America Is Having a Plastic Surgery and Botox Bonanza

In June, Susie Sessoms got her first lip filler. In November, she tried Kybella, the “fat dissolving” double chin injectable. “I swelled up like a bullfrog,” she says. “It’s a good thing I didn’t have to go to work!” Like many office workers, Sessoms, a mortgage executive in the Twin Cities, has worked from home from March of last year. Her company doesn’t do Zoom, which made it even easier to get treatments discreetly. “I wasn’t concerned about catching Covid,” she says. Her medspa’s sanitization protocols make her feel safer than at the grocery store.

Like so many businesses in the pandemic, cosmetic surgeons took a big hit last March; there was less interest in beautification and more focus on shelter in place and toilet paper supplies. Across America, shutdowns for elective cosmetic work varied wildly; New York closed for three months, Minnesota for seven weeks, and so on. Some places never reopened. In July 2020, AbbVie, the pharmaceutical firm that owns Botox, reported a huge dip in global net revenues from sales of cosmetic Botox — down to $226 million, a 43.1% decrease from 2019.

Then, a shift. Practices reopened. Phones rang. Appointment after appointment was booked. AbbVie’s October earnings call was distinctly sunnier: $393 million in net revenues from Botox, a mere 2.2% decrease from regular operations.

In 2021, with the vaccine on the horizon, and an end in sight, people are turning their attention to the possibility of IRL meetups — and what impression they’ll give. The stress, inertia, and (for some) carb-heavy diet of the last year has left many feeling prematurely aged, out of shape, and saggy. That’s led to a boom in cosmetic procedures, which are now widely accessible, even amid shutdowns (in California you can’t get your hair cut but can have Botox). RealSelf.com, the “Yelp’’ for cosmetic surgery, says appointment bookings spiked 71% in October, and they are seeing this trend continue in 2021.

“Patients are taking advantage of the ability to hide with the masks.”

“A person’s physical attractiveness affects every part of their life,” says psychologist Norman Cavior; attractive people receive better treatment in school, higher salaries at work, and even better sentences in the courtroom. Cosmetic surgeons and dermatologists have leaned into this new normal with their marketing. Los Gatos, California-based RefinedMD started offering a $1,500 “Turn Back Time” Treatment Bundle last June (“Don’t we all wish to turn back time and cancel 2020!?”) and Serenity Med Spa in San Francisco offered a Post Quarantine Body Special. (Cosmetic treatments, surgical or nonsurgical, don’t typically take up available hospital beds — many surgeons operate private clinics, and while they may have hospital privileges in case of emergencies, they’re rarely used.)

In the beginning of the pandemic, the supply chain problems that plagued toilet paper, roller skates, and milk, affected some surgeons. “Botox has to be shipped on dry ice,” says Corey Hartman, MD, founder of Skin Wellness Dermatology in Alabama. “It was randomly difficult to source.” He was concerned that clients might stay away, but since he reopened, business has been better than ever, he says. He’s seen requests for fillers in particular — which fill in hollows, plump the cheeks and lips, and even shape the jawline or nose — increase 30% over pre-pandemic levels. “Patients are taking advantage of the ability to hide with the masks,” he says. In October he moved to a larger space and hired six staffers. He’s anticipating a busy summer, as things open up — along with a big wave of weddings and vow renewals — depending on the vaccine rollout, of course.

Zoom dysmorphia is a thing now, according to the Facial Plastic Surgery & Aesthetic Medicine journal; the focal length of webcams often results in the appearance of a rounder face and broader nose.

Meanwhile, in Colorado, plastic surgeon Dr. Gregory Buford’s schedule has been jam-packed since early January. “Our Botox numbers are up around 40%,” he says. “Normally, it’s crickets because everyone’s blown their budget on Christmas.” Buford attributes the growth in interest as a reaction to the feelings of helplessness that Covid created. “Procedures represent the ability to control how you look, and control over your life in general,” he says.

