(HealthDay News) — Nearly 36,000 American lives would have been spared if strict social distancing measures had been enacted across the country just one week earlier than they were, new estimates suggest. And if those measures had been imposed two weeks before most people started staying home, about 54,000 COVID-19 deaths would have been avoided by early May, Columbia University disease models show, The New York Times reported. The U.S. coronavirus death toll stretched past 93,000 on Thursday, with more than 1.5 million cases. “It’s a big, big difference,” Jeffrey Shaman, an epidemiologist at Columbia and leader of the modeling team, told Times. “That small moment in time, catching it in that growth phase, is incredibly critical in reducing the number of deaths.” On the economic front, another round of weekly jobless claims delivered more bad news: 2.4 million filed for unemployment, bringing the total jobless number for the past nine weeks to more than 38 million. Meanwhile, all 50 states have started reopening their economies, more than two months after the new coronavirus first forced America into lockdown. States in the Northeast and on the West Coast, as well as Democratic-led states in the Midwest, have moved more slowly toward reopening, the Times reported. But a number of states in the South opened earlier and more expansively, albeit with social distancing restrictions in place,…  read on >

Obesity makes COVID-19 worse and may lead to deadly blood clots in the lungs, a new study finds. The researchers said that obese patients with COVID-19 may have nearly three times the risk of developing what is known as a pulmonary embolism. “Clinicians can utilize our findings to aid in determining which patients should have evaluation for pulmonary embolism with pulmonary CT angiography, as the symptoms for COVID-19 and pulmonary embolism overlap,” said lead researcher Dr. Neo Poyiadi, from the department of diagnostic radiology at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit. “Early detection of pulmonary embolism can allow prompt treatment with anticoagulation and minimize clinical problems,” he said. Hospitalized obese patients with COVID-19 should be evaluated for increases in clotting indicated by a rising D-dimer — a blood test for clotting. According to the study, 22% of 328 patients suffering from COVID-19 who had a CT scan angiography had a pulmonary embolism. Researchers also found that patients taking statins to lower cholesterol before coming down with COVID-19 were less likely to have a pulmonary embolism. “Further studies are needed to determine if statins have a protective effect against pulmonary embolism in COVID-19 patients,” Poyiadi said. Poyiadi added that a recent study suggests that COVID-19 patients should be placed on blood thinners to prevent clotting. Obesity may make COVID-19 worse because it’s associated with an increase in…  read on >

(HealthDay News) Young to middle-aged asthmatics who are hospitalized for COVID-19 are likely to be on a ventilator longer than patients without asthma, new research reports. Patients with asthma who were between 20 and 59 years of age needed a ventilator to help with breathing five days longer than patients without asthma in that age group, researchers reported. “Among the patients who developed severe respiratory symptoms requiring intubation [the use of a ventilator], asthma was associated with a significantly longer intubation time in the younger group of patients who would seemingly have a better disease course than patients over the age of 65,” said lead author Dr. Mahboobeh Mahdavinia. She’s chief of allergy and immunology in the Department of Internal Medicine at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago. “Our findings suggest that younger individuals with asthma may require extra attention, as they could develop a sustained pulmonary failure with COVID-19 infection, leading to prolonged mechanical ventilation,” Mahdavinia said in a hospital news release. For the study, the research team looked at 935 patients with COVID-19. Of those, 241 had asthma. The researchers found that asthma resulted in longer times on a ventilator for 18- to 64-year-old patients, but not for those 65 and older. Hospital stays were also longer. Asthma, however, wasn’t linked with a greater risk of premature death or with acute respiratory distress…  read on >

