Haplessly Lost in the Woods

"I survived basically off of rain water and puddle water. Anything I could find basically, and was lucky there were orange wild berries ... to eat around the 4th, 5th day."

"I found shelter in the trees where I could but had no phone or lighter for support or to depend on."

"I saw signs of bears yes, the markings and the scrapes on the trees, the droppings ... could sometimes hear them and the coyotes [or fox] not too far ... really scared but had to keep going."

Jenny McLaughlin, 34, Saint-Isidore, New Brunswick

Jenny McLaughlin; THE CANADIAN PRESS/HO-Jenny McLaughlin

"Employees were in the process of moving locations with the aid of a helicopter to prepare for the next day's events."

"Our employee disembarked off the  helicopter and when the helicopter flew away to gather more material our employee could hear a faint cry for help."

"The quick-thinking lineman immediately called for help and notified the rest of the crew."

East Coast Powerline statement

"Those workers did an outstanding job to stabilize her, to put her on a stretcher and give her first aid. It was a really rough terrain, a lot of swamps, a lot of dead wood."

"We had to do it with her on a stretcher and us walking because there was no way to evacuate her by helicopter, or with an ATV because the terrain was too rough."

RCMP Cpl.Kevin Plourde

She'd gone off for a casual hike in the woods. Never imagining that she would get lost. But she did. And she stayed lost for two weeks in the forest, where no one knew where she was, though search parties set out to find her after she was reported missing on July 17. Hiking through a forest is fascinating. You never know what you'll come across; odd vegetation, wildflowers, trees that are unusual, some giants and others merely mature among the striplings. There will be birds in flight, birds singing, and small mammals like squirrels and chipmunks rushing about.

And if you aren't familiar with the  terrain and the geology and fail to stay on a marked path you may find yourself lost. And that's quite the feeling. Suddenly what had been interesting, a living green landscape  to explore, benign and quite wonderful, becomes alien and forbidding; the thought of wild animals unseen but present, some of a size to equal your own, intrudes on a confused mind. Lost, tired, thirsty and hungry. You find temporary shelter, spend an uneasy, fearful night, then at dawn look for water. And like any other animal begin to forage for anything edible.

Two weeks of this, of cowering at night when darkness falls and sounds are amplified and your imagination runs overtime. Quite the experience that is. Bad enough if you had an equally lost companion sharing the experience. Daunting beyond measure on your own. You think of normalcy, of being at home, and the relief that is. You think of your family and imagine what they may be thinking and regret the impulse that took you from the trail you had followed to an area that definitely was off-trail.

Jenny McLaughlin was without a shadow of doubt extremely grateful to be rescued from her unexpected misery on Tuesday, two weeks after she failed to return home. Thinking about her family, she told her rescuers, invested her with the physical endurance needed to continue forging her way to what she must have felt would be bringing her closer to civilization, away from the raw unfamiliarity of a forest interior. She must have known that there was a search on for her, that the RCMP would have initiated a search.

Acadian Forest, Cape Breton, N.B.

Her vehicle was found at an ATV trail some 220 kilometres north of Moncton, her cellphone discovered in the woods last Saturday. Of little use to her there. Searchers could find no sign of her, however. Not until late Tuesday when linemen for East Coast Powerline were in the backwoods to perform maintenance work for New Brunswick Power. When she was rescued finally and brought out of the woods she was carried for 1.3 kilometres to approach the nearest trail that would be ambulance-accessible.

It was likely, thought police, that she had wandered in circles the last several days of her ordeal. In hospital where she was treated, she was found to have a few injuries; scraped ankles, sunburn, nothing that a period of rest at home wouldn't cure. Fortunate, she was, to have been found in the remote area where she had wandered into, a forest in climax, swampy areas, wetlands necessitating that anyone wandering about would have to proceed with care.

Fundy National Park, New Brunswick

In COVID-19 Fatalities Age Matters

 Pierre-Philippe Marcou/AFP via Getty Images

"Individual and collective efforts that minimize infections in older adults could substantially decrease total deaths."

"In a scenario where the infection rate of the U.S. population reaches nearly 30 percent, our analysis indicates that protecting vulnerable age groups could prevent over 200,000 deaths."

National Bureau of Economic Research, research study, U.S.

Researchers from Dartmouth College sought out an accurate gauge of COVID-19 infection rate using dozens of studies around the world, sorting the deaths by age groups -- at the same time they were aware that greater numbers were most likely afflicted with the novel coronavirus than were tested positive -- taking into account asymptomatic cases along with people contracting the virus before adequate testing capabilities were available.

According to their conclusions there is almost no chance children or young adults contracting COVID-19 would die from its effects. Research is also accumulating indicating young children are vastly less likely to spread the virus than are adults. What the study also indicated is that those older than 80 are massively more likely to die from complications relating to the disease, making it urgent that policy responses meant to protect seniors be implemented to save thousands of lives.

Those in the demographics of elderly above 80 years of age were seen to have a 24 percent fatality rate due to the effects of the SARS-CoV-2 virus causing COVID. People aged between 70 to 79 years were given a four percent fatality while death rates are more elevated than previously indicated for healthy, middle-aged adults who were linked with an infection fatality rate of 0.3 percent for ages 50 to 59, and one percent for those falling into the category of 60 to 69.

Age, it transpires, is more indicative of an increase in the rate of fatality caused by COVID-19 than are other health factors such as obesity or diabetes. The numbers, according to the researchers, are not fixed; new findings emphasize the need for public health measures meant to mitigate risk to middle-aged and older adults.

