CDC to reconsider latest guidance amid backlash, rise in cases

 The highly transmissible COVID-19 omicron variant has thrown many pandemic-related plans for a loop as Americans canceled holiday plans or were left stuck in a travel nightmare caused by flight crews who could not work because they became sick.

A decision by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention last week to cut isolation time in half, from 10 days to five days for asymptomatic COVID-19, was met with backlash after officials said it was due in part to allow people to return to work faster. It came one week after some companies, including Delta Air Lines, wrote to the CDC requesting such a change.

Now, Anthony Fauci, the president's chief medical adviser, says the testing part of that guidance may change to now require one as officials struggle with rising cases that at times are breaking pandemic records.

Appearing on ABC’s “This Week" on Sunday, Fauci said the CDC was looking into amending its isolation guidelines nearly one week after it updated its latest guidance, which did not require a negative test before the five days were up.

"There has been some concern about why we don't ask people at that five-day period to get tested. That is something that is now under consideration," Fauci said. “The CDC is very well aware that there has been some pushback about that. Looking at it again, there may be an option in that, that testing could be a part of that, and I think we're going to be hearing more about that in the next day or so from the CDC.” 

Last week, Jerome Adams, the former surgeon general during the Trump administration, criticized the abbreviated time and advised people to still get a COVID-19 test before leaving isolation.

"Regardless of what CDC says, you really should try to obtain an antigen test," Adams tweeted. "There’s not a scientist or doctor I’ve met yet who wouldn’t do this for themselves/ their family."

Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson (R) on Sunday praised the federal government's recent handling the COVID-19 pandemic, but said its messaging has been "a little bit inconsistent."

"It's a recognition that we have to be able to manage our way through this virus. We have to get people to work the supply shortages, the staff shortages — [those] really do a great deal of harm as well," Hutchinson said while appearing on "Fox News Sunday."

Amid the latest surge in cases, officials across the country have also begun weighing the possibility of closing down schools and returning to remote learning. Education Secretary Miguel Cardona on Sunday said the government was committed to maintaining in-person learning.

"We've been very clear, our expectation is for schools to be open full time for students for in-person learning. We remember the impact of school closures on students last year, and our science is better, we have better tools," Cardona said on "Fox News Sunday."

President Biden has also stayed away from suggesting any pandemic-related lockdowns or stay at home orders, a politically unpopular option that could help curb the spread of the latest variant.

Cardona expressed his support for continued vaccinations, but said he would leave vaccination decisions to the state and local levels.

Former Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Scott Gottlieb, said on Sunday that he was in favor of "preemptive" school closures, but said there may also be situations in the future where "reactive" school closures will happen due to the surge in cases.

Asked by "Face the Nation," host Margaret Brennan about reports that antigen tests aren't as efficient at detecting the omicron variant, Gottlieb said that current data suggests the tests can detect the strain at a "reasonably confident" rate.

Last month, the Biden administration introduced a "test to stay" approach for schools, allowing students who have been exposed to the coronavirus to stay in school if they test negative for the virus twice in one week.

Fauci also on Sunday said Americans “don’t want to get complacent” despite reports that the omicron variant may lead to less-severe illness than previous COVID-19 strains.

Asked by host George Stephanopoulos on ABC’s “This Week” about early evidence that the omicron variant leads to less-serious infections and illness, Fauci said that while there is “accumulating evidence,” it is “still early.”

https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/587918-cdc-to-reconsider-five-day-isolation-guidance-amid-backlash-rise-in-cases

Fla. hospital system suffers data breach, including personal, medical info

 A Florida-based hospital system revealed on Saturday it suffered a data breach that included the personal and medical information of patients and staff.

In a statement, Broward Health said hackers gained access to its network on Oct. 15 through a third-party medical provider that had access to its system. 

Broward Health detected the intrusion four days later and notified the FBI and the Department of Justice (DOJ). 

The hacker accessed names, birthdays, addresses, banking information, Social Security numbers, driver's license numbers, patient histories, and treatment and diagnosis records, among other information.

“This personal information was exfiltrated (removed from Broward Health’s systems), however, there is no evidence the information was actually misused,” the hospital system said in a statement. 

