Rollout of eye-scan test for coronavirus targeted by German firm

 A Munich-based company hopes to help usher in a new era of coronavirus testing with an eye scan that, it says, takes just three minutes to identify carriers of the disease and has a hit rate of 95%.

Semic RF has developed its scanning app with colleagues in the United States and, pending regulatory approval, hopes to start rolling it out there by the end of next month, says its managing director, Wolfgang Gruber.

It uses a photo of the eye taken with a smartphone, and identifies the virus by means of a symptomatic inflammation called “pink eye”.

“We managed to isolate COVID-19 from over two million different shades of pink,” Gruber told Reuters.

He says the app, already tested on over 70,000 individuals, can process up to a million scans per second and the option to expand that capacity further - potentially allowing crowds back into mass-attendance events like concerts and football matches.

“You take your app, take a picture of both eyes, send it for evaluation, and then you can have the evaluated result stored as a QR code on the tested person’s smartphone,” Gruber added.

The app is initially being targeted at companies and commercial users, at a cost of 480 euros ($570) per month, with a later rollout to private individuals planned.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-germany-app/rollout-of-eye-scan-test-for-coronavirus-targeted-by-german-firm-idUSKBN2BZ0UO

More therapeutics but no surge in vaccine for Michigan: Biden admin

 White House coronavirus adviser Andy Slavitt told reporters the U.S. government would work to ensure that states such as Michigan were ordering the full amount of vaccine that was available to them but said that shifting distribution was not in line with the administration’s public health strategy.

“We have to remember the fact that in the next two to six weeks, the variants that we’ve seen ... in Michigan, those variants are also ... present in other states,” he told reporters on a conference call.

“So our ability to vaccinate people quickly ... (in) each of those state rather than taking vaccines and shifting it to playing Whack-a-Mole isn’t the strategy that public health leaders and scientists ... have laid out,” he said.

Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, has pleaded with the federal government to increase the number of vaccines allotted to her state to address a dangerous surge in cases but, despite close ties to the White House, has been rebuffed.

Whitmer was on President Joe Biden’s list of potential running mates before he chose now Vice President Kamala Harris. Michigan is a political battleground state that Biden won in 2020, helping to secure his victory over former President Donald Trump, a Republican. It is likely to be decisive in the 2024 White House race as well.

The Biden administration has highlighted an increase in vaccination rates across the country while warning Americans to continue wearing masks, maintain social distance, and follow other health protocols to prevent another major COVID-19 surge.

U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said more vaccine was not the answer to Michigan’s problem. She said the state needed to “go back to basics” and shut down.

“I think if we tried to vaccinate our way out of what is happening in Michigan we would be disappointed that it took so long for the vaccine to work,” she said. “Similarly we need that vaccine in other places. If we vaccinate today we will have, you know, impact at six weeks and we don’t know where the next place ... is going to be that is going to surge.”

Whitmer has faced fierce political backlash from conservatives in her Midwestern state for her COVID-19 restrictions, including armed groups entering the state capitol and a foiled plot to kidnap her. She was a frequent target of criticism from Trump.

Slavitt said that Johnson & Johnson is on track to deliver around 24 million COVID-19 shots to the United States in April whether or not it receives U.S. regulatory clearance for its Baltimore vaccine production plant, which is owned by contract manufacturer Emergent BioSciences Inc.

J&J has faced delays on vaccine shipments because of challenges at its Emergent plant, which ruined 15 million doses in recent weeks due to manufacturing error.

Jeff Zients, the White House’s COVID-19 response coordinator, said last week J&J would ship relatively few shots each week until the Emergent plant received authorization from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-usa-whitehouse/more-therapeutics-but-no-surge-in-vaccine-for-michigan-biden-administration-says-idUSKBN2BZ203

Novartis, Genentech Get FDA OK of Self-Administered Xolair

 Roche Holding AG's Genentech unit and Novartis AG on Monday said U.S. users of their blockbuster asthma treatment Xolair can now administer the drug themselves.

The companies said the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved Xolair prefilled syringes for self-injection across all approved U.S. indications.

Xolair, which was first approved in the U.S. in 2003 to treat allergic asthma and is now also approved for chronic idiopathic urticaria and nasal polyps, previously required administration by a healthcare professional.

