Category Archives: Covid-19

More than 60 days after Fairfax County had its first case of COVID-19, the county has, by far, the most cases, hospitalizations and deaths than any other in Virginia and now the county's emergency information department is giving three reasons why.

More than 60 days after Fairfax County announced its first case of COVID-19, the county has, by far, the most infections, hospitalizations and deaths than any county in Virginia and now the countys emergency information department is giving three reasons why.

The county, the largest in population in the state, said Thursday its pandemic curve is still in the exponential growth phase. As of Wednesday night, Fairfax County has 5,045 cases, 832 hospitalized and 211 deaths from COVID-19 each of those numbers is more than twice the total of the next highest county.

Fairfax County outlined the causes:

Fairfax County said it has taken proactive measures to slow the spread of the virus in high-risk places like nursing homes and assisted living facilities.

The county said even as Virginia and other states begin to ease restrictions, residents should stay vigilant with mitigation actions and think of these measures as a marathon, rather than a sprint.

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3 reasons COVID-19 is on the rise in Fairfax County - WTOP

The numbers that state health officials report each day keep going up and up and up. The number of people tested for the coronavirus, the number of people who have been diagnosed with COVID-19, the number of people who have been killed by the virus. There's another number that does not get reported but also keeps rising -- the number of people in Massachusetts who have recovered from COVID-19.

"People can and do recover, and we need to remember that," Public Health Commissioner Monica Bharel said late last month after she recovered from her own COVID-19 diagnosis and returned to work.

There have been 73,721 cases of COVID-19 confirmed in Massachusetts since Feb. 1. As of Thursday, 4,552 people have died of the disease and another 3,436 people are currently hospitalized with the virus. That leaves 65,733 people who could be sick with the virus but not badly enough to need hospital care, could have been treated at a hospital and released, or could have made a full recovery like Bharel.

A COVID-19 simulator built by Massachusetts General Hospital estimates that the number of active cases of COVID-19 in Massachusetts -- meaning "anyone who is in the infectious period" -- is roughly 6,200. But there is no real way to know for sure yet.

Clinicians in Massachusetts are required to report positive cases of COVID-19, but are not required to report when a patient recovers and the Mass. Department of Public Health does not track the number of recoveries in the state, a DPH spokeswoman said.

Many local boards of health do track the number of COVID-19 recoveries in their own communities. Boston said Thursday that 2,882 of the 10,589 residents who have been diagnosed with COVID-19 have recovered. Somerville reported 291 recoveries among 665 positive tests in its city. Framingham reports the total number of cases (1,146 as of Wednesday) and then breaks it down into fatalities (42), recoveries (290) and active cases (814). Pittsfield does the same. Brockton reports the cumulative number of confirmed cases, the number of deaths and the number of active cases, making it easy to determine the number of people who have recovered.

A number of states around the country report statewide recovery numbers daily or weekly, too. But things get murky in the fine print of each state's report.

"Currently, there are multiple ways for recovered cases to be recorded and several methods are used by different countries and states. Some states and countries measure a case as recovered when a person has had COVID-19 for more than 14 days, while others upon hospital discharge data -- neither of which completely capture recovery of the full COVID positive population," the Florida Department of Health, which like Massachusetts does not report statewide recoveries, said in a statement.

To cut through some of that static, Massachusetts is among a group of states talking with the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and each other about coming up with a standardized definition of what it means to have recovered from COVID-19, DPH confirmed to the News Service.

Alaska's Department of Health and Social Services publishes a chart that visually displays the number of cumulative cases along with how many of those are active, how many patients have died and how many people have recovered. The chart shows that while the cumulative number of cases increases, so too does the number of recoveries.

As of Wednesday, Alaska reported that about 78 percent of people who have tested positive in that state have recovered. The state defines a recovered patient as someone "whose symptoms have improved enough to meet the CDC criteria to be released from home isolation, and are no longer considered to be infectious."

Michigan reports a cumulative number of people who have recovered from COVID-19 infection each Saturday. Last weekend, the state said 15,659 of the 44,397 people who had been diagnosed with the virus had recovered, about 35 percent of all cases.

There, public health officials count as recovered any COVID-19 patient who is still alive 30 days after testing positive for the virus.

On Sunday, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott tweeted that more people in his state had recovered from COVID-19 than had been newly diagnosed with it over the last two days.

"That's exactly what we want to see," the governor wrote. "Texas ranks 3rd highest among states for number of people who have recovered from #coronavirus."

In Abbott's state, the Department of State Health Services reports daily on the number of cumulative COVID-19 cases in the state, and estimated numbers of active cases and of patients who have recovered from the virus.

But the fine print on the state's COVID-19 dashboard reveals that the estimates are "based on several assumptions related to hospitalization rates and recovery times, which were informed by data available to date" and that the estimates "are subject to change as we learn more about COVID-19." The estimates also do not include any cases reported before March 24.

Tennessee, which got its first COVID-19 case from Massachusetts, reports recoveries and counts in that category "people who (1) have been confirmed to be asymptomatic by their local or regional health department and have completed their required isolation period or (2) are at least 21 days beyond the first test confirming their illness."

As of Tuesday, Tennessee reported that 6,783 people had recovered from COVID-19, representing about 48 percent of the state's cumulative cases.

Mississippi public health officials put out a number for "presumed recovered cases," which is a count of all living COVID-19 patients who were not hospitalized and are 14 days beyond their initial positive test, plus the number of patients who were hospitalized but are 21 days beyond their initial positive test.

In Wyoming, a patient is considered recovered "when there is resolution of fever without the use of fever-reducing medications and there is improvement in respiratory symptoms (e.g. cough, shortness of breath) for 72 hours AND at least 7 days have passed since symptoms first appeared."

Having a uniform definition of what it means to have recovered from this new virus could play a major role as states reopen their economies and send people back to work. Some have suggested that people who have recovered could return to work sooner or could be asked to take frontline jobs in medicine or retail, if studies show that recovery from COVID-19 comes with some level of immunity from re-infection. But that all hinges on knowing what recovered actually means.