Body contouring is especially popular, says Buford. “It’s the Covid 15 — people have been drinking more, not working out.” Interest in neck and chin liposuction has also spiked, he says; all those daily Zooms have made people more self conscious. Zoom dysmorphia is a thing now, according to the Facial Plastic Surgery & Aesthetic Medicine journal; the focal length of webcams often results in the appearance of a rounder face and broader nose. Indeed, Alan Matarasso, MD, a professor at Northwell School of Medicine and former president of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons notes that, according to ASPS surveys, nose jobs and face-lifts were the two most popular procedures in 2020, replacing breast augmentation and liposuction, which topped the list in 2019.

Matarasso reports more inquiries than usual from college students seeking nose jobs, a demographic that usually defers their surgeries till the summer, due to post-op bruising and swelling. Now, “they can be back on their computer, attending class,” the following day, he explains. But as in-person classes resume in some states — Frostburg State University in Maryland begins IRL classes this Monday, for example — there’s a rush to get their surgery scheduled in time.

And cosmetic surgeons and dermatologists are expecting another big surge of procedures as vaccines get distributed — and we come closer to actually showing our faces to other people again. Alchemy 43, a cosmetic dermatology startup with four locations in Los Angeles and New York that claims to be among the “top 50 largest purchasers of Botox in the country,” reports a large bump in May 2020 when they reopened. Most were preexisting clients, who averaged $475 a visit. “We expect to see a similar bump in demand once the world reopens,” says CEO Nicci Levy, who plans to open three more locations by the end of the year. “People absolutely want to step back into the normalcy of their everyday life routines looking and feeling their best.”

https://marker.medium.com/america-is-having-a-plastic-surgery-and-botox-bonanza-bc3caf7a9164

At One Vaccination Site, Chick-fil-A Got the Line Moving

 Anyone with a weakness for a chicken sandwich knows that pulling up to a Chick-fil-A drive-in at noon on a weekday is a study in preparation: Better have your order ready lest you be the glitch in a well-oiled system that hands you your order quick-smart (their pleasure). Perfectly understandable, then, that Mount Pleasant, South Carolina, Mayor Will Haynie’s first thought when he needed organization in a crisis was to call a Chick-fil-A general manager. 

Last Friday, the computer crashed at a COVID-19 vaccine site in Mount Pleasant, causing hour-long waits for some 1,000 people waiting to get inoculated. “Right at the start, the registration system went down,” Haynie told Fox News. “We don’t know what happened…Murphy’s law.” Haynie wasted little time in calling local Chick-fil-A manager Jerry Walkowiak, who wasted even less time, and beat Haynie to the site. 

Walkowiak soon had the wait reduced to fifteen minutes. “What Jerry did,” Haynie said, “is he helped us go from a medical-type mindset where you pull up and speak to one person, to a retail mindset where you figure out how to get as many cars through the first entrance as you can.” Haynie’s post of Walkowiak standing out in the rain, umbrella in hand, directing traffic and talking to patients, went viral. 

“This was Jerry helping out his community when it mattered most,” said Haynie, who will keep Walkowiak’s methods in mind for future vaccine rollouts. It’s probably too much to hope that operations will just shift to Chick-fil-A entirely, so we could all get a COVID vaccine along with our eight-count and fries.

https://gardenandgun.com/articles/at-one-vaccination-site-chick-fil-a-got-the-line-moving/

A year after COVID-19's arrival, India's active cases fall

 India reported its lowest active number of novel coronavirus cases in seven months on Saturday, a year after the virus was first confirmed in the country.

A year ago, a student from the southern state of Kerala tested positive for COVID-19 after returning to India from Wuhan in China, the global epicentre of the virus.

To arrest the spread of the virus, Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government imposed a nationwide lockdown on the 1.3 billion population in late March.

The lockdown, in which domestic and international travel was banned and factories, schools, offices and all shops other than those supplying essential services were shut, crippled India’s economy, which is set to contract 7.7% in the current fiscal year to March 31.

