Increase in cardiac disease and disability from covid.

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Friday February 11, 2022 · 10:01 AM PST

2022/02/11 · 10:01

A recent large study published in Nature Medicine has shown that 12 months after covid survivors have a large increase in cardiac disease. 4.5% of covid survivors have one of a number of cardiac problems 12 months after covid diagnosis. 2.4% have suffered stroke, heart attack or death by 12 months.

By my calculations, in the US, this will translate to 3.5 million additional cases of cardiac disease and almost 2 million more heart attacks, strokes or deaths above the level expected without covid!! The number of permanently disabled people will increase by millions! This is based on 77 million cases of covid in the US, a number that will surely rise.

Science has an article summarizing and commenting on the study:

From very early in the pandemic, it was clear that SARS-CoV-2 can damage the heart and blood vessels while people are acutely ill. Patients developed clots, heart inflammation, arrythmias, and heart failure.

Now, the first large study to assess cardiovascular outcomes 1 year after SARS-CoV-2 infection has demonstrated that the virus’ impact is often lasting. In an analysis of more than 11 million U.S. veterans’ health records, researchers found the risk of 20 different heart and vessel maladies was substantially increased in veterans who had COVID-19 1 year earlier, compared with those who didn’t. The risk rose with severity of initial disease and extended to every outcome the team examined, including heart attacks, arrhythmias, strokes, cardiac arrest, and more. Even people who never went to the hospital had more cardiovascular disease than those who were never infected.

The results are “stunning … worse than I expected, for sure,” says Eric Topol, a cardiologist at Scripps Research.

https://www.science.org/content/article/covid-19-takes-serious-toll-heart-health-full-year-after-recovery

The Nature study is at: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-022-01689-3#MOESM1

Prepare for the next pandemic now.

walterc

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Wednesday August 04, 2021 · 7:34 PM PDT

2021/08/04 · 19:34

Eric Lander has an oped in the Washington Post on what we need to do now to prepare for the next pandemic. He knows what he is talking about. He was director of the Broad Institute (MIT/Harvard) and is now Biden’s science adviser and head of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/08/04/bad-covid-19-has-been-future-pandemic-could-be-worse-unless-we-act-now/

The capability to design, test and approve safe and effective vaccines within 100 days of detecting a pandemic threat (for covid-19, that would have meant May 2020); manufacture enough doses to supply the world within 200 days; and speed vaccination campaigns by replacing sterile injections with skin patches.

Diagnostics simple and cheap enough for daily home testing to limit spread and target medical care.

Early-warning systems to spot new biological threats anywhere in the world soon after they emerge and monitor them thereafter.

We desperately need to strengthen our public health system — from expanding the workforce to modernizing labs and data systems — including to ensure that vulnerable populations are protected.

And we need to coordinate actions with our international partners, because pandemics know no borders.

It is imperative that we take the current and the next pandemic seriously and are prepared. He argues that we kind of lucked out in this pandemic which is caused by a virus that was relatively well understood and we had technologies in place that were able to quickly produce a vaccine.

[edit] It appears that Landers recommendations will be the basis for the Biden’s administrations policies going forward.

Make a DIY air filter for pollution from west coast fires.

walterc

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Saturday September 12, 2020 · 12:55 PM PDT

2020/09/12 · 12:55

The west coast now has some of the worst air quality in the world caused by the forest fires. Much of this air pollution is particulates and can be filtered out. There has been research on DIY filters by residents of Beijing. Beijing DIY filter. Ideally you will have a device for measuring and test the air quality improvement with your filter. The brand name to look for is Dylos; this can also be DIYed using cheap Arduino or Raspberry pi computers. Don’t let the lack of a air quality monitor stop you.

The simplest filter can work pretty well:

take a 20”x20” box fan;

tape a 20”x20” furnace filter to the fan;

use a MERV 13 filter if available (the higher the number the better the filtration), but use what you can get.

This will work best for cleaning the air in a small single room with closed windows. I would do a better job of taping the filter to the fan than the picture; the goal is to have all the air moved by the fan to go through the filter. From what I’ve read, thicker filters put less load on the fan so the fan will last longer and you can run it at a lower speed; 4” is recommended, but 1” thick should work and is much easier to find. You can use any fan you have if you can jury rig something to ensure that almost all the air pushed by the fan goes through the fan.