"We've asked the CDC this question so we don't all define it in different ways just based on the state," North Carolina Health and Human Services Secretary Mandy Cohen said in an April 16 news conference. "We're trying to figure out how we as a country can all define recovery so we have that sort of standardization and not apples to oranges if we define it in different ways."

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A Little-Reported Mass. COVID-19 Number That's Also Rising: Those Who Recover - wgbh.org

Jackie Stockton (left) and daughter Alice Stockton-Rossini at the Philadelphia Flower Show in March 2019. The two women have recovered from COVID-19 after an outbreak hit their New Jersey community. Courtesy of Alice Stockton-Rossini hide caption

Jackie Stockton (left) and daughter Alice Stockton-Rossini at the Philadelphia Flower Show in March 2019. The two women have recovered from COVID-19 after an outbreak hit their New Jersey community.

Alice Stockton-Rossini and her 90-year-old mother, Jackie Stockton, survived COVID-19.

But the virus took the lives of some of their friends and a relative.

The outbreak in their community in Ship Bottom, N.J., can be traced back to Stockton's 90th birthday party, held at her church on March 8 before much of the U.S. began practicing social distancing.

In a recent remote StoryCorps conversation, Stockton told her 62-year-old daughter that she didn't realize she had contracted the virus until she landed in the hospital.

"One day I was at church and that's all I remember, until I woke up in the hospital and apparently, I'd been there awhile," she said. Stockton was hospitalized from March 16 to March 22.

At least eight family members became infected.

"I lost my brother-in-law, and five members of our church are dead," Stockton-Rossini said. "It's just it's mind-blowing, it really is."

The devastation from the coronavirus seems incomparable to other major events in Stockton's life.

"I remember 9/11 as though it just happened, but then it was over," she said. "This will never, ever be over. This is different much more personal."

The hardest part, she said, is losing her best friend, 76-year-old Sandy Medford, who died on March 20.

"I've known her since she was a young girl, and then suddenly she was gone. And nobody would tell me," Stockton said.

Her daughter responded, "We couldn't tell you right away."

She held off telling her mom the news until her mom was out of the hospital and had regained some of her strength.

Stockton said she worries most about her loved ones.

"I always worry about my family. Always," she said. "It takes a long time to say my prayers at night. I have so many kids, grandkids. Gotta pray for everybody."

But she said one thing is getting her through this crisis: "Faith that things will get better. Faith that people will come together more instead of tearing each other apart."

Stockton said her family has a history of weathering hardships.

"There's always been something," she said. "And we've come through it."

She told her daughter that the grandmother of Stockton-Rossini's father, who raised him, endured the deaths of eight of her 17 children. At least one of her kids died during the 1918 flu pandemic.

"She lived through the worst kind of hell having to bury so many of your children," she said. "But look how she came through it. She was an amazing woman and so was her husband. They just did the things they needed to do. And they survived."

Her daughter added, "Put one foot in front of another. Take one day at a time. What did you always say, Mom? 'One minute at a time.' "

Stockton agreed. "You gotta keep going. That's for sure."

Audio produced for Morning Edition by Kerrie Hillman and Michael Garofalo.

StoryCorps developed a new way to bring people together that makes it possible to record interviews remotely. Go to storycorpsconnect.org to try it out.

StoryCorps is a national nonprofit that gives people the chance to interview friends and loved ones about their lives. These conversations are archived at the American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress, allowing participants to leave a legacy for future generations. Learn more, including how to interview someone in your life, at StoryCorps.org.

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'This Is ... Personal': After Surviving COVID-19, A Mom And Daughter Mourn Loved Ones - NPR

A medical worker walks in front of Transform MD Medical Center in White Plains, N.Y., where antibody testing was being offered. Pablo Monsalve/VIEW press/Corbis via Getty Images hide caption

A medical worker walks in front of Transform MD Medical Center in White Plains, N.Y., where antibody testing was being offered.

Most people infected with the novel coronavirus develop antibodies in response.

But scientists don't know whether people who have been exposed to the coronavirus will be immune for life, as is usually the case for the measles, or if the disease will return again and again, like the common cold.

"This to me is one of the big unanswered questions that we have," says Jeffrey Shaman, a professor of environmental health sciences at Columbia University, "because it really says, 'What is the full exit strategy to this and how long are we going to be contending with it?' "

He's one of many scientists on a quest for answers. And the pieces are starting to fall into place.

Antibodies, which are proteins found in the blood as part of the body's immune response to infection, are a sign that people could be developing immunity. But antibodies are by no means a guarantee a person will be protected for life or even for a year.

Shaman has been studying four coronaviruses that cause the common cold. "They're very common and so people seem to get them quite often," Shaman says. Ninety percent of people develop antibodies to those viruses, at least in passing, but "our evidence is those antibodies are not conferring protection."

That may be simply because colds are relatively mild, so the immune system doesn't mount a full-blown response, suggests Stanley Perlman, a pediatrician who studies immunology and microbiology at the University of Iowa. "That's why people get colds over and over again," he says. "It doesn't really tickle the immune response that much."

He's studied one of the most severe coronaviruses, the one that causes SARS, and he's found that the degree of immunity depended on the severity of the disease. Sicker people remained immune for much longer, in some cases many years.

For most people exposed to the novel coronavirus, "I think in the short term you're going to get some protection," Perlman says. "It's really the time of the protection that matters."

Perlman notes that for some people the symptoms of COVID-19 are no worse than a cold, while for others they are severe. "That's why it's tricky," he says, to predict the breadth of an immune response.

And it's risky to assume that experiences with other coronaviruses are directly applicable to the new one.

"Unfortunately, we cannot really generalize what kind of immunity is needed to get protection against a virus unless we really learn more about the virus," says Akiko Iwasaki, a Howard Hughes Medical Institute investigator at the Yale University School of Medicine.

