Category Archives: Covid-19

Mike Stucka USA TODAY NETWORK| Montgomery Advertiser

Alabama reported far fewer coronavirus cases in the week ending Sunday, adding 5,770 new cases. That's down 27.5% from the previous week's tally of 7,954 new cases of the virus that causes COVID-19.

Alabama ranked 23rd among the states where coronavirus was spreading the fastest on a per-person basis, a USA TODAY Network analysis of Johns Hopkins University data shows. In the latest week coronavirus cases in the United States decreased 0.6% from the week before, with 401,433 cases reported. With 1.47% of the country's population, Alabama had 1.44% of the country's cases in the last week. Across the country, 17 states had more cases in the latest week than they did in the week before.

Montgomery County reported 236 cases and one death in the latest week. A week earlier, it had reported 343 cases and two deaths. Throughout the pandemic it has reported 66,594 cases and 993 deaths.

Last week:Montgomery County's COVID cases fall 22.2%; Alabama cases plummet 19.5%

Mid-September cases:Montgomery County's COVID cases fall 14.2%; Alabama cases plummet 32.8%

Elmore County reported 89 cases and zero deaths in the latest week. A week earlier, it had reported 152 cases and zero deaths. Throughout the pandemic it has reported 27,610 cases and 358 deaths.

Autauga County reported 56 cases and zero deaths in the latest week. A week earlier, it had reported 70 cases and one death. Throughout the pandemic it has reported 18,359 cases and 227 deaths.

Dallas County reported 17 cases and zero deaths in the latest week. A week earlier, it had reported 55 cases and zero deaths. Throughout the pandemic it has reported 10,069 cases and 254 deaths.

Lowndes County reported eight cases and zero deaths in the latest week. A week earlier, it had reported 23 cases and zero deaths. Throughout the pandemic it has reported 3,061 cases and 80 deaths.

Across Alabama, cases fell in 56 counties, with the best declines in Jefferson County, with 649 cases from 1,046 a week earlier; in Mobile County, with 188 cases from 507; and in Limestone County, with 115 cases from 272.

>> See how your community has fared with recent coronavirus cases

Within Alabama, the worst weekly outbreaks on a per-person basis were in Calhoun County with 631 cases per 100,000 per week; Covington County with 615; and Cullman County with 466. The Centers for Disease Control says high levels of community transmission begin at 100 cases per 100,000 per week.

Adding the most new cases overall were Calhoun County, with 717 cases; Jefferson County, with 649 cases; and Madison County, with 486. Weekly case counts rose in 11 counties from the previous week. The worst increases from the prior week's pace were in Calhoun, Covington and Cullman counties.

In Alabama, 73 people were reported dead of COVID-19 in the week ending Sunday. In the week before that, 83 people were reported dead.

A total of 1,517,904 people in Alabama have tested positive for the coronavirus since the pandemic began, and 20,395 people have died from the disease, Johns Hopkins University data shows. In the United States 96,070,980 people have tested positive and 1,056,416 people have died.

>> Track coronavirus cases across the United States

USA TODAY analyzed federal hospital data as of Sunday, Sept. 25. Likely COVID patients admitted in the state:

Likely COVID patients admitted in the nation:

Hospitals in 13 states reported more COVID-19 patients than a week earlier, while hospitals in 20 states had more COVID-19 patients in intensive-care beds. Hospitals in 25 states admitted more COVID-19 patients in the latest week than a week prior, the USA TODAY analysis of U.S. Health and Human Services data shows.

The USA TODAY Network is publishing localized versions of this story on its news sites across the country, generated with data from Johns Hopkins University and the Centers for Disease Control. If you have questions about the data or the story, contact Mike Stucka at mstucka@gannett.com.

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Montgomery County reported 236 additional COVID-19 cases this week - Montgomery Advertiser

Mike Stucka USA TODAY NETWORK| Green Bay Press-Gazette

Wisconsin reported 8,092 new cases of coronavirus in the week ending Sunday, down 6.3% from the previous week. The previous week had 8,635 new cases of the virus that causes COVID-19.