The DOJ also asked the hospital to not make the data breach public right away “to ensure that the notification does not compromise the ongoing law enforcement investigation,” Broward Health said. 

Broward Health operates more than 30 health care locations in the Broward County area in southeast Florida. 

The Hill has reached out to Broward Health for more information.

https://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/587931-florida-hospital-system-suffers-data-breach-including-medical

Biden Wants To 'Woke' Up Your Doctor

 by Wesley Smith,  op-ed via The Epoch Times,

The Biden Administration wants to pay doctors to create office “anti-racism plans” that could soon bring full blown critical race theory into your examining room...

What’s that you say? You didn’t hear about Congressional legislation to that effect? That’s because there is no such law. Rather, the idea was pushed quietly into implementation by the blob-like federal bureaucracy that exercises primary control over the details and minutia of federal law.

Despite what you may have been taught in high school government class, federal statutes do not provide the specifics that will apply once a bill becomes law. Instead, legislation merely establishes a skeleton outline, usually directing the Secretary of this or that Department to write the details after the bill has passed through the arcane rule making process. In other words, the contemporary administrative state run by the executive branch has substantial quasi-legislative authority never dreamed of by our Founding Fathers.

There are few limitations to rule making other than that the regulation must be relevant to, and consistent with, the governing statue. But laws are often so vaguely written, that isn’t difficult. Moreover, the promulgated rules are where the devil in the details of federal law is to be found.

How do we know what has been proposed or promulgated by the bureaucrats? All rules—whether preliminary or finalized—are published in a gargantuan volume called the Federal Register.

Oh good. That means we can just look them up, right?

Well, sure: In theory. But good luck trying. Each year more than 70,000 pages of very small print are published in the FR. Imagine digging through that eye-glazing text! Talk about needles and haystacks.

Yes, there is a modicum of societal input in rule making. But it is very indirect. When a new rule is proposed, time is allowed for public comments that—in theory and sometimes in fact—influence the bureaucrats who write and promulgate the rule. Bureaucrats may also attend meetings with “stake holders” about the contents of proposed rules.

But like everything else in Washington, D.C., this administrative process is highly political. Whether commenters have any impact on the final rule usually depends on their political clout and/or whether they are allies of the sitting administration, not policy acumen. Needless to say, individual citizens rarely know what is going on, much less, have a meaningful chance to directly participate in the process.

Alright, enough dismal civics.

Here is what the new rules on Medicare payments to doctors—that begins on page 64996 of the 2021 FR and ends on page 66031—states about the anti-racism plan bonus: In Appendix 2—are your eyes rolling back in your head yet?—doctors are offered a percentage of their Medicare income “to create and implement an anti-racist plan.”

Among other consequences, this means establishing an anti-racist bureaucracy within physicians’ offices (my emphasis): 

“The plan should include a clinic-wide review of existing tools and policies, such as value statements or clinical practice guidelines, to ensure that they include and are aligned with a commitment to anti-racism and an understanding of race as a political and social construct, not a physiological one.”

In other words, the rule states quite specifically that the plan isn’t about medicine. And it isn’t about science. Rather, it furthers naked ideology and insinuating very woke politics into the clinical setting.

That isn’t all:

“The plan should also identify ways in which issues and gaps identified in the review can be addressed and should include target goals and milestones for addressing prioritized issues and gaps …. The … eligible clinician or practice can also consider including in their plan ongoing training on anti-racism and/or other processes to support identifying explicit and implicit biases in patient care and addressing historic health inequities experienced by people of color.”

Think of the money to be made by leftist anti-racist trainers and organizers, which is part of the point.

Moreover, the call for “anti-racism” could be interpreted as calling for discrimination in medical settings against people who are not of color. For example, Ibram X. Kendi, the intellectual leader of the Anti-Racist Movement wrote in his book “How to Be an Anti-Racist,” “The only remedy to racial discrimination is antiracist discrimination.”

This invidious thinking has seeped into the medical establishment. Consider a relevant advocacy column entitled “Advancing President Biden’s Equity Agenda,” published last April in the New England Journal of Medicine. “To promote equity,” psychiatrist Neil K. Aggarwal wrote, “the Biden administration should distribute resources differentially in order to benefit groups that are persistently disadvantaged.”

