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China logs nearly 13,000 COVID deaths in a week

China claimed practically 13,000 COVID-related fatalities in hospitals involving January 13 and 19, soon after a top health formal mentioned the wide vast majority of the populace experienced already been infected.

The death toll came a week just after China reported almost 60,000 individuals experienced died with COVID in hospitals in just more than a month—but there has been widespread skepticism about formal info considering that Beijing abruptly axed anti-virus controls past month.

China’s Heart for Illness Manage and Prevention (CDC) stated in a assertion on Saturday that 681 hospitalized people had died of respiratory failure caused by coronavirus infection, and 11,977 experienced died of other disorders put together with an infection about the time period.

The figures do not incorporate anyone who died at home.

Airfinity, an impartial forecasting firm, has believed day by day COVID deaths in China will peak at about 36,000 around the Lunar New Yr vacation.

The company also estimated that far more than 600,000 men and women have died from the condition because China deserted the zero-COVID policy in December.

China has passed the peak interval of COVID patients in fever clinics, crisis rooms and with vital circumstances, Guo Yanhong, an official from the National Overall health Commission explained to a news convention on Thursday.

‘No 2nd wave’

Tens of hundreds of thousands of people have traveled across the nation in the latest times for prolonged-awaited reunions with households to mark Sunday’s Lunar New 12 months, increasing fears of fresh outbreaks.

China’s transportation authorities have predicted that more than two billion trips will be manufactured this thirty day period into February, in 1 of the world’s premier mass movements of folks.

President Xi Jinping Wednesday expressed concerns above the spread of the virus in rural China, much of which lacks medical methods.

But a major health and fitness official mentioned China would not working experience a next wave of infections in the months after the festive migration, mainly because almost 80 {bf0515afdcaddba073662ceb89fbb62b6b1bf123143c0e06b788e1946e8c353f} of the population had already been contaminated by the virus.

“Despite the fact that a substantial number of folks traveling through the Spring Festival may well market the unfold of the epidemic to a particular extent… the recent wave of epidemic has previously infected about 80 per cent of the folks in the country,” Wu Zunyou, chief epidemiologist at the CDC, stated in a put up on China’s Twitter-like Weibo system on Saturday.

“In the quick term, for illustration, in the upcoming two to 3 months, the likelihood of… a next wave of the epidemic throughout the country is extremely modest.”

People in central China’s Wuhan, where the very first coronavirus bacterial infections were reported in late 2019, celebrated the arrival of the Calendar year of the Rabbit on Saturday night time with fireworks, flowers and choices to beloved ones they lost to the virus.

Quotation:
China logs approximately 13,000 COVID deaths in a 7 days (2023, January 22)
retrieved 22 January 2023
from https://medicalxpress.com/information/2023-01-china-covid-fatalities-week.html

This doc is issue to copyright. Apart from any reasonable working for the objective of non-public analyze or exploration, no
portion may perhaps be reproduced devoid of the published authorization. The material is delivered for facts reasons only.

Long Covid can be debilitating, even for healthy kids

CNN
—

Jessica Rosario loved watching her 15-year-old, Eliana, play flute with the rest of the marching band during Open Door Christian School football games. But after the homecoming game in 2021, she got an alarming call from the Ohio school’s band director.

Rosario’s daughter was on the floor of the band room, clutching her chest.

“We ran up to the school, went into the band room, and I found her laying on the floor with her legs elevated on a chair, and I’m looking at her, and she’s not really moving,” Rosario said.

The freshman couldn’t speak or stand. When paramedics transported her to the ambulance, she was dead weight, her mom says.

Eliana’s condition turned out to be an extreme form of long Covid. She’s one of potentially millions of US children who have symptoms long after their initial infection.

Children – even healthy teens and the very young – can have long Covid, several studies have found, and it can follow an infection that’s severe or mild.

Eliana Rosario needed intense physical therapy because of long Covid.

When Eliana collapsed, EMTs rushed her to University Hospitals Elyria Medical Center.

“We had a room full of doctors. They were there ready to go, which I totally believe that God was in control of everything at this point,” Rosario said.

Eliana’s blood tests, toxicology screens, chest X-ray and CT scan all looked OK, but she still had this strange paralysis. The hospital transferred her to UH Rainbow Babies & Children’s and hoped that the experts there could solve the mystery.

“I was praying all this time for God to do a miracle and guide these doctors and nurses to shine some light on whatever it was that was causing this,” Rosario said.

Eliana and the rest of the family had caught the coronavirus over Christmas 2020. Eliana’s case was mild, her mother says, but weeks after she recovered, she developed chest pain, heart palpitations and lightheadedness. Tests didn’t show any problems, and a pediatric cardiologist gave her the all-clear.

The temporary paralysis came later. It went away and returned. The medical team eventually determined that Eliana’s chest pain and her elevated heart rate may have been related to inflammation due to Covid-19 – 10 months before the trip to the hospital.

Doctors officially diagnosed her with Covid-related postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome or POTS, a blood circulation disorder that causes an elevated heart rate when standing.

Eliana had long Covid, also called post-Covid or long-haul Covid.

“I had never heard of long haul until we were in the hospital,” Rosario said.

More than a quarter of kids who get Covid-19 may develop long-term symptoms, according to a study from June. A 2021 study suggested that it may be even more; more than half of children between ages 6 and 16 in that study had at least one Covid-19 symptom that lasted more than four months.

There’s no specific test or treatment for long Covid for kids or adults.

covid long hauler symptoms gupta dnt vpx

Mount Sinai launches post-Covid care center for long-haulers

Symptoms can include fatigue, rash, stomachache, headache, muscle ache, loss of smell and taste, circulation problems, trouble concentrating and pain, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics.