An immunobiologist, she is part of a rapidly expanding effort to figure this out. She and her colleagues are already studying the immune response in more than 100 patients in the medical school hospital. She's encouraged that most people who recover from the coronavirus have developed antibodies that neutralize the coronavirus in a petri dish.

"Whether that's happening inside the body we don't really know," she cautions.

Research like hers will answer that question, eventually.

But not all antibodies are protective. Iwasaki says some can actually contribute to the disease process and make the illness worse. These antibodies can contribute to inflammation and lead the body to overreact. That overreaction can even be deadly.

"Which types of antibodies protect the host versus those that enhance the disease? We really need to figure that out," she says.

The studies at Yale will follow patients for at least a year, to find out how slowly or quickly immunity might fade. "I wish there was a shortcut," Iwasaki says, "but we may not need to wait a year to understand what type of antibodies are protective."

That's because she and other immunologists are looking for patterns in the immune response that will identify people who have long-term immunity.

Researchers long ago figured out what biological features in the blood (called biomarkers) correlate with immunity to other diseases, says Kari Nadeau, a pediatrician and immunologist at the Stanford University School of Medicine. She expects researchers will be able to do the same for the new coronavirus.

Nadeau is working on several studies, including one that seeks to recruit 1,000 people who were previously exposed to the coronavirus. One goal is to identify people who produce especially strong, protective antibody responses. She says the antibody-producing cells from those people can potentially be turned into vaccines.

Another critical question she's zeroing in on is whether people who become immune are still capable of spreading the virus.

"Because you might be immune, you might have protected yourself against the virus," she says, "but it still might be in your body and you're giving it to others."

It would have huge public health implications if it turns out people can still spread the disease after they've recovered. Studies from China and South Korea seemed to suggest this was possible, though further studies have cast doubt on that as a significant feature of the disease.

Nadeau is also trying to figure out what can be said about the antibody blood-tests that are now starting to flood the market. There are two issues with these tests. First, a positive test may be a false-positive result, so it may be necessary to run a confirmatory test to get a credible answer. Second, it's not clear that a true positive test result really indicates a person is immune and, if so, for how long.

Companies would like to be able to use these tests to identify people who can return to work without fear of spreading the coronavirus.

"I see a lot of business people wanting to do the best for their employees, and for good reason," Nadeau says. "And we can never say you're fully protected until we get enough [information]. But right now we're working hard to get the numbers we need to be able to see what constitutes protection and what does not."

It could be a matter of life or death to get this right. Answers to these questions are likely to come with the accumulation of information from many different labs. Fortunately, scientists around the world are working simultaneously to find answers.

You can contact NPR Science Correspondent Richard Harris at rharris@npr.org.

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Do Antibodies Against The Novel Coronavirus Prevent Reinfection? : Shots - Health News - NPR

The serious inflammatory syndrome sending some children and teens to the hospital remains extremely uncommon, doctors say. But if your child spikes a high, persistent fever, and has severe abdominal pain with vomiting that doesn't make them feel better, call your doctor as a precaution. Sally Anscombe/Getty Images hide caption

The serious inflammatory syndrome sending some children and teens to the hospital remains extremely uncommon, doctors say. But if your child spikes a high, persistent fever, and has severe abdominal pain with vomiting that doesn't make them feel better, call your doctor as a precaution.

Sixty-four children and teens in New York State are suspected of having a mysterious inflammatory syndrome that is believed to be linked to COVID-19, the New York Department of Health said in an alert issued Wednesday. A growing number of similar cases including at least one death have been reported in other parts of the U.S. and Europe, though the phenomenon is still not well-understood.

Pediatricians say parents should not panic; the condition remains extremely rare. But researchers also are taking a close look at this emerging syndrome, and say parents should be on the lookout for symptoms in their kids that might warrant a quick call to the doctor a persistent high fever over several days and significant abdominal pains with repeated vomiting, after which the child does not feel better.

"If [the child is] looking particularly ill, you should definitely call the doctor," says Dr. Sean O'Leary, a pediatric infectious disease specialist at Children's Hospital Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus and member of the infectious disease committee for the American Academy of Pediatrics.

The new condition associated with COVID-19 is called Pediatric Multi-System Inflammatory Syndrome. Symptoms include persistent fever, extreme inflammation and evidence of one or more organs that are not functioning properly, says cardiologist Jane Newburger, a professor of pediatrics at Harvard Medical School and director of the Kawasaki Program at Boston Children's Hospital.

"It's still very rare, but there's been a wave of cases. Physicians and scientists are working hard to understanding the mechanisms at play, and why only some children are so severely affected," Newburger says.

Some symptoms can resemble features of Kawasaki Disease Shock Syndrome. Kawasaki disease is an acute illness in children involving fever with symptoms including rash; conjunctivitis; redness in the lips, tongue and mucous membranes of the mouth and throat; swollen hands and/or feet; and sometimes an enlarged group of lymph nodes on one side of the neck, says Newburger. Some children with the condition develop enlargement of the coronary arteries and aneurysms in those blood vessels.

A small percentage of Kawasaki cases go on to develop symptoms of shock, which can include a steep drop in systolic blood pressure and difficulty with sufficient blood supply to the body's organs. Kawasaki disease and KDSS more often affect young children, although they can sometimes affect teens, Newburger says.

Some cases of the new inflammatory syndrome have features that overlap with KD or with KDSS including rash, conjunctivitis, and swollen hands or feet. The new inflammatory syndrome can affect not only young children but also older children and teens.

But patients with the new syndrome have lab results that look very different, in particular, "cardiac inflammation to a greater degree than we typically see in Kawasaki shock syndrome," which is usually very rare, O'Leary says. In New York City and London, which have seen large numbers of COVID-19 cases, "those types of patients are being seen with greater frequency."

Some patients "come in very, very sick," with low blood pressure and high fever, O'Leary says. Some children have had coronary artery aneurysms, though most have not, he adds.