Novartis and Genentech, which work together to develop and co-promote Xolair in the U.S., said self-administration of the drug from home has become particularly important for patients who are considered at high risk amid the Covid-19 pandemic.

https://www.marketscreener.com/quote/stock/NOVARTIS-AG-9364983/news/Novartis-Genentech-Get-FDA-OK-of-Self-Administered-Xolair-32946992/

CRISPR Therapeutics: Preclinical Data at AACR on Novel Approach to Upping CAR-T Cell Function

 CRISPR Therapeutics (Nasdaq: CRSP), a biopharmaceutical company focused on creating transformative gene-based medicines for serious diseases, today announced preclinical data from the Company’s allogeneic chimeric antigen receptor T cell (CAR-T) program at the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) Annual Meeting 2021. The data, presented today in an e-poster session entitled, CD70 knockout: A novel approach to augment CAR-T cell function, found that the generation of CAR-T cells including knockout of the CD70 show improved properties including potency and persistence over CAR T cells where the CD70 gene remains intact.

The Company applied CRISPR/Cas9 editing to examine the effects of knocking out the gene function of multiple checkpoint-related genes in CAR-T cells, including PD1 and LAG3 where antagonism with antibodies has shown anti-cancer properties in humans and mice, as well CD70. The data demonstrated that CD70 knockout performed better than other checkpoint genes and provided advantages for CAR-T cells targeting multiple antigens beyond CD70. In contrast, CAR-T cells with classical checkpoint genes knocked out showed no improved properties and often proved detrimental to CAR-T function.

CRISPR Therapeutics is currently studying CTX130TM, an investigational allogeneic CAR-T cell therapy, in patients with CD70-expressing tumors, including clear cell renal cell carcinoma and B and T cell malignancies. CRISPR Therapeutics’ two independent Phase 1, single-arm, multi-center, open-label clinical trials that are designed to assess the safety and efficacy of several dose levels of CTX130 are ongoing. The Company expects to report top-line data from these trials in 2021.

https://www.globenewswire.com/news-release/2021/04/10/2207791/0/en/CRISPR-Therapeutics-Presents-Preclinical-Data-at-AACR-2021-Supporting-CD70-Knockout-as-a-Novel-Approach-to-Increasing-CAR-T-Cell-Function.html

Young Adults Most Scared Of COVID, Though They Are Least At Risk

 by Jonathan Miltimore via The Epoch Times,

Nearly half of Americans between 18 and 34 are concerned about returning to a normal social life after the pandemic, a new YouGov poll found...

Nearly 3 million Americans are being vaccinated against COVID-19 each day, but the “return to normal” may not be as close as many hope.

A new survey shows many Americans have concerns about interacting with others once the pandemic is over.

“A YouGov poll of more than 4,000 people finds that two in five (39%) Americans say they are very or fairly nervous about the idea of interacting with people socially again,” wrote YouGov data journalist Jamie Ballard.

While the high percentage of Americans expressing angst about socializing after the pandemic comes as a surprise, the breakdown along age groups is even more surprising.

“Among 18-to 24-year-olds, 50 percent say they are nervous about it. A similar number of 25-to 34-year-olds (47 percent) feel the same way,” Ballard wrote.

In other words, nearly half of Americans between 18 and 34 are concerned about returning to a normal social life after the pandemic. In contrast, just 31 percent of those over 55 responded that they are nervous about interacting with people again.

The contrast is noteworthy because it’s widely understood that young people are far less likely to be hospitalized or die from COVID-19. But how less likely?

Our World in Data has a chart breaking down the case fatality rates in South Korea, China, Italy, and Spain. The data show the case fatality rate is about 0.2 percent for people in their 20s and 30s, a tiny fraction compared to people over 60.

Data from the United States tells a similar story.

“The death rate in New York City for adults aged 75 years and older was around 2,344 per 100,000 people as of March 28, 2021,” researcher John Elflein notes at Statista.

That is about 500 times higher than the death rate (5 per 100,000) for people in the 18-to-24 age range.

Nationwide, research from the Heritage Foundation shows that adults aged 25 to 34 account for less than 3,000 of the official 565,000 COVID-related deaths in the United States. Many of these deaths, it should be noted, are linked to comorbidities.

This data should come as no surprise. Nearly a year ago, Stanford University’s Dr. John Ioannidis noted the COVID-19 infection fatality rate is “almost zero” for people under 45.

An Inverse Relationship

All the official data point in the same direction: Young people have the least to fear from COVID-19. Yet the YouGov poll also shows they are the most afraid.

This is odd. As influencers noted on Twitter, the level of comfort people feel in returning to normal life is inversely correlated to their level of actual risk.

This invites an important question: Why are young people more afraid? One obvious answer is young adults might simply be unaware their risk of serious illness is low.

As I recently noted, Americans in general are wildly misinformed about the risk of hospitalization from COVID-19, with roughly a third of Americans believing the chances of being hospitalized with the virus are 50 percent. In actuality, it’s closer to 1 percent.