The vast majority of children recover – sometimes even faster than adults do, according to UNICEF. But in some cases, kids can have symptoms for months or more.

It’s still not clear why some kids develop long Covid and others don’t, but experts do know that children and adolescents don’t have to have been severely ill with Covid-19 to get long-term symptoms. Several institutions, including the National Institutes of Health, have studies underway to learn more.

Physical therapy helped Eliana Rosario get back to her usual self.

Dr. Amy Edwards, associate medical director of pediatric infection control at UH Rainbow Babies & Children’s, manages the hospital’s long Covid clinic and says she has been booked solid since she started seeing children with the condition in early 2021.

“We just started seeing patients, and it slowly spread like wildfire,” Edwards said.

“Looking at our first 60 patients that came to our clinic, we found that about 13{bf0515afdcaddba073662ceb89fbb62b6b1bf123143c0e06b788e1946e8c353f} of our patients had these functional neurologic deficits.”

These are conditions in which it appears the nervous system isn’t working the way it should, but doctors can’t figure out why.

“In the case of our kids, it most always presents with loss of limb function, an inability to walk or move an arm, something like that,” Edwards said. “When you’re talking about 60 kids, 13{bf0515afdcaddba073662ceb89fbb62b6b1bf123143c0e06b788e1946e8c353f} is a big number, especially when you’re talking about loss of limb function that has to be regained with physical therapy. It’s not a rare 1{bf0515afdcaddba073662ceb89fbb62b6b1bf123143c0e06b788e1946e8c353f} complication.”

It doesn’t help that not everyone believes these children are sick. The Rosarios and their pediatricians understood, but Edwards says that more than one adult has asked her how she knows that the children aren’t just making up their symptoms for attention or to get out of school.

“One of the biggest things that I do with these kids is provide a diagnosis and reassure the families that they’re not crazy, because so many of these kids have been to see doctor after doctor after doctor who tell them they’re faking it or chalk it up to anxiety or whatever,” Edwards said. “I want to help them know they are not alone. I can’t cure them, but we can help.”

Ayden Varno needed physical therapy to regain his balance.

Lynda Varno is grateful for that help and recognition.

Her 12-year-old son, Ayden, had Covid-19 in November 2020. He recovered and seemed fine. Four months later, he used a push mower to mow the lawn of their rural Ohio home and, at bedtime, mentioned to his parents that his back hurt. When he woke up the next day, he couldn’t move.

“He was in so much pain, from his head down to his toes,” Varno said.

The local ER and, later, his pediatrician chalked it up to growing pains. But the boy who jumped on a trampoline every day, who loved to run and play football, could barely walk or move.

“That pain level was still there. Nothing was helping,” Varno said.

She spent months taking him to several hospitals, but none could find a way to ease his pain. It got so bad that it triggered nonepileptic seizures – up to 100 a day at one point, his mom said.

It wasn’t until the next year, when Varno saw Edwards talk on the news about starting a pediatric long Covid unit, that she thought things could get better.

“I just remember sitting there just sobbing because Ayden met every single thing she talked about,” Varno said. “It gave me goosebumps. I just sat there crying and saying, ‘God, thank you so much. This is what we needed.’ “

Varno got an appointment and said “it’s been a blessing ever since.”

After Ayden Varno had Covid, he had trouble standing up without getting lightheaded.

In addition to complex pediatric long Covid, Ayden had been diagnosed with orthostatic intolerance, an inability to remain upright without symptoms like lightheadedness, and dysautonomia, a dysfunction of the nerves that regulate involuntary body functions like heart rate and blood pressure.

Edwards’ clinic uses an integrated approach to long Covid treatment. Ayden’s regimen included physical therapy, acupuncture, deep breathing and cognitive behavioral therapy, as well as diet changes.

Children at the clinic are often urged to lower sugar in their diet and add more healthy whole foods. The eating plan limits animal products and emphasizes minimally processed foods, vegetables, fruits, whole grains, beans, seeds and nuts. Although more research is needed in children and adults, some early studies suggest that a plant-based diet may generally benefit adults with long Covid.

Physical therapist Sara Pesut worked with Ayden on his balance and body position.

In January 2022, Ayden started with Sara Pesut, a physical therapist at University Hospitals. She normally works with adults with functional neurological disorders, but Ayden and some of the others at the pediatric long Covid clinic were around the same age as her own children.

“It was kind of like, ‘how do I not lean into this problem and try to help if I know something that could possibly help these families?’ ” Pesut said.

He came to her first appointment in a wheelchair, she said, but after about three weeks working on balance, body position exercises and other activities, he no longer needed it.

“It just kind of evolved from there,” Pesut said. “He’s really done a wonderful job.”

Ayden went for PT for 9 months and also had some virtual visits for check-ins, as well as doing home exercises and following his therapy guidelines at home, Pesut said.

Ayden went from a point where he couldn’t feed, bathe himself or walk to running and playing sports.

“It has been like night and day from where Ayden was this time last year to now. It is a complete 180,” his mother said.

After months of physical therapy for long Covid, Ayden Varno is back to playing sports.

Edwards’ clinic isn’t the only one to see kids with these extreme symptoms.

At Johns Hopkins Children’s Center, pediatric rehabilitation physician Dr. Amanda Morrow said the main symptom is severe fatigue, but she has also seen patients like Edwards’ who have more complicated conditions.

With treatment, she believes, long Covid won’t mean a lifetime of problems for any child.

“We’re hopeful that the more we can support these kids earlier on and provide recommendations and things, we’re hopeful that that helps out their recovery or maybe doesn’t trigger them to go down this road where things are really difficult long-term,” said Morrow, who is also an assistant professor of physical medicine and rehabilitation at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

Murrow and Edwards remind parents that the best way to protect kids from long Covid is to keep them from catching the virus in the first place. Vaccinations are important, as well as precautions like wearing a mask when cases are high and washing hands thoroughly.

