Health News:

• Democrats in Congress are pushing for a bill to allow paid leave after pregnancy loss. (Axios)
• Oysters from Future Seafoods, Inc. have been recalled after distribution to at least 10 states. They may be contaminated with Salmonella and E. coli. (FDA)
• A contract dispute closed a quarter of the nation’s wastewater surveillance sites, making COVID surges harder to detect. (Politico)
• 2% of kids and 7% of adults in the US have gotten the updated COVID shots. (AP)
• Flu shots may help protect against Alzheimer’s and dementia. (Washington Post)
• A multinational Salmonella outbreak has been linked to chicken, with most cases concentrated in Austria. (CIDRAP)
• The CDC recommends routine mpox vaccination in higher risk groups, even after the outbreak has ended. (CDC)
• A restaurant in San Diego is linked to 13 E. coli cases and is facing a lawsuit. (NBC)
• Another new variant, JN.1, is an offshoot of the heavily-mutated Pirola variant (BA.2.86), which epidemiologists are keeping an eye on. (Ground Truths)
• Half of Americans have struggled to afford healthcare this year. (Axios)
• A persistent strain of Salmonella Hadar is linked to backyard poultry and ground turkey. (CDC)
• An Australian court ruled that Carnival cruise lines were negligent in an early-pandemic cruise where over 600 passengers got sick. (AP)
• Adults 85 and older who got both flu and COVID shots at the same time had a very small increased risk of stroke. (CNN)
  
  

Mental Health & Substance Use News: 

• Mike Sodini, a gun industry insider, is talking to gun owners about mental health and suicide. (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel)
• Some good news - military suicides dropped in 2022. (AP)
• Severe mental illness was linked to a 50% increase in COVID-related death. (CIDRAP)
• Anxiety about climate change is transforming therapy. (NY Times)
• The pandemic revolutionized opioid use treatment through telemedicine. (Inside Medicine)

If you or someone you know may be considering suicide or need help, call 988 or message the Crisis Text Line by texting HOME to 741741. 

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Best Questions:

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If the highest viral load is now on day 4, does that mean that people are now infectious for longer than 5 days? 

Early in the pandemic, people had no immunity to the novel virus, so our immune systems weren’t really fighting it. As a result, our viral load was highest around the day we started having symptoms. But as time goes on, and we’ve generally all been infected at least once, and many of us have been vaccinated a few times, our immune systems are fighting the virus as soon as it enters our body. So we have symptoms, but our immune response is keeping our viral load lower for a few days until around Day 4 when we have enough viral particles to test positive on a rapid test. Even when the isolation guidelines changed from 10 days to 5, we knew that some people would actually be infectious for longer. It was a calculated risk to balance keeping people safe and minimizing disruptions to their lives. That balancing act remains, and the likelihood of people adhering to a longer isolation period now seems slim. We recommend sticking with the 5-day guidelines for COVID positive people as long as they’re symptom-free upon returning to work. 

Source: MedPage Today

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Does that mean it’s less likely that the 5-day isolation period will be shortened any time soon? 

Unfortunately, it probably does mean that the 5 days are here to stay, at least until the tide of public opinion turns so much that COVID is treated the way a cold was pre-pandemic, where it’s acceptable to get others sick. The reality right now, though, is that COVID is still much deadlier than the flu, not to mention much, MUCH deadlier than the common cold. So public health officials are not likely to touch the 5 day exclusion any time soon, at least until health outcomes after COVID infection become much better.

Source: CDC

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Should we be testing later after the onset of symptoms? 

Yes! This is the main takeaway from the recent study showing that people have the highest viral load on Day 4 after symptoms begin. The reality is that we’re not likely to see a change in the 5 day exclusions, but we can emphasize the importance that you’re not likely to test positive on a rapid test at home until your third or fourth (or even fifth) day after feeling sick. A negative test doesn’t mean much anymore unless you’ve taken it on days 3, 4, and 5 - which is why it’s important to stay home when you have COVID or flu-like symptoms, even if you test negative. 

Source: MedPage Today

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