The government started easing the lockdown in June.

India was reporting fewer cases until April 2020, but from May onwards cases started rising and peaked by mid-September to close to 100,000 daily cases.

The infection rate has slowed significantly since September and on Saturday 13,083 new cases were reported, one of the lowest figures on record and down from more than 20,000 each day at the beginning of the month, federal health data showed.

India has around 170,000 active COVID-19 patients, the lowest since June 2020. It has reported 10.7 million infections and 154,147 deaths - one of the world’s lowest fatality rates, attributed partly to its relatively young population.

The country has recorded the highest number of coronavirus cases in the world after the United States and, with the likely true rate of infection even higher, one study suggests pockets of India have attained herd immunity through natural infection.

India started its immunisation programme on Jan. 16, with healthcare workers and a target of reaching 300 million people by July-August.

The world’s most populous country after China has vaccinated around 3.5 million healthcare workers in the first two weeks of the campaign.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-india-cases/a-year-after-covid-19s-arrival-indias-active-cases-fall-idUSKBN29Z0C9

After outcry, EU reverses plan to restrict vaccine exports through Irish border

 The European Union on Friday abruptly reversed a plan to use emergency Brexit measures to restrict exports of COVID-19 vaccines from crossing the Irish border into the United Kingdom after it sent shockwaves through Northern Ireland, London and Dublin.

In a steep escalation of the EU’s fight to secure vaccine supplies, Brussels had said it would trigger clauses in the Northern Irish Protocol to prevent the vaccines from moving across the open border between EU-member Ireland and the British-run province.

Following an outcry in London, Belfast and Dublin, the EU published a statement just before midnight saying it would ensure that the Northern Ireland Protocol, designed to keep the border open, would not be affected.

It warned, however, that should vaccines and active substances move toward third countries and out of the bloc, it would use “all the instruments at its disposal”.

Ireland said the EU’s change of heart was welcome but that lessons should be learned.

“The Protocol is not something to be tampered with lightly, it’s an essential, hard won compromise, protecting peace and trade for many,” Irish foreign affairs minister Simon Coveney said on Twitter.

The EU’s original plan was intended to prevent the open border between EU-member Ireland and Northern Ireland from acting as a backdoor for vaccine supplies into the United Kingdom.

The public reversal followed a round of frantic calls as British Prime Minister Boris Johnson told EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen of his “grave concerns” while Irish Prime Minister Micheál Martin spoke to both Johnson and the EU chief to find a solution.

Northern Irish unionists cast the EU’s original plan as an act of hostility.

In a tweet late on Friday, von der Leyen said she had spoken to Johnson: “We agreed on the principle that there should not be restrictions on the export of vaccines by companies where they are fulfilling contractual responsibilities.”

STOKING TENSION

The swiftest mass vaccination drive in history is stoking tensions across the world as big powers buy up doses in bulk and poorer nations try to navigate a financial and diplomatic minefield to collect whatever supplies are left.

The EU, whose member states are far behind Israel, Britain and the United States in rolling out vaccines, is scrambling to get supplies just as the West’s biggest drugmakers slow deliveries to the bloc because of production problems.

The British-Swedish drugmaker AstraZeneca has been caught in the crosshairs after it said last week it would fall short of delivering promised vaccines to the EU by March because of production problems in Belgium. That angered Brussels which has demanded to know why the company cannot divert supplies from its British sites, which have been producing millions of shots for British citizens.

Britain has its own domestic supply chain in place for AstraZeneca, including rolling it out in Northern Ireland, but it imports Pfizer’s vaccine from a factory in Belgium.

The European Commission agreed to a broader plan to control exports of vaccines from the bloc, including to Britain, arguing it needed to do so to ensure its own supplies.

But the EU’s abortive attempt to use the Northern Ireland Protocol triggered anger in the province.

Northern Ireland First Minister Arlene Foster described it as “an incredible act of hostility”.