Other patients exhibit symptoms more similar to toxic shock syndrome, with abdominal pain, vomiting and diarrhea, and high levels of inflammation in the body, including the heart, O'Leary says. Most cases are treated in the intensive care unit, he says. Treatment includes intravenous immunoglobulin, which can "calm the immune system," says Newburger, as well as steroids and cytokine blockers.

The evidence so far from Europe, where reports of the syndrome first emerged, suggests most children will recover with proper supportive care, says O'Leary, though one adolescent, a 14-year-old boy in London, has died, according to a report published Wednesday in The Lancet.

Most children with the syndrome, O'Leary and Newburger note, have either tested positive for a current infection with the coronavirus, or for antibodies to the virus, which would suggest they were infected earlier and recovered.

And, according to case reports, some of the kids with the inflammatory syndrome who tested negative on coronavirus tests had been exposed at some point to someone known to have COVID-19. The inflammatory syndrome can appear days to weeks after COVID-19 illness, doctors say, suggesting the syndrome arises out of the immune system's response to the virus.

"One theory is that as one begins to make antibodies to SARS-COV-2, the antibody itself may be provoking an immune response," says Newburger. "This is only happening in susceptible individuals whose immune systems are built in a particular way. It doesn't happen in everybody. It's still a really uncommon event in children."

In late April, the U.K.'s National Health Service issued an alert to pediatricians about the syndrome. Reports have also surfaced in France, Spain and Italy, and probably number in the dozens globally, Newburger and O'Leary say, though doctors still don't have hard numbers. Newburger says there needs to be a registry where doctors can report cases "so we can begin to generate some statistics."

"Doctors across countries are talking to each other, but we need for there to be some structure and some science so that everybody can interpret," she says.

Earlier this week, the New York City Health Department issued an alert saying 15 children ranging in age from 2 to 15 had been hospitalized with the syndrome. Newburger says that she's been contacted about cases in New Jersey and Philadelphia, as well.

While the syndrome's precise connection to the coronavirus isn't yet clear, O'Leary says the fact that the children in most of these cases are testing positive for exposure to the virus, one way or another, provides one point of evidence. The sheer number of cases small in absolute terms, but still "much higher than we would expect normally for things like severe Kawasaki or toxic shock syndrome" provides another, he says.

And then there's the fact that most reports of the syndrome have come out of the U.K. and New York City, places that have been hit with large numbers of COVID-19 cases.

"It's pure speculation at this point," he says, "but the U.K. cluster kind of went up about a month after their COVID-19 infections went up, which would suggest that it is some kind of an immune phenomenon."

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Mystery Inflammatory Syndrome In Kids And Teens Likely Linked To COVID-19 - NPR

Overnight, it seems the world has turned upside down. We are now practicing social distancing, isolating in our homes and worried about our loved ones living under different roofs. Many of us are juggling the demands of remote work and family life at home. Some of us are facing the unexpected and grim reality of unemployment and financial distress. And some of us have been sick with COVID-19, recovering alone, unable to hug loved ones for fear of getting them sick. Each day, as the death rate grows, many of us are tragically grieving the loss of loved ones.

A life-changing crisis has the ability to shake the foundations of our identity. Nothing feels normal. Without warning, we have lost control over so many aspects of our lives. We are so used to our identity and routines and we are caught off guard. People around us know what we are going through but they can't understand the internal storm we experience.

Stress accelerates and reaches new peaks every day and threatening news continues to trigger uncertainty and anxiety. In fact, according to a recent survey published by the Kaiser Family Foundation, nearly half of the people living in the United States feel the coronavirus crisis is harming their mental health. This is not something we anticipated and were prepared for and many of us feel lonely, helpless and are looking for much needed support in dealing with this life-changing crisis.

Nearly half of the people in the US say the coronavirus crisis is harming their mental health.

Research shows that professionally-led peer support groups can serve as an effective and critical coping tool, but when we look around we are surprised by the limited number of available group support options. Despite technological advances, the majority of emotional support groups still operate in person. Thus, the majority of support groups are often found in larger cities or more populous areas, making them inaccessible to so many who could benefit from them.

Those individuals who find support in an online group will have to compromise, as most group type support exists on social networks, forums, and other unstructured, outdated and unprofessional platforms. Only a few lucky ones will haphazardly find a professionally-led support group just right for them. Regrettably and unnecessarily, this leaves many individuals feeling lonely in our otherwise very connected world. The importance of connecting and finding online support with others going through similar life challenges was important before COVID-19, but we are finding it even more critical to connect in our new social distancing reality.

The time for a mental health revolution has come and affordable and accessible mental health care must be a fundamental part of the COVID-19 response. We are beginning to see that classic face-to-face treatment must evolve to support the demands of so many people in need of emotional support services.

As a result of COVID-19, online support has become a necessity. People are dealing with stress and anxiety related to their health, financial situations and isolation (with and without taking care of kids and managing to work at the same time) but are not able just to step outside of their home and seek support.

In this vacuum we see the rise of online services from hotlines and online psychotherapy, to newly emerging peer support and facilitated groups platforms. We are currently experiencing acceleration of the development and adoption of remote emotional support but this is just the beginning. These services will be here to stay, long after we overcome the current pandemic.

In the past year we at 7Chairs had over 450 groups and 3,000 users on our online support group platform. We witnessed two interesting trends: 1) an online setting increases the accessibility of support to everyone, everywhere; 2) there are some unique advantages to online support that enable anonymity and increase the level of openness, which are related. This is a revolution, which will impact millions who live in remote areas or are not able to attend face-to-face sessions.

COVID-19 is forcing a change in many areas of our life. Remote/online is becoming the new standard in education, work and health. The change in the way we feel and behave is foundational and will stay with us for a long time.

There is a positive angle, we are in the middle of a revolution and, at the end of the tunnel, we will have a world where many things, including emotional support, will be more accessible for people who truly need them.

A new strain of Coronavirus, COVID 19, is spreading around the world, causing deaths and major disruption to the global economy.

Responding to this crisis requires global cooperation among governments, international organizations and the business community, which is at the centre of the World Economic Forums mission as the International Organization for Public-Private Cooperation.