Wisconsin ranked 12th among the states where coronavirus was spreading the fastest on a per-person basis, a USA TODAY Network analysis of Johns Hopkins University data shows. In the latest week coronavirus cases in the United States decreased 0.6% from the week before, with 401,433 cases reported. With 1.75% of the country's population, Wisconsin had 2.02% of the country's cases in the last week. Across the country, 17 states had more cases in the latest week than they did in the week before.

Brown County reported 504 cases and one death in the latest week. A week earlier, it had reported 491 cases and two deaths. Throughout the pandemic it has reported 96,669 cases and 587 deaths.

Door County reported 45 cases and zero deaths in the latest week. A week earlier, it had reported 30 cases and zero deaths. Throughout the pandemic it has reported 8,112 cases and 78 deaths.

Kewaunee County reported 18 cases and zero deaths in the latest week. A week earlier, it had reported 16 cases and zero deaths. Throughout the pandemic it has reported 6,428 cases and 61 deaths.

Oconto County reported 47 cases and zero deaths in the latest week. A week earlier, it had reported 37 cases and one death. Throughout the pandemic it has reported 12,605 cases and 126 deaths.

Shawano County reported 73 cases and zero deaths in the latest week. A week earlier, it had reported 79 cases and one death. Throughout the pandemic it has reported 13,250 cases and 157 deaths.

Marinette County reported 74 cases and two deaths in the latest week. A week earlier, it had reported 93 cases and zero deaths. Throughout the pandemic it has reported 13,318 cases and 137 deaths.

Across Wisconsin, cases fell in 46 counties, with the best declines in Milwaukee County, with 1,275 cases from 1,528 a week earlier; in Dane County, with 1,084 cases from 1,194; and in Kenosha County, with 273 cases from 326.

>> See how your community has fared with recent coronavirus cases

Within Wisconsin, the worst weekly outbreaks on a per-person basis were in Menominee County with 483 cases per 100,000 per week; Sawyer County with 205; and Wood County with 204. The Centers for Disease Control says high levels of community transmission begin at 100 cases per 100,000 per week.

Adding the most new cases overall were Milwaukee County, with 1,275 cases; Dane County, with 1,084 cases; and Brown County, with 504. Weekly case counts rose in 25 counties from the previous week. The worst increases from the prior week's pace were in La Crosse, Racine and St. Croix counties.

In Wisconsin, 30 people were reported dead of COVID-19 in the week ending Sunday. In the week before that, 70 people were reported dead.

A total of 1,859,978 people in Wisconsin have tested positive for the coronavirus since the pandemic began, and 15,220 people have died from the disease, Johns Hopkins University data shows. In the United States 96,070,980 people have tested positive and 1,056,416 people have died.

>> Track coronavirus cases across the United States

USA TODAY analyzed federal hospital data as of Sunday, Sept. 25. Likely COVID patients admitted in the state:

Likely COVID patients admitted in the nation:

Hospitals in 13 states reported more COVID-19 patients than a week earlier, while hospitals in 20 states had more COVID-19 patients in intensive-care beds. Hospitals in 25 states admitted more COVID-19 patients in the latest week than a week prior, the USA TODAY analysis of U.S. Health and Human Services data shows.

The USA TODAY Network is publishing localized versions of this story on its news sites across the country, generated with data from Johns Hopkins University and the Centers for Disease Control. If you have questions about the data or the story, contact Mike Stucka at mstucka@gannett.com.

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Brown County reported 504 additional COVID-19 cases this week - Green Bay Press Gazette

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention updated Athens-Clarke County's COVID-19 community level to low in its most recent weekly report, according to a release from ACCs Emergency Management Office.

According to CDC data, the last time ACC had a low COVID-19 community level was in early July.

COVID-19 community levels help determine which prevention actions to take based on the most recent data, according to the CDC. Using data on hospitalizations and cases, each level helps convey how much COVID-19 is affecting areas. Communities are classified as low, medium or high based on these data.

On Sept. 1, the CDC recommended that everyone in the United States aged 12 and up get an updated COVID-19 booster before a possible surge in COVID-19 illnesses later this fall and winter. The updated doses, like the original boosters, help restore protection that may have been lost since someones last dose, but they also provide additional protection for individuals and those around them against the most recent variants.