Eliana spent eight days in the hospital and then was treated as an outpatient at Edwards’ pediatric long Covid clinic.

“We work with them as if they’ve had a stroke, and they recover very, very well, actually,” Edwards said.

When Eliana came into the clinic, physical therapist Art Lukovich said, he had to go back to basics and figure out what would help her best.

“You don’t see stuff like this,” he said.

He had her go back to the foundations of movement and motor control, and he figured out how much he could push. “Which has definitely given me some sleepless nights and gray hairs, but definitely worth it in the end.”

“I had a sense of humility since this is a young lady that basically had her life put on pause because of this,” he added.

In eight months of physical therapy, Eliana went from a wheelchair to a walker to a cane, her mom says.

“When I saw her run for the first time in the clinic, I definitely had that moment where I was like ‘Oh, my God.’ I think her mother and I both looked at each other and thought, ‘wow!’ We didn’t completely think we could get there,” Lukovich said.

Today, Eliana is back to school and back to feeling good. She finished her freshman year with straight As.

Her mother is proud of the way she handled long Covid.

“Not once did she cry. Not once did she panic. She gave me strength every day,” Rosario said. “She’s come a long way, and with the right people in place, she’s now running and jumping and riding roller coasters.”

Dr. Leana Wen slammed after admitting there’s been ‘overcounting’ of COVID deaths: ‘TWO AND A HALF YEARS LATE’

CNN professional medical analyst and Washington Post columnist Dr. Leana Wen admitted in a column, Friday, that the clinical group is “overcounting” the volume of “COVID deaths and hospitalizations.”

Wen, who writes an occasional Washington Submit column delivering her observations on the pandemic, masking and other COVID-similar subjects, cited sources professing that most “patients identified with COVID are essentially in the clinic for some other illness.”

The article is titled, “We are overcounting COVID fatalities and hospitalizations. Which is a dilemma.”

Wen’s observations prompted audience on Twitter to complain, stating that it really is “two and a fifty percent several years late.”

Assistance Associates TERMINATED More than UNVAXXED Status COULD BE REINSTATED IN Armed forces WITH GOP-LED Bills

Dr. Leana Wen slammed after admitting there’s been ‘overcounting’ of COVID deaths: ‘TWO AND A HALF YEARS LATE’

CNN health care analyst Leana Wen wrote a column Friday claiming it appears that hospitals have been overcounting COVID-19 deaths in the U.S.
(REUTERS/Andrew Kelly)

Wen began her column with some apparent skepticism about the CDC’s hottest COVID-19 demise stats: “According to the Facilities for Condition Management and Prevention, the United States is dealing with around 400 COVID deaths each individual working day. At that price, there would be virtually 150,000 fatalities a yr. But are these Us citizens dying from COVID or with COVID?”

The health practitioner claimed that “Knowledge this difference is crucial to putting the continuing toll of the coronavirus into viewpoint. Pinpointing how likely it is an an infection will end result in hospitalization or death allows individuals weigh their very own threat.”

She spoke to two Infectious-disorder gurus, who informed her they considered “the variety of deaths attributed to COVID is much bigger than the true variety of individuals dying from COVID.”

Mentioning the initially, she wrote, “Robin Dretler, an attending doctor at Emory Decatur Hospital and the former president of Georgia’s chapter of Infectious Health conditions Culture of The usa, estimates that at his clinic, 90 p.c of individuals identified with COVID are truly in the hospital for some other ailment.”

Dretler informed the analyst, “Due to the fact every single hospitalized affected individual gets analyzed for COVID quite a few are incidentally optimistic.” Wen pointed out how people today with gunshot wounds or other significant sicknesses usually exam beneficial for the virus, and wrote, “If these sufferers die, COVID could get additional to their dying certification together with the other diagnoses. But the coronavirus was not the most important contributor to their demise and typically performed no purpose at all.”

Dretler admitted this contributed to “imprecise reporting” on COVID deaths and hospitalizations, which he additional did not arrive from a area of “undesirable intent.” He denied that there was any “conspiracy” driving it to “exaggerate coronavirus figures for some nefarious purpose.”

PENTAGON DITCHES COVID VACCINE MANDATE FOR TROOPS

A member of the Salt Lake County Health Department COVID-19 testing staff performs a test outside the Salt Lake County Health Department Tuesday, Jan. 4, 2022, in Salt Lake City. (AP Photo/Rick Bowmer)

A member of the Salt Lake County Wellbeing Office COVID-19 tests staff members performs a take a look at outside the Salt Lake County Wellness Division Tuesday, Jan. 4, 2022, in Salt Lake City. (AP Picture/Rick Bowmer)
(Linked Press)

Wen also cited infectious-ailment doctor Shira Doron, who figured out that “In current months, only about 30 per cent of total hospitalizations with COVID were generally attributed to the virus” in Massachusetts hospitals for instance.

Wen recounted Doron’s experience at Tufts Professional medical Center, producing, “During some times, she stated, the proportion of those hospitalized simply because of COVID were being as reduced as 10 per cent of the whole number described” who had COVID.

Wen added, “Doron acknowledges that there is a grey zone in the info in which COVID could not be the main bring about of loss of life but could have contributed to it.”

In direction of the finish of her piece, Wen declared, “To be obvious, if the COVID death depend turns out to be 30 percent of what’s currently claimed, which is continue to unacceptably substantial.”

Several audience on Twitter seemed discouraged with the piece, expressing that they thought the medical neighborhood experienced been counting for years now and that Wen’s information will come too late.