The reasons for this aren’t hard to find.

Studies have shown that U.S. media essentially created a climate of fear by publishing a flood of negative news in 2020. Indeed, an Ivy League-led study concluded that 91 percent of U.S. articles in major media were negative in tone, nearly double when compared to non-U.S. media. The negative news, the researchers noted, continued even when the pandemic was ebbing and when positive medical breakthroughs were being achieved.

“Stories of increasing COVID-19 cases outnumber stories of decreasing cases by a factor of 5.5 even during periods when new cases are declining,” researchers noted.

Media may only be one part of the equation, however. Digital technology may be another.

‘Young People Less Likely to Die From Covid’

While writing this article, I had to find statistics on the risks of COVID-19 for young adults. To find the information, I did what I normally do: I went to Google and typed in keywords for what I was looking to find—“young people less likely to die from Covid.”

I was expecting to find on top a bunch of articles and research showing that young people have relatively little to fear from the coronavirus. That’s not what happened. Here are the top results I got:

Coronavirus and COVID-19: Younger Adults Are at Risk, Too | Johns Hopkins Medicine

What Young, Healthy People Have to Fear From COVID-19 | The Atlantic

Data reveal deadliness of COVID-19, even in young adults | University of Minnesota CIDRAP

Young people are at risk of severe Covid-19 illness | NBC

Dying Young: The Health Care Workers in Their 20s Killed by COVID-19 | KHN

This is a big deal. We live in a digital world, and Google is the biggest search engine on the planet, processing more than 3.5 billion searches every day.

Millions of people probably use Google every day to find information about this coronavirus. But instead of finding articles that point out COVID-19 is hundreds of times more deadly for people over 60 than people under 40, anyone who Googled about young people and risks would find a bunch of super-scary headlines.

Again, this isn’t to say young people face no risk from COVID-19. But the medical reality is that children and young adults are more likely to die from the seasonal flu, pneumonia, or a car crash than COVID-19.

Clearly, most Americans aren’t aware of this.

The Price of the Disconnect

The YouGov poll results show there is a disconnect between perception and reality when it comes to COVID-19. Unfortunately, this disconnect has real-world consequences.

“Those who overestimate risks to young people or hold an exaggerated sense of risk upon infection are more likely to favor closing schools, restaurants, and other businesses,” the authors of a recent Franklin Templeton/Gallup study concluded.

This is important because these restrictions are quite serious. Closing parts of the economy is no small matter. These actions are associated with numerous unintended consequences—job losses, mental health deterioration, increased global poverty, surging loneliness, health procedures deferred, and more. Meanwhile, the documented benefits of these restrictions remain elusive.

In 2020, we witnessed unprecedented infringements on fundamental civil liberties. And it all stemmed from fear.

Worse, despite the presence of numerous successful vaccines and crashing case numbers, the alarm bells keep sounding.

CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky is warning of “impending doom,” while others warn we must begin planning for a “permanent pandemic.” The New York Times is using Florida, which lifted all pandemic restrictions last summer, as a cautionary tale by using rather tortured analysis.

Considering all this, it’s no surprise that many young people are terrified of the virus. But we’d do well to remember that fear is the pathway to subservience.

“If you want to control someone, all you have to do is to make them feel afraid,” the author Paulo Coelho wrote in “The Devil and Miss Prym.”

It’s time to stop being afraid. And the first step comes through understanding.

https://www.zerohedge.com/covid-19/why-young-adults-are-most-scared-covid-even-though-they-are-least-risk

FibroGen fast tracked for Duchenne med

 FibroGen, Inc. (NASDAQ: FGEN) announced that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted Fast Track designation for the company’s anti-CTGF antibody, pamrevlumab, for the treatment of patients with Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD). This designation follows review of the Phase 2 clinical data from a single-arm trial in non-ambulatory patients with DMD, and represents recognition by the FDA that pamrevlumab has the potential to address an unmet medical need for this disease. Pamrevlumab is currently being evaluated in two Phase 3 trials for the treatment of DMD.

“Fast Track designation by the FDA for pamrevlumab in DMD underscores the high unmet medical need for patients suffering from this debilitating disease and potential to advance a new treatment option,” said Mark Eisner, M.D, M.P.H, Chief Medical Officer, FibroGen. “We look forward to working closely with the FDA on the development of pamrevlumab as a potential therapy for DMD.”