Keeping up to date on COVID-19 vaccines is the best way to avoid severe illness, hospitalization and death caused by COVID-19, the release said. It is recommended that everyone who is eligible, including those who are moderately to severely immunocompromised, receive one dose of the updated booster at least two months after their last dose.

The Moderna COVID-19 vaccine is approved for use as a single booster dose in people aged 18 and up. The Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine is approved for use as a single booster dose in adults and children aged 12 and up, the release said.

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Athens reaches low COVID-19 community level for first time in three months - Red and Black

On Sept. 15, the Cal/OSHA Standards Board held a public hearing on a proposed non-emergency COVID-19 two-year standard. The hearing and subsequent board discussion demonstrated that there remains a great deal of disagreement about whether a non-emergency standard is needed at all, and that there are serious concerns from both management and labor representatives about the provisions currently contained in the proposed non-emergency regulation.

Throughout 2022, the state Division of Occupational Safety and Health has repeatedly stated its major objective to have a non-emergency COVID-19 standard approved in time for it to become effective upon the expiration of the current COVID-19 emergency temporary standard, no later than Jan. 1, 2023. As currently framed, the proposed non-emergency regulation would remain in effect for two years until Dec. 31, 2024.

Employer Concerns

Multiple representatives of the employer community expressed opposition to any non-emergency standard after the expiration of the current emergency temporary standard, commenting that the measure is untethered to any current underlying data or information to justify the significant regulatory burdens it would impose. In addition, employer representatives commented that the two-year duration of the proposed regulation appears entirely arbitrary, with no connection to sunsetting that might be based on factors such as declining COVID-19 case data, effectiveness of emerging preventative and treatment measures, such as additional boosters or medication, or other mitigating measures.

Meanwhile, a bill recently signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom, AB 2693, contains provisions that would end various COVID-19 related requirements on Jan. 1, 2024.

Employer representatives further argued that specific provisions in the proposed regulation would create unmanageable and extremely burdensome obligations that require the division to consider revisions to the proposed text.

For example, the proposed regulation presently defines a close contact as "sharing the same indoor space" with a COVID-positive individual for a cumulative total of 15 minutes or more over a 24-hour period during the individual's infectious period. It also would require that employers "keep a record of persons who had a close contact, including their names, contact information, and the date upon which they were provided notice of the close contact."

Multiple commentors noted that both the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the California Department of Public Health have recognized the general ineffectiveness of contact tracing in limiting the spread of COVID-19 and the enormous expenditure of time and resources that is involved with imposing a duty to perform contact tracing on employers.

In addition, AB 2693 will amend California's statute regarding COVID-19 notices (Labor Code 6409.6) so as to permit employers to meet notice obligations to employees by prominently posting notices in the workplace, rather than providing individualized notices. The text of the bill thus directly contradicts the notice requirements in the proposed regulation. Employer representatives asserted that it made no sense and may violate the state's Administrative Procedure Act for Cal/OSHA to impose a more strenuous obligation on employers.

Employer representatives also contended that the definition for an outbreak should be modified to be proportional to the size of the workforce, rather than triggered any time that three COVID-19 cases occur within an exposed group in a 14-day period. As pointed out during the meeting, this stringent definition as proposed could mean that larger employers are nearly always in an outbreak status under the regulation, resulting in numerous additional obligations.

Conversely, representatives of labor expressed strong support for continuation of COVID-19 regulations by Cal/OSHA after the expiration of the current emergency temporary standard, but asserted that the proposed regulation in its current form would be unworkable and fail to provide workers with adequate protections. Labor representatives contended that the proposed regulation is fatally flawed because it does not contain provisions requiring employers to provide exclusion pay to employees when they cannot work due to having COVID-19 or in the event of other work-related COVID-19 circumstances requiring exclusion under the regulation.

Although the public hearing demonstrated that stakeholders, including members of the Cal/OSHA Standards Board, have serious concerns about the proposed regulation, the options available to the division for addressing those concerns is limited because of the additional procedural requirements applicable to non-emergency regulations under the state's Administrative Procedure Act.