That would be to pit some of us against others of us in our own doctor’s office. This obsession with differences—ever more thinly sliced—isn’t healthy. And it isn’t right.

All patients should be treated equally. No patient should be considered “favored” or “disfavored.” Everyone should receive optimal care. But such equality isn’t within the value system that “anti-racism” generally—and the new rule, specifically—promotes.

It is no surprise that the Biden administration has gone woke. But the real danger against true equality isn’t in the president’s speeches but in the power of the bureaucracy swamp. Indeed, what other “equity” landmines are being laid quietly within the hundreds of thousands of pages of the Federal Register?

Today, the bureaucrats are offering doctors a bonus to enlist in the “anti-racism” cause. Tomorrow, they may make critical race theory mandatory in the medical office. And we probably won’t know until the deed is done. This much is sure: Pushing “equity” in healthcare is a prescription for tearing this country apart.

https://www.zerohedge.com/political/biden-wants-woke-your-doctor

AT&T, Verizon CEOs reject U.S. request for 5G deployment delay

 The chief executives of AT&T and Verizon Communications rejected a request to delay the planned Jan. 5 introduction of new 5G wireless service over aviation safety concerns but offered to temporarily adopt new safeguards.

U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and Federal Aviation Administration chief Steve Dickson had asked AT&T CEO John Stankey and Verizon CEO Hans Vestberg late Friday for a commercial deployment delay of no more than two weeks.

The wireless companies in a joint letter on Sunday said they would not deploy 5G around airports for six months but rejected any broader limitation on using C-Band spectrum. They said the Transportation Department proposal would be "an irresponsible abdication of the operating control required to deploy world-class and globally competitive communications networks."

The aviation industry and FAA have raised concerns about potential interference of 5G with sensitive aircraft electronics like radio altimeters that could disrupt flights.

The exclusion zone AT&T and Verizon propose is currently in use in France, the carriers said, "with slight adaption" reflecting "modest technical differences in how C-band is being deployed."

"The laws of physics are the same in the United States and France," the CEOs wrote. "If U.S. airlines are permitted to operate flights every day in France, then the same operating conditions should allow them to do so in the United States."

The FAA said in a statement on Sunday that it was "reviewing the latest letter from the wireless companies on how to mitigate interference from 5G C-band transmissions. U.S. aviation safety standards will guide our next actions."

FAA officials said France uses spectrum for 5G that sits further away from spectrum used for radio altimeters and uses lower power levels for 5G than those authorized in the United States.

Sara Nelson, president of the Association of Flight Attendants-CWA (AFA), representing 50,000 workers at 17 airlines, on Sunday said pilots, airlines, manufacturers and others "have NO incentive to delay 5G, other than SAFETY. What do they think … we’re raising these issues over the holidays for, kicks?"

Officials said the exclusion zones proposed by the wireless carriers is not as large as what has been sought by the FAA.

The FAA and Buttigieg on Friday proposed identifying priority airports "where a buffer zone would permit aviation operations to continue safely while the FAA completes its assessments of the interference potential."

The government would work to identify "mitigations for all priority airports" to enable most "large commercial aircraft to operate safely in all conditions."

The wireless carriers, which won the C-Band spectrum in an $80 billion government auction, previously agreed to precautionary measures for six months to limit interference.

Trade group Airlines for America, representing American Airlines, FedEx Corp and other carriers, on Thursday asked the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to halt the deployment around many airports, warning that thousands of flights could be disrupted daily.

The airline group has said it may go to court on Monday if the FCC does not act.

Former FCC Commissioner Mike O'Rielly praised the wireless carriers for moving ahead.

"We can have safe wireless and safe flights. Reasoned people should accept US wireless industry not have more C-Band limitations than France," he said on Sunday.

Wireless industry group CTIA said 5G is safe and spectrum is being used in about 40 other countries.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/1-t-verizon-ceos-reject-183450342.html

Gottlieb says decisions on kids' boosters should be left up to parents

 Former Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Scott Gottlieb said on Sunday that parents and their physicians should be the ones to make a decision over whether to have children receive the COVID-19 booster, adding that's also something that should not be mandated by schools.

