From the beginning of the pandemic, fatigue was one of the leading symptoms of COVID-19, with many people taking to their beds and sleeping or resting practically around the clock. Listening to what your body is telling you is good advice for those with acute COVID-19, but too often, once the worst of the symptoms have passed, people begin ramping up their activity level—only to find that they're clobbered by fresh fatigue as soon as they do. That pattern—illness, improvement, exercise, crash—is all too common among COVID-19 patients, and could play a role in the later development of Long COVID, reports my colleague Jamie Ducharme.
“Rest is incredibly important to give your body and your immune system a chance to fight off the acute infection,” Dr. Janna Friedly, a post-COVID rehabilitation specialist at the University of Washington who recovered from Long COVID herself, told Jamie. “People are sort of fighting through it and thinking it’ll go away in a few days and they’ll get better, and that doesn’t really work with COVID.”
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention echos Friedly’s advice, recommending “pacing”—rationing out activity and interspersing it with rest—to avoid what experts call post-exertional malaise (PEM). The research bears out the advice. In one international study published in 2021, more than 3,700 people with Long COVID were asked about their symptoms, and almost half said they found pacing effective in managing fatigue. In another study of 500 Long COVID patients published in April, the overwhelming majority said physical activity worsened or didn’t improve their symptoms, or brought about mixed results.
Much of the research on the value of pacing comes from earlier studies of people suffering from myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS). One of the key symptoms of the disorder is the same kind of PEM that people with Long COVID experience. A January study of 200 people with Long COVID found that 71% had chronic fatigue and almost 60% suffered from PEM.
The solution, according to experts: Don’t try to push through the fatigue by exercising or working as if nothing is wrong. Jaime Seltzer, director of scientific and medical outreach at the advocacy group MEAction, suggests that even the smallest concessions to chronic fatigue can help. “If you’re doing laundry, for example” she says, “there’s nothing that says you have to fold every single item in one sitting.” Leaning on friends, faith groups, or mutual aid networks for help with tasks can also make a difference, Seltzer says. In a culture that values rugged individualism and hard work, giving into rest might seem anathema—but in a country that is still struggling with a pandemic, it is one of the wisest paths to eventual recovery.
More than 615 million people around the world had been diagnosed with COVID-19 as of 1 am. E.T. today, and more than 6.5 million people have died. On Sept. 25, there were 221,738 new cases and 456 new deaths confirmed globally.
Here's how the world as a whole is currently trending, in terms of cases:
And in terms of deaths:
Here's where daily cases have risen or fallen over the last 14 days, shown in confirmed cases per 100,000 residents:
And here's every country that has reported over 10 million cases:
The U.S. had recorded more than 96 million coronavirus cases as of 1 am. E.T. today. Nearly 1.06 million people have died. On Sept. 25, there were 5,819 new cases reported in the U.S., and 7 deaths were confirmed.
Here's how the country as a whole is currently trending in terms of cases:
And in terms of deaths:
Here's where daily cases have risen or fallen over the last 14 days, shown in confirmed cases per 100,000 residents:
All numbers unless otherwise specified are from the Johns Hopkins University Center for Systems Science and Engineering, and are accurate as of Sept. 26. To see larger, interactive versions of these maps and charts, click here.
Have suggestions for our COVID-19 newsletter? We'd love to hear from you. Fill out our survey here.
WHAT ELSE YOU SHOULD KNOW
Canada is removing all COVID-19-related travel restrictions for people entering the country, beginning Oct. 1, reports Reuters. Testing, quarantine, and isolation requirements will be lifted, as will existing rules requiring proof of vaccination. Masking rules on planes and trains are being dropped as well. Still, reports CTV News, a government-issued statement asked all travelers who are feeling sick upon arrival to report that fact to a border services officer as they "may then be referred to a quarantine officer who will decide whether the traveler needs further medical assessment."
Macau is following Canada in dropping COVID-19 travel restrictions,with the Chinese gambling hub resuming the use of electronic visas for individuals and group tours sometime in late October or early November, reports MarketWatch. The move—a departure for China, which has some of the strictest COVID-19 restrictions in the world—is seen as a bid to boost flagging casino stocks, which have suffered along with the steep declines in the broader market in the U.S. Shares of Wynn Resorts, Ltd., Las Vegas Sands Corp., MGM Resorts International, and Caesars Entertainment Inc. all jumped sharply today following the news.
Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna have both petitioned the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) for emergency use authorization for their new bivalent booster in children. Moderna announced today that it is seeking FDA authorization for the shots in children 5 to 11. That follows Moderna’s request on Friday to use the vaccines in children 6 to 11 and adolescents 12 to 17. For now, children too young to be boosted with the new shot can still receive doses of boosters already approved for their age group. How robust uptake of the new shots will be among children—assuming their use is authorized—is an open question. So far, only 4.4 million Americans overall have stepped up to get the new bivalent booster.
Close to 22,500 more people than usual died at home in the past year across the U.K.,and COVID-19 is being blamed at least in part, reports the Guardian. The trend began in 2020, during the early days of the pandemic, and medical officials say that with the advent of vaccines and the rise of the less lethal Omicron strain and its subvariants, they expected to see excess home deaths decline—but they have not. People who are suffering from an illness that is not COVID-19 and are in need of medical attention may still be avoiding hospitals due to ongoing fears about exposure to SARS-CoV-2, the officials say. That may be playing a key role in the home-death phenomenon.
Lessons learned about drug supply chains during the COVID-19 pandemic could aid in speeding drugs to the public in future outbreaksof other diseases, reports the Wall Street Journal. At the annual meeting of the Council of Supply Chain Management Professionals in Nashville, Tenn., last week, Jim Cafone, Pfizer’s senior vice president of global supply chain, pointed to the speed with which new vaccines went from the lab bench into arms and cited, in part, new machinery that had to be built in plants—fast—to develop the novel form of mRNA vaccines produced by both Pfizer-BioNTech and Moderna. He also cited the development of suitcase-sized cold chain containers that allowed the company to ship their vaccines faster, without having to wait for the larger, temperature-controlled containers supplied by plane and truck shippers. “Supply chain has probably done just as much, if not more” than vaccine development to battle the pandemic, Cafone said.
Thanks for reading. We hope you find the Coronavirus Brief newsletter to be a helpful tool to navigate this very complex situation, and welcome feedback at coronavirus.brief@time.com. If you have specific questions you'd like us to answer, please send them to covidquestions@time.com.
If you were forwarded this and want to sign up to receive it twice a week on Mondays and Thursdays, click here.
Today's newsletter was written by Jeffrey Kluger and edited by Angela Haupt.
沒有留言:
張貼留言