Next Steps

California employers should continue to comply with their obligations under the current emergency temporary standard through Dec. 31. They also should be aware that it remains highly likely that the board will conduct a vote by or at its Dec. 15 meeting to approve some final version of a proposed non-emergency COVID-19 regulation.

The fact that the currently proposed text met with significant opposition from all sides at the Sept. 15 meeting suggests that a final regulatory outcome may not be fully satisfactory. Nonetheless, despite significant employer concerns with the proposed non-emergency standard in its current form, it would be relatively less complex than the emergency temporary standard for employers from a compliance perspective, and it remains possible that adjustments may still occur to address problematic definitions and other concerns.

David Dixon is an attorney with Littler in Idaho. Alka Ramchandani-Raj and Melissa Peters are attorneys with Littler in Walnut Creek, Calif. Eric Compere is an attorney with Littler in Los Angeles. Krystal Weaver is an attorney with Littler in San Diego. 2022. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.

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Cal/OSHA Hearing Reflects Disagreements Over Non-Emergency COVID-19 Standard - SHRM

Sheree Gardner fills a syringe with vaccine. Rider University free COVID-19 booster clinic for students, faculty and staff, in collaboration with Capital Health, at the University in Lawrenceville, N.J. February, 15, 2022. Credit: Ed Murray

Ohio State is now offering the Pfizer bivalent COVID-19 booster vaccine through Student Health Services, the university announced in an universitywide email Sept. 18.

According to the Food and Drug Administration, the bivalent booster includes a combination of the original strain of COVID-19 and a component of the Omicron variant, which provides broader protection against newer strains.

Dr. Ashley Lipps, infectious disease physician at the Wexner Medical Center at Ohio State and graduate medical student, said it is important to get a booster shot because your immunity can wane from previous vaccination or a previous infection. The FDA authorized the booster in August, according to an Aug. 31 press release.

FDA commissioner Dr. Robert Califf said in the release the FDA encourages anyone eligible to receive a booster shot.

As we head into fall and begin to spend more time indoors, we strongly encourage anyone who is eligible to consider receiving a booster dose with a bivalent COVID-19 vaccine to provide better protection against currently circulating variants, Califf said.

Student Health Services will hold clinics for students to get the booster Wednesday mornings from 8:30-11:30 a.m. and Friday afternoons from 1-4 p.m. Starting the week of Oct. 3, the clinic will run Tuesday mornings from 8:30-11:30 a.m. and Wednesdays from 1-4 p.m.The Pfizer booster will be administered, according to the SHS website.

According to the website, vaccines are given on a walk-in basis or by appointment, which can be scheduled in the MyChart app or by phone at 614-292-4321. Upon arrival, students will need to register at the ground floor registration desk. If available, students should also bring their insurance card.

University spokesperson Dave Issacs said in an email students, faculty and staff can receive a booster for free. SHS might bill a patients insurance if they have it on file, but they will not be asked to pay out of pocket.

Those who have already been vaccinated should bring their vaccination cards to get the booster, according to the Wexner Medical Center.

Anyone can also get their booster at Wexner Medical Centers Same-Day Care locations throughout Franklin County: McCampbell Hall, 1581 Dodd Drive, 7:30 a.m. to 4 p.m., Monday through Friday 160 W. Wilson Bridge Rd., Suite 100, in Worthington, from 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., Monday through Friday

543 Taylor Ave., 8 a.m. to 4 p.m., Monday through Friday

1800 Zollinger Rd., in Upper Arlington, 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. Monday through Friday

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COVID-19 bivalent boosters now available for Buckeyes on and off-campus - OSU - The Lantern

Social and emotional learning (SEL) looms large in schooling. Just last week, an analysis of how the nations largest 100 school systems are spending their federal COVID-19 relief dollars showed that 88 percent are spending funds on social-emotional support, making it the second most popular option after facilities upgrades.

