The COVID-19 pandemic has had far-reaching effects, and a new study points to yet another: It may be keeping people from seeking emergency care for suicidal thoughts. The study, at one large Ohio health system, found that ER visits for suicidal ideation dropped by over 60% in the month after the state instituted its stay-at-home order. And that’s concerning, researchers said, because, if anything, this is a time when mental health needs are expected to be more acute than ever. “The question is: Where are these patients now?” said senior researcher Dr. Baruch Fertel of the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio. “Are they just brushing off their problems? Are they getting help through telemedicine instead?” Or, most worrisome, are some people going through with suicide instead of getting help? There is no way of knowing at this point, Fertel said, because figures are not available. “Unfortunately, we’ll only find out later, when we’re able to study suicide rates,” he said. The findings, published June 1 in the American Journal of Emergency Medicine, are the latest snapshot of how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected all aspects of medical care. U.S. studies have charted declines in everything from hospital admissions for heart attack, to organ transplants, to childhood vaccinations. In areas hard-hit by the disease, health systems were flooded, and non-urgent medical procedures put on hold. But even…  read on >

A new analysis shows that parts of the country that had been spared the worst of the coronavirus pandemic are now tallying record-high cases of new infections. Since the start of June, 14 states and Puerto Rico have recorded their highest seven-day average of new coronavirus cases since the pandemic began, data tracked by the Washington Post shows: Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Florida, Kentucky, New Mexico, North Carolina, Mississippi, Oregon, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Utah. At the same time, new predictions from the University of Washington in Seattle show the U.S. coronavirus death toll could now hit 145,000 by August, NBC News reported Tuesday. If the prediction bears out, it would mean 30,000 more deaths would occur in the country in the next two months. As of Tuesday, nearly 111,000 COVID-19 deaths have been reported in this country. And in a confusing twist on the effort to understand how coronavirus spreads, a World Health Organization official said Monday that asymptomatic transmission of COVID-19 seems to be rare. Until now, experts believed that transmission by infected people who did not show any symptoms was a main driver of viral spread. “From the data we have, it still seems to be rare that an asymptomatic person actually transmits onward to a secondary individual,” Maria Van Kerkhove, the WHO’s technical lead for coronavirus response and head of…  read on >

Pregnant women who live near active oil and gas wells may be at risk for having low birth weight infants, a new study suggests. Researchers analyzed nearly 3 million births to Californians living within six miles of an oil or gas well between 2006 and 2015. It was found that women living within less than a mile of a well were 40% more likely to have low birth weight infants and 20% more likely to have babies who were small for their gestational age, compared with women who lived farther away from wells. “Being born of low birth weight or small for gestational age can affect the development of newborns and increase their risk of health problems in early childhood and even into adulthood,” said researcher Rachel Morello-Frosch, a professor of public health and environmental science, policy and management at the University of California, Berkeley. Full-term babies near wells were an average of 1.3 ounces (36 grams) smaller than babies who were not near wells, according to the findings. “When you see a shift of over 30 grams of birth weight among term infants, from an individual clinical perspective, it may not seem like a lot,” Morello-Frosch said in a university news release. “But when you see that kind of large population shift in birth weight — that can have significant population level implications for…  read on >

As the U.S. coronavirus case count eclipsed 1.8 million and the death toll passed 107,000 on Thursday, America’s jobless rolls swelled to nearly 43 million. That’s close to one-quarter of the country’s work force. The U.S. Labor Department reported 1.9 million more people filed new unemployment claims last week, a sobering reminder of the economic toll the coronavirus pandemic has taken on Americans, CNN reported. At the same time, fears of a spike in new infections were stoked by a new review that shows that crowded protests against police brutality have occurred in every one of the 25 U.S. communities with the highest concentrations of new COVID-19 cases. The Associated Press analysis also found that some cities — Minneapolis, Chicago, Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles among them — have witnessed protests on multiple days. In some communities, such as Minneapolis where the protests started, the number of people hospitalized with COVID-19 has also been rising, the news agency added. The close proximity of protesters and their failure in many cases to wear masks, along with police using tear gas, could fuel new transmissions. Tear gas can cause people to cough and sneeze, as can the smoke from fires set in some instances, the AP said. Both factors can also prompt protesters to remove their masks. Putting arrested protesters into jail cells can also increase the…  read on >

