Executive Director Tejas Sekhar recently published a manuscript titled An Examination of SARS-CoV-2 Transmission Based on Classroom Distancing in Schools With Other Preventive Measures in Place—Missouri, January–March 2021 in Public Health Reports.
On June 7th, 2022, the Novavax COVID-19 vaccine was approved for use in adults by the Vaccine Advisory Committee of the United States Food and Drug Administration. The vaccine has already been authorized in many other nations, including Indonesia, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, and more, making the U.S. one of the last major nations to approve the vaccine.
By the end of April 2022, nearly 40 percent of the country’s baby formula ran out of stock, leading to a major baby formula shortage in the United States. The plummeting availability of baby formula has left parents and caregivers anxious as they struggle to feed their infants, since roughly 75 percent of babies in the U.S. receive at least some formula by six months of age. Formula provides the necessary vitamins and nutrients required during early development and is commonly used as a safe alternative for the roughly 38 percent of mothers who cannot breastfeed due reasons not limited to discomfort, medical related issues, and work-life balance. Studies report that over 60 percent of mothers do not breastfeed for as long as they intend to as it can also be physically and mentally taxing. Thus, this shortage has potentially dire effects on infant health.
The landscape of medicine and health care is constantly changing. With the integration of electronic medical records (EMR) and other technological advances, physicians and health care providers must be much more adaptable than ever before and possess unprecedented levels of technical literacy in the field. The modernization of health care has been a driver of burnout, defined as “the constellation of symptoms that occur when your energy account has a negative balance over time.” Nearly 50 percent of physicians in 2021 reported symptoms such as exhaustion, decreased motivation, detachment, and reduced efficiency. This can lead to depression, higher rates of medical malpractice, reductions in patient satisfaction and physicians leaving the field altogether. These consequences holistically affect health care professionals, their families, patients, and organizations.
The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has widened existing disparities across social determinants of health. For patients who require prescription medications, such as those experiencing depression and anxiety, the pandemic has reduced opportunities to be seen in-person. A startup called Cerebral sought to fill this need when the federal government expanded access for healthcare providers to prescribe certain medications via telehealth, ones that would typically require an in-person visit. However, Cerebral appears to have been plagued by potentially exploitative practices, issues with affiliated providers, and more. Rolfe Winkler, Khadeeja Safdar, and Andrea Fuller report in The Wall Street Journal.
EndingCOVID.org is a nonprofit initiative nested within TejHospitality, a registered 501(c)(3) charitable organization focused on local asset-based community development in the Greater St. Louis Area.