At the same time, SEL continues to be hugely controversial. Earlier this week, a National Public Radio story focused on the heated ideological debates that have suffused SEL. Earlier this year, the Washington Post proclaimed SEL a new target on the right and Salon deemed it the rights new CRT panic. Last spring, SEL played a major role in Floridas recent decision to reject dozens of textbooks, and its garnered lots of airtime in angry school board meetings.

If SEL means that teachers are making a concerted effort to promote tolerance, cultivate ... [+] relationship skills, and encourage better decision-making, then its a good and healthy thing.

What should parents and educators make of all this? Should schools be spending heavily in SEL? Are there valid concerns, or is this all just politics?

Lets try to sort some of this out. And a good place to start is by getting a little clearer on just what SEL actually is or isnt. The Collaborative for Academic, Social, and Emotional Learning (CASEL), perhaps the nations go-to authority on SEL, says that SEL is about mastering the knowledge, skills, and attitudes to develop healthy identities, manage emotions and achieve personal and collective goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain supportive relationships, and make responsible and caring decisions. In short, SEL covers a lot of ground. Thats one reason for some of the attendant conflict.

After all, theres much about SEL that appeals. Its stuff that good educators have always done, and its been a healthy course correction for schools that got test-obsessed in recent decades while giving short shrift to character development and civic formation. As CASEL board chair Tim Shriver and I noted a few years ago, Since the dawn of the republic, teachers and schools have been tasked with teaching content and modeling character. SEL can help with all of that.

In fact, while SEL can seem like a new idea, its more of a variation on a historical themethat educators cannot focus only on academic mastery but must also develop the whole child. This is an impulse that can be traced way back, to John Dewey, Rousseaus Emile, and even Platos Republic. Given all this, SELs popularity is no great surpriseespecially after the dislocations of the pandemic.

But as with so many well-meaning education reforms, SEL has a Jekyll-and-Hyde aspect. SEL can be reasonably described both as a sensible, innocuous attempt to tackle a real challenge and, too often, an excuse for a bubbled industry of education funders, advocates, professors, and trainers to promote faddish nonsense and ideological agendas. This is why SEL serves as a commonsensical encouragement to make kids feel safe and to promote good habits, and also as a justification for doing away with traditional grading, eliminating advanced math, subjecting students and staff to privilege walks, or teaching first-graders about gender identity.

School safety illustrates the fine line that SEL seeks to walk. Its a truism that kids who are relaxed, comfortable in their own skin, and able to get along with peers are less likely to disrupt classrooms or bully other kids. So, its easy to argue that promoting SEL can make schools safer. However, SEL proponents also tend to favor restorative justice as the preferred approach to accomplishing that goal. The problem is that the evidence for restorative justice is unconvincing, at best. Rather than suspending or expelling dangerous students, schools sit them down to share their feelings. While this may sometimes be life-affirming in the right hands, theres good reason to believe this stuff makes schools less safe when done rashly or clumsily (as is too often the case).

This kind of tension crops in plenty of places besides school safety. AEIs Max Eden has pointed out, for instance, that, over the past couple years, CASEL has redefined core concepts to match woke dogma. CASELs notion of self-management now incorporates resistance and transformative/justice-oriented citizenship. In its Roadmap to ReOpening, CASEL stipulates that self-awareness now entails challenging implicit biases and self-management requires practicing anti-racism. As Eden notes, none of this is morally or politically neutral. And, when SEL is interpreted in accord with such doctrines, it should surprise no one that parents and conservative activists would push back.

Look, if SEL means that teachers are making a concerted effort to promote tolerance, cultivate relationship skills, and encourage better decision-making, then its a good and healthy thing. But if SEL winds up enabling ideologues to promote their agendas, emphasize microaggressions at the expense of math, and excuse student misbehavior, concerns are justified.

In the end, as with so many school reforms, a sensible intuition risks being undermined by hubris and agenda-driven advocates. Educators and communities are right to make use of SEL, so long as they do so with eyes wide open.

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After COVID-19, Schools Are Spending Big On Social And Emotional Learning. Is That A Problem? - Forbes

Over this past decade, young people have consistently had to process and answer the demands of an increasingly stressful world. From the COVID-19 pandemic to climate change to political and economic instability, its been a time when the mental health of children and teens has been particularly affected by complex times.