There are commercial air cleaners and they work ok, but they are a lot more expensive and the replacement filters are expensive. When I lived next door to a halfway house for addicts (20 women who smoked constantly), I was having constant asthma attacks. Using the largest Honeywell air cleaner that Home Depot sold , I was able to survive in my smallest bedroom. It was like living inside a vacuum cleaner, but it worked. The goal is to stay as healthy as possible in this emergency.

wirecutter diy filter.

2.5 DAYS IN THE COVID UNIT

walterc

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Thursday June 25, 2020 · 2:10 PM PDT

2020/06/25 · 14:10

2.5 days in the Covid unit.
I am at high risk for Covid-19 because I have severe asthma. Last Monday (6/15) I had a fever of 102 and low oxygen saturation (88%). I was achy all over and had diarrhea. I was so weak that I could barely stand up. I called the hospital and the nurse on the Covid unit called an ambulance for me. I was taken to the local hospital ER (Leominster Hospital, Mass.). After an examination the ER doctor told me I probably had a mild case of Covid-19. All I can say, if that is what a mild case is like, you do not want a medium case of Covid-19! I haven’t ever been so weak and sick.
I was put into the Covid unit and my fever reached 103 before the meds brought it down. I think the highest temperature I ever had before was under 102; I don’t normally run any fever unless I am really sick. The rapid Covid test was negative, but the rapid tests give lots of false negatives (20-40%). The slow test needed to be sent to the lab at U Mass. Memorial hospital in Worcester and I would not get the results until the next evening. These tests were not as nasty as I had heard. On Tuesday (6/16) I felt considerably better but still had a low fever and an oxygen saturation lower than my normal.
Tuesday night, my slow Covid test came back negative. Since I had most of the symptoms of Covid, they did another slow test. This time they made sure they got any virus lurking in my head using a swab technique similar to the process developed by the Egyptians for mummification: “Excerebration: they first draw out part of the brain through the nostrils with an iron hook.” At least, that is what it felt like. Actually, though painful, the pain only lasts a few seconds. My second Covid test also came back negative Wednesday night. At that point they turned off the noisy machine that kept the room at a negative pressure, keeping the virus from escaping. The next morning I was moved into a regular, non-covid, ward. I was on that floor until Saturday (6/20) when I was discharged. I did not have Covid-19, but I did have a very nasty respiratory virus.
The nurses, nurses aids and doctors who treated me in the Covid ward were superb. They were very professional, competent and caring. They took really good care of me. It was also a real pain of a job. Each time they came into my room, they had to suit up and then unsuit when they left. They had a variety of masks, with all using more than one layer of protection. Most had face shields plus some sort of fancy mask, some had just an N95 mask with a surgical mask over it.
All the doctors treating me were immigrants who went to medical school abroad. Most of the nurses and nurses aids on the Covid unit were minorities and/or immigrants. I presume they volunteered for this dangerous job. Almost all the nurses and nurses aids on the non-Covid floor were not minorities or immigrants. They also took good care of me.
This small hospital did not have large numbers of Covid patients or regular patients. I suspect that a Covid patient in bad shape would have been transferred to the main hospital in Worcester. If I had needed the ICU, I probably would have asked to be transferred to Worcester. It also did not appear to have large numbers of non-Covid patients. Indeed, the non-Covid floor I was on was being shut down as I was discharged. This makes me worry about the fate of smaller hospitals.
I felt OK by the time I was discharged, but tired. I am OK now, but still kind of tired. The most disturbing part of the experience is that somehow I caught this virus. Because of Covid-19, I was being very very careful. I’ve stayed home and only gone stores for groceries and only gone to stores that are taking significant precautions (small numbers of customers in the store, everyone masked, carts sanitized).
Some recommendations: wear the best mask you can at all times when near people; wash hands after stores; minimize trips to stores; socially isolate as much as possible; if possible have somebody young drop off groceries and meds for you. Finally, be sure to have a thermometer and get a pulse oximeter for measuring oxygen saturation (Amazon has them again). If you have a significant temperature and your oxygen saturation is below 90% call your hospital; if they tell you to go to the hospital get an ambulance! I really would not have been safe driving myself.