Epidemiologist Dr. Tracy Høeg responded to Wen’s piece, stating, “Spring 2021 [USA] experienced great evidence >40{bf0515afdcaddba073662ceb89fbb62b6b1bf123143c0e06b788e1946e8c353f} of little one COVID admissions were being incidental. 2021 Denmark introduced they’d distinguish with vs from COVID hosp. COVID+ fatalities in [Denmark] in 2022 [were] 60-70{bf0515afdcaddba073662ceb89fbb62b6b1bf123143c0e06b788e1946e8c353f} incidental.”

The health practitioner additional, “Awesome how extended it has taken the U.S. to take this is a trouble.”

ELON MUSK TEASES NEW FAUCI REVELATIONS IN Future TWITTER Documents INSTALLMENT

Center for Protection Plan senior analyst J. Michael Waller slammed the Washington Post about the column, stating, “Not extended back, the Washington Publish was contacting us conspiracy theorists for declaring such issues.”

Creator A.J. Kay tweeted, “Properly, yeah … You’d consider viewing this in legacy media would provide a emotion of vindication or resolution for those people of us who have been screaming about it because 2020, but seriously it’s just exasperation, anger, & grief. The lies caused so a lot damage.”

“The Australian” journalist Adam Creighton tweeted, “Folks declaring this a year back have been booted off social media.”

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Brownstone Institute president Jeffrey Tucker tweeted, “This is not just not long ago legitimate. It can be been accurate for 3 decades! We really do not know how quite a few actually died from COVID, which implies that not even the CFR is correct.”

Timcast workers author Adrian Norman wrote, “TWO AND A 50 {bf0515afdcaddba073662ceb89fbb62b6b1bf123143c0e06b788e1946e8c353f} Yrs LATE.”

Miami Beach, Teens in face masks shopping at Publix grocery store. (Photo by: Jeffrey Greenberg/Education Images/Universal Images Group via Getty Images)

Miami Beach front, Teenagers in encounter masks browsing at Publix grocery keep. (Photograph by: Jeffrey Greenberg/Training Images/Universal Images Team by using Getty Photographs)
(Jeffrey Greenberg/Education and learning Images/Common Images Group by means of Getty Photographs)

Gabriel Hays is an associate editor for Fox Information Electronic.

What long Covid patients need to know about health insurance

Halfpoint Images | Instant | Getty Images

Navigating the well being insurance coverage procedure is generally tough and overwhelming, even in the greatest of periods. For individuals with extensive Covid, a fairly new condition that commonly leaves people with a prolonged and unpredictable checklist of debilitating signs and symptoms, it can be particularly nightmarish.

“Even if you remain on the exact [health insurance] approach you experienced in advance of Covid, you will in all probability employ the wellbeing-care procedure far more, whether it be much more business office visits, additional prescription prescription drugs or even much more clinical equipment,” reported Caitlin Donovan, a spokesperson for the National Affected person Advocate Foundation.

Indeed, nearly 50 {bf0515afdcaddba073662ceb89fbb62b6b1bf123143c0e06b788e1946e8c353f} of individuals with prolonged Covid reported increased health-related charges, according to a recent survey conducted by the Affected person Advocate Foundation. The nonprofit, NPAF’s sister corporation, polled 64 people with the issue concerning 2020 and 2022. In the meantime, 13{bf0515afdcaddba073662ceb89fbb62b6b1bf123143c0e06b788e1946e8c353f} of respondents in the PAF survey reported they’d professional adjustments to their health and fitness-care coverage as a end result of long Covid.

Much more from Your Health, Your Income

Here is a glance at more stories on the complexities and implications of very long Covid:

In all, a single Harvard College researcher estimated that extensive Covid could go away individuals with an extra $9,000 a 12 months in medical expenditures.

Here is what you want to know about navigating overall health insurance policies with the problem.

Unemployed prolonged Covid sufferers have protection solutions

Between 2 million and 4 million complete-time workers are out of the labor force because of to extended Covid, according to modern investigation from the Brookings Establishment.

If very long Covid results in you to shed or depart your task and, therefore, your employer-sponsored health insurance policy, do not stress. You could have many selections for getting new protection, said Karen Pollitz, a senior fellow at the Kaiser Relatives Foundation.

There are means you can flip to for assist selecting the best route to finding reinsured. If you have a identified issue, such as long Covid, you may well be able to get support determining on and enrolling in a system with the Individual Advocate Foundation.

At no charge, you can also seek advice from with a area overall health-treatment “navigator,” an qualified who can enable you look for insurance coverage ideas and enroll in 1 on the Very affordable Care Act’s market.

1. Be a part of a household member’s approach

Losing your occupation-dependent protection triggers a 30-day particular enrollment prospect to sign up for a relatives member’s program, Pollitz reported. You could possibly consider getting protected by means of your spouse’s employer or a parent’s, if you are below 26.

2. Extend workplace coverage

If your former enterprise had at minimum 20 employees, you might also have the alternative to get insured via the Consolidated Omnibus Funds Reconciliation Act, or COBRA, Pollitz stated.

COBRA commonly makes it possible for individuals who leave a company to remain on their place of work coverage system for up to 18 months — despite the fact that it truly is not low cost. (It tends to be pricey since you decide on up the element of the well being insurance tab your former company was covering.)

There are exceptions that can extend coverage. If the Social Security Administration considers you disabled (very long Covid can qualify as a incapacity), you may well be equipped to remain on COBRA for an supplemental 11 months. Those who qualify for Medicare close to the time they portion with a corporation may possibly also qualify for an extension beyond the usual 18 months.

3. See if you qualify for Medicaid

If your job decline has remaining your residence with a considerably reduced money, you may well be in a position to enroll in Medicaid, Pollitz stated. “This is in depth community protection with no month to month quality,” she said. Eligibility is primarily based on your present-day money, Pollitz extra, and you can indication up calendar year-round.

