Here's your irregularly scheduled alarm about something else that can hurt or kill you. The CDC is investigating four cases of a rare and serious bacterial infection called melioidosis after identifying cases in Georgia, Kansas, Minnesota, and Texas. Two of the four patients have died. Melioidosis is normally contracted through travel, principally travel to Southeast Asia or northern Australia. What is concerning is that none of the four patients had traveled internationally. The most likely cause then is some imported product such as food or drink, a personal care or cleaning product, medicine, or a single ingredient in any of those products. Meioidosis comes from a bacteria called Burkholderia pseudomallei typically found in contaminated water or soil. Symptoms can be mistaken for those of tuberculosis and include cough, shortness of breath, weakness, vomiting, fever, or rash on abdomen and face. Underlying factors such as kidney disease, diabetes, and excessive alcohol use can increase the risk of serious illness. Two of the four patients, including one of the two who died has risk factors such as COPD and cirrhosis.
China has punished dozens of local officials for their failure to control Delta outbreaks. This is the worst resurgence in China in over a year. In Australia, New South Wales has expanded its lockdown geographically in response to four deaths and 356 new locally transmitted cases almost all in Sydney. The lockdown is now in its seventh week and scheduled to end on August 28. It may very well last through September, though, given the new numbers. Only 22.5 percent of Australians over the age of 16 are fully vaccinated.
The CDC has added seven countries to the list of Level 4 Do Not Go There countries. A country is added when there have been over 500 cases per 100,000 residents in the past 28 days. The additions are Aruba, Eswatini (formerly Swaziland), France, French Polynesia, Iceland, Israel, and Thailand.
The US is averaging 124,000 new cases daily, over double the number two weeks ago, and the highest rate since early February. Hospitals in hot spots are approaching capacity. Pediatric hospitalizations continue to rise leading to worry that the Delta variant may be more virulent in kids. The last week saw 94,000 new cases in children. Most don't require hospitalization, but the number that do is growing. Last week, 200 children were admitted to a hospital across the US every day last week. Experts are predicting back-to-school surges, something no parent or school employee wants to hear.
The governor of Texas has appealed for out-of-state help in fighting the third covid wave. A county-owned hospital in Houston has put up tents for covid overflow. Some patients are being sent out of state including one to North Dakota. The Texas Department of State Health is looking outside Texas for nurses and other needed personnel. Private hospitals already have vaccine mandates. Dallas is joining Houston in putting in mask mandates in schools. The two-week daily average of new cases is up 165 percent to 8,533. I can't help but think that if the governor had been willing all along to permit vaccine and mask mandates, he would not now need to be looking "outside" for help and the situation would not be quite so dire.
Gym closures during the early days of the pandemic led lots of people to exercise at home. Now that gyms are, for the most part, reopened, many of those people are not going back. As one person put it, she no longer has to drive to and from the gym, fill water bottles, change clothes, and spend time away from her family. We may be in a new era of high-tech home workout equipment and virtual classes. Peloton reports that sales are up 141 percent in the first three months of 2021. If you can afford Peloton, you can afford even more. Forty percent of Peloton users also have gym memberships.
The local university's health center has tightened their restrictions on visitors. They never did completely end the restrictions put in place in 2020; now they're starting on the way back to those extra-strict restrictions. It's just another sign that we are still far from any sort of normal.
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