“I certainly don't think schools should be mandating boosters. I think this should be left up to the discretion of parents and their physicians. You know, it's going to depend on the individual circumstance,” Gottlieb told CBS’ Margaret Brennan on “Face the Nation.”

Gottlieb explained that children, especially those between the ages of 12 and 16 years old, showed a more robust vaccine durability than that of adults, adding that they are at a lesser risk overall from the infection. 

Last week, The New York Times reported, citing those familiar with the FDA’s plans, that the agency is expected on Monday to authorize booster shots of the Moderna and Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine to children between the ages of 12 and 15 years old.

Children between the ages of 5 and 11 years old who are immunocompromised are also anticipated to be authorized to get boosted, the newspaper noted.

Instead of the previous recommendation of receiving a booster shot six months after a second dose, the FDA is expected to also amend that recommendation to five months for both children and adults.

The authorization, which requires a sign off from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, are expected to be endorsed by its director, Rochelle Walensky, according to the Times.

The decision over whether to require boosters may prove tricky given that states may consider to amend their own definition of what it means to be “fully vaccinated.” 

Last month, New York Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) said that she was planning on introducing legislation that would tweak the definition of “fully vaccinated” to include the booster shot. 

https://thehill.com/homenews/sunday-talk-shows/587916-gottlieb-says-decisions-on-kids-boosters-should-be-left-up-to

5 lessons humans can learn from dogs

 I’ve never really considered myself a dog person, probably because I didn’t have one as a child. Recently, I became a dog owner for the first time. His name is Bobby, and needless to say, I’ve grown very fond of him.

Owning a dog has allowed me to see them in a different light, and reinforced some important life lessons. There are five key lessons from Bobby I’d like to share:

1. The power of reciprocation

We are hard-wired to reciprocate. If you scratch my back I’ll scratch yours. If you acknowledge me, I’m more likely to acknowledge you and so on. Dogs recognise this in spades.

Bobby is always pleased to see me. He’s particularly fond of licking my face. I can ignore his advances for a while but no amount of rejection seems to put Bobby off. He knows I’m a soft touch and will soon succumb.

Bobby understands better than any human I know that his affection will be paid back many times over. Basically, Bobby gets what he wants because he decided from the get go that he likes me. 

Peter Kaufman, the CEO of Glenair and author of Poor Charlie’s Almanack, noted the same thing in his wonderful speech on multidisciplinary thinking:

“Now I’m going to tell you the strategy that dogs use. The dog is going to be very unhappy with me for telling you this. I’m ratting them out. So when your dog is in the backyard and he goes to the fence between your house and the next house and he talks to the dog next door, I’m going to tell you what he says. No one has ever divulged this before. You’re the first group to hear this. Your dog says to the dog next door, ‘Can you believe how easy it is to manipulate human beings and get them to do whatever you want them to do for you?’ And the dog next door goes, ‘I know it’s a piece of cake.’ And your dog says ‘Yeah. All you have to do is every single time they come home, you greet them at the door with the biggest unconditional show of attention that they’ve ever gotten in their whole life. And you only have to do it for like 15 seconds, and then you can go back to doing whatever you were doing before and completely ignore them for the rest of the evening.’

However, you do have to do this every single time they come home. And what will the person do? They’ll take care of them. They’ll do anything for this dog. OK? Now do you think that this woman feels she’s being paid attention to? And listened to? And respected? Do you think she’s getting meaning, satisfaction, and fulfillment? Do you think she matters to this dog? And do you think she thinks this dog loves her? And what does the dog get in return? Everything.

All you have to do, if you want everything in life from everybody else, is first pay attention, listen to them, show them respect, give them meaning, satisfaction, and fulfillment. Convey to them that they matter to you. And show you love them. But you have to go first. And what are you going to get back. Mirrored reciprocation.”

Peter Kaufman

One of the most intelligent things I’ve heard came from this Kaufman speech – “All you have to do is go positive, go first, be patient.” It works 95% of the time. Which is more than enough to mean we should all try to apply this lesson. The alternative – living in fear of rejection – will lead to an unfulfilling life.

2. Being present

What’s the most important thing in the world?

