equity.

The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has killed more than 100 000 persons in the United States (1). Nationwide data indicate that ethnic minority communities, particularly black, Latinx, and Native or indigenous communities, suffer disproportionately (2–7). This has significant historical antecedents; as Evelynn Hammonds recently argued, epidemic diseases “lay bare and make visible inequalities in a society” (8). Yet, at the onset of the crisis, few reported its effect on minorities (9). Even now, we may not know the full scope and details. Many states have published limited statistics, and race-stratified data, once fully released, will need to be carefully interpreted to address the causes of inequity rather than to perpetuate stigma and discrimination (10).
Unfortunately, this comes as no surprise to health equity researchers and historians of medicine and public health. The United States has a long history of racial and socioeconomic disparities, with the current pandemic further revealing the rifts created by historical injustice, structural racism, and interpersonal bias (11–13). Although some have touted COVID-19 as a “great equalizer” that strikes across age, sex, race/ethnicity, and geography, we contend that it has magnified the many “unequalizers” in our society (14, 15).
To understand the current crisis, physicians and public health researchers have mined history for insights (16). Most have focused on a century-old outbreak, the 1918 influenza pandemic (misleadingly called the “Spanish flu”), because COVID-19 most closely approximates it in scope and effect (17–19). Of the accounts comparing the 1918 influenza pandemic and COVID-19, only a notable few discuss race (8, 20, 21). Yet, a rich, broader scholarship on race and epidemic disease as a “sampling device for social analysis” exists (22–27). Given the excessive mortality due to COVID-19 in minority communities, reexamination of such historical antecedents is fruitful. Although this scholarship hesitates to offer predictions, this kind of analysis can provide orienting frameworks, reveal nuance, and modulate our approach to the current crisis—which has been called “unprecedented,” reflecting a lack of historical context.
We examine the historical arc of the 1918 influenza pandemic, focusing on black Americans and showing the complex, sometimes surprising ways it triggered particular responses both within a minority community and in wider racial, sociopolitical, and public health structures. Shifting to the present, we frame a discussion of racial health disparities through a resilience approach versus a deficit approach and offer a blueprint (Table) for approaching the COVID-19 crisis and its afterlives through the lens of health equity.

Table. The 1918 Influenza Pandemic, COVID-19, and Racial Disparities: Historical Context and Present and Future Opportunities* https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M20-2223

Delta to provide passengers with hygiene kits

Delta is to offer complimentary “care kits” to customers, as part of the carrier’s requirement for all passengers to wear face masks.
The hygiene kits will be available at ticket counters and gates by June 5, and consist of a disposable face mask, hand sanitiser gel pouches, and an information card “detailing measures in place that are helping Delta transform the industry standard of clean”.
The airline recently introduced requirements for all passengers to wear face masks inflight, and Delta said that feedback from customers showed that “receiving a care kit weighed heavily on their decision to travel”.
The carrier added that it was “is leaning on its data-driven approach to customer experience, listening, testing and refining to make sure we’re delivering on the aspects of travel that customers say matter most”.
Delta has implemented a number of measures to ensure the safety of customers, including the sanitising of aircraft before every flight, capping capacity to ensure onboard spacing, and requiring both employees and customers to wear face masks or coverings.
Commenting on the news Bill Lentsch, chief customer experience officer, said:
“Our survey data showed a clear desire for these kits and we have a bias toward action when we see new trends emerge. As more people begin to consider travelling in the months ahead, ensuring their safety at all steps of their journey remains our top priority.”

Delta to provide passengers with hygiene kits