The Forum has created the COVID Action Platform, a global platform to convene the business community for collective action, protect peoples livelihoods and facilitate business continuity, and mobilize support for the COVID-19 response. The platform is created with the support of the World Health Organization and is open to all businesses and industry groups, as well as other stakeholders, aiming to integrate and inform joint action.

As an organization, the Forum has a track record of supporting efforts to contain epidemics. In 2017, at our Annual Meeting, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations (CEPI) was launched bringing together experts from government, business, health, academia and civil society to accelerate the development of vaccines. CEPI is currently supporting the race to develop a vaccine against this strand of the coronavirus.

For now, here are a few practical tips on strengthening your support system from our emotional support experts at 7chairs.co. It is surprising that despite how important social and emotional support is, many of us still find it an often overlooked and neglected part of our day-to-day.

1. Find and spend time with like-minded people

Social connections make us feel good, whereas loneliness and isolation can be detrimental to our mental health. Finding connection and trust with someone who shares a similar life experience can be a very empowering and supportive way of connecting. Life experiences can be uniquely complicated and expecting friends and family to truly understand the depth of our feelings is unrealistic, especially when our loved ones simply want us to find the quickest and easiest way to feel better. Joining a topic-specific support group can be an excellent way to connect and spend time with others just like you.

2. Real-time connection is important

Technology has made great strides in allowing us to connect with anyone, anywhere and at anytime and in a way that is user-friendly and readily available. Real-time connection is a game changer in allowing us to connect with others on a deeper, more personal level. When connecting with others and sharing feelings, real-time connection allows us to stay motivated and to get the feedback and support we need, when we need it.

3. Emotional support experts are key to designing impactful group support

The support of peers is just one piece of the dynamic puzzle which makes emotional support groups so effective. The other is the group facilitator. A group facilitator helps design the groups unique culture. Having a trained and skilled group facilitator can help channel the groups energy in impactful ways to foster the most benefit and healing to the groups participants.

4. Share one feeling a day

Talking about and opening up about your feelings is no easy feat. But getting in the habit and sharing a feeling with someone every day is a great way to begin feeling comfortable with your emotions and the process of sharing them. Sharing feelings also reduces stress and anxiety, allowing us to feel connected and supported by those we are sharing with.

5. Ask one person a day how they feel

Empathy is understanding and recognizing emotions in others and learning how to put yourself in another persons shoes. Feeling heard and understood is a basic human need and important in all relationships. To empathize with others can be an empowering and humbling experience. Further, it allows us to regulate our own emotions and allows us to have compassion for others.

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The views expressed in this article are those of the author alone and not the World Economic Forum.

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Mental health care will undergo a revolution post COVID-19 - World Economic Forum

Lara Sowers has had experience dealing with highly infectious diseases even before the emergence of the coronavirus.

A nurse at Penn State Milton S. Hershey Medical Center, Sowers has been part of the special pathogens team since 2014. For the last several weeks, shes been working with coronavirus patients.

She described how COVID-19 is much different than the Ebola virus, an infectious disease that can be fatal.

Its a lot less viral than Ebola. Ebola is scary in that it moves so quickly. Luckily, COVID isnt on that level," Sowers said.

Whats scary about COVID-19 is its more insidious," she said. "People know when they have Ebola. Whats scary with this (COVID-19) is people dont know. They dont have symptoms.

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Penn State Health nurses

In the course of the coronavirus pandemic, she said some people have had surgery and were swabbed for a virus as a precaution and the tests have come back positive.

Weve had some really sick people and others feel rundown and dont feel like themselves, and get swabbed, and they come in and theyre positive, Sowers said.

Since COVID-19 is a novel virus, theres not volumes of research doctors and nurses can review to get a handle on it. So she appreciates that fact that the Hershey Medical Center is engaged in studies of the virus.

Its crazy in that sense," Sowers said. "Its neat to be at an institution thats creating the research too. Thats been pretty neat to see in action.

Very little is easy right now. Even donning - and removing - the protective gear is an arduous, time-consuming process.

In our normal operations, its rip it off and go, she said. Here, its step by step and making sure were doing it as safe as possible. Its a lot more intentional.

Sowers is a pediatric nurse so working in the coronavirus unit has given her the chance to work with adults. The medical center has seen a few pediatric patients with the virus but theyve been treated at Penn State Childrens Hospital.

For me, Ive been learning how to take care of a whole new population of patients Ive never cared for, she said. I give a lot of credit to the adult nurses who have taken me under their wings. Thats been definitely a huge challenge.

Sowers, who works the night shift, has bonded with the nurses in the coronavirus unit. The coronavirus team has nurses from various departments throughout the hospital.

Were experiencing some crazy things, she said. "We get so crazy. You look awful, you feel terrible, you kind of have to laugh with each other.

Its all hands on deck and its incredible to see everybody work together," she said. "It really is a family.

In the first weeks of the pandemic, Sowers said it was a non-stop adrenaline rush. Now, she said, "Were out of that intensity and into the longevity phase.

This is not going away, Sowers said. "Even as life gets to normal outside the hospital, its not normal in the COVID unit. This is going to be an ongoing fight for us.

Sowers said she understands the frustrations of those seeking a return to normalcy, particularly as so many have lost jobs. But she said it can be frustrating seeing people online who arent social distancing.

Its heartbreaking to see the reality of this disease and how it affects families. You have the heartbreaking stories of people who arent working," she said. I get it from both sides. I dont know the right answer."

This illness is so scary, she said. "I wouldnt want anyone to have to go through this.

Like some other nurses, Sowers has been avoiding contact with her family during the pandemic so she doesnt risk passing on the virus to her loved ones.

Theyre very much a part of my normal everyday life," she said. "Not having that has been challenging for sure.

On the plus side, shes heard from friends she hasnt heard from in years. And the medical center has had donations of food from area restaurants.

Little gestures from the community go a long way," she said.

Note: As part of National Nurses Week, PennLive is spotlighting nurses who are treating coronavirus patients. Look for more features in the coming days.

