As U.S. coronavirus infections surged in many states, four of America’s top health officials plan to testify in Congress on Tuesday about how to safely reopen the country. Originally billed as an “update on progress toward safely getting back to work and back to school,” members of the Senate’s health and education committee will instead have to tackle the reality that reopening hasn’t proven safe or easy, The New York Times reported. Dr. Anthony Fauci will be joined at the hearing by Dr. Robert Redfield, director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention; Food and Drug Administration Commissioner Dr. Stephen Hahn; and Adm. Brett Giroir, the assistant secretary for health. With new cases spiking in many parts of the country, at least a dozen states and cities have slowed reopening plans, the Washington Post reported. Not only case counts are climbing: COVID-19 hospitalizations are spiking in seven states, the Post reported. In Texas, Arizona, Nevada, South Carolina, Montana, Georgia and California, seven-day averages are up at least 25 percent from last week, the newspaper said. In California, coronavirus case counts have exploded, now surpassing 220,000 infections, the Times reported. Gov. Gavin Newsom has been forced to roll back the state’s reopening in some counties. On Monday, he said the number of people hospitalized in California had increased 43 percent over the past two…  read on >

The number of new U.S. coronavirus cases broke yet another record on Tuesday, as the nation’s top infectious disease expert warned that daily counts could soon top 100,000 a day if the spread of COVID-19 isn’t slowed. “I can’t make an accurate prediction, but it is going to be very disturbing, I will guarantee you that, because when you have an outbreak in one part of the country, even though in other parts of the country they are doing well, they are vulnerable,” Dr. Anthony Fauci said during a Senate committee hearing on Tuesday. “We’ve really got to do something about that, and we need to do it quickly,” Fauci testified during questioning from Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.). “Clearly, we are not in total control right now.” More than 47,000 new coronavirus cases were reported in the United States on Tuesday, with case counts spiking 80 percent in the past two weeks, The New York Times reported. Officials in eight states Alaska, Arizona, California, Georgia, Idaho, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Texas also announced single-day highs. With new cases spiking in the South and West, at least a dozen states and cities have slowed reopening plans, the Washington Post reported. It’s not just new infections that are climbing: COVID-19 hospitalizations are also spiking in seven states, the Post reported, suggesting that more than simply upped testing…  read on >

The daily tally of new U.S. coronavirus cases passed 50,000 on Wednesday, as more reopening plans across the country were slowed amid fears of spiking infections. A glimmer of hope emerged on the economic front when unemployment numbers were released by the U.S. Labor Department Thursday morning: 4.8 million jobs were added to the national workforce last month, the second straight monthly gain after losing more than 20 million jobs in April, The New York Times reported. Still, 1.4 million Americans filed jobless claims last week, the 15th straight week that unemployment claims have surpassed 1 million. Meanwhile, rapidly rising infection counts continued to thwart reopening plans: On Wednesday, California, Michigan and New York City became the latest to rethink parts of their reopening strategies, the newspaper reported. California shut down bars and halted indoor dining at restaurants in much of the state, while New York City decided not to let its restaurants resume indoor service next week, as originally planned. California, Texas, Arizona, North Carolina and Georgia all broke previous single-day records for new coronavirus cases on Wednesday, while Louisiana’s infection rates continued to rise, the Washington Post reported. In some states, COVID-19 death counts are also rising: Arizona reported a record number of coronavirus-related deaths Wednesday as intensive care units approached 90 percent capacity, the Post reported. Things could get even worse. On…  read on >

A new threat has been added to the risks posed by fireworks — they can release toxic metals that can damage your lungs. These metals give fireworks their colors, according to researchers who found harmful levels of lead in two of 12 types of commercially available fireworks they tested. “While many are careful to protect themselves from injury from explosions, our results suggest that inhaling firework smoke may cause longer-term damage, a risk that has been largely ignored,” said study senior author Terry Gordon, a professor in the Department of Environmental Medicine at NYU Langone Health in New York City. Gordon and his colleagues collected emissions from a dozen fireworks commonly used in the United States by setting them off in a lab chamber, then exposed mice and human lung cells to low doses of the particles, to mimic an average person’s daily exposure to air pollutants. Along with the lead finding, they found that particle emissions from five types of fireworks significantly increased oxidation, a chemical process in the body that can damage or even kill cells if left unchecked. Fireworks often contain titanium, strontium and copper, in addition to lead, according to the researchers. They also analyzed 14 years’ worth of air quality samples from dozens of sites across the United States by the Environmental Protection Agency throughout each year, and found that…  read on >