There have been several studies that have zeroed in on the state of mental health for young people today, both in the United States and around the world.

Now, a recent report is shedding light on mental health trends for children and adolescents, giving clarity to the fact that a lot of these problems (while exacerbated by the global pandemic) have been present before the emergence of the coronavirus outbreak and likely will continue to be a major issue as it subsides.

Experts say research like this is important in providing a pathway for educators, policymakers, and parents and guardians alike to provide better systems of support and interventions for young people as they encounter the realities impacting their mental health today.

In September, the Clarify Health Institute released a new report called The Kids Are Not Alright: Pediatric Mental Health Care Utilization from 2016 2021.

It offers a big picture look of where todays kids are with their mental health and gives some clues as to what more needs to be done to address their needs.

The institute is part of Clarify Health, a cloud analytics and value-based payments platform company, and put this research into action following a 2020 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) report that pointed to the negative impact the pandemic had on U.S. childrens overall mental health.

Clarify Healths data comes from a national sample of claims data that comes from more than 20 million American children and teens from 1 to 19 years old, between the years 2016 and 2021.

Among the findings, the use of mental health services jumped during these years. For example, emergency room visits for these young people increased by 20%, while inpatient admissions climbed by 61%.

When looking at demographic differences among different populations of young people, the data reveals inpatient admissions increased by 64% for girls and 68% for boys from 12 to 15 years old. It was only 7% for boys between 1 and 11.

After the emergence of the pandemic, the data showed that in the year 2021, utilization of mental health services for girls who were 12 to 15 years old were 2.5 times higher than for their male peers in the same age range.

As with other studies looking at mental health, disparities in who has access to the best care often drove negative health outcomes. For example, inpatient hospital admissions for kids with mental health conditions rose 103% among those who were commercially insured, while it increased by 40% among those covered by Medicaid.

The report also showed emergency department visits made by children with mental health conditions declined by 10% for those who were commercially insured. By comparison, it increased 20% in those covered by Medicaid.

They also found that emergency department rates in the year 2021 were nearly twice as high in the Medicaid population compared to children with commercial insurance, according to a press release.

Niall Brennan, Clarifys Chief Analytics and Privacy Officer, who headed this research, told Healthline that this data fits in well with other recent discussions that have surrounded mental health in general, as well as childrens mental health, in particular, in recent years.

Brennan said the report is an important look at the stark realities of mental health concerns surrounding the nations youth, leveraging big data analysis to paint a central issue affecting our society.

He said it was dispiriting to see the scale of the increases in the utilization of mental health services over that five-year period. Especially striking was just how pronounced the increases were among kids in their early teen years, especially young girls.

When asked to distill what this research says about where we are today with young peoples mental health, Brennan explained that we are living in a time when great demands are being placed on children, which can be confusing and disorienting for them.

I think what this shows is that its tough to be a kid right now, Brennan added. Social media, pandemic, existential dread over climate change, political dysfunction the list goes on and on.

Research like that released by Clarify Health suggests the mental health of Americas youth is on the decline. It should be a big warning for adults both for those in these young peoples lives as well as the policy leaders who are in a position to shape them at the macro level.

One of the biggest problems is that young people arent getting the mental health treatment they need early on. This lack of early intervention means that mental health continues to deteriorate until a young person ends up in the emergency room or on a psychiatric inpatient unit, said Dr. Jack Turban, Assistant Professor of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at The University of California San Francisco and Affiliate Faculty at the Philip R. Lee Institute for Health Policy Studies.

Turban, who was not affiliated with the recent report, told Healthline we currently have a major shortage of pediatric mental health providers.

To make matters worse, low reimbursement rates from insurance companies for mental health treatment mean that many of the providers who are available do not take insurance. Pediatric mental healthcare is not affordable without using insurance, meaning that many go without care, Turban said.

He stressed that it is all too common to hear from families of these young people that they often call every listed in-network pediatric mental health provider under their insurance plan, only to be told that none of them are taking on new patients.

Turban said this is an issue known as phantom networks, inaccurate provider lists that fail to connect people to the care they need.

