School's out for...ever?
The most important news in healthcare: Tuesday, August 4th.
Good morning. Today we’re bringing you an update on the re-opening of schools and a new study that shows dementia is surprisingly on the decline in the U.S.
Schools reopen in fits and starts
The pulse:
Select schools, mostly in the midwest and south, opened last week for in-person classes – but some have already been forced to quarantine staff and students as the virus spreads.
What’s happened in the schools that have reopened?
Many schools in Indiana opened late last week, and though the superintendent of one the districts in central Indiana sent out a note thanking students and parents for a “great first two days of school,” within days, his high school was forced to shut its doors after staff members tested positive.
Similar occurrences have popped up in Georgia, Mississippi, and other parts of Indiana, potentially serving as a harbinger of the chaos to come if schools reopen nationwide. Harold E. Olin, superintendent of the Greenfield-Central Community School Corporation in Indiana said, “We knew it was a when, not if but were very shocked it was on Day 1.”
Are these one-off cases?
Likely not. An issue with the pandemic is that our understanding of an extent of a crisis regularly lags behind the occurrence of the crisis. Still, there is enough evidence that children over the age of 10 efficiently transmit the virus, and that children under the age of 10 can carry high viral loads, to suggest that reopening schools in-person is a bad idea. Said Peter Hotez, dean for the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine:
This push to open schools is guaranteed to fail. In communities with high transmission, it’s inevitable that COVID-19 will enter the schools. Within two weeks of opening schools in communities with high virus transmission, teachers will become ill. All it will take is for a single teacher to become hospitalized with COVID and everything will shut down.
Bottom line it for me
Schools that open may be forced to close quickly, and we must consider a more useful expenditures of resources – such as supporting targeted afterschool programs, targeted enrichment programs, and outdoor classrooms – in order to relieve the burden on students and parents.
Source: Griswold Home Care
Dementia on the decline in the U.S. and Europe
The pulse:
A new study has revealed that rates of dementia are on the decline in the U.S. and Europe but have remained steady and even increased in many other parts of the world.
Wait a minute, I thought rates of dementia were on the rise?
It’s true that there are more people in the U.S. living with dementia than ever before. However, this is because there are simply more elderly people than ever before, and the likelihood of developing dementia rises with age. The actual lifetime risk of developing dementia for an individual is now 13% lower than it was just ten years ago – if you live in Europe or the U.S. that is.
Why is this trend only true in the U.S. and Europe?
Researchers are as puzzled as we are. Though the study collected data from Asia, South America, and Africa, there did not seem to be similar declining rates of dementia globally. In fact, in places such as Japan, China, and Nigeria, rates of dementia seem to be increasing. One emerging theory is that improved control of cardiovascular risk factors in the U.S. and Europe has been protective against the development of dementia.
What’s the relationship between cardiovascular factors and dementia?
Multiple factors relating to heart health – such as smoking, high blood pressure, and cholesterol – also seem to be correlated with dementia. The significant decline of smoking in the U.S. may play an important role in declining dementia rates. Many other countries continue to have high rates of smoking that could make dementia more prevalent.
Are there any other theories to explain the decline?
Scientists also point to increasing and improved education in recent decades, which is thought to be protective against memory loss. More social interactions, better diets, and more exercise have also all been thrown out there as contributing factors, but in reality, these all still remain simply theories.
Bottom line it for me.
The likelihood that an American may one day face dementia is starting to trend down; experts say lower rates of smoking and more awareness about healthy lifestyle factors may be driving the decline.
Rapidfire
Please do stop the music: two advocacy groups are asking the FDA to ban the use of music during the “side effects” segments of drug ads, claiming that viewers get easily distracted.
Sanofi is challenging an indictment for manslaughter in France. It’s been investigated for years for the sale of their epilepsy drug Depakine (valproate) which is now known to cause birth defects in mothers taking the drug.
After receiving over 650 applications for its SharkTank style competition, the NIH has chosen 7 COVID-19 diagnostic tests to receive approximately $250 million in scale-up funding.
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