For many, work-at-home orders aimed at fighting the COVID-19 pandemic have had an unintended side effect: sleep loss. “We’ve seen a significant increase in reports of stress-related insomnia in recent months,” said Julio Fernandez-Mendoza of the Penn State Health Sleep Research and Treatment Center in Hummelstown, Penn. Stress and worry about the pandemic is one reason and the novelty of working at home is another, Fernandez-Mendoza said in a Penn news release. Here are some tips to help you get a good night’s sleep: Have a daily routine. Do regular tasks like waking up, showering, eating, engaging in leisure activities and going to bed at set times. “Sticking with regular habits keeps your circadian rhythm anchored like a boat in the ocean,” Fernandez-Mendoza said. Keep work and sleep areas separate. The bedroom should be for sleep and sex — and no electronics. Pick another place for work. Keep your work area lit during the day. Get as much natural light as possible. At night, close the blinds and dim the lights at least two hours before bedtime. Take 15-minute breaks from the computer. Take a coffee break, go for a walk or do an activity. Stay hydrated. Spend time outdoors. Check email or work-related texts only during work hours. Set a schedule with your employer and use autoreply to tell people you’ll reply to overnight…  read on >

Federal data released Friday offered signs of hope on the economic front, as jobless numbers actually fell — from 14.7 percent in April to 13.3 percent in May. The economy, hit hard by stay-at-home orders and shuttered businesses tied to the coronavirus crisis, ended up adding 2.5 million job in May, as some Americans warily crept back to work, The New York Times reported. It was very welcome news: According to the Times the unemployment rate in April was the highest seen since the federal government began keeping record afters World War II. Many economists expect that unemployment numbers will slow further as states reopen and more employees return to work. However, none of the good economic news has curbed the onslaught of SARS-CoV-2, the virus behind COVID-19. By Friday, the U.S. coronavirus case count had topped 1.8 million and the death toll passed 108,000. And a new review shows that crowded protests against police brutality have occurred in every one of the 25 U.S. communities with the highest concentrations of new COVID-19 cases. The Associated Press analysis also found that some cities — Minneapolis, Chicago, Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles among them — have witnessed protests on multiple days. In some communities, such as Minneapolis where the protests started, the number of people hospitalized with COVID-19 has also been rising, the news agency added.…  read on >

COVID-19 is taking a heavy toll on Americans’ mental health, a new nationwide survey shows. Overall, psychological distress more than tripled between 2018 and this spring — from 4% of U.S. adults in 2018 to 14% in April. Beth McGinty, an associate professor at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, said the findings, from a survey of 1,500 adults, suggest the need to prepare for a wave of mental illness once the pandemic passes. “It is especially important to identify mental illness treatment needs and connect people to services, with a focus on groups with high psychological distress including young adults, adults in low-income households, and Hispanics,” McGinty said in a university news release. The survey used a scale to gauge feelings of emotional suffering as well as symptoms of anxiety and depression. It found that distress was especially acute among younger adults. Among 18- to 29-year-olds, 24% reported feelings of distress this spring, compared to 4% in 2018, researchers found. Lower-income households also were keenly feeling the impact of the pandemic. Distress rose from less than 8% in 2018 to 19% in homes with a yearly income of less than $35,000, the survey found. And 18% of Hispanics reported psychological distress in 2020, up from 4% in 2018. Among Americans age 55 and older, psychological distress nearly doubled between 2018 and…  read on >

An over-the-counter heartburn remedy is showing some potential as a symptom reliever for COVID-19, a small study finds. Famotidine, sold under the brand name Pepcid, appeared to improve symptoms in a group of 10 patients diagnosed with COVID-19, researchers reported online June 4 in the journal Gut. The patients’ self-reported symptoms began to feel better within a day or two of taking famotidine, the study authors said. “A clinical trial is now needed to formally test if famotidine works against COVID-19,” said lead researcher Dr. Tobias Janowitz, a medical oncologist and cancer researcher with Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York. But don’t rush out to stock up on Pepcid just yet, warned Dr. Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar with the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security in Baltimore. “This is a very small study that was observational in nature,” Adalja said. “It is very hard to draw any conclusions from it.” A clinical trial in which Pepcid’s effectiveness is compared against a placebo is essential to prove that the medication works, since it is being used in mild to moderate cases of COVID-19, Adalja said. “These are mild cases and mild cases do get better over time, so these cases have to be compared to placebo in order to see if this was actually just the natural course of infection or the famotidine,” Adalja…  read on >