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Even for a nurse who has dealt with infectious diseases, COVID-19 is scary; National Nurses Week - PennLive

Construction at the COVID-19 field hospital at McCormick Place in Chicago on April 10. The city pared back plans for a 3,000-bed temporary hospital at the nation's largest convention center as infection numbers decreased. Nam Y. Huh/AP hide caption

Construction at the COVID-19 field hospital at McCormick Place in Chicago on April 10. The city pared back plans for a 3,000-bed temporary hospital at the nation's largest convention center as infection numbers decreased.

As hospitals were overrun by coronavirus patients in other parts of the world, the Army Corps of Engineers mobilized in the U.S., hiring private contractors to build emergency field hospitals around the country.

The endeavor cost more than $660 million, according to an NPR analysis of federal spending records.

But nearly four months into the pandemic, most of these facilities haven't treated a single patient.

Don't see the graphic above? Click here.

Public health experts said this episode exposes how ill-prepared the U.S. is for a pandemic. They praised the Army Corps for quickly providing thousands of extra beds, but experts said there wasn't enough planning to make sure these field hospitals could be put to use once they were finished.

"It's so painful because what it's showing is that the plans we have in place, they don't work," said Robyn Gershon, a professor at New York University's School of Global Public Health. "We have to go back to the drawing board and redo it."

But the nation's governors who requested the Army Corps projects and, in some cases, contributed state funding said they're relieved these facilities didn't get more use. They said early models predicted a catastrophic shortage of hospital beds, and no one knew for sure when or if stay-at-home orders would reduce the spread of the coronavirus.

"All those field hospitals and available beds sit empty today," Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, a Republican, said last month. "And that's a very, very good thing."

Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, a Democrat, said: "These 1,000-bed alternate care sites are not necessary; they're not filled. Thank God."

Senior military leaders also said the effort was a success even if the beds sit empty. Gen. John Hyten, vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, was asked at a news conference if it bothered him to see the field hospitals go unused.

"For gosh sakes, no," Hyten said. "If you see beds full, that means the local capacity of the local hospitals to handle this [has] been overwhelmed. And now we're into an emergency situation."

The Army Corps started building more than 30 field hospitals, retrofitting convention centers and erecting climate-controlled tents, in mid-March. Agency officials pushed to get these facilities done fast limiting the bidding process and often negotiating directly with contractors they knew could deliver on time.

"I tell our guys, you have three weeks," Lt. Gen. Todd Semonite, commander of the Army Corps of Engineers, said at a Pentagon news briefing in March. "You get as much as you can [get] done in three weeks. And then the mission is complete. We have a narrow window of opportunity. If we don't leverage that window of opportunity, we're gonna miss it."

At Chicago's McCormick Place, workers scrambled in April to transform the convention center into a massive temporary hospital with 3,000 beds more than the biggest hospital in Illinois.

"This was an empty convention hall," Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker said during a news conference while flanked by construction workers in hard hats and bright yellow vests. "Monumental, round-the-clock dedication is what got this done before we need it, preparing for saving lives in the event that things become as bad as some have predicted."

But just as construction got underway, states were issuing stay-at-home orders. And the spread of the coronavirus eventually began to slow.

Work on the field hospitals continued, though some projects were scaled back including McCormick Place. The field hospital opened with one-third of the beds originally planned, and it closed its doors a few weeks later after treating fewer than 40 patients.

The same story is playing out across the country. In fact, most Army Corps field hospitals haven't seen a single patient.

In many parts of the U.S., hospitals were able to expand their capacity to keep up with the surge of coronavirus patients. But in New York, hospitals were overwhelmed, and local officials pleaded with the public to save hospital beds for people who needed them most.

"The mantra was, 'Don't come to the hospital, don't go to the doctor, stay home, stay home till your lips turn blue,' " said Gershon of NYU's School of Global Public Health. "Well, we now know that was a crazy set of advice."

Gershon said she worries that a lot of people followed that advice and that some may have died because of it including a cousin of hers on Long Island. He stayed at home as he got sicker, Gershon said, and later died on a ventilator in the hospital.

Contractors built two field hospitals on Long Island, on the campuses of the State University of New York at Stony Brook and SUNY Old Westbury, at a total cost of more than $270 million.

The Army Corps limited the competition in awarding the projects to speed the process, which usually takes six to nine months, according to agency documents. Officials noted they were able to complete the contract award for the Stony Brook project in a "little more than three days."

"This time savings was critical in order for construction to begin as quickly as possible, supporting the unusual and compelling nature of the urgency of this procurement and the national emergency," the document said.

The two Long Island field hospitals were completed in late April. They never opened to the public and didn't treat any patients.

"That's outrageous," Gershon said. "That's completely crazy. I hope they didn't take them down."

The temporary hospitals in New York haven't been taken down. They're on hold in case they need to be reopened in the future, according to a state health department spokesman.

New York has "so far avoided the worst-case scenario we were preparing for," the spokesman said in a statement. "There has been a reduced need for hospital beds, and as of now we are not moving forward on purchasing supplies and equipment or securing staff for these sites."

Even in New York City, where the Army Corps field hospital did treat COVID-19 patients, it never reached full capacity.

"There are a lot of losers in it and not a lot of winners," said Dario Gonzalez, an emergency doctor with the New York City Fire Department who helped lead the medical response at the temporary hospital at the Javits Center in Manhattan.

"It was very disappointing," Gonzalez said. "Everybody was here, ready to work, ready to get patients in."

Medical supplies are viewed inside the Javits Center in March in New York City. The Javits field hospital treated about 1,100 patients while it was open for three weeks. Bryan R. Smith/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

Medical supplies are viewed inside the Javits Center in March in New York City. The Javits field hospital treated about 1,100 patients while it was open for three weeks.

The plan was for the Javits Center to take patients from overwhelmed hospitals in the city. But in practice it wasn't that easy. Some hospitals complained that the intake process was too complicated. And they sent few patients to Javits even as they resorted to treating patients in the hallways.