Preserving the delicate peace in Northern Ireland without allowing the United Kingdom a back door into the EU’s markets through the UK-Irish 310-mile land border was one of the most difficult issues of the Brexit divorce talks.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-britain-eu-vaccines/after-outcry-eu-reverses-plan-to-restrict-vaccine-exports-through-irish-border-idUSKBN29Y2SJ

CDC orders sweeping U.S. transportation mask mandate as COVID-19 rages

 The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) issued a sweeping order late Friday requiring the use of face masks on nearly all forms of public transportation Monday as the country continues to report thousands of daily COVID-19 deaths.

The order, which takes effect at 11:59 p.m. EST on Monday (0459 GMT Tuesday), requires face masks to be worn by all travelers on airplanes, ships, trains, subways, buses, taxis, and ride-shares and at transportation hubs like airports, bus or ferry terminals, train and subway stations and seaports.

President Joe Biden on Jan. 21 ordered government agencies to “immediately take action” to require masks in airports and on commercial aircraft, trains and public maritime vessels, including ferries, intercity bus services and all public transportation.

Under Donald Trump, who was president until Jan. 20, a CDC push to mandate masks in transit was blocked and the agency instead only issued strong recommendations for mask use. Trump also rejected efforts by Congress to mandate mask use.

“Requiring masks on our transportation systems will protect Americans and provide confidence that we can once again travel safely even during this pandemic,” said the 11-page order signed by Marty Cetron, director for CDC’s Division of Global Migration and Quarantine.

While airlines and most transit modes already require masks, the CDC order will make not wearing a mask a violation of federal law that could make it easier for flight attendants and others to enforce.

A U.S. airline group told Biden this month that carriers had had to bar “thousands of passengers” from future flights for failing to comply with airline mask policies.

The CDC said people violating the order could potentially face criminal penalties but suggested civil penalties would be more likely if needed. The order will be enforced by the Transportation Security Administration and federal, state and local agencies.

The order says passengers must wear a mask in transit except for brief periods, such as to eat, drink or take medication. Masks may be either manufactured or homemade.

The only exceptions are for travelers younger than two and for those with certain medical conditions. People in private cars and solo commercial truck drivers do not have to wear masks.

U.S. airlines raised concerns this week about passenger requests to opt out of mask-wearing on health grounds.

The CDC order says airlines and other transit modes may require medical documentation and consultation by a medical specialist as well as requiring a negative COVID-19 test from a passenger in order to board a plane or other mode of transportation.

The CDC said this week it was “actively looking” at requiring negative COVID-19 tests for domestic air travel after mandating it for nearly all international travel effective Jan. 26. The prospects of domestic COVID-19 testing drew strong opposition Friday from airlines and other groups.

The CDC order says airlines and other operators must “at the earliest safe opportunity, disembark any person who refuses to comply.”

Federal agencies must submit plans no later than Friday to enforce a separate Biden order requiring masks in all federal building and on all federal lands.

A Jan. 24 White House memo says domestic travel for federal employees “should be limited to only mission-critical trips,” and occupancy at federal offices should be limited to 25% during “periods of high community prevalence.”

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-biden-masks/cdc-orders-sweeping-u-s-transportation-mask-mandate-as-covid-19-rages-idUSKBN29Y2YG

China gene firm providing worldwide COVID tests worked with Chinese military

 BGI Group, the world’s largest genomics company, has worked with China’s military on research that ranges from mass testing for respiratory pathogens to brain science, a Reuters review of research, patent filings and other documents has found.

The review, of more than 40 publicly available documents and research papers in Chinese and English, shows BGI’s links to the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) include research with China’s top military supercomputing experts. The extent of those links has not previously been reported.

BGI has sold millions of COVID-19 test kits outside China since the outbreak of the new coronavirus pandemic, including to Europe, Australia and the United States. Shares of BGI Genomics Co, the company’s subsidiary listed on the Shenzhen stock exchange, have doubled in price over the past 12 months, giving it a market value of about $9 billion.

