Posts Tagged ‘COVID-19’
February 15, 2022 — In case you hadn’t noticed, it’s a hot mess out there. And the mess is messing with our bodies and our food systems – bringing global problems with obesity and non-communicable diseases (NCDs). Bill Dietz and Sydney Pryor tell us we need to get comfortable with the concept of syndemics. But for now, let’s just […]
February 13, 2022 — Are we bored yet? Many signs make it evident that the public attention span for COVID-19 is running short. Governments all over the world are looking to reasons to say that the pandemic has become endemic and we’re moving on. Mask requirements are beginning to fade. Denmark has lifted all of its pandemic restrictions. But […]
February 4, 2022 — By all traditional measures of public health, Vietnam was in a bad spot when the COVID pandemic began in 2020. It is a small country with weak health and political systems. But early in the pandemic, it succeeded in keeping infections and deaths low. By contrast, the U.S. has done rather poorly. Despite a high […]
January 26, 2022 — The relationship between diabetes and COVID-19 grows more interesting by the day. Early in the pandemic, it became clear that diabetes is an important risk factor for severe complications with COVID-19. As more research emerged, it became clear that inflammation is a mediator for this risk. And now it seems that diabetes might even raise […]
January 25, 2022 — The pandemic rearranged the landscape for many industries, and it certainly did that for the fitness industry. In 2019, it was a $97 billion industry. Then it shrank to $54 billion in 2021. Facilities closed and suddenly the big trends were fitness apps, home fitness, and outdoor workouts. Proving that luck matters, Peloton soared in […]
January 15, 2022 — A new study this week in the New England Journal of Medicine brought home a basic fact. Severe illness and deaths from COVID in adolescents are almost entirely preventable. This is especially true for youth with conditions – like obesity – that would otherwise put them at risk. In a case-control study of 1,222 adolescents, […]
January 10, 2022 — Many of us are on an anxious journey right now. We know that being older, or living with a condition like obesity, means added risks for COVID. So we’ve been careful. But now the Omicron variant adds a bit of uncertainty because it is so contagious and so many people are getting the infection. Yet, […]
January 7, 2022 — In the midst of a huge surge of COVID cases due to omicron, hospitals are seeing a remarkable growth in children admitted with COVID. Until last week, the record for daily hospital admissions of children up to 17 years old with COVID was 340. That’s a seven-day average. But last week brought nearly twice as […]
December 30, 2021 — Early in the pandemic, a couple of things were clear about COVID risk. First, and most important, age is a person’s biggest risk factor. But that’s obviously not a modifiable risk. Soon after that was apparent, another risk factor became apparent – obesity. The risk linked to obesity was not as great as age, but […]
December 26, 2021 — Hope is, by its very nature, unreasonable. It is not based on empiric evidence. Shane Lopez, editor of the Oxford Handbook of Hope, defined it as: “The belief that the future will be better than the present, along with the belief that you have the power to make it so.” Today, we feel the need […]