By: Staff
02/23/2023 11:14 am
Letter from Elizabeth Malavet
In response to Steve Broe’s letter in the February 16, 2023 edition of “The Freeman’s Journal” concerning COVID policies:
I find the letter both condescending and ill-informed. There are many people who have preexisting conditions that have nothing to do with slim waistlines and fruit consumption. I had Lyme disease 25 years ago—it left me with fibromyalgia, chronic migraines and some brain fogginess. I had to have both knees replaced this past October—yes, perhaps some of that issue was caused by weight, but some of it was also caused by the previous Lyme.
I wonder if Mr. Broe has looked at the conditions that can be caused by “long COVID”: persistent symptoms often include brain fog, fatigue, headaches, dizziness and shortness of breath, among others. Perhaps he is willing to risk those, but I have more than enough on my plate already.
Elizabeth Malavet
Van Hornesville
Read Mr. Broe’s letter here: allotsego.com/brow-facemasks-vaccines-are-not-the-answer/
By: Staff
01/18/2023 2:40 pm
Life in the time of COVID
Things in the world of COVID are rapidly and constantly changing. This week’s column is a brief compendium of some of these changes.
The alphabet soup of COVID variants and subvariants grows daily. Four weeks ago, we were talking about the new Omicron variant XBB. Now we are reading about the subvariant daily. A month ago, we were starting to discuss the properties of the original XBB. Now XBB.1.5 is considered the most infectious version of COVID yet. It’s not clear if symptoms are going to be worse than previous versions, but it does appear that regardless of previous infectious or vaccine status, almost everybody is going to be infected.
By: Staff
12/02/2022 4:00 pm
By Richard Sternberg, M.D.
As we continue into the third year of the COVID pandemic, increasing interest and concern is becoming evident by the set of symptoms called Long COVID. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention definition, on their website, says that Long COVID (also known by other names) is the experiencing of symptoms following infection with the virus that causes COVID, SARS-CoV-2. Their definition does not list a specific point in time of the symptoms but many people define the time frame as beyond four weeks following infection.
There are more than 200 symptoms associated with the diagnosis of Long COVID. Some of the most common are tiredness or fatigue that interferes with daily life, symptoms that get worse after physical or mental effort, fever, and brain fog (difficulty thinking or concentrating). If I wrote out the whole list, it would take up this entire page of the paper, but if you are interested go to the CDC and NIH websites.
By: Staff
10/28/2022 12:00 pm
Column by Richard Sternberg, M. D.
Again, just when it seemed we reached the point where we can go out with people and decrease our use of masks, COVID strikes back and possibly with more virulence than previous strains. The number of new strains to consider is large. New strains include BA.5.2.6, BA.4.1.9, BE.1.2, BA.4.7, BF.13 and XBB, among others. Already BA.5 and BA.4 strains have high penetrance in the U.S. The new and improved booster shots only use RNA to code for the original strains, BA.1 and BA.2
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and others warn that this year the winter viral season will be worse than usual because we have to deal with flu and RSV (respiratory syncytial virus). A side effect of the lockdowns and protective behavior over the last two years has been decreased contact between people so that influenza, rhinovirus (common cold), and other circulating viral illnesses have decreased, off-setting some of the increased mortality due to COVID. RSV is primarily a disease of children which makes it difficult for them to breathe and doesn’t have a vaccine yet. There are approximately 300 deaths in children in the U.S. each year from it.
By: Staff
10/13/2022 4:00 pm
October 13, 2022
Weighted Blankets Promote Sleep
A weighted blanket of approximately 12 percent body weight used at bedtime prompted the release of higher concentrations of melatonin, as measured in the saliva, compared with a lighter blanket of only about 2.4% of body weight. This suggests that weighted blankets may help promote sleep in patients suffering from insomnia, according to the results from the small, in-laboratory crossover study.
Sore Throat Common in COVID
Having a sore throat is becoming a dominant symptom of COVID-19 infection, with fever and loss of smell becoming less common, according to recent reports in the U.K. The shift could be a cause of concern for the fall. As the main symptoms of the coronavirus change, people could spread the virus without realizing it. “Many people are still using the government guidelines about symptoms, which are wrong,” Tim Spector, a professor of genetic epidemiology at King’s College London, said.
—“The Independent” (U.K.)
By: Reporter
11/25/2021 12:20 pm
By Richard Sternberg M.D.
The amount of information regarding COVID in children and the risks and benefits of vaccination is overwhelming and as reported even varies from country to country.
There is no clear-cut consensus on anything in the younger age groups other than that the risk of developing a case requiring treatment, hospitalization, or leading to death is lower if the patient is younger. Still, the risks of vaccine complications in the very young have so far been trivial, with no deaths or hospitalizations in pre-clinical studies reported in the United States.
By: Reporter
11/04/2021 10:49 am
On the one hand the media is reporting the number of cases of COVID-19 is receding in the United States. The Wall Street Journal reports that the Delta variant wave of the pandemic has passed its peak. On the other hand, it states that that the approaching winter season and holidays present another opportunity for cases to increase.
I read a report on October 28 that “Delaware, Otsego, Schoharie see virus deaths.” It pointed out that the unvaccinated were more likely to require hospitalization and spread the infection. In the prior week there had been 5 deaths across the three counties. There were several hundred active cases. Of course, this cannot begin to find those people who have active COVID but were minimally or not at all symptomatic but can still spread the disease. Statewide the day before there were 35 deaths and 4,284 new cases. Granted, compared to what we experienced before, this is a major improvement but I think our perspectives are warped by how horrific things had been previously, especially at the beginning of the pandemic, in the United States. Nevertheless, it is 35 mostly unnecessary deaths and 4,200 people who are at risk of developing Long COVID symptoms.
By: Reporter
10/28/2021 12:15 pm
The concept of Long COVID has become a hot topic, especially since people are finally becoming aware that having COVID–19 is not just an acute respiratory syndrome that may or may not lead up to death but a very complicated potentially lifelong debilitating disease process. While there is a general agreement on what Long COVID is, there is no uniform definition internationally and it is not clear that some long-term post COVID complications such as Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome in Children (MIS-C) should be classed as Long COVID or in a separate category. At this time, it is really a matter of semantics. The term Long COVID is probably a patient created term first cited in May 2020. Other names for this syndrome include post-COVID-19 syndrome, post-acute sequelae of COVID-19 (PASC), and chronic COVID syndrome.