If you are acquiring disability rewards from a non-public insurer and/or by way of your employer, that revenue will not likely necessarily disqualify you for Medicaid you’ll want to check whether or not the payments are subject matter to taxes.

“If the added benefits are taxable as revenue, then they would depend toward Medicaid eligibility,” Pollitz mentioned.

Even if you continue being on the identical plan you experienced prior to Covid, you will in all probability use the overall health-care method a lot more.

Caitlin Donovan

spokesperson at the Affected person Advocate Basis

4. Signal up for a program on the community trade

Very long Covid patients who have lately turn out to be unemployed could also be ready to get health insurance coverage on the Affordable Treatment Act’s marketplace. Getting rid of your position triggers a 60-day enrollment period of time on the marketplace, where quite a few of the ideas are backed.

“Fortunately, ACA insurers are not authorized to discriminate based mostly on overall health,” mentioned Jonathan Gruber, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technological know-how and a previous director of the wellness-care software at the National Bureau of Financial Research. “So acquiring long Covid will not increase charges.”

5. Take a look at Medicare eligibility

Lastly, if you conclusion up qualifying for Social Protection Disability Insurance mainly because of your extensive Covid, you may grow to be suitable for Medicare, even if you might be more youthful than 65, after a two-calendar year ready period of time.

If you happen to be already 65 or more mature when you reduce your position, Medicare might be your very best option for protection, Donovan reported.

“Medicare comes with the reward of an nearly common community, in contrast to market options,” Donovan claimed, adding that delaying enrollment at the time you’re qualified can also subject you to economic penalties.

Used clients ought to evaluate positive aspects

If your situation of extensive Covid has not disrupted your work and you remain insured at perform, you can expect to want to make absolutely sure you are signed up in a sturdy program, Donovan claimed.

A much more in depth place of work strategy generally will come with a higher month to month quality but decreased out-of-pocket costs and a lot more options, Donovan mentioned. It’s in particular significant, she included, that you get the most generous prescription drug program, if your organization offers a variety of them.

Teach you as substantially as you can about your coverage, Donovan reported, including information on companies and solutions that you could previously not have viewed as.

Extended Covid clients, for example, normally find physical therapy and psychological overall health companies, she stated.

You can also want to make positive you might be up to day on your employer’s compensated time off and unwell days coverage.

Medical trials are ‘worth investigating’

Medical trials, several of which are covered by wellness insurance coverage plans, can be a fantastic alternative for long Covid individuals, Donovan reported.

“Prolonged Covid is even now new, so any person who participates in a clinical demo will be contributing to our being familiar with of the ailment and advancing our capability to handle it,” she said.

What long Covid patients need to know about health insurance

And, she extra, “scientific demo individuals could have access to the latest protected and efficient therapies.”

Trials get location all over the place, and some are even digital, Donovan stated. People can find out extra at clinicaltrials.gov and by conversing to their health practitioner.

Continue to keep in brain, Donovan claimed, that your health insurance approach may perhaps require any trials be in-network and it may perhaps only include certain expenditures of the expertise.

Continue to, Donovan said, “it is worthy of investigating.”

In the meantime, people on the lookout to conserve revenue on prescription prices should inquire about generic selections, which tend to be cheaper than the brand name-title medications.

In addition, Donovan reported, plans like GoodRx may well aid you slice costs on particular medications. And the Affected person Advocate Foundation has a charitable copay program to which those people struggling fiscally can implement.

Last but not least, Donovan mentioned, with so significantly still unknown about very long Covid, insurers could be extra very likely to reject coverage for a individual treatment or provider. Patients really should combat back again, she stated.

“You should not drop hope,” Donovan stated. “Go by the charm approach: Around 40{bf0515afdcaddba073662ceb89fbb62b6b1bf123143c0e06b788e1946e8c353f} of denials are overturned in the patient’s favor.”

New COVID omicron subvariant XBB.1.5 is ‘spreading like wildfire’ in US: Health experts reveal why

The new omicron subvariant, known as XBB.1.5, is spreading like wildfire across the U.S.

As colder weather brings in peak COVID infections, this novel mutation is beginning to worry health professionals.

So, what are some of the unique features of the strain that is now gripping swaths of the country?

THE NEW OMICRON SUBVARIANT XBB.1.5: WHAT YOU MUST KNOW NOW

First, this subvariant is immuno-evasive. It’s not as susceptible to natural immunity or vaccines — and it is very contagious, health professionals say.

In a phone interview with Fox News Digital, Fox News medical contributor Dr. Marc Siegel explained that there are actually two subvariants at play: XBB and XBB.1.5.

New COVID omicron subvariant XBB.1.5 is ‘spreading like wildfire’ in US: Health experts reveal why

Fox News medical contributor Dr. Marc Siegel, pictured, said that the XBB subvariants sweeping parts of the nation are “highly contagious,” with spike proteins acting like “suction cups.”
(Fox News)

XBB.1.5 is more contagious, said Dr. Siegel, who is also a professor of medicine at NYU Langone Medical Center in New York City.

It’s more contagious due to its ability to grip tightly onto a host, he explained.

“The spike proteins are like suction cups,” he said.

“Viruses always want to be more and more transmissible and infect more hosts.”

“So, the more it can get a grip … the more easily it transmits from cell to cell,” he added.

CDC: FLU SEASON STARTING TO WANE AFTER BRUTAL START, INCLUDING AT LEAST 12,000 DEATHS

Both XBB subvariants are “highly contagious,” Siegel added, since each omicron variant is “out-competing its predecessor.”

Dr. Shad Fani Marvasti, associate professor and director of public health and prevention at the University of Arizona College of Medicine – Phoenix, told Fox News Digital that each new strain develops with the intention of overshadowing those that went before it.