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/fibrogen-receives-fast-track-designation-110000129.html

Worry About Aging Alone? How (And Why) To Cultivate A Family Of Choice

 

Family of choice is the best support team for solo agers

It feels like yesterday since I helped my parents with their elder care needs while working a full-time job. I experienced first-hand the effects of growing older by observing relatives evolve through the latter stages. However, they had offspring, three loving daughters, to depend on. Today, I’m the one occasionally needing help, but unlike my parents, I don’t have adult children or a partner to call. I am a solo ager. How did this happen so quickly? And more importantly, where do I turn for help?

Caring for a loved one has the effect of an awakening for most family members. It’s when people understand the difficulties of growing older as they watch relatives deal with chronic conditions, while others confront dementia and Alzheimer’s disease. It is heart wrenching to observe the decline for both the caregiver and the elder. 

After looking out for mom and dad, I realized as a solo ager there is no one to do the things for me I did for my parents. I had to get on the stick and come up with a plan. It took seven years to set my future on a smooth path.

I focused on my health, engaged with other people, relocated to a walkable urban area, found nearby support and nurtured friendships. Now, as I approach my seventies, I find the strong relationships I cultivated hugely impact my physical health and mental well-being. Those closest to me are my family of choice and ensure that I am not alone.

The American Public Health Association says healthy relationships lead to better lives. It’s more important than ever to intentionally create and nourish relationships with others because our social networks naturally begins to diminish as we age. Increased isolation results from a variety of reasons; it may be we no longer seeing coworkers in the office every day or perhaps our children grew up and left the nest.

Why solo agers need a community

Those aging alone face a variety of challenges, but the top and most worrisome is,

“How do I compensate for not having adult children and other family members to look out for me, because counting on good friends is not what I want to do?”

I hear this concern often when I work with seniors and family caregivers. It’s a common dilemma, and one about which I anguished after taking care of my parents.

In our world today, adults increasingly age alone with multiple chronic diseases and are geographically distant from family and long time friends. The risks of aging alone and with little to no support puts us at risk for physical and social isolation, threatening both our safety and independence. With the high prevalence of solo individuals and the clear risks associated, it is crucial that older people plan for the years ahead, create support and connections, and learn about available resources.

It’s essential for older adults who did not plan well, and/or those like me who live without a spouse or children, to view the future realistically. Each of us must take steps to create a community of family and support. You may feel comfortable and secure with your life today, but unless you plan ahead, an emergency may drastically change your situation, forcing strangers to make decisions on your behalf. And that would not be optimal.

Ways solo agers can compensate for no family

For the individuals aging alone, I suggest:

• Design a plan and to address the issues such as who will care for you when in need–learn about the resources available to you.
• Decide what housing arrangements fit your lifestyle and budget carefully, but also choose the one that enables you to age with dignity.
• Think how to remain mobile in the community if you cannot drive–think public transportation, Uber, Lyft, and other share rides.
• Learn to build a team of friends and connections for support–the kind that care about you.
• Create a life worth living to diminish isolation and loneliness–find passion and purpose.
• Select a person to put in charge of medical and health, estate planning and financial matters–solo agers need licensed, reliable professionals to fill these shoes.
• Find a trustworthy friend, companion you can depend on–the ones who have your back if you have a bad day.

How to make friends

I chose to live in a high-rise where people are available 24/7. I enjoy the sense of security, safety, and connection.  If I want privacy, I stay in my condo. When I want company, I go downstairs to the lobby where I can strike up a conversation with other residents. It gives me the best of both worlds. Privacy and connection.

If you live in the suburbs, get to know your neighbors and start to connect with them regularly. It takes time to create relationships and to build trust but don’t give up. Remain consistent with the effort. It took two years for me to make close relationships where I live.

Other ways to make new friends locally

Here are some ideas that worked well for me.

• Facebook groups in Dallas (join a group or start one geared to your passion)
• Check out local Meetups (or create one of your own.) I belong to a writing and walking Meetup
• Extension classes
• Local hobby classes 
• The Apple store (I learned to create videos using Mac)
• Senior Centers – I attended dance and yoga classes where I met new friends
• Local universities, community colleges and organizations that offer educational opportunities for older adults
• Volunteer – a great opportunity to help out locally while providing a way to create new social networks, roles and outlets. Volunteer opportunities provide a way to make positive changes and to meet people from all walks of life 

The bottom line

Just to be clear, a community of support does not mean expecting a neighbor or friend to be the go-to person for your care needs such as a ride to the doctor’s office, shopping or meal preparation.

A community of support is your reliable circle of neighbors and friends who simply have your back. The person that makes you feel, “Ah, I’m not alone, there is someone who cares.”

I hope you create an abundance of connections and social support wherever you live. Close relationships make our world a better place.

https://50plus-today.com/solo-agers/