EXERCISE IMPORTANT IN TIME OF COVID-19

READ ARTICLE AT: 

https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/986761?src=WNL_trdalrt_pos1_230111&uac=327196BT&impID=5079424

IT IS PASTED BELOW:

Editor's note: Find the latest COVID-19 news and guidance in Medscape's Coronavirus Resource Center.

If your patients vowed to start exercising this year, here's another incentive to help them stick to their guns: They could protect themselves from potentially devastating COVID-19 outcomes like hospitalization and even death.

The evidence is piling up that physical activity can lower the risk of getting very sick from COVID. The CDC, based on a systematic review of the evidence, has reported that "physical activity is associated with a decrease in COVID-19 hospitalizations and deaths, while inactivity increases that risk." Other research has linked regular physical activity with a lower risk of infection, hospitalization, and death from COVID.

The latest such study, from Kaiser Permanente, suggests that exercise in almost any amount can cut the risk of severe or fatal COVID even among high-risk patients like those with hypertension or cardiovascular disease.

"We found that every level of physical activity provided some level of protection," says lead study author Deborah Rohm Young, PhD, director of the Division of Behavioral Research for Kaiser's Southern California Department of Research and Evaluation. "Even a 10-minute walk [per] week is associated with better COVID-19 outcomes."

                                                          

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WILL COVID-19 BE OUR LABREA TAR PITS?

The name "LaBrea Tar Pits" brings to mind images of ancient creatures meeting their fates, sinking into soft pools of mud they had mistaken for sources of drinking water.

Here is an article about this famous paleontological phenomenon: 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Brea_Tar_Pits

And see a contemporary reproduction that tourists may visit at:

https://www.lonelyplanet.com/usa/los-angeles/attractions/la-brea-tar-pits-museum/a/poi-sig/1424153/361824

Once an unfortunate beast had wandered into this mire -- that may have appeared to be an ordinary pool of water -- there was no escape.  

Is that what we are heading for with this novel and quickly mutating viral epidemic, Corona Virus Disease? 

Will COVID-19 and other mutations of the Corona Virus be our generation's LaBrea Tar Pits??

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THE FORWARD ADDRESSES PASSOVER IN TIME OF COVID-19

 Excellent article about what happens to Passover Seders during this epidemic!

https://forward.com/news/485586/missed-the-passover-seder-because-of-covid/?utm_source=Iterable&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=campaign_4091600

THE LADY OF SHALOTT

A good wikipedia article about this poem that I want to hang on to! 

It is about a woman isolated in a tower.  

And it reflects some of my own feelings as a self-isolate because of COVID-19. 

I may print more about this later!  

Today is March 26, 2022

 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Lady_of_Shalott

DURING AN EPIDEMIC W.H. AUDEN SAYS IT ALL!

I manage.  That's about it!  Between the COVID-19 epidemic and the vertebral fractures I don't go out, I don't see people, meet friends, etc.  E-mail helps.  Phone calls are nice too but sometimes exhausting and sometimes at bad times.  

I am so in mind of Auden's poem, Night Mail.   

I've posted about it elsewhere as well: 

http://joansgoodstuff.blogspot.com/2022/01/night-mail-by-whauden.html

Especially these lines: 

Asleep in working Glasgow, asleep in well-set Edinburgh,
Asleep in granite Aberdeen,
They continue their dreams,
But shall wake soon and hope for letters,
And none will hear the postman's knock
Without a quickening of the heart,
For who can bear to feel himself forgotten?

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I GOT MY COVID BOOSTER SHOT OCTOBER 11, 2021

 I got my COVID-19 booster shot at Walgreens at 30 North Michigan Avenue on October 11, 2021.  

I was very brave!

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COVID-19: An Independent Driver for Heart Attack and Stroke

As if we haven't had enough bad news already, it just keeps getting worse.

I don't want to get too deep into the weeds here, but I found this truly disheartening.    

You can read this article for yourself and decide how scared you want to be.   

Here's the lead sentence from this recent article in Medscape: 

"New data from Sweden provide the strongest evidence to date that COVID-19 is an independent risk factor for acute myocardial infarction (MI) and ischemic stroke, the researchers say."

You can read this rest of this article entitled: 

COVID-19 an Independent Driver for Heart Attack and Stroke at: 

https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/955855?src=mkm_covid_update_210802_MSCPEDIT&uac=327196BT&impID=3543659&faf=1

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HERD IMMUNITY -- DOES IT APPLY HERE?

 Our former President suggested that "herd immunity" would be the answer to the COVID-19 crisis.   Let's not hold our breath!

https://news.yahoo.com/white-house-embracing-herd-immunity-114339631.html

A word or two about "herd immunity."    

Herd immunity is a concept from epidemiology -- a discipline that includes the study of how communicable diseases spread.  

Herd immunity may occur when, as a result of a high proportion of immunity-conferring infection or vaccination within a community, otherwise susceptible individuals within that community may enjoy some degree of resistance to that disease     

When many individuals in a population are resistant to a communicable disease, the infection may have nowhere to go and eventually subsides.  (This is a huge simplification but it is the basic idea.)

You can read more about this here: https://www.webmd.com/lung/what-is-herd-immunity#1

Could COVID-19 possibly fit into this concept?  Let's look the necessary conditions for resistance.  At least one of the following two conditions must be present for herd immunity to kick in. 

1. A population with a high percentage of people resistant by dint of vaccination could enjoy herd immunity.  This is why the few people in a community who are not vaccinated against smallpox may be unlikely to get this disease.  As long as they are a very small segment of the population, they are likely to enjoy some protection by dint of the vaccinated population.