The big elephant in the room of contributing factors to people not getting care was the ongoing pandemic. At its height in 2020, the pandemic resulted in mental healthcare utilization that actually went down, partly due to the fact that many people were either afraid to seek or discouraged from getting in-person care, Brennan said.

While telehealth services definitely brought a lot of providers straight to peoples living rooms during pandemic lockdowns, there still was a drop off in people using health services overall. This was especially true for those with less access to technology or who did not possess the financial means or insurance coverage to take advantage of those offerings.

A lack of access to care was a major problem prior to the pandemic and only became worse once the pandemic started and we saw rapidly increasing rates of mental health challenges among children and adolescents, Turban said. The system was already overburdened, and the pandemic pushed it even further over the edge.

In looking at data like this, is there a roadmap for figuring out how to improve a system that doesnt seem like its adequately serving the mental health needs of Americas young people?

I think it [the report] needs to serve as a call to action, Brennan explained.

He said the fact that acute mental health care utilization among children and teens has been so high in recent years, placed alongside the reality that there was this increase in outpatient visits, points to an urgent need for more availability of mental health professionals outside traditional office hours.

Brennan said we also need to witness more early detection screenings (and more mental health screenings in general, for that matter) to better address the demand and also put in place preventive measures to help those most at risk for negative mental health outcomes.

Ultimately, I think for kids who are struggling with these issues, it is far better to intervene early, to provide a healthcare ecosystem that, if possible, can negate that 11 p.m. trip to an emergency room or a hospital, Brennan added.

These realities are most likely increasing the stressors these children are already experiencing today.

Turban added that, recently, The American Academy of Pediatrics and The American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry declared a national emergency in pediatric mental health.

They called on policy makers to implement evidence-based public policies to address the issue. While some progress has been made, there is still a long way to go, he said.

By better highlighting all of these concerns through research and advocacy, the adults most present in childrens lives can better help them.

Turban said its important that parents and guardians have an understanding of the mental health concerns children in the U.S. face today.

Its important they do what they can to provide support and guidance and connect these kids to needed resources.

Admittedly, it can be a daunting task knowing how best to support a child dealing with mental health issues.

There are many small things adults can do to promote child and adolescent mental health. First, they can work to normalize talking about emotions and mental health, while working to combat stigma surrounding mental illness, Turban explained. Having a caring adult who validates a young persons emotions and models open conversations about emotions and mental health challenges can go a long way.

The American Academy of Child & Adolescent Psychiatry has a collection of Facts for Families to help with specific challenges while working toward accessing professional help.

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Youth Mental Health Was Declining in the U.S. Long Before Covid-19 - Healthline

The State Fair of Texas will follow CDC guidelines and local mandates in an attempt to keep fairgoers safe from COVID-19 in 2022, a spokeswoman says. No fair-specific rules have been put in place for 2022 a change from 2021, when fairgoers were asked to bring masks and wear them indoors.

If anyone is experiencing COVID-related symptoms or other contagious illness-related symptoms, we ask they do the Texan thing and stay home to prevent the spread of any viral infections, a statement says.

The current CDC alert level for COVID-19 in Dallas County is green, which indicates a low level of community spread. Dallas County officials are telling residents to proceed carefully. High-risk individuals should wear masks indoors, and vaccines and boosters are still recommended.

The State Fair has 500 hand-sanitizing stations for public use and has hired a clean team that will disinfect tables and high-touch surfaces for the 24 days of the fair. Air purification systems were installed in some of the buildings in Fair Park in 2020, and those Active Pure systems remain in use.

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State Fair: do the Texan thing for COVID-19 safety in 2022 - The Dallas Morning News

India is repurposing its COVID-19 contact-tracing app and vaccination website to address other health concerns in the South Asian country.

A senior official said Sunday that the Indian government is planning to use Aarogya Setu as the countrysstandalone health app.

The app will offer residents the ability to book medical checkup appointments and verify the registrations with QR codes to avoid waiting in queues at hospitals, RS Sharma, the chief executive of the National Health Authority, the body that oversees implementation of the countrys flagship public health scheme, said at a public event.