But top U.S. security officials have warned American labs against using Chinese tests because of concern China was seeking to gather foreign genetic data for its own research. BGI has denied that.

The documents reviewed by Reuters neither contradict nor support that U.S. suspicion. Still, the material shows that the links between the Chinese military and BGI run deeper than previously understood, illustrating how China has moved to integrate private technology companies into military-related research under President Xi Jinping.

The U.S. government has recently been warned by an expert panel that adversary countries and non-state actors might find and target genetic weaknesses in the U.S. population and a competitor such as China could use genetics to augment the strength of its own military personnel.

BGI has worked on PLA projects seeking to make members of the ethnic Han Chinese majority less susceptible to altitude sickness, Reuters found, genetic research that would benefit soldiers in some border areas.

Elsa Kania, an adjunct senior fellow at the Center for a New American Security think tank, who has provided testimony to U.S. Congressional committees, told Reuters that China’s military has pushed research on brain science, gene editing and the creation of artificial genomes that could have an application in future bioweapons. She added that such weapons are not currently technically feasible.

BGI’s pattern of collaboration with the Chinese military was a “reasonable concern to raise” for U.S. officials, said Kania.

In response to Reuters’ questions, BGI said it adheres to international standards and Chinese laws related to open science, data sharing and genomic research. It said its collaboration with military researchers was for academic purposes only.

“BGI strongly rejects any accusations about links with the PLA, particularly in relation to our COVID-19 test kits,” it said in a statement.

China’s defence ministry did not respond to requests for comment.

‘ENHANCE’ SOLDIER STRENGTH

Chinese technology companies have come under increasing scrutiny by the United States and were subject to mounting restrictions under the administration of Donald Trump. In November, the Department of Commerce proposed a rule to add gene editing software to the U.S. export control list, saying it could be used to create biological weapons. Officials in the new administration of President Joe Biden have signalled a continued tough approach to what they see as a rising threat from Beijing.

A technology industry panel on artificial intelligence, appointed by the U.S. government and chaired by former Google Chief Executive Eric Schmidt, raised the alarm in October about China’s financial support for its biotechnology sector, its advantages in collecting biological data, and the PLA’s interest in potential military applications.

The panel, which will deliver its final report in March, warned about adversaries using artificial intelligence to identify genetic weaknesses in a population and engineering pathogens to exploit them, and genetic research designed to enhance soldiers’ mental or physical strength.

The panel recommended that the U.S. government “take a more aggressive public posture regarding BGI,” citing national security risks posed by the company’s links to the Chinese government and its trove of genomic data.

The U.S. Department of State did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Reuters’ findings.

In response to Reuters’ questions, China’s foreign ministry said the U.S. government had “wantonly misinterpreted and smeared China’s military-civil fusion policy,” and was imposing unreasonable sanctions that would hamper research.

“China’s military-civil fusion policy is aimed at effectively mobilizing military and civilian resources, coordinating socio-economic growth and national defense development, and benefiting the public with scientific and technological progress. This policy is above board and beyond reproach,” the ministry said in a statement to Reuters.

It added that this was “customary international practice” and said the U.S. government had effectively pursued military-civil fusion for more than 100 years.

‘KEY PROJECTS’

BGI Group, based in Shenzhen, has grown quickly by selling genetic sequencing services to universities and health systems around the world and amassing a large DNA databank. It created China’s first cloned pig in 2010.

One science paper authored by BGI founders Yang Huanming and Wang Jian along with the PLA’s Key Laboratory of High Altitude Medicine and the Third Military Medical University focused on experiments with the brains of monkeys suffering altitude sickness.

The study, published in January 2020, stated that it was funded as one of the “key projects of military science and technology” by the PLA. A decade ago, the military university’s research sought to identify genes related to altitude sickness so the PLA could screen for susceptible soldiers. The latest research focused on how drugs interacting with genes could potentially protect a person from brain injury.

