Coronavirus News (111)

Minnesota COVID-19 survivor: 'There's this narrative that it's just the flu. It's not' Minnesotans need to understand the consequences, survivors say, particularly as many grow restless with restrictions designed to slow the pandemic. ........ Bernie Goldblatt didn’t think the lingering cough he developed back in March could be COVID-19. ........ But when it wouldn’t go away and his condition took a sudden and desperate turn in early April, the 68-year-old retiree wound up in the ICU for weeks. Nearly two months later, he’s still not home..........

“When it happens, it’s like you’re living in a nightmare and you can’t get out.”

......... Most people sickened by COVID-19 survive, but in serious cases, the experience is harrowing, the effects linger and the long-term health risks aren’t clear. .......... “Please, please, please take it seriously,” said Steve Soeffker, a 69-year-old McLeod County resident who spent 43 days in the hospital before returning home this month. .........

Doctors don’t know whether COVID-19 survivors will maintain immunity against the virus down the road

......... there are questions about long-term issues with the lungs, kidneys and liver in serious cases ...........

In the most serious cases, getting over COVID-19 is just the start of the struggle.

......... During her first night at Methodist Hospital, she couldn’t stop gasping for breath. ........

“I had this moment of total dread that came over me,” she said, “as I realized I could possibly die.”

.......... Life moved slowly in April, with Bort surprised by her fatigue walking up stairs. Now, she takes daily walks around Lake of the Isles but doesn’t feel completely recovered. ........ “Two months later, I’m still out of breath — much more out of breath than I normally would be. So, I’m a little worried. … Usually by this time of the year, I’d be riding my bike 10 or 15 miles a day.” ....... After landing in the hospital, Goldblatt spent about three weeks in the ICU and his memories are the stuff of

piercing nightmares and dark visions

. The distress is not unique to COVID-19 patients, doctors say, but a function of intensive care that can leave patients disoriented as they try to cope with disrupted sleep, heavy medications and a devastating illness. ........... “I think

I was one of those people who was in complete denial — that that was never going to happen to me,” Goldblatt said of COVID-19. “And I have to tell you — it could, and it did.”

.......... ....Soeffker didn’t have a cough or fever when he went to bed one night in early April. Around 4 a.m.,

his wife found him collapsed on the floor and gasping for air

. ......... “This COVID is real. A lot of people are thinking it’s not,” he said. “Yes, I’m sympathetic for the small businesses, sympathetic for the people who are laid off and are losing wages. But they’re in a position where they’re still alive, still functioning.” ....... “One of the most shocking parts of this illness is how quickly people can decline — go from just feeling a little short of breath to not able to breathe at all,” said Dr. Craig Marshall of Methodist Hospital. “It can happen very quickly, for some patients within six to eight hours.” ......... “I think everybody who has COVID —

there’s this narrative that it’s just the flu. It’s not

,” he said. “One of my hopes is that we tell people: Hey, this is really serious. And here’s a reasonably well-educated doctor … who just didn’t understand how serious it was.”

'The price you pay': Sweden's 'herd immunity' experiment backfires Unlike its Nordic neighbors, Sweden decided early on in the pandemic to forgo lockdown in the hope of achieving broad immunity to the coronavirus. While social distancing was promoted, the government allowed bars, restaurants, salons, gyms and schools to stay open. .........

Sweden's mortality rate is the highest in Europe.

........ "I think the mortality in Norway is something like ten-fold lower. That’s the real comparator." (Norway's daily death rate is less than .01 per 1 million people.) ........ Scientists estimate herd immunity for the coronavirus is reached when 70-90% of the population becomes immune to a virus, either by becoming infected or getting a protective vaccine. ....... only 7.3% had developed the antibodies needed to stave off the disease. ........ In Spain, for example, 5% of the population had developed antibodies as of May 14 .......... 2.5% of the U.S. population has been infected with the coronavirus. To possibly reach herd immunity, "you're going to have to get close to 100% of the population being antibody-positive" ....... we can keep doing non-pharmaceutical interventions like contact tracing, mask wearing and isolation quarantines, but also develop drugs that work better treating people who already have the infection so they don't require critical care in a hospital. ........

Sweden’s government insists that it does not have a herd immunity strategy, but Swedish virolgist Lena Einhorn said that “they have denied it, but under their breaths they have acknowledged” the strategy

The pandemic is sending India's poor into the abyss Already rife with inequality, the pandemic has distributed suffering unequally among India's underclass ........ Risk of hunger, uncertainty of future employment, and poverty-related suicide are imminent threats for many Indians. It seems that

post-pandemic India has brought massive pain and suffering among people living in extreme poverty

, particularly disadvantaged caste and religious groups, transgender people, women, and rural residents......... 46.7% of those employed earn below $3.20 a day ........ Among 5 million people employed in sanitation and cleaning work, 90% come from lower castes (including a significant number of Dalit women). Higher caste women in urban areas also likely to hire Dalit women for household work. The loss of daily wage jobs puts lower castes in economically precarious situation. Their employment in essential service jobs such as sanitation leaves them vulnerable to coronavirus exposure. ......... They face an increased likelihood of contracting the coronavirus due to their disproportionate employment in essential services — a situation that may lead to further marginalization....... neoliberal reforms, which call for deregulatory fiscal policies and privatization, have remade Indian society to favor a small portion of the wealthy class. This small proportion of affluent Indians, who have chosen to live in gated communities, are in constant need of service work from the lower class-caste poor, who generally live in shanty slums. .......

Usually, these burgeoning shanty slums are found in the rising upscale suburbs, albeit next to affluent gated high-rise buildings, in the large metropolis of Kolkata, Mumbai, Bangalore, New Delhi, and Chennai.

......... An example of high-rise buildings meeting the poverty-ridden dilapidated slums is clearly seen in Mumbai – the high-rises standing next to slums of Dharavi ........

since the COVID-19 lockdown, tens and millions of migrant workers have been left unemployed.

........ The lockdown has also commenced a nonessential travel ban that includes trains, buses and modes of public transportation. Meanwhile, the slums are ideal conditions to spread diseases like COVID-19: defined by small quarters, close contact, shared bathrooms and narrow alleys, constructed slums are not a safe place to be in a pandemic. Often these slums lack basic amenities, such as running water, toilets, and food, which makes living there impossible for social distancing and isolating for amid COVID-19. ..........

Amid agony, fear, and hunger, these repatriates — protesters and non-protesters — set out to walk tens or hundreds of miles back to these home villages.

........ Much of India's migrant population consists of women and children who live in shanty towns, generally built next to high rise buildings. ....... the COVID-19 situation has further aggravated the condition of victims of domestic violence, most of whom are women. Many women, like a 45-year old from the Indian city of Chennai who has lost her cooking job and has to contend with an unemployed husband, have seen their abusive relationships exacerbate. .......

The economic insecurity and uncertainty due to job loss, coupled with an existing patriarchal mindset, is fueling the rise in domestic violence against women.

.......... the pandemic has further intensified anti-Muslim sentiment in India ......... "It isn't just Hindu nationalist politicians or mobs" blaming Muslims for COVID-19, he writes. "The country's respectable press have joined in too."

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— Paramendra Kumar Bhagat (@paramendra) May 24, 2020