Covid-19: 42239 US deaths in May

walterc

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Monday June 01, 2020 · 11:30 AM PDT

2020/06/01 · 11:30

Covid-19 deaths in the USA for May: 42239.

Covid-19 deaths in the USA for April: 58,705.

Decline in deaths April to May: 16366.

All of the decrease is due to NY and NJ. Indeed in the other 48 states, deaths increased from April to May by 1008 deaths.

[Numbers are calculated from Worldometer]

More than 530 health care workers have died of Covid-19. Health care worker, deaths.

With many states opening businesses, stores, etc., I expect cases to rise significantly. After a lag of several weeks, deaths will also rise significantly. For example, after the unmasked crowds seen at bars at Lake of the Ozarks, public health officials reported that someone partying there tested positive shortly afterwards and that anyone present should self isolate. Many people were exposed by this person.

The epidemiology will be brutal. Talk of a second peak is nonsense. Cases and deaths will rise, not decline, until this is taken seriously. Effective masks must be worn in public, especially indoors. Social distances must be maintained. Businesses cannot be opened until workers are tested frequently and PPE must be provided to workers. In the whole country there must be a national campaign of testing, contact tracing and isolation.

Numbers of cases and deaths are underestimated, because of reporting lags, lack of testing, incorrect causes of deaths (intentional and unintentional).

Eavan Boland, powerful Irish poet has died.

walterc

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Saturday May 02, 2020 · 2:03 PM PDT

2020/05/02 · 14:03

Sadly, the great Irish poet, Eavan Boland, died this week. Eavann Boland obituary.

Her poem Quarantine is about the Irish famine, when the English starved a million people to death:

Quarantine

Eavan Boland - 1944-2020

In the worst hour of the worst season
of the worst year of a whole people
a man set out from the workhouse with his wife.
He was walking—they were both walking—north.

She was sick with famine fever and could not keep up.
He lifted her and put her on his back.
He walked like that west and west and north.
Until at nightfall under freezing stars they arrived.

In the morning they were both found dead.
Of cold. Of hunger. Of the toxins of a whole history.
But her feet were held against his breastbone.
The last heat of his flesh was his last gift to her.

Let no love poem ever come to this threshold.
There is no place here for the inexact
praise of the easy graces and sensuality of the body.
There is only time for this merciless inventory:

Their death together in the winter of 1847.
Also what they suffered. How they lived.
And what there is between a man and woman.
And in which darkness it can best be proved.

Snow, Snow, Snow Blower Advice.

walterc

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Thursday December 05, 2019 · 9:48 AM PST

2019/12/05 · 09:48

I have 30” of snow and a 200’ driveway. My car is stuck next to the house with tons of snow between me and the road. The guy who plows for me and my neighbor never showed up and is not returning his calls. Everybody who plows around here is slammed with work and not taking new customers. Anyway, I don’t need sympathy because I’m already feeling sorry enough for myself. I live in a very rural area and it’s a pain not being able to get my car out.

I do need Advice: should I consider getting a snowblower?

I am 76 years old and not as fit as I used to be. I have asthma and am sometimes short of breath even with meds, and sometimes OK. It gets cold as hell here and very windy, but that doesn’t bother me as much as most people and I have the clothing for Arctic conditions. We typically get smaller storms, but 18” is not unusual.

From reading, some of the newer snowblowers can handle the snow we get fine. They have power steering, electric start and even heated handles. The question is, is it too physically demanding for someone of my age? If anyone has a modern snowblower with power steering, how do physically demanding do you find it?

Also, I don’t have a garage to store it in, so I’d be covering it with tarps for the winter anyway.

An adequate snow blower for my conditions would not be cheap, $1000+. For anyone looking to research snow blowers for themselves, these are the two good resources I found:

https://thewirecutter.com/reviews/best-snow-blowers/

even better: https://movingsnow.com

5 storms with 3 feet of rain in 2 years.

walterc

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Saturday September 21, 2019 · 11:32 AM PDT

2019/09/21 · 11:32

School strike for climate 13 months apart.

Five storms have dumped more than 3’ of rain on the US in 2 years:

60.58” 2017 Harvey (Texas)

58” 2018 Lane (Hawaii)

43.15” 2019 Imelda (Texas)

37.9” 2017 Maria (Puerto Rico)

35.93” 2018 Florence (North Carolina) [Tropical storms with highest rainfall.]

