After noting that most Americans can “ignore” COVID-19 and a public rebuttal from former Surgeon General Dr. Jerome Adams, the former head of the federal reaction to the disease declined to mention masking as a way to avoid potential infections.
Boston Globe’s first editorial from Dr. Ashish Jha on July 31, 2023 stating that “now, a few critical steps mean you can safely forget about COVID. ” Jha, who is most recently the dean of the Brown University School of Public Health, wrote:
The fact is, we can now save you the most from all COVID deaths. People who are up-to-date on their vaccinations and look for a car when they are inflamed rarely get seriously ill. Even for other vulnerable people like my parents, who are over eighty. , vaccines together with remedies offer a very high level of coverage against serious diseases. This is also true for other maximally immunocompromised people. The fact is, now, some fundamental steps mean you can safely forget about COVID and start doing it. things that matter again, even with COVID still present. Think of those defensive measures as street controls that allow you to drive your car safely.
However, Jha’s optimism was refuted by Dr. Jerome Adams, a former federal surgeon general, who noted in an August 7, 2023, article for the Globe that, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), only 17 percent of U. S. citizens had earned all medications. COVID-19 vaccines and boosters, compared to 81% who had earned at least one vaccine.
“Ignoring COVID now also means ignoring its effects on our most vulnerable populations,” Adams wrote. , and other immunocompromised people. Recent CDC research found that other people ages 65 to 74 were five times more likely to be hospitalized and 60 times more likely to die from COVID than adults ages 18 to 29.
Jha also made several allusions to “remedies,” not mentioning express examples besides the prescription drug Paxlovid. He did not mention that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) only introduced clinical trials that day to determine whether Paxlovid and six other remedies were suitable. for patients with long-term symptoms caused by the disease, also known as long COVID. Instead, he claimed that “the evidence here is also reassuring”:
Those who are up-to-date on their vaccinations are less likely to get a long COVID, and when they do, it tends to be short-lived and less severe. And remedies can also help reduce it. For now, there is no foolproof form of a long COVID unless you become fully infected. But you can reduce your risk especially with vaccines and, probably, remedies.
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Northeastern University Center for Health Data Observation and Informatics director Krisin Koska said that while the NIH efforts show a change in the long COVID, the scale of the study does not fit the wishes of the public. .
“This is still a drop in the ocean compared to what is needed to systematically address long COVID as a long-term public health issue,” he told educational publication Northeastern Global News. “Prolonged COVID is a disabling mass event. I don’t doubt it. Millions of other fit people in the past are physiologically different post-COVID and are suffering.
Health News STAT News reported that the NIH initiative, RECOVER, also filed complaints for failing to treat a wider diversity of prolonged COVID symptoms, adding what has been described as “delayed fatigue after exercise. “
“No one in the patient network or in the study network believes this will be enough to solve the problem,” said Charlie McCone, a patient representative for the initiative who detailed his experience with Long COVID for other media outlets. “And there is no indication that there will be investment for additional trials. “
For his part, Adams noted that while Paxlovid is approved for use as opposed to COVID-19, it has “known poisonous drug interactions with several other medications,” several of which are routinely prescribed to elderly and immunocompromised patients, restricting their treatment options. Jha, Adams also cited NIH knowledge that estimates about 23 million Americans “could have symptoms of long COVID. “
Jha’s editorial came a day before U. S. President Joe Biden’s administration announced the release of a federal Department of Health and Human Services department committed to the disease, and shortly before U. S. media reported a surge in hospitalizations across the country.
While the CDC does not track the number of COVID-19 cases, the World Health Organization (WHO) reported more than one million new cases internationally between July 3 and July 28, 2023, but added that “reported cases are not as they should be. “constitute infection rates due to reduced testing and reporting globally.
Shortly after the publication of Jha’s editorial, the UK’s National Health Service issued a statement stating that others with “persistent symptoms” similar to those of prolonged COVID will not be able to donate blood.
The WHO maintains a segment on its online page that encourages users to wear masks to protect themselves from the disease, saying:
Make wearing a mask a general component of other people’s presence. Proper use, storage, and cleaning or disposal of the mask is to make them as effective as possible.
In comparison, Jha mentions the mask once in his editorial:
I have a friend with a recent organ transplant who continues to wear a high-quality mask in crowded indoor spaces. That makes sense. And when he had COVID last fall, remedies were imperative to keep him out of the hospital.
Jha did not respond in particular to Adams’ paper, but did post an online thread on the day of its publication summarizing his original opinion without mentioning masking or advancing internal ventilation efforts as imaginable mitigating agents for the disease.