But we do not yet have a widely used safe, effective vaccination for COVID-19, so we can set this condition aside.

2. Unprotected individuals within a population having a high percentage of people who are resistant by dint of already having contracted the disease could enjoy herd immunity.  Some authorities suggest that may happen when more than about 60% percent of a population have been infected, but COVID-19 is nowhere near this.  (Click Here)  

Also, it may be possible to be reinfected with COVID-19.  (Click Here)

So it appears that this second condition does not currently exist.

Admittedly this is a gross over-simplification of the concept of "herd immunity" as it applies to COVID-19, but it appears unlikely that this concept is applicable at this time to the current pandemic. 

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COVID-19, BALANCED ON A THREE LEGGED STOOL

 Many public health issues can be viewed as balanced on the legs of a three-legged stool.

The first leg is the work of research scientists and medical practitioners making discoveries in their laboratories and clinics.  

The second leg is the communication of these findings both to health care professionals through professional media and to the public via popular media.  This leg would be reinforced, as needed, by the adoption of appropriate statues and regulations.  

The third leg is the adoption of these findings by willing public. This three legged stool has supported many public health campaigns, including smallpox polio and AIDS.  But in the case of COVID-19, it appears that some vaunted "leaders" have taken a saw to at least one and even two legs of this three legged stool, with this result! 

Unfortunately it hasn't been an "easy fall" for hundreds of thousands of Americans and many more throughout the world who have succumbed to COVID-19.

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AN IMPORTANT RESOURCE FROM UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA

On May 26, 2020 I watched an excellent presentation on COVID-19 presented by the  by the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy (CIDRAP)  at the University of Minnesota.  
https://www.cidrap.umn.edu, and specifically the section on COVID-19: https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/covid-19  

While this specific presentation may no longer be available, all of its content and much more is online and searchable at the CIDRAP website above.

This website is so rich in information from so many experts on so many topics related to COVID-19 I could not do it justice here except to HIGHLY recommend it to medical professionals as well as lay persons.  

COVID-19 could be with us for a long time -- and information like this could be one of our most important defenses!

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TAKE OFF THE MASK? NOT THESE DAYS!

 One of the memorable scenes in the inimitable review  New Faces of 1952 was the song Take Off the Mask, where, during a masquerade ball, the young man asks the young lady to remove her mask! 

Click the URL below see this performed, immediately after the "Waltzing in Venice" number, about 1:40 minutes into the scene.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80jAlW_SjGo

(Then press < to return to this page!) 

           

The last lines "Take off the mask, that's all that I ask you to do!  Take off the false face and just let me waltz face to face with you!" still resonate for me almost seventy years later!  

And they do so especially today, May 14, 2021,  since the Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced that fully vaccinated people no longer need masks in most settings!

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/05/13/cdc-says-fully-vaccinated-people-dont-need-to-wear-face-masks-indoors-or-outdoors-in-most-settings.html

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For more about New Faces of 1952 please visit:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Faces_of_1952#Broadway_production     

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KETUBAH OR KVITL?

 Perhaps the small document I was given to demonstrate my immunized status would more accurately be called a "kvitl."  

The word "kvitl," which may be also spelled kvitel, with it's diminutive form "kvitelach," is discussed at: 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kvitel

This is a small slip of paper, inscribed with a prayer and often blessed by clergy,  that may be carried, left at a grave, or inserted in a gravestone.  

My COVID-19 kvitel is a small document stating when and where I received my COVID-19 immunization, and which product was used.

I carry a copy with me at all times!  

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WHO IS AMERICA'S DOC IN 2021?

Decades ago when babies went amok,

Their parents turned for help to Dr. Spock!

Now these babes are grown & scared & grouchy, 

For COVID help they turn to Dr. Fauci! 

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THE CRY AND THE COVENANT: A NOVEL FOR TODAY!

In the early 1950's when I was in high school we were assigned to read The Cry and the Covenant, a novel by Morton Thompson (who also authored the then best seller "Not as A Stranger" which became a hit movie.)

The Cry and the Covenant, published in 1949, is the topic of a Wikipedia article: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Cry_and_the_Covenant.

This was a semi-fictional account based largely on the life of Ignaz Semmelweis, an Austrian-Hungarian physician who was concerned about "childbed fever," the popular name for a condition called puerperal fever that took the lives of many women giving birth.    

At that time, early in the 19th Century, little was known about the role of microorganisms in causing disease, and even less about how to combat them.  

But carefully observing the treatment of women in labor who were often examined by many doctors as well as medical students, Dr. Semmelweis became convinced that certain precautions were needed.  

He therefore instituted a requirement that before examining any patient, a strict procedure of washing and disinfecting hands was to be followed. 

While this drastically reduced the maternal death rate from puerperal fever, the hospital administration and senior staff only ridiculed Dr. Semmelweis and tried to countermand his orders. 

Dr. Semmelweis continued to pass out handbills to women urging them to require their doctors to wash their hands before examining them.   

For all of this, Dr. Semmelweis was considered crazy and eventually consigned to a mental institution (where he died of an infection contracted there.)  

Today, any medical institution that did not facilitate and insist on appropriate hand washing practices would likely be shut down! 

Sometimes when a political leader ridicules protective measures now in place to slow the spread of COVID19, I think of Dr. Ignaz Semmelweis.    

I would love to see The Cry and the Covenant back in print!

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ROSIE THE RIVETER RETURNS!

Rosie the Riveter, home front heroine of WWII, rolls up her sleeves again!