Hurricane Dorian was a near miss with over 3’ of rain in the Bahamas. Dorian was the fifth Category 5 Atlantic hurricane in five years!

Hurricanes are heat engines, so higher air and water temperatures provide the energy for stronger storms. Warmer air holds more water, enabling harder rains. Climate change seems to causing these strong storms to move slowly; Hurricane Dorian basically stalled out, moving slower than 1 mph at times. The slower forward motion of these storms seems to be caused by slower wind currents and probably caused by much higher temperatures in the Arctic.

[researchers] think it's caused by a general slowdown of atmospheric circulation (global winds), both in the tropics, where the systems form, and in the mid-latitudes, where they hit land and cause damage.

Hurricanes are steered and carried by large-scale wind flows, "like a cork in a stream," said Tim Hall, a hurricane researcher with NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies and author of the study. So, if those winds slow down or shift direction, it affects how fast hurricanes move forward and where they end up.

…

"in the broadest sense, global warming makes the global atmospheric circulation slow down," said NOAA hurricane expert Jim Kossin, co-author of the June study.

He said scientists suspect the overall slowing of winds is at least partly due to rapid warming of the Arctic. The temperature contrast between the Arctic and the equator is a main driver of wind. Since the Arctic is warming faster than lower latitudes, the contrast is decreasing, and so are wind speeds.

Why Are Hurricanes Like Dorian Stalling, and Is Global Warming Involved?

Finally, my thanks to Greta and the other students striking for climate.

Diet Eman, Dutch Resistance hero, saved Jews during WW2, dies at 99.

walterc

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Monday September 09, 2019 · 9:37 AM PDT

2019/09/09 · 09:37

Diet Eman hid and supported Dutch Jews in WW2 at great personal risk. She passed away on Sept. 3. She also volunteered for many years at a health clinic for the uninsured.

The courage of Diet and others who saved Jews from the Nazis is an inspiration.

[she worked] in a resistance group known as HEIN. Its 16-odd members named themselves for Sietsma, according to Yad Vashem; the moniker was also a Dutch acronym for “helping each other in need.”

The group provided hiding places, money, ration cards and false identification papers to Jews, in addition to assisting downed Allied pilots and other refugees from the Nazi authorities. In all, about 25,000 Jews went into hiding in the Netherlands. Some two-thirds survived, according to the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. WAPO: Diet Eman obituary

Half the members of HEIN were killed by the Nazis, including her fiance.

“I was caught and imprisoned. The cell for one person held five. It had no toilet, no water to get clean. I was in danger all the time but never alone. Every day, I recited verses from Psalms: ‘Though my enemies surround me, You are with me.’

“When they took me for questioning, I refused to admit that I knew German. At the start of the occupation, I had already stopped speaking German. So they had to get a translator. That worked out well, as it gave me time to figure out what to tell them.

“It was a terrible time.” Dutch Resistance Rescuer Recounts Her Story Of Saving Jewish Lives

American society also seemed to be changing for the worse, she said.

“The neo-Nazis started to show up again,” Ms. Eman wrote. “When the war ended we all said, ‘This can never happen again.’ But now polls show that 22 percent of the U.S. population does not believe there was a Holocaust. The story has to be retold so that history does not repeat itself.” WAPO: Diet Eman obituary

Air pollution at Mono Lake (CA): climate change?

walterc

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Monday March 25, 2019 · 1:25 PM PDT

2019/03/25 · 13:25

I checked airnow.gov and noticed that parts of CA and NV had astounding levels of air pollution — PM10 of 1447, beyond Beijing levels. A little checking showed that this reading was at Mono Shores on Mono Lake, CA. There did not seem to be fires in the area.

My best guess is that this is a dust storm caused by climate change combined with Los Angeles’s need for water. Dust from exposed lake bed causes very high levels of particulate pollution in spring and fall.

Scientists say climatic shifts, however, are bringing less snow to the Sierra Nevada and less snowmelt to Mono Lake. That means if Los Angeles keeps taking its allocated share, it will lead to a decline in lake levels and increased health risks for those exposed to windblown dust from the receding shoreline, according to the Great Basin Unified Air Pollution Control District.