Dr. Shad Marvasti, associate professor and director of public health and prevention at the University of Arizona College of Medicine – Phoenix, said he hopes that COVID variants will become “less severe.”
(Shad Marvasti, MD, MPH)

“Viruses always want to be more and more transmissible and infect more hosts,” he said.

In some cases, there’s a “trade-off” between mutations, in which some may become more transmissible but less virulent in terms of the health impact, Marvasti also said.

This is the hope for omicron and its developing variants, such as the “sticky” XBB, he noted.

‘GREAT CONCERN’: INVASIVE GROUP A STREP CASES SPIKING IN SOME PARTS OF US — CDC IS INVESTIGATING

He said he hopes that “we start seeing [the variants becoming] less severe,” he said.

“And that can be both a function of the evolution of the virus … and also the fact that more people have been exposed to the virus through either vaccination boosters or previous infections,” he said.

A nurse administers a pediatric dose of the COVID-19 vaccine to a young girl. Dr. Marc Siegel noted that since fewer hospitalizations are occurring with current COVID subvariants, they are actually less severe, though health professionals are not sure why this is.
(ROBYN BECK/AFP via Getty Images)

Dr. Siegel added that so far there’s “no evidence” that XBB is more virulent.

“If it’s spreading like wildfire and it’s not killing more people, that means it’s less virulent,” he said. “But we don’t know the reason for that.”

“It’s definitely the majority of cases in the Northeast, and we expect that to be for the whole country.”

Currently, XBB.1.5 accounts for almost 41{bf0515afdcaddba073662ceb89fbb62b6b1bf123143c0e06b788e1946e8c353f} of confirmed COVID-19 cases across the country, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

CHINA TO STOP TESTING, DISINFECTING IMPORTED FROZEN FOOD FOR COVID

The XBB mutation has picked up speed, jumping from just 21{bf0515afdcaddba073662ceb89fbb62b6b1bf123143c0e06b788e1946e8c353f} of COVID-19 cases on Christmas Eve, the CDC noted.

During the last week of December 2022, XBB.1.5 made up 75.3{bf0515afdcaddba073662ceb89fbb62b6b1bf123143c0e06b788e1946e8c353f} of COVID-19 cases in northeastern states.

Merline Jimenez, left, administers a COVID-19 nasopharyngeal swab to a person at a testing site in the international terminal at Los Angeles International Airport (LAX) in December. The XBB subvariant will likely spread across the nation, Dr. Shad Marvasti said.
(Mario Tama/Getty Images)

Those states include Connecticut, Maine, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont, the CDC said.

Even though XBB numbers are currently lower in western parts of the country, Dr. Marvasti of Arizona stressed there’s no doubt the subvariant will catch on just about everywhere else.

“It’s going to increase in the coming weeks no matter what level it’s at right now.”

“It’s definitely the majority of cases in the Northeast, and we expect that to be for the whole country,” he said.

“In Arizona, my expectation is that it’s going to climb pretty quickly, especially since we have a lot of winter visitors here this time of year, and we’re going to have more folks with the Phoenix Open and the Super Bowl,” he also said. (The Phoenix Open golf tournament takes place Feb. 6-12, 2023; the Super Bowl is Feb. 12, 2023.)

People are shown passing a COVID-19 testing site along a Manhattan street on Jan. 21, 2022 in New York City. Omincron variants are known for attacking the upper respiratory tract – the nose and sinuses – instead of the lungs, said Dr. Marvasti.
(Spencer Platt/Getty Images)

“It’s going to increase in the coming weeks no matter what level it’s at right now,” he added.

Although it’s still too soon to tell how the new strain will impact hospitalization and death rates, neither Siegel nor Marvasti is expecting a steep increase.

BELGIUM TO TEST WASTEWATER ON FLIGHTS ARRIVING FROM CHINA FOR COVID

Marvasti noted that hospitalizations have been less of an issue since omicron’s appearance.

Keeping up with vaccinations is important, yet Dr. Siegel said the constantly emerging variants question the efficacy of current vaccines on the market.

This is because omicron variants are known for attacking the upper respiratory tract — the nose and sinuses — instead of the lower respiratory tract in the lungs, he said.

“Which is one of the reasons why you see less people on ventilators,” he explained.

Fox News medical contributor Dr. Marc Siegel, at left; Dr. Shad Marvasti of University of Arizona College of Medicine, at right. A microscopic COVID germ is shown in the center. Both medical professionals encourage people to take appropriate steps to stay healthy, including wearing masks and getting vaccinated, when appropriate.
(Fox News / Dr. Shad Marvasti)

Both experts stressed that even though symptoms may be less severe, people who are at high risk or immunocompromised should continue taking appropriate steps toward prevention, including wearing masks and getting vaccinated.

“There are a lot of things you can do to help boost immunity and improve your ability to fight off infections, including COVID.”

While keeping up with vaccinations is important, Siegel said, he added that these constantly emerging variants question the efficacy of current vaccines on the market.

The XBB’s immuno-evasive properties are “bothering” health experts the most, he noted.

At a recent news briefing, Harvard Medical School assistant professor of medicine Kathryn Stephenson said that even though the original COVID vaccines may have lost some of their punch against new variants, they’re still holding up well against severe illness and death.

Jordane Domain gets a COVID-19 test done by a health care worker on Jan. 13, 2022 in North Miami, Florida. Dr. Siegel noted that more research and better funding are required for COVID prevention, which might include inhaled vaccines in the future.
(Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

One possible solution could be incorporating Omicron-updated boosters to further enhance protection, she said.

This would require more research and funding into “better” vaccines such as inhaled vaccinations, said Dr. Siegel.