I don’t know, but thankfully Bobby does.

The most important thing is whatever Bobby is doing at any particular moment. Whether it’s eating, playing ball, or licking my face. He gives it his full attention. He doesn’t worry about what went on in the past or what will come in the future. He enjoys the moment.

Wouldn’t life be so much better if we thought a bit more like this, instead of always looking at our phones and worrying about what’s next? I know mine would.

Learning to be more present is one of the surest ways psychologists have found to enhance happiness and life satisfaction. By embracing the moment and noticing those little things you previously ignored, you’ll become more grateful for what you have, and start worrying less about the things you don’t.

3. Simple pleasures

Bobby has very simple needs and wants. Beyond food, water, shelter and a daily walk, he craves almost nothing. He’s satisfied with his lot. 

Human beings seem to have difficulty with this. We tend to associate material possessions with happiness and struggle to find contentment. We’re constantly comparing ourselves to others and upgrading our lifestyle expectations. We’re hard-wired for active dissatisfaction and the finish line is always moving.

According to Seneca, the Roman philosopher, the solution is to become more like Bobby. We should try to lower our expectations and be grateful for what we have:

“True happiness is to enjoy the present, without anxious dependence upon the future, not to amuse ourselves with either hopes or fears but to rest satisfied with what we have, which is sufficient, for he that is so wants nothing. The greatest blessings of mankind are within us and within our reach. A wise man is content with his lot, whatever it may be, without wishing for what he has not.”

“It is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, that is poor.”

Seneca

4. The importance of sleep

Bobby is a wonderful sleeper. On average he gets more than double the amount of sleep as I do. It makes me very jealous but I only have myself to blame.

Unlike Bobby, I set an alarm to wake me up early. I look at screens and other devices at night making it harder to nod off. A few evenings a week I pour toxins into my body (alcohol) which guarantees me a disrupted night’s sleep. And unlike Bobby I hardly ever nap, even if I’m feeling tired, because my day is far too important to waste sleeping!  

Humans are the only species I know of to deliberately deprive themselves of sleep for no apparent gain. It’s a shame because sleep is just about the most important thing we do.

Without enough of it (at least 7 hours a night for most of us), our health and relationships suffer. Just one hour of lost sleep can have grave consequences – incidents of heart attacks, strokes, and fatal car accidents all increase the day after the clocks go forward.

I strongly recommend Mathew Walker’s research on sleep. He’s one of the world’s leading sleep experts and has done numerous talks and podcasts. This 19-minute TED talk is a good place to start. The first thing I did after watching it was set my alarm twenty minutes later and shorten my morning routine.

5. Having fun

Bobby is a very playful dog and knows better than anyone how to have fun. I’m often sat in front of the computer, and get that look from Bobby that says – ‘What on earth are you doing that could be so important? Come and play!’

We all have a tendency to take ourselves too seriously at times. Some stuff is worth taking seriously. But not much in life is all that important beyond the obvious. Yet it’s the little things that often seem to irk us most, like bad driving or a stock price decline. We then compound this with a tendency to stew. 

I think we should all try and take a leaf out of Bobby’s book and learn to let our hair down a bit more. Rest, recuperation and play are not just good for dogs. They’re vital components of human life and improve our health, relationships, and the quality of our work. 

https://theundercoverfundmanager.com/5-lessons-humans-can-learn-from-dogs/

New Data Support Causal Role for Depression in Alzheimer's

 Researchers have known for some time that depression is associated with Alzheimer's disease (AD), but a causal link has been elusive. Now, using newly available data, they have uncovered genetic evidence of a causal role for depression in AD.

As depression typically affects those in early or midlife and dementia often occurs in later life, "it's fascinating to see a connection between the two brain illnesses that manifest in different time windows," co-investigator Aliza P. Wingo, MD, associate professor of psychiatry and behavioral science, Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia, told Medscape Medical News.

"If we can treat the depression early on, we may help reduce risk for dementia for our patients later in life," Wingo said.

The findings were published online December 16 in Biological Psychiatrry.

Postmortem Data

The investigators, who are all from the Emory University Center for Neurodegenerative Disease, wanted to clarify the genetic basis underlying the association between the established link between depression and dementia risk.