(HealthDay News) — All 50 states have started reopening their economies as of Wednesday, more than two months after the new coronavirus first forced America into lockdown. Connecticut will be among the last states to return to business, when its stay-at-home order lifts and stores, museums and offices are allowed to reopen, The New York Times reported. States in the Northeast and on the West Coast, as well as Democratic-led states in the Midwest, have moved more slowly toward reopening, the Times reported. But a number of states in the South opened earlier and more expansively, albeit with social distancing restrictions in place, the newspaper said. On Tuesday, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a 60-page document that gave more detailed guidance for schools, businesses, transit systems and other industries hoping to reopen safely amid the coronavirus pandemic, the Times reported. New data shows the number of new coronavirus cases in the country has begun to drop in recent days. Still, the U.S. case count now exceeds 1.5 million. More than 1,000 Americans died from COVID-19 almost every day this past week, as the U.S. death toll neared 92,000 on Wednesday, the Times reported.. According to the Times, in New York state case counts have dropped over the last month, and they have also plunged in hard-hit Massachusetts and Rhode Island. Some…  read on >

This is not a good time to have hypochondria. For folks who routinely obsess about their health, the coronavirus crisis could greatly magnify their distress. But there’s some good news for them in this era of sheltering-in-place. While in-person talk therapy is the gold standard for helping hypochondria patients overcome a crippling fear of health threats, a new study suggests online therapy can be just as effective. Prior research suggests “that people who typically worry much about their health react more strongly to health-related threats, such as that of a pandemic,” said Erland Axelsson, the study author. And if so, the ability to access online treatment options could prove invaluable to such patients, he said. The study of more than 200 Swedes was conducted between 2014 and 2020. Although it pre-dates COVID-19, it could offer much-needed reassurance to patients who may view online treatment as their safest option under the current circumstances. “We found that ‘cognitive behavior therapy’ (CBT) — which is the most researched and widely recommended treatment for health anxiety — can be delivered as a text-based treatment via the internet with effects on par with face-to-face treatment,” said Axelsson, a clinical psychologist and postdoctoral researcher at the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm. He noted that hypochondria — also called “health anxiety disorder” — involves an excessive preoccupation with health that lasts for six…  read on >

(HealthDay News) — President Donald Trump told the World Health Organization on Monday that the United States would permanently end all funding to the organization if it did not agree to make significant changes in the next 30 days. The threat was delivered in a letter that Trump posted on his Twitter account. Sent to WHO Director General Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, the letter also warned that the United States would reconsider its membership in the WHO because it was soft on China and “so clearly not serving America’s interests.” “It is clear the repeated missteps by you and your organization in responding to the pandemic have been extremely costly for the world,” the four-page letter said. Also in the letter, Trump claims that the WHO “consistently ignored credible reports of the virus spreading in Wuhan in early December 2019 or even earlier, including reports from the Lancet medical journal.” But the prestigious British medical journal shot back at that accusation in a statement released Tuesday, saying “The Lancet published no report in December, 2019, referring to a virus or outbreak in Wuhan or anywhere else in China. The first reports the journal published were on January 24, 2020.” Last year, the United States contributed about $553 million of the WHO’s $6 billion budget, with China providing $43 million, The New York Times reported. Before…  read on >

(HealthDay News) — While most U.S. states had loosened social distancing restrictions by Monday, new data shows the number of coronavirus cases in the country has dropped in recent days. According to The New York Times, in New York state case counts have dropped over the last month, and they have also plunged in hard-hit Massachusetts and Rhode Island. Some states, including Vermont, Hawaii and Alaska, are seeing hardly any new cases at all, the newspaper said. “We’re seeing a decline; undoubtedly, that is something good to see,” Jeffrey Shaman, an epidemiologist at Columbia University, told the Times. “But what we are also seeing is a lot of places right on the edge of controlling the disease.” Of course, testing will be key to further efforts to control the spread of the new coronavirus. But only about 3% of the population has been tested, with nearly 1.5 million cases recorded so far. And more than 1,000 Americans died from COVID-19 almost every day this past week, as the U.S. death toll neared 90,000 on Monday, the Times reported. Meanwhile, a new survey from the Washington Post reveals another dilemma: Though tests for the virus are finally becoming widely available, too few people are lining up to get them. The poll of governors’ offices and state health departments found at least a dozen states where testing…  read on >