“My philosophy toward protection from this virus is the more immunity you have, the better,” he said.

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In an effort for everyone to stay healthy, Dr. Marvasti encouraged practicing other ways to boost immunity, including getting enough sleep, managing stress, reducing inflammation, eating healthier, taking probiotics, staying hydrated and exercising.

“People should recognize that there are a lot of things you can do to help boost immunity and improve your ability to fight off infections including COVID,” he said.

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Those who’ve come down with either XBB subvariant can continue treating it as they would any other coronavirus case.

Siegel also recommended the prescription medication Paxlovid as a treatment in some cases, under the guidance of a doctor.

Angelica Stabile is a lifestyle writer for Fox News Digital.

Why long Covid could be ‘the next public health disaster’

Sam Norpel and her family. Norpel, 48, second from the right, got Covid-19 in December 2021 and hasn’t recovered. This chronic illness, known as long Covid, impacts up to 23 million Americans.

Kirstie Donohue

Sam Norpel used to present regular financial updates to C-suite executives.

Now, unpredictable bouts of broken, staccato speech make that impossible for the former e-commerce executive.

Despite being up to date with vaccines and boosters, Norpel, 48, got Covid-19 in December 2021, when the highly transmissible omicron variant was fueling record U.S. caseloads.

She never got better — and in fact, feels worse, with a range of debilitating symptoms that make it impossible to work.

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Here’s a look at more stories on the complexities and implications of long Covid:

Her halting speech can be triggered by something as innocuous as cold water or cool air on the skin. Extreme noise sensitivity requires her to wear noise-canceling headphones all day. She’s also endured a low-grade migraine for nearly a year, which can flare up after prolonged screen time.

When it comes to her body and mind, “the computer is just slow,” said Norpel, who lives with her family outside Philadelphia. “Right now, for me, 48 [years old] feels like 78.”

Norpel is one of millions of Americans with long Covid, also known as long-haul Covid, post-Covid or post-acute Covid syndrome. While definitions vary, long Covid is, at its core, a chronic illness with symptoms that persist for months or years after a Covid infection.

Up to 30{bf0515afdcaddba073662ceb89fbb62b6b1bf123143c0e06b788e1946e8c353f} of Americans who get Covid-19 have developed long-haul symptoms, affecting as many as 23 million Americans, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

Long Covid could be ‘the next public health disaster’…

The country is about to enter its fourth calendar year of the coronavirus outbreak, and new variants are expected to make for a tough winter.

Researchers think most Americans have had Covid-19 at this point.

Studies suggest subsequent infections raise the chances of an “adverse” outcome, including hospitalization and death. The virus has killed more than 1 million Americans to date, and some 2,000 more die each week, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Long Covid demonstrates that the virus is taking a lingering, pervasive and perhaps even more insidious toll. Medical experts have called it “the next public health disaster in the making.”

“There are just large numbers of people affected by this,” said Dr. Peter Hotez, co-director of the Center for Vaccine Development at Texas Children’s Hospital and a dean at Baylor College of Medicine.

That number will “only continue to grow” as Covid-19 continues to circulate, HHS said in a recent report.

“This could be game-changing in terms of how we do medical practice, in the same way HIV/AIDs was a game-changer,” Hotez said.

… one with a significant financial toll

But the tentacles of long Covid reach far beyond its medical impact: from the labor gap to disability benefits, life insurance, household debt, forfeit retirement savings and financial ruin.

This article is the first of a CNBC special report examining long Covid’s destructive impact on individuals, families and the U.S. economy at large.

All told, long Covid is a $3.7 trillion drag on the U.S. economy — about 17{bf0515afdcaddba073662ceb89fbb62b6b1bf123143c0e06b788e1946e8c353f} of our nation’s pre-pandemic economic output, said David Cutler, an economist at Harvard University. The aggregate cost rivals that of the Great Recession, Cutler wrote in a July report.

Cutler revised the $3.7 trillion total upward by $1.1 trillion from an initial report in October 2020, due to the “greater prevalence of long Covid than we had guessed at the time.” Even that revised estimate is conservative: It is based on the 80.5 million confirmed U.S. Covid cases at the time of the analysis, and doesn’t account for future caseloads.

Higher medical spending accounts for $528 billion of the total. But lost earnings and reduced quality of life are other sinister trickle-down effects, which respectively cost Americans $997 billion and $2.2 trillion.

“Long Covid will be around long after the pandemic subsides, impacting our communities, our health care system, our economy and the well-being of future generations,” the HHS report said.

Norpel was the household breadwinner, which allowed her husband to care for their kids. The family has been living on income from a long-term disability policy, a vestige of her old job; the funds replace just a third of her prior pay. Norpel’s husband must now juggle caretaking duties and the necessity of finding work, both for income and health insurance.

The money worries are multitude: the ability to continue funding her daughter’s college education, the odds of raiding retirement accounts or selling their home to subsist. Norpel’s 16-year old son recently wondered if he should get a job to support the family; but he doesn’t even have a driver’s license.

“All of it is just very heartbreaking,” said Norpel, adding that “long Covid changed everything.”

What is long Covid? It ‘depends on who you ask’

While there are still many unknowns about long Covid — shorthand for its scientific name “post-acute sequelae of Covid,” or PASC — what we do know so far is startling, experts say.

Anyone who’s had Covid-19 can develop the condition. People can get it regardless of the severity of their initial infection or the virus variant, according to the World Health Organization. It affects all age groups, even those who were previously fit and healthy.

Studies suggest women are at higher risk than men; one study found adult females to be twice as likely to have long-haul symptoms. People of color are also more likely to get sick due to the increased likelihood of a Covid-19 infection and less access to high-quality health care; it’s also more common in bisexual and trans people due to reduced care access and the stigma regarding their gender or sexuality, the HHS said in an October report.

