Tag Archives: warm weather

Meat-free diet may lower severe disease risk; no serious problems found with AstraZeneca shot in Scotland

By Nancy Lapid

(Reuters) – The following is a roundup of some of the latest scientific studies on the novel coronavirus and efforts to find treatments and vaccines for COVID-19, the illness caused by the virus.

COVID-19 severity linked with diet

People on meat-free diets had lower odds of contracting moderate to severe COVID-19, according to a six-country study published on Monday in BMJ Nutrition, Prevention & Health. Plant-based diets were tied to a 73% lower risk of severe disease, researchers found in a survey of 2,884 healthcare providers who cared for COVID-19 patients. Combining those on a plant-based diet and people who also ate fish but no meat, researchers found 59% lower odds of severe disease. The study cannot prove that specific diets protected against severe COVID-19, and diet did not appear to lower the risk of becoming infected. But plant-based diets are rich in nutrients, vitamins and minerals that are important for healthy immune systems, the researchers noted, and fish provide vitamin D and omega-3 fatty acids, which have anti-inflammatory properties. Healthy eating, however, has been problematic during the pandemic, according to two presentations this week during a virtual meeting of the American Society for Nutrition. Consumption of healthy foods such as vegetables and whole grains declined, according to researchers who compared the diets of more than 2,000 Americans before and during the pandemic. In a separate study, researchers who collected dietary data in June 2020 for 3,916 U.S. adults found many had increased their consumption of unhealthy snacks, desserts and sugary drinks during the pandemic. “Individuals may need help to avoid making these dietary changes permanent,” said Dr. Sohyun Park of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, coauthor of the latter study.

No serious problems with AstraZeneca vaccine in Scotland

A study of side effects from AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine in Scotland found only an association with a largely harmless bleeding condition and no link to the potentially deadly venous clotting in the brain, known as CVST, which has caused concern in Europe and led to pauses in its use. Researchers who tracked 5.4 million people in Scotland found roughly one additional case of idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura (ITP) per 100,000 people after the first AstraZeneca shot. ITP is a treatable condition of low platelet count and has not caused any deaths among the 1.7 million recipients of the vaccine in the study, the authors reported on Wednesday in Nature Medicine. Due to the rarity of CVST, the Scottish study may have been too small to allow for any conclusions, coauthor Aziz Sheikh of the University of Edinburgh told a media briefing. “The overall message is just the rarity of these outcomes,” said Sheikh. “This is reassuring data.”

Aspirin does not help hospitalized COVID-19 patients

Aspirin did not improve survival or reduce disease severity in a study of nearly 15,000 patients hospitalized with COVID-19. Researchers had hoped that because aspirin helps reduce blood clots in other diseases, it might be helpful in COVID-19 patients who are at a higher risk for clotting issues. Patients randomly assigned to receive 150 milligrams of aspirin once a day did have fewer blood clots, but no lower risk of becoming sicker and requiring mechanical ventilation or better odds of being alive after 28 days. And they had a higher risk of major bleeding complications, a not uncommon issue with aspirin therapy. They did have slightly better odds of getting out of the hospital alive, researchers reported on medRxiv on Tuesday ahead of peer review. But “this does not seem to be sufficient to justify its widespread use for patients hospitalized with COVID-19,” said Peter Horby of the University of Oxford, co-chief investigator of the trial.

COVID-19 control policies still needed in warm weather

In the absence of lockdowns and social distancing, weather and crowding have the biggest impact on COVID-19 spread, a new study found. But even if virus transmission tends to be somewhat lower in warmer conditions, summer weather “cannot be considered a substitute for mitigation policies,” because population density matters more than temperature, according to the report from Imperial College London published on Wednesday in PNAS. Warmer regions should not expect to ease mobility restrictions before colder regions, especially because “warmer regions tend to have higher population densities – for example, the population in Florida is more densely packed than in Minnesota,” coauthor Will Pearse said in a statement. Lockdowns have stronger effects than either temperature or population density, his team reported. Because temperature changes have a much smaller effect on transmission than policy interventions, “while people remain unvaccinated, governments mustn’t drop policies like lockdowns and social distancing just because a seasonal change means the weather is warming up,” said coauthor Dr. Tom Smith. The study also suggests “that lower autumn and winter temperatures may lead to the virus spreading more easily in the absence of policy interventions or behavioral changes.”