During the three weeks it was open, the Javits field hospital treated about 1,100 patients. Gonzales said it could have handled a lot more.

"We all could have done a much better job," Gonzalez says. "And we've got to really get it together to get that right the next time."

Officials in other states such as Illinois and Michigan also said field hospitals can be quickly reopened if there's an increase in coronavirus cases.

"We really wanted to make sure that we were maintaining some of the physical infrastructure that has been built there. So that should we need it, it doesn't take us a long time to potentially turn that back on," said Allison Arwady, the public health commissioner in Chicago.

She said officials there are keeping a close eye on the number of COVID-19 patients in local hospitals.

"We watch it really closely every day," Arwady said. "And certainly if we start to see any direction that things are not going the right way, we stand ready in case that needs to be reassessed."

National Desk Senior Producer Walter Watson and intern Brooklyn Riepma contributed to this report.

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U.S. Field Hospitals Stand Down, Most Without Treating Any COVID-19 Patients - NPR

If theres one thing my kids miss most during quarantine, its buffets. In stark contrast to highly regimented meals of the past two months, buffets have no rules. Zev would enjoy combining sushi and pizza. Hal has been known to sneak dessert first. Leos plate was often piled so high it looked like hed taken one of everything. The lack of dining rules suffused the entire outing and it required effort to keep them from running wild through the restaurant.

While high-end buffets do a nice job of hiding the disorder cleaning up spilled shrimp cocktail sauce the lack of rules is most evident at more affordable venues. Zev has celebrated several birthday dinners at the Legoland California Hotel buffet, but my only memory is of an obese bearded man passed out on the floor next to the soft serve machine, shirt riding high on his belly a buffet omen if there ever was one.

In addition to hosting many actual Legoland-quality buffets (including at least one in a revolving restaurant), colleges and universities market themselves as buffets for the mind. For many of us, scrolling through a colleges courses and programs of study can be even more exhilarating than strolling into a buffet on an empty stomach. Universities are also buffets in that students consume cognitive skills, non-cognitive skills, and maybe even technical skills in a single (albeit lengthy) sitting. Finally, while many buffets have installed chocolate fountains with no clear nutritional purpose, universities have lazy rivers.

Welcome to college!

So what happens to the college buffet now that COVID crisis has turned to coping? In the absence of a resurgence of the virus or scary new research about aerosol transmission, nearly all campuses will reopen this fall with a significant portion of learning conducted online in order to maintain social distancing via reduced classroom density. The stated reason for inviting students back to campus will be along the lines of what Mitch Daniels conveyed two weeks ago: Purdue University [is] sober about the certain problems that the COVID-19 virus represents, but determined not to surrender helplessly to those difficulties but to tackle and manage them aggressively and creatively. Copycat messages have already begun (see e.g., Radford University: We will overcome this unprecedented challenge together as one Radford family). The unstated reason will be financial: no college or university wants to find out what happens to enrollment following an announcement of continued remote learning. This is why the first institution to signal further online instruction Cal State Fullerton quickly walked it back.

Nevertheless, on the heels of a lost spring when students learned that remote learning is like a buffet where you cant smell or taste the food, many wont be buying in this fall. International students are already out the door kicked out of dorms and mostly back home. In a global public health and economic crisis, relatively few are likely to return to study in a country where the only thing worse than the Presidents historic bungling of the COVID crisis is pencil neck henchman Stephen Millers un-American message that we no longer welcome foreign talent. Domestic students also appear willing to press pause, many signaling theyll be staying close to home regardless of how enthusiastically their (former) college of choice echoes Mitch Daniels. An ACE survey predicted up to 17% of currently enrolled students wont continue. Another poll found that 12% of entering students who have already paid deposits no longer plan on attending, while a much higher proportion of students than normal havent paid deposits. A survey of surveys estimated a potential overall shortfall of as much as 20%.

While we await the first survey of survey of surveys, we know one thing for certain: the impact of a national enrollment shortfall anywhere in this vicinity will be unevenly distributed. Our most selective colleges and universities are top buffets like the Bacchanal Buffet at Caesars Palace: a combination of incredible choice and quality that will continue to attract long lines. For these schools, which continue to strictly limit the number of seats for no good reason, COVID-19 wont mark the end of the buffet; well still be wondering where the buffet line ends.

The story will be very different for non-selective institutions that predominantly enroll students from outside their metropolitan areas, or that operate outside major metropolitan areas. At these schools, far too many current and prospective students will stay home and enrollment declines may be devastating. On top of this, expect a decline in state funding of higher education of as much as 20%. So revenue at some public institutions could fall 30%. The question these colleges and universities will face is one a friend who teaches at a liberal arts institution recently posed: If someone burned down 1/3 of your house, would you rebuild exactly as it was? Would you put up plywood sheets to separate the charred part? Or would you completely redesign your house?

In 1937, Texas oil tycoon Sid Richardson decided to toughen up his nephew, recent Yale grad Perry Bass, by hiring him to manage the construction of his new estate on St. Joes, a barrier island in the Gulf. Richardson told Bass he had a $35k construction budget. Once Bass reached the island, Richardson called Bass and took it back, saying he needed the money for a lease in West Texas. Any son-of-a-bitch can build a house for $35k, said Richardson. It takes a genius to build it with nothing.

COVID-19 is a Sid Richardson test for hundreds of non-selective colleges and universities. As finances turn upside-down, presidents, provosts, and deans will find themselves in an unfamiliar and highly uncomfortable position. Bass passed Richardsons test by rethinking construction, making his own building material out of a mixture of sand, oyster shells, and cement (which he bought on credit). To pass their test, college and university leaders must do nothing less than redesign higher education.

