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Tuesday, November 3, 2020
Cal. Mayors Urge Gov. Newsom to Reopen Theme Parks
Eight California mayors have called upon Gov. Gavin Newsom to reconsider the state’s safety guidelines and offer a new plan to reopen theme parks.
The letter, which suggests that safety can be met while also reopening the parks in limited capacities, was signed by Mayor Harry Sidhu of Anaheim, Mayor Eric Garcetti of Los Angeles, Mayor Kevin Faulconer of San Diego, Mayor Sam Liccardo of San Jose, Mayor Lee Brand of Fresno, Mayor Karen Goh of Bakersfield, Mayor Rusty Bailey of Riverside and Mayor Miguel Pulido of Santa Ana.
“The guidelines put forth by your administration were released within the framework of prioritizing public health and safety for guests and employees,” the message reads. “This is the right focus. However, economic and public health are not mutually exclusive goals.”
Throughout the letter, the mayors assert that evidence shown to the Newsom administration supports the decision to loosen restrictions for theme parks. They also argue that forcibly closing the various parks until well into next year would cause continued negative impacts for the people employed at the various locations.
The suggestions proposed in the mayors’ letter include operating at 25 percent capacity, strictly enforcing mask requirements and temperature screening for all who enter and advanced reservations. The letter also requests that some of the heavily impacted cities be included in conversations to come to a new solution.
“We therefore respectfully request that your administration work with our most impacted coalition members – Los Angeles, Anaheim, San Diego – to continue the discussion of how we can maintain a health-first focus while modifying protocols to allow large theme parks to open in Tier Three with reduced capacity, rather than Tier Four,” the letter concludes.
https://variety.com/2020/politics/news/mayors-reopen-theme-parks-1234821894/
Review of studies suggesting protective effect of smoking against COVID-19
Abstract:
The risk factors for contracting symptomatic COVID-19 are not yet fully understood, age and certain underlying health conditions are considered to be detrimental in this respect. Case studies revealed an astonishingly low number of current smokers among patients suffering from symptomatic COVID-19 compared to the general population, leading to the conclusion that smoking/nicotine uptake might have a preventive effect. This is difficult to understand seeing that studies found an increased expression of the angiotensin-converting enzyme (ACE-2) in smokers, the entrance gate of the coronavirus into human cells. Consequently, the use of the proportion of smokers in the general population as a reference for deriving prevalence ratios to study the association of smoking with COVID-19 disease outcomes may be inappropriate. Prevalence data for smoking and comorbidities (hypertension, diabetes mellitus, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) reported in 25 studies, which partially identified a potentially beneficial effect of smoking/nicotine intake, were re-analysed to investigate the relationship between COVID-19 mortality and national smoking prevalence taking account of known risk factors associated with mortality. The limited agreement of the prevalence of those risk factors in the general population with the cohort data demonstrates indirectly that these patients most likely do not reflect the health status of the general population. In the absence of specifically designed studies, any hypothesis on the effect of nicotine on symptomatic COVID-19 remains speculative. The number of potentially confounding variables would require a multivariate statistical approach and large cohort sizes for providing clarity on the significance of potential effects. However, the structure of the published aggregated data permits only univariate approaches. As such, the hypothesis of a potentially protective effect of nicotine on symptomatic COVID-19 cannot be verified.
DOI:
Lockdown revolt grows as Oxford scientist says data Johnson used was exaggerated
A
Tory revolt against Thursday’s lockdown gathered pace today as an Oxford scientist claimed the data produced at Boris Johnson’s weekend press conference was exaggerated and out of date.
Conservative MPs estimate that between 20 and 25 backbenchers could rebel or abstain in tomorrow’s Commons division to approve the four-week lockdown that the Prime Minister said was essential to save the NHS from being overwhelmed.
Scottish First Minister Nicola Sturgeon added another challenge for Mr Johnson by demanding clarity over his apparent promise to let Scotland continue the furlough scheme after December 2.
Housing Secretary Robert Jenrick appeared to row back this morning, telling Sky News that Chancellor Rishi Sunak will review whether to extend the scheme, which pays 80 per cent of wages. “We need clarity on this urgently today,” tweeted Ms Sturgeon. “Woolly words don’t pay people’s wages.”
Professor Carl Heneghan, director of the Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine at the University of Oxford, today said he believed slides shown at the press conference on Saturday suggesting deaths could reach 4,000 a day without further action were wrong.
He told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme that the slides should not have been shown “because mathematically it is now proven to be incorrect , particularly the 4,000 estimate of deaths that would occur in December.” He said the same data set had forecast 1,000 deaths by November 1, whereas “only 200 actually occurred”.
Professor Heneghan said R value in Liverpool was already “well below one at this moment in time”, suggesting that the three-tier system of local lockdowns had been working.
Steve Baker, the former Conservative minister who chairs the Lockdown Sceptics group of Tory MPs, told the Standard: “Professor Heneghan has highlighted the essential difficulties we face.
"In particular, though we keep being shown those terrifying death projections, even those briefing us admit they are out of date, rarely right and not the main factor in the decision. The main factor is admissions and the potential overwhelming of the NHS.” He added: “This remains an extremely difficult decision.”
Sir Mike Penning, the MP for Hemel Hempstead and a supporter of the PM, said he would vote against the lockdown as he had promised local people in July he would not support another. “It destroys jobs and communities,” he said.
Romford MP Andrew Rosindell said: “I do not believe continuous lockdowns will solve anything. I fear we will regret the day we responded to this situation by closing down the country in this way.”