Aarogya Setu, launched in 2020, has amassed more than 240 million downloads, he said. The app was initially launched as a temporary solution to a temporary problem.

Shortly after its launch, Aarogya Setu, which means bridge to health in Sanskrit, attracted some concerns from privacy advocates over the apps tracking of individuals. New Delhi dismissed the concerns and said at the time that the so-called flaws were implemented in the app by design. Weeks later, it open-sourced the app.

The Indian government is also repurposing its COVID-19 vaccination website, CoWIN, to serve the countrys universal immunization program.

The revamped site will allow individuals to locate and obtain mandatory vaccines covered by the national immunization program, including the polio drops, and attempt to help small-scale doctors use it as their health information management system, said Sharma, who previously oversaw the nations telecom regulator.

COVID Vaccine Intelligence Network, which is commonly called CoWIN, was introduced in January last year as the Indian governments platform to keep a unified record of COVID-19 vaccination.

Privacy supporters have disagreed with the governments latest move.

Its critical to note that any data which is collected for that purpose should only be exclusively used for that purpose, Kazim Rizvi, founding director of public policy think tank The Dialogue, told TechCrunch.

Prasanth Sugathan, legal director of digital civil rights group SFLC.in, also stated that the data collected through Aarogya Setu and CoWIN should not be used for any other purposes, as such use would be against the principle of purpose limitation.

The absence of a data protection law should not be an excuse to conduct such exercises affecting the rights of citizens. The fact that citizens agreed to provide their data for controlling the pandemic should not result in this data being used for other purposes without express and informed consent from the citizens, he said.

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India is repurposing its COVID-19 contact tracing app and vaccination website - TechCrunch

It means we have environmental sampling data that can place the spillover event precisely in the southwestern corner of the Huanan market, and genetic testing of virus samples from the first patients to give us a date: around November 18, 2019, for the introduction of Lineage B, with Lineage A following a week or so later. After that, though, the trail runs cold.

The researchers know which animals were being sold in the market in late 2019, and which ones were susceptible to coronaviruses, but they dont have the smoking gun. They dont have samples from animals that had the virus. Thats what theyd like to have, and theyd like to be able to trace those animals back to the farms from which they came and see whether people in those farms had been exposed to the virus or viruses, says Jonathan Stoye, a virologist at the Francis Crick Institute in the UK, who was not involved in the research.

Thats unlikely to be possible. There are theories on how infected animals may have reached the market: Wuhan is in Hubei province, and to the west of the region there are caves that are home to horseshoe bats, close to farms that once housed millions of raccoon dogs and civets. The most likely course of events is something like: A bat infected with a novel coronavirus flies over a farm where animals are being reared for meat. It poops, and viral particles infect one of the animals below, sparking an unseen wave of infections at the farm. Maybe the virus crosses over to the farmworkers but fizzles out because theres not enough population density to sustain a human epidemic. Days or weeks later, in November 2019, some of the infected animals are shipped to the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market, where theyre sold at stalls in the southwestern corner. The virus crosses over to humans at least eight times, maybe more. The majority of those infections fizzle out without spreading to anyone else, but two take hold, start to spread. Not long after that, dozens of people in the area start to come down with a mysterious viral pneumonia.

But the animal or animals that carried coronavirus are almost certainly long dead: shipped off and sold for meat, or killed in one of the mass culls that took place in early 2020 as the Chinese authorities clamped down on the live animal trade. It is very possible that we will never have that sample, that we may have missed our opportunity, says Worobey.

But there are still leads to follow: tracing the supply chains for the stalls in the southwestern corner of Huanan market and finding out which farms supplied them; poring over the paperwork from the culls to find out where the animals from that farm were buried; exhuming the animals and sequencing their DNA to look for remnants of a coronavirus that looks almost identical to SARS-CoV-2.

It will need patient work and international cooperation in a difficult environmentbut it could be the only way to stop the next pandemic. These things are not impossible, Worobey says. So lets look at all the options. Lets connect every single possible dot that we can.

Image updated on 8/4/22 at 11:17AM PST to include the Wuhan Huanan Wholesale Seafood Market.

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