They used data from the largest and most recent genome-wide association studies (GWAS). These included a 2019 analysis of depression among 807,553 individuals and a 2019 study of AD among 455,258 individuals, all of European ancestry. For sensitivity analyses, they used results from two additional AD GWAS.

The researchers also accessed postmortem brain samples from participants in the Religious Orders Study (ROS) and the Rush Memory and Aging Project (MAP). These participants were cognitively normal at enrollment, underwent annual clinical evaluations, and agreed to donate their brains.

They also assessed brain samples donated by participants in the Banner Sun Health Research Institutelongitudinal study of healthy aging, Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease.

The brain samples allowed researchers to use deep brain proteomic data to help determine molecular links between depression and AD.

After quality control, the analysis included 8356 proteins in 391 ROS/MAP participants and 7854 proteins in 196 Banner participants.

Results showed a small but significant positive genetic correlation between depression and AD, suggesting the two conditions have a shared genetic basis.

The investigators also applied a framework called "Mendelian randomization" to determine causality between depression and AD.

After assessing the effect of 115 independent single-nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) from the GWAS of depression, they uncovered significant evidence "that the SNPs cause depression, which in turn cause AD," said Wingo.

One-Way Relationship

The researchers conducted the same analysis on 61 significant SNPs from the GWAS of AD but did not find evidence to conclude AD causes depression.

"We found genetic evidence supporting a causal role of depression in AD but not vice versa," Wingo said.

In addition, the investigators identified 75 brain transcripts (messenger RNA) and 28 brain proteins regulated by the depression-predisposing genetic variants. Of these, 46 brain transcripts and seven proteins were significantly associated with at least one AD feature ― for example, beta-amyloid, tau tangles, and cognitive trajectory.

"These findings support the notion that the depression risk variants contribute to AD via regulating expression of their corresponding transcripts in the brain," the investigators write.

It is only recently that large enough studies have allowed researchers sufficient power to reach these conclusions, co-investigator Thomas Wingo, MD, said in an interview.

These additional "insights" into the relationship between depression and AD might "motivate" clinicians more to screen for and treat depressive symptoms, Wingo noted.

The new results also have implications for developing therapeutics to treat depression, she said. "If we target the genes, the brain proteins, that are shared risk between depression and AD, the medications that target that gene might mitigate risk for AD later on," she added.

However, the investigators advised caution. "A lot of this is still unknown," said Thomas Wingo.

For example, it is not clear whether successfully treating depression mitigates the eventual risk of dementia, which is "a very important topic of inquiry and one we continue to work on," he added.

He noted a significant number of patients do not respond well to existing antidepressants such as selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs).

Need for Further Research

Commenting on the findings for Medscape Medical News, Claire Sexton, DPhil, director of scientific programs and outreach, Alzheimer's Association, said the study contributes to the debate about whether depression increases risk for AD, whether AD increases risk for depression, or both.

"These newly published findings strengthen our understanding of the role of depression as a risk factor for Alzheimer's dementia," said Sexton, who was not involved with the research.

While experts do not yet fully understand the impact of treating depression on dementia risk, "the findings emphasize the importance of assessing mental health status, particularly depression, and getting it properly diagnosed and treated in a timely manner," she said.

However, she agreed more research in this area is needed. "Importantly, these findings need replication in broader, more diverse study populations," Sexton said.

A study funded by the Alzheimer's Association may provide more information on the link between depression and AD. It will investigate whether machine learning, an advanced computer science technique, can better predict cognitive decline compared with traditional methods.

Over a period of 6 months, researchers will collect smartphone conversations from 225 older adults with dementia, mild cognitive impairment, or no cognitive impairment. They will also have data from cognitive tests, brain scans, and biomarkers such as cerebrospinal fluid samples to study brain changes associated with AD.

The novel method of analysis should be able to identify subtle differences in speech quality to indicate which depressive symptoms an individual might be experiencing.

"The study could help us further understand the potential impact of depression in the risk of developing dementia," said Sexton.

Aliza Wingo and Thomas Wingo have reported no relevant financial relationships.

Biol Psychiatry. Published online December 16, 2021. Abstract

https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/965807