As Pennsylvania State System Chancellor Dan Greenstein correctly notes, redesigning higher education means more than closing campuses. Greenstein is considering moving less popular programs and courses online so a single campus in the system can achieve scale in delivery. Similarly, Southern New Hampshire University one of the few non-selective institutions with nothing to worry about by dint of its online scale proactively announced freshman year coursework would be completed online, reset freshman tuition at $10k, and awarded full scholarships to all entering students. According to President Paul LeBlanc, we're trying to unbundle these two jobs we get asked to do. New students will have the clubs, organizations, all of that which we associate with residential campuses. But their academic program will look quite different, and there will be aspects of the residential experience that will likely look different as well. SNHU promptly set a record for most deposits in a single day.

Assuming few at-risk schools take similar action this fall, watch for at least one state to make a SNHU-like move, helping public institutions manage an unprecedented budget reduction by migrating all lower division instruction online and sourcing programs from providers like Coursera. Multiple data points suggest general education at non-selective colleges and universities may be a casualty of COVID-19. Beyond gen ed, in the coming months expect to hear a lot more about zero-based budgeting, upside-down degrees that start with industry-recognized certifications (or at least marketable certificates), and new linear faster + cheaper pathways to good jobs. The wild disconnect between a higher education buffet with no rules and a labor market with too many surprising and unfair rules cannot continue indefinitely.

Most of these changes will have the effect of limiting student choice and therefore will be anathema to prior generations who benefited from choice and discovery. The trope of discovery is powerful in higher education. Whod want to be against discovery? (Whos against bigger buffets?) But COVID-19 will force colleges and universities to distinguish between choosing a pathway and choosing elements of that pathway. The former is critical. But at too many institutions, the latter directly contributes to crises of completion, affordability, and employability.

The biggest challenge to rethinking higher education is that faculty and administrators are captive to their educational backgrounds and nostalgia. But just because that model still works at our most selective universities or worked 20, 30, or 40 years ago where you went to school as Michael Sorrell, savior of Paul Quinn College argues, we can no longer sit around and be held hostage to traditional wisdom or tradition. We have to stop being more in love with our traditions than we are with our students. Passing the Sid Richardson test and redesigning higher education will require taking advantage of the COVID-19 crisis to overcome the numerous internal obstacles to necessary change.

All buffets are NOT created equal. As demonstrated by Yelp reviews, theres a wide gap between the paroxysms of pleasure for the Bacchanal Buffet and the nearby Las Vegas Golden Corral where a complete lack of rules seems to frustrate the dining experience:

The cook is cooking me a steak holding his phone. Next hes putting food in a container holding a towel in the food. Just completely nasty.

Our server was on her phone texting. We needed refills and our plates needed to be picked up they kept piling she just kept walking passed them then she disappeared. We ended up finding her outside with management smoking marijuana.

If you feel like pulling up to a feeding trough this is the place for you.

Golden Corrals traditions are clearly not worth maintaining (who wants to eat in a corral anyway?). Although non-selective colleges and universities are certainly prettier and nicer places to work than Golden Corral (and contribute more to the store of human knowledge than the above comments), from the standpoint of student outcomes, hundreds of schools with low completion rates and indebted, underemployed graduates are in the same category; if Yelp permitted education reviews, they would be just as depressing.

One higher education tradition worth upholding is harnessing social turbulence or transformation to advance the mission. During the Great Depression, many colleges took advantage of record low construction costs to build iconic campuses. Passage of the GI Bill resulted in a 2.5x increase in the number of college graduates over the course of the 1940s. The Civil Rights era led to much needed diversity and social justice on campus. The COVID question for trustees, presidents, provosts, and deans at non-selective institutions is how to harness financial disruption to jettison traditions and rethink how to achieve better student outcomes. The coming fiscal crunch is a crisis that cannot go to waste. Because if theres one thing that will never be the same after quarantine, its buffets.

Read more:

COVID-19 Is The End Of The Higher Education Buffet - Forbes

"I'm not new to this game, I'm true to the game," the blues singer told CNN. "I've been doing it for a long time. You really have a lot of ups and downs in this crazy situation."

Cohen is part of a community of musicians trying to keep the blues alive in a landscape where live music is on hold and the artists dedicated to the genre are particularly vulnerable to Covid-19.

"It shut a lot of us down," Cohen said. "The ones that were doing the clubs, they don't have the clubs [to perform in] anymore. They don't have the regular gigs anymore. They don't have anything."

Musician and singer Sam Frazier, Jr. recently rose to the top of the kidney transplant list, but he is now unsure when he might receive one because of the pandemic.

He told CNN he's working hard to protect himself and stay healthy, but misses performing -- even locally in Alabama where he lives.

"I'm an entertainer," he said. "I'm a singer. I play the harmonica, guitar and I can play the [bass] drum using my feet. I sing blues and I sing country. That's what I do."

Already in a crisis situation

The group helps book members for performances and also provides financial assistance to artists.

Timothy Duffy, founder and executive director of the foundation, told CNN that many of the artists they assist are most susceptible to falling critically ill were they to contract Covid-19.

"Almost all our partners are elderly, so that makes them extremely vulnerable to the virus," Duffy said. "The majority, over 80% of the artists we work with, are African Americans over the age of 55."

Duffy said most of them were already making do with annual incomes of less than $18,000 a year. Any work they used to get from playing bars and restaurants is now gone.

"They're already in a crisis situation," said Duffy, whose organization gave out 85 grants to struggling artists in April and helped set up grocery and medicine deliveries for some. "They're already marginalized, so our staff has a dedicated social worker that is working to ensure that our artists are safe and informed."

Still singing

Cohen said she appreciates the help as she waits things out in the new normal and finds strength in what she's already overcome.

"I lost everything in Katrina," said Cohen, who added she relies on the power of positive thinking and consuming inspirational content. "I haven't lost everything because of this pandemic."

She definitely hasn't lost her ability to entertain.

Lately she takes her audio equipment to a nursing home where her brother resides. With current health precautions preventing her from entering, Cohen performs for residents from the parking lot.

"I wanted to make sure that my brother got some entertainment," she said. "They said the only way that we could see them is to go to their windows outside and you know, wave to them and talk to them through the windows with the windows closed. But they can still hear you."

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Covid-19 taking toll on blues community - CNN