An earlier 2017 study designed by BGI’s Wang and published in conjunction with a PLA research centre in Xinjiang looked at the effect of rapid mountain ascent on the bodies of “young, healthy men.”

China has the world’s longest highland border, which includes its border with India, where fighting broke out between the two countries’ troops in 2020. A 2018 paper by the same PLA laboratory stated that “high altitude disease is the main reason for reduced combat effectiveness and health damage to soldiers at high altitudes and influences the results of war.”

Reuters was unable to contact Yang and Wang. BGI said its research collaboration with the PLA lab and the Third Military Medical University, where Yang has been a professor for almost two decades, was “for academic purposes only.”

SEQUENCING COVID

BGI jointly holds a dozen patents for tests that screen for genomes linked to disease with the military university, the PLA’s Academy of Military Medical Science, which is the top medical research institute of the PLA, and PLA hospitals.

One patent was granted in 2015 to BGI and the Academy of Military Medical Science for a low-cost test kit to detect respiratory pathogens, including SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) and coronaviruses.

BGI’s current chief infectious disease scientist, Chen Weijun, is listed as an inventor on the patent documents. Chen was among the first scientists to sequence COVID-19, taking samples from a military hospital in Wuhan, according to sequence data later shared internationally.

Chen is listed as affiliated with the Academy of Military Medical Science in three science papers reviewed by Reuters.In response to Reuters’ questions, BGI said in a statement that Chen has not been affiliated with the PLA’s Academy of Military Medical Science since 2012. Chen did not respond to a request for comment.

BGI’s COVID-19 test kit did not use the method jointly patented with the PLA, the company said in the statement.

Four BGI researchers have also been jointly affiliated with another military institution, the National University of Defence Technology (NUDT), according to publicly available science and conference papers reviewed by Reuters. Hunan-based NUDT is under the direct leadership of China’s Central Military Commission, the top-level body that steers the Chinese military and is headed by Xi.

The NUDT is on a U.S. blacklist as a threat to national security because its Tianhe-2 supercomputer - one of the world’s most powerful - is used to simulate nuclear explosions, according to a Department of Commerce listing. That listing restricts U.S. companies from supplying NUDT with technology.

One researcher, Peng Shaoliang, was instrumental in developing software to speed up BGI’s sequencing of human genomes using supercomputing developed by NUDT.

Peng has won military awards for his work. He is a member of an expert group advising the Central Military Commission’s Science and Technology Commission, set up in 2016 when Xi began promoting a strategy to integrate China’s civilian and military research.

Patent applications in 2020 show Peng is also a member of the PLA’s Institute of Military Medicine. Liao Xiangke, the head of the NUDT’s supercomputer programme and a major general in the PLA, has published seven scientific papers either co-authored with BGI researchers or crediting them for providing data and source code.

BGI said in a statement to Reuters that Peng and Liao “were two collaborators of BGI for the project at the time for the purpose of academic exchange only. Since the project ended BGI has no more affiliation with them.”

Peng and Liao did not respond to requests for comment.

BGI said it uses Tianhe-2 on a commercial basis, as well as other supercomputing platforms, to speed up research. The papers it wrote with the NUDT were for academic purposes only, it said, and were open for public reference, while the programmes themselves have ended.

Tianhe-2 has also been used to solve pharmaceutical, cryptology, engineering and climate problems that have no military application, the company said.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-genomics-military-exclusive/exclusive-china-gene-firm-providing-worldwide-covid-tests-worked-with-chinese-military-idUSKBN29Z0HA

Moderna seeks FDA clearance to increase doses per vial

  Moderna Inc has asked the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for permission to fill its COVID-19 vaccine vials with up to five additional doses to ease a crunch in manufacturing, CNBC reported on Friday.

The change would allow Moderna to put 15 doses in the vials, now cleared to hold 10, the report said, citing a person familiar with the matter.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-moderna-vaccine/moderna-seeks-fda-clearance-to-increase-doses-per-vial-cnbc-idUSKBN29Z00S