(Reporting by Nancy Lapid, Megan Brooks, Ludwig Burger, and Vishwadha Chander; Editing by Bill Berkrot)

Warm weather draws crowds in some cities as parts of U.S. start easing coronavirus lockdowns

By Doina Chiacu and Jonathan Allen

(Reuters) – Sunny days and warm weather are proving to be as challenging to manage as restaurants, hair salons and other businesses, as about half of U.S. states partially reopen their economies after the coronavirus lockdown.

On Saturday, thousands of people gathered on the National Mall in Washington to view a U.S. Navy flyover to honor healthcare workers and others battling the pandemic.

In New York City, the warmest weather yet this spring caused picnickers and sunbathers to flock to green spaces in Manhattan, including crowded conditions at the Christopher Street Pier in Greenwich Village, according to photos on social media.

Last week, California ordered beaches in Orange County to close, after crowds defied public health guidelines to throng the popular shoreline. Police in the county’s Huntington Beach said people were complying on Sunday.

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio said there were “some real issues” near the pier and police would increase patrols.

Dr. Deborah Birx, response coordinator for the White House coronavirus task force, said on “Fox News Sunday” that massing on beaches was not safe unless people kept at least 6 feet (1.8 m) apart. She also weighed in against allowing such businesses as beauty salons and spas to reopen in the first phase.

“We’ve made it clear that that is not a good phase one activity,” she said, as the number of U.S. cases topped 1.1 million and the death toll rose to more than 67,000 on Sunday.

Protesters gathering, as they did last week in Michigan and other parts of the country to demonstrate against stay-at-home restrictions, posed a huge risk, she said.

“It’s devastatingly worrisome to me personally if they go home and infect their grandmother or their grandfather who has a comorbid condition and they have a serious or a very – or an unfortunate outcome, they will feel guilty for the rest of our lives,” Birx said.

Scott Gottlieb, a former Food and Drug Administration commissioner, said on Sunday the country was seeing a “mixed bag” of results from coronavirus mitigation efforts. He said there were about 20 states seeing a rising number of new cases including Illinois, Texas, Maryland, Indiana, Virginia, North Carolina and Tennessee. Virginia reported a record number of deaths on Sunday, up 44 for a total of 660.

“We expected that we would start seeing more significant declines in new cases and deaths around the nation at this point. And we’re just not seeing that,” he said on CBS’ “Face the Nation.” “If we don’t snuff this out more and you have this slow burn of infection, it can ignite at any time.”

‘PUTTING A TOE BACK IN’

Even in the face of rising cases, some Americans are eager to return to jobs, classrooms, socializing and large gatherings.

In a town hall event hosted by Fox News on Sunday night, President Donald Trump said he understood people’s desire to go back to work and school and that he expected classrooms to reopen in September.

But he said more needed to be done to ease the economic hit of the pandemic and that more help was coming for people who were unemployed.

In sports, the National Football League said it would announce its schedule for the upcoming season this week including its season-opening game on Sept. 10 and the Super Bowl, which is scheduled to be played in Tampa, Florida, on Feb. 7.

“We are planning on playing the 2020 NFL season as scheduled,” NFL spokesman Brian McCarthy said in an email, noting that the most popular U.S sports league would adjust to government regulations.

On the other side of the spectrum was Boston Mayor Marty Walsh in Massachusetts, which has not begun reopening and is seeing coronavirus cases still climbing. Massachusetts also has issued a statewide order telling people to wear masks in public.

He said the rallies against coronavirus mitigation efforts were causing confusion and making his job harder.

“I don’t understand it. That makes messaging really confusing. … It’s the wrong message, because we’re still very much in the beginning days of coronavirus. Even if you’re a state that is seeing numbers go down,” Walsh said.

In New Mexico, where numbers have yet to see a sustained decline and Native Americans represent more than half of the cases, Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham extended road closings into the city of Gallup to stem the state’s largest outbreak.

The shutdowns will continue until Thursday to slow infections in McKinley County, which is straddled by the Navajo Nation, an area suffering one of the highest per capita case rates in the country relative to U.S. states.

(GRAPHIC: Tracking the novel coronavirus in the U.S. – https://graphics.reuters.com/HEALTH-CORONAVIRUS-USA/0100B5K8423/index.html)

(Reporting by Doina Chiacu in Washington and Jonathan Allen in New York; Additional reporting by Ben Klayman in Detroit; Writing by Lisa Shumaker and Andrew Hay; Editing by Daniel Wallis, Peter Cooney and Gerry Doyle)