Mr Jenrick said national lockdown for England was being implemented “with a very heavy heart”. He said it was the Government’s “hope and expectation” that the lockdown will end on December 2. “We didn’t want to be doing these measures, we wanted to continue the proportionate, regionalised approach for as long as possible, but the evidence at the end of last week was very stark with respect to NHS capacity in particular, that we would see hospitals being overwhelmed within a couple of weeks,” he told BBC Breakfast.
https://www.standard.co.uk/news/politics/lockdown-revolt-grows-scientist-tv-slides-wrong-b43490.html
Household Transmission Of Coronavirus Is Quick And Common
If someone in your household catches coronavirus, how long before you get it, too?
“I think what’s notable is that the infections occurred quickly,” says AHN primary care internist Dr. Marc Itskowitz.
The CDC studied this by following about 100 people who tested positive in Tennessee and Wisconsin from April to September, along with almost 200 household members. They self-collected daily nasal and saliva samples for 14 days.
“Up to 80 or 85 percent of infections can be asymptomatic. So if you really want to know the answer to this question, you have to very closely monitor patients for symptoms but also test people,” says Dr. Itskowitz.
More than half of the household members became infected in a week — three out of four of these, within five days.
“We’ve been saying the average incubation is about five days. But in this study, it was a little bit faster than that and likely reflects the fact that people are inside, close together, and not wearing masks,” Dr. Itskowitz says.
“We have found clinically that even when there is household transmission, it seems that one person in the household gets more symptoms and others get less symptoms,” he added.
The study highlights the need to isolate yourself within your house, as best you can, if you get coronavirus.
“To the extent that it’s possible, prompt isolation is recommended. If it’s possible to be in a separate bedroom, using a separate bathroom, that would be ideal. Masks should be worn in common spaces,” says Dr. Itskowitz.
“People don’t really think about wearing masks inside their own house. But this would be a scenario where it would be recommended, especially early on,” he continues.
After 14 days, if no one else gets sick, you can stop wearing masks at home.
https://pittsburgh.cbslocal.com/2020/11/03/household-transmission-of-coronavirus/
How Many Americans Now on Special Diets?
Almost one in five adults in the U.S. said they ate a "special diet" from 2015 to 2018, National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES) data showed.
Among adults ages 20 and older, 17.1% reported that they stuck to a special diet on any given day, according to Bryan Stierman, MD, MPH, of the National Center for Health Statistics (NCHS) in Hyattsville, Maryland, and colleagues.
This percentage is substantially bigger than in previous years: 14.3% of U.S. adults followed any special type of diet in 2007 to 2008.
"About one-half of U.S. adults have diet-related chronic diseases, such as cardiovascular disease, high blood pressure, or type 2 diabetes," the researchers wrote. "Special diets are one way that many adults prevent, treat, and manage such diseases."
The study, published as an NCHS Data Brief, also pinpointed a low-calorie or weight-loss oriented diet as the most popular choice of diet, used by nearly 10% of all adults. Next was a diabetic diet, followed by 2.3% of adults on any given day, followed by low-carbohydrate (2%) and low-fat or low-cholesterol diets (1.8%).
Stierman's group drew upon data from the cross-sectional NHANES. Dietary information was obtained via 23-hour dietary recall interviews with trained interviewers. "Special diets" were considered to be an affirmative response to the question: "Are you currently on any kind of diet, either to lose weight or for some other health-related reason?"
There was some variance of diet popularity according to age group, but a weight loss or low-calorie diet was overwhelmingly the favorite across every age group, Stierman and co-authors reported.
Diabetic diets were nearly twice as popular among those age 60 and over, used by about 4.7% of these adults. A low-sodium diet was another of the most popular diets among this older group (3%). Overall, more adults in this age group used any type of special diet compared with any other age group.
Interestingly, a "weight gain" diet was followed by 0.7% of those between the ages of 20 and 39, but not by any of the other age groups.
By 2017-2018, the popularity of weight loss and low-carb diets had a significant gain in popularity compared with 2007-2008. On the other hand, low-fat and low-cholesterol diets dropped off significantly in popularity, possibly due to the recent rising trend for the ketogenic diet, the researchers speculated.
Adherence to special diets also varied according to sex and race. Specifically, women tended to diet more than men, with 19% of U.S. women reported being on a diet on any given day vs 15.1% of men. And more than 20% of women over the age of 40 adhered to a special diet, the data showed.
More so than any other race, white adults were more likely to adhere to a special diet, with about 18% of non-Hispanic white adults reporting sticking to a diet. About 16.4% of Hispanic adults stuck to a diet, while only 14.7% and 14.9% of Black and Asian adults, respectively, reported dieting.
When broken down by educational levels, those holding college degrees or a higher degree were more likely to adhere to a special diet (18.6%). Special diets were less common among those with less than a high school education (14.1%) and high school graduates (17%).
Special diets were also far more popular according to weight status -- with a significant linear trend with increasing weight. Specifically, more than 23% of all adults with obesity said they adhered to a special diet on any given day, the results showed.
https://www.medpagetoday.com/primarycare/dietnutrition/89458
Supernus jumps after hours on Q3 earnings beat, raises guidance
- Supernus Pharmaceuticals (NASDAQ:SUPN) Q3 results:
- Revenue $155.14M (+51.9% Y/Y), includes net product sales of $152.1M and royalty revenues of $3M, beats consensus by $24.38M.
- Operating earnings of $56.1M, compared to $39.7M last year.
- Net earnings of $40M, or EPS of $0.74, compared to $28.9M, or $0.54 prior.
- R&D expenses remain unchanged.
- FY guidance raised: Net product sales $500M-525M, and operating earnings $145M-160M.
- On track to initiate commercial launch of SPN-812 in January 2021, if approved by the FDA.
- The Company expects to launch SPN-830 in Q4 of 2021, if approved by the FDA.
- https://seekingalpha.com/news/3630841-supernus-pharmaceuticals-stock-scales-19-during-after-hours-on-q3-earnings-beat-raises
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