New study raises serious concerns over long Covid impact

However, the medical community hasn’t arrived at an exact definition of long Covid, which complicates diagnosis and treatment.

The definition “depends on who you ask right now,” said Dr. Greg Vanichkachorn, medical director of the Mayo Clinic’s Covid Activity Rehabilitation Program.

Here are some of the points on which opinions diverge:

Cause: Doctors don’t yet know what causes long Covid. They have theories: Perhaps it’s an autoimmune disorder, like lupus or rheumatoid arthritis, whereby the virus is gone but the immune system remains active, attacking healthy cells by mistake; or maybe small blood clots develop in the brain, too small to cause a stroke but big enough to trigger neurologic issues.

Key symptoms: Long Covid has been linked to more than 200 symptoms, according to The Rockefeller Foundation. Shortness of breath, fatigue, and sleep disorders or insomnia are the most common symptoms, according to a recent global meta-analysis published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, a peer-reviewed journal. Others include anxiety, depression, body aches, headache, heart palpitations and “brain fog” — which describes challenges associated with cognition, like thinking, concentration, communication, comprehension, memory and motor function. Some sufferers have organ damage, to the heart, lungs, kidneys, skin and brain.

Duration: There’s no consistent definition of how long symptoms must persist for someone to be considered a long Covid patient. For example, the CDC says a person has long-haul symptoms if they persist beyond (or start after) one month from an initial Covid-19 infection. The WHO generally uses a three-month barometer. Different health clinics may use others still.

What experts do know is that for some, long Covid symptoms can last months or even years. About 15{bf0515afdcaddba073662ceb89fbb62b6b1bf123143c0e06b788e1946e8c353f} of people whose ailments persist three months after infection continued to experience symptoms at least 12 months after infection, according to the meta-analysis.

Meredith Hurst, a paralegal, is one of those people. Hurst caught Covid in November 2020. She was diagnosed with long Covid in December 2021; now, two years after the initial infection, she still hasn’t recovered.

The 42-year-old, who lives in Wilmington, Delaware, is unable to work and is in the process of filing for Social Security Disability Insurance — for which qualification is famously stringent. Brain fog, migraines and fatigue require her to complete the application in pieces; all of her progress, which had been saved in a draft, was recently deleted because too many days had elapsed.

Meanwhile, Hurst is struggling to make ends meet. In addition to Medicaid health benefits, she receives public assistance via food stamps. Her credit cards are “getting maxed out.”

“I don’t know if it’s for the rest of my life or not,” Hurst said of feeling long Covid symptoms.

“It will probably continue this way for me until there is a test, a medication, more research, more education for the public, for doctors,” she added. “This is going to be my experience for a while”

“It doesn’t mean forever,” Hurst said. “But for right now, this is my reality.”

‘All sorts of testing’ to try for a diagnosis

The formal diagnosis code for long Covid used by researchers and physicians is only a year old.

The CDC authorized the code (U09.9) in October 2021. An official diagnosis allows patients to more easily access long Covid-related treatments, file for disability insurance and request accommodations at work, according to the HHS report.

Yet its nebulous nature means there isn’t yet a definitive, yes-or-no lab test for it.

“There’s no diagnostic test,” said Dr. Jeff Parsonnet, an infectious disease physician who started the Post-Acute COVID Syndrome clinic at Dartmouth Hitchcock Medical Center. “It’s really a clinical diagnosis.”

Sometimes that process is straightforward: a confirmed, positive Covid-19 test result, with enough time passing after initial infection and persistent symptoms consistent with hundreds of other long Covid patients may be adequate, Vanichkachorn of the Mayo Clinic said.

But often, by the time Parsonnet sees patients at the Post-Acute COVID Syndrome clinic, they’ve had “all sorts of testing” from a primary care doctor or specialists. That might include pulmonary function tests or chest X-rays to look for heart or lung conditions, for example, magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) to identify brain inflammation or a “tilt table” test to evaluate a possible autonomic disorder.

Frustratingly for patients, such testing often comes back negative, according to medical experts, even as it adds to their financial burden.

“In many cases, the diagnosis is [long Covid] because there’s nothing else to explain the condition,” said Alice Burns, associate director of the Program on Medicaid and the Uninsured at health care nonprofit The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. “It’s the diagnosis when all other diagnoses have been ruled out.”

There are a lot of physicians or care providers who are reluctant to apply a label they see as defined as everything but the kitchen sink.

Diana Güthe

founder of Survivor Corps

That can make some physicians unwilling to entertain long Covid as a reason for health complications.

“There are a lot of physicians or care providers who are reluctant to apply a label they see as defined as everything but the kitchen sink,” said Diana Güthe, founder of Survivor Corps, referring to the litany of symptoms. Survivor Corps is a grassroots Covid advocacy group with about 250,000 members; Güthe herself had and recovered from long Covid.

Donna Pohl, 56, met with a neuromuscular specialist in mid-November to help treat nerve damage that resulted from long Covid. The visit didn’t go well.

“[The specialist] said, ‘Everyone wants to blame Covid,'” said Pohl, who lives in Bettendorf, Iowa, and was diagnosed with long Covid last December. “We are sick, not stupid or crazy.”

People — including family and friends — often write off symptoms as “byproducts of anxiety and depression, or even worse, laziness and an excuse not to work,” the HHS report said.

Neurologists would see Norpel twitch and instead focus just on her migraines, she recalled. One told her to stop reading literature on long Covid when she mentioned the disease during an appointment. “It was like Dr. ‘Mansplaining,'” she said.

She eventually had a consultation in August at the Mayo Clinic, where she was told: “We believe you — you have long Covid.”

“I started crying when the doctors spoke to me,” Norpel said.