To protect Mono Basin’s ecosystem and airshed, regulatory officials say, will require drafting new predictive models of precipitation, temperature and evaporation rates to control diversions into an aqueduct system that has transformed the ancient brine lake into the largest source of powder-fine air pollution in the United States.

A changing climate at Mono Lake could mean more dust storms in the Eastern Sierra — or less water for L.A.

If I have reached the wrong conclusion and there is some other local phenomenon that explains, this please comment.

TX22, Sri Preston Kulkarni: a smart campaign in 13 languages.

walterc

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Friday October 19, 2018 · 2:51 PM PDT

2018/10/19 · 14:51

Sri Preston Kulkarni is the Democratic candidate in Texas’s 22nd congressional district. TX22 is a very diverse district, with 100 languages spoken. A large part of the district is Fort Bend County, 65% minority.

The campaign has held phone banks in 13 languages, including six major dialects spoken in India and a Nigerian language called Igbo. Organizers have dispatched volunteers to micro-target tiny communities. It has taken a street-by-street approach to outreach that has already paid dividends. When Kulkarni defeated four challengers for the Democratic nomination, his campaign’s internal figures show that they increased the Asian-American percentage of the primary electorate from 6 percent in 2014, the last midterm election, to 28 percent in 2018.

...

Olson has derided Kulkarni as an “Indo-American who’s a carpetbagger,” but it is Olson who’s the relative newcomer. Kulkarni’s family can trace its lineage back to migrants from the 1600s — and he is descended directly from the founding father of Texas, Sam Houston. Texas: It’s complicated.

...

Kulkarni spent 14 years in the foreign service, with tours in Iraq, Israel, Russia, Taiwan, and Jamaica. He speaks six languages fluently (English, Spanish, Hindi, Mandarin Chinese, Hebrew, and Russian). Hasanali told me about Kulkarni visiting the Texas Democratic Party convention, discussing working in Iraq at the Muslim caucus, and cracking jokes in Hebrew at the Jewish caucus.

TEXAS CANDIDATE’S RADICAL APPROACH TO TURNING OUT ASIAN-AMERICAN NON-VOTERS: TALKING TO THEM (IN 13 DIFFERENT LANGUAGES)

There are two good diaries on DKos about this district:

Republicinsanity’s Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day: Pete Olson and Laura Clawson’s Racism lands among the top Republican campaign strategies for 2018.

He looks pretty good on issues https://kulkarniforcongress.com/

I’ll have to look at his positions in more detail, but will probably contribute to his campaign. I suspect that he will become a star.

A Judge Should Avoid Impropriety and the Appearance of Impropriety

walterc

Community (This content is not subject to review by Daily Kos staff prior to publication.)

Wednesday September 26, 2018 · 9:16 AM PDT

2018/09/26 · 09:16

Code of Conduct for United States Judges

The standard of conduct for all judges is that they must avoid the appearance of impropriety.

An appearance of impropriety occurs when reasonable minds, with knowledge of all the relevant circumstances disclosed by a reasonable inquiry, would conclude that the judge’s honesty, integrity, impartiality, temperament, or fitness to serve as a judge is impaired. Public confidence in the judiciary is eroded by irresponsible or improper conduct by judges. A judge must avoid all impropriety and appearance of impropriety. This prohibition applies to both professional and personal conduct. A judge must expect to be the subject of constant public scrutiny and accept freely and willingly restrictions that might be viewed as burdensome by the ordinary citizen.

There are numerous instances of Kavanaugh violating this code:

He accepted emails stolen from Democratic staff, then lied about it in his Senate confirmation hearings for district court and Supreme Court.

his choir boy interview with Fox, when there are numerous reports of his binge drinking in high school, college and law school; these reports include his own statements. [https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2018/9/26/1798811/-More-Yale-alum-refute-Kavanaugh-s-choir-boy-image-You-can-t-lie-your-way-onto-the-Supreme-Court]

He made an “implausible plea of ignorance about Kozinski” and his sexual improprieties.

He mislead congress repeatedly in his 2004 confirmation emails [Brett Kavanaugh’s habit of dissembling makes it hard to take his word over Ford’s, article explores Kavanaugh’s lies].

He is plausibly accused of sexual assault of 2 or 3 or 4 women.

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