(HealthDay News) — As the daily toll of new coronavirus cases broke yet another record and topped 55,000 on Thursday, COVID-19 hospitalizations were also climbing across the South and West. Mississippi, Tennessee, Texas, Nevada and Arizona all set records for hospitalizations on Thursday, a sobering harbinger of what is yet to come, the Washington Post reported. The virus appears to be spreading wildly in Arizona, as hospitals rushed to expand capacity and adopted practices similar to those employed at the height of the outbreak in New York City and Italy, the Post reported. Those measures include doubling up hospital beds in rooms, pausing elective surgeries and bringing in health-care workers from other states. Preparing for the worst, state officials this week activated crisis protocols, which determine for hospitals which patients get ventilators and care as the system becomes overwhelmed under the crush of patients, the Post reported. “You look at what happened in Lombardy, Italy. What happened in New York. That’s what is about to happen here. People are going to die because our system is overwhelmed,” said Will Humble, who directed Arizona’s Department of Health Services for six years under its previous Republican governor. “It’s important for other states to learn from us. This wasn’t bad luck. It was avoidable. Don’t let this happen to you. You look back at the past few months…  read on >

You may enjoy the fireworks on the Fourth of July, but there’s a good chance Fido and Fluffy do not. “Even pets that are not usually sensitive to loud sounds and noise can become extremely stressed due to the sound of fireworks,” said John Howe, president of the American Veterinary Medical Association. “It’s hard not to feel helpless when you see them shaking and panting and so obviously distressed,” he added. With a little advance preparation, you can ease your pets’ anxiety and keep them calm. Here’s how: Try a workout. Take your dog(s) out for play and exercise earlier in the day. This can help burn off extra energy, limit their their anxiety later and help them rest more soundly. Update I.D. Make sure your pet has up-to-date identification tags and that their microchip has your correct contact information, because highly stressed pets may run off. Proper I.D. improves the chances that your pet will make it home safely if that occurs, Howe said. Give pets a safe space. Keep them indoors. Cats tend to feel most secure in a covered spot off the ground, like a hut in an indoor cat tree. For a dog, put its crate or bed in the quietest, most secure room possible. Keep windows and curtains closed to help muffle sounds. Try different things to see what works…  read on >

(HealthDay News) — For the 27th day in a row, the rolling seven-day average for daily new coronavirus cases in the United States set another record on Sunday, climbing past 48,000 COVID-19 infections in just 24 hours. At the same time, coronavirus-related hospitalizations rose to their highest levels to date in Arizona and Nevada, the Washington Post reported. “We’re right back where we were at the peak of the epidemic during the New York outbreak,” former U.S. Food and Drug Administration commissioner Scott Gottlieb said Sunday on the CBS show, “Face the Nation,” the Post reported. “The difference now is that we really had one epicenter of spread when New York was going through its hardship, now we really have four major epicenters of spread: Los Angeles, cities in Texas, cities in Florida, and Arizona. And Florida looks to be in the worst shape.” On Sunday, new coronavirus cases in that state exceeded 10,000 in a day for the third time in the past week, after the state posted a record of 11,458 new cases on Saturday, the Post reported. More than 47,000 of Florida’s cases are in Miami-Dade county. “We’ve been breaking record after record after record . . . the last couple of weeks,” Miami Mayor Francis Suarez said Sunday on ABC’s “This Week.” Florida’s total caseload hit 200,000, a grim milestone only passed so…  read on >

Stressed from home-schooling your kids? Lonely from lockdown? Worried about a sick loved one isolated in a nursing home? Worried you might lose your job? The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic is affecting everyone’s mental health in ways small and large, and experts are concerned that for many, today’s anxiety will become a tidal wave of mental health problems in the years ahead. The pandemic is adding to what already was an underrecognized mental health crisis in the United States, according to Dr. Don Mordecai, national mental health and wellness lead at Kaiser Permanente in Oakland, Calif. Rates of anxiety and depression have steadily risen for years, as have deaths of despair related to suicide and drug overdose, he said during a HD Live! interview. “All those things have been going up for decades, really, and now you bring the pandemic in,” Mordecai said. “It’s not like we were in good shape in terms of our mental health and now it’s getting worse. It’s more like we were not in good shape, and then you bring in another big stressor.” Clinical psychologist Jelena Kecmanovic also is concerned about the toll of the anxiety-provoking changes to everyday life that people are enduring. “Anxiety is exhausting and terrifying,” said Kecmanovic, director of the Arlington/DC Behavior Therapy Institute in Arlington, Va. “If it is happening long enough, you’re going to…  read on >

Genetics play a major role in how affectionate women are, but the same does not hold true for men, new research shows. “When we measure people’s tendency to be affectionate and to receive affection from other people, almost without exception we find that women score higher than men,” said study leader Kory Floyd. He’s a professor in the University of Arizona’s department of communication, in the College of Social and Behavioral Sciences. For the new study, Floyd’s team assessed differences in the levels of affection expressed by 464 pairs of adult twins, aged 19 to 84. About half were identical twins and half were fraternal twins. In women, genes explain 45% of variability in affectionate behavior, while environmental influences such as the media, personal relationships and other unique life experiences explain 55% of the variability. However, genetics don’t seem to affect men’s levels of affectionate behavior. That seems to be solely influenced by environmental factors, according to the report published online recently in the journal Communication Monographs. It’s not known why affectionate behavior seems to be heritable in women but not men. However, previous research has shown that men tend to express less affection overall than women, Floyd said in a university news release. “The trait of being affectionate may be more adaptive for women in an evolutionary sense. There is some speculation that affectionate…  read on >