Another research review just released by McMaster University analyzed 33 publications to find it highly unlikely for children under ten years of age to spread the virus, findings consistent across all evidence the researchers at McMaster surveyed. A larger study out of South Korea discovered that children younger than ten are much less likely to be infected and to spread the disease even within their own household.

South Korea maintained open schools throughout the influx of the virus since January, with little problems being evidenced. Children were found to be poor virus spreaders with those infected coming into contact with 57 people on average, with three only contracting the virus, the meaning of which should a small child contract COVID-19, people in that child's household have a roughly five percent chance of contracting the virus from the child.

Older children appear to spread the virus within households at the same rate as adults, but less outside the household, according to the South Korean study. On the other hand, older children were less likely to contract the virus than were adults, a consistent conclusion dating to the beginning of the pandemic.

Answering the Call to Patriotic Duty : World War II

Eva Konopacki . Ashley Fraser/Postmedia

"At my age, you remember  your younger years better than the present. My memories from that time [1944] are quite sharp."

"We were waiting for that day because our underground activities were all directed to that moment, when we throw out the Germans. I was Polish, and everyone was taking risks. Everyone was engaged, it was a national thing."

"The [commanding] officer thought it's so dangerous that he cannot order anyone to do it [make personal contact with trapped/besieged soldiers]. I knew this place very well. I was restless. I liked action so I just said, 'I'll go'."

"Death became our close companion."

"War, it marks you for life. But, when you put your life on the scale, you can be proud of that."

Eva Poninska Konopacki, 94, Ottawa resident, retired schoolteacher

This is a woman who has seen a lot, had unusual experiences at a time of high danger and stress, when survival was never assured, who chose to do her part to help her country surmount the most dreadful existential difficulties at a time of war and occupation. She emigrated to Canada ten years after her courageous participation in a peoples' struggle to free itself from German occupation during World War Two, moving to Montreal from Trinidad, where she lived for several years, teaching high school.

In Canada, she met her husband, Thaddeus Konopacki, himself a decorated veteran of the 1944 Warsaw Uprising, whom she hadn't known in Poland, but found in Canada, post-war. While her husband was a professional architect, Eva Konopacki was a professional teacher. The couple had four daughters, whom their mother chose to raise as a housewife and mother. She returned to the teaching profession eventually and spent two decades teaching high school at the Ottawa Catholic School Board, while simultaneously mounting a career as an artist.

In 1944 however, as an 18-year-old she was herself a high school student, and simultaneously a soldier in the Polish Home Army -- the largest underground resistance movement in the country. An uprising against German occupying forces was launched on August 1, 1944 on instructions from the Polish government-in-exile, just as the Soviet Red Army was in the process of advancing toward Warsaw and the German military meant to stop their advance at the Vistula River on the outskirts of Warsaw.

Polish slave labour had been used to build defensive fortifications there, and it was the intention of the Warsaw Uprising to deny that opportunity to the Germans, and to impede the arrival of the Russians intending to bring communism under Soviet rule to Poland. The Home Army boasted 50,000 trained insurgents who were able to capture much of Warsaw in the first three days of the uprising, but in the end were no match for the reinforcements brought in by the German military even as planes and artillery units bombarded their positions backed by tanks and heavy machine guns, enabling the German forces to regain territory.

The Polish resistance dug trenches connecting buildings, and erected barricades against tank incursions while Russian forces restricted themselves to the Vistula River, prepared to wait out the insurgency against the German positions before involving themselves. While the Russians -- at that time part of the Allied response to the Axis forces they were once aligned with -- failed to offer air or ground support while fighting raged within Warsaw, the Allies themselves launched an airlift re-supplying the Polish resistance forces.

Based in Italy, the British-led Warsaw Airlift failed, as a reflection of the small payloads and the inaccuracy of the drop sites, where the aircraft flew long distances with no fighter support making the supply planes vulnerable to attack, resulting in over 300 Allied airmen perishing in the effort, Canadians included. For the resistance fighters, food and ammunition became scarce and the city was left without water or electricity. So many phone lines were damaged that Eva Konopacki's commanding officer decided on a course to use couriers in communication with other fighting units.

As a volunteer, Konopacki travelled through the war-torn city delivering messages, serving as a guide on nighttime missions to ammunition depots. Resistance fighters were using a fortified convent as a bulwark against German forces. By later September the convent came under assault, and an artillery shell collapsed a portion of the building and the communication line was severed. Eva Konopacki volunteered her services so that under fire she crawled through a tench to reach the convent's entrance, a gap in the foundation.

Eva Poninska Konopacki . Konopacki family photo

Within she found many dead and wounded soldiers. Returning to her commander she reported on the need for medical supplies and ammunition, and was again sent to deliver the message to those left in the convent to retreat. When she made her way back, she discovered what was left of the compound smoke-filled and silent. "I realized there was no one there". They had already retreated. She ventured toward another building adjacent, to discover two wounded soldiers in an abandoned coal cellar. Finding a stretcher and a nurse, they managed between them to evacuate the men to safety.

Eventually, the Home Army had no option but to surrender, laying down their arms on October 2. "We were terribly depressed, devastated", she recalled. Later, she was recognized for her part during the resistance and uprising, receiving the Silver Order of the Virtuiti Militari for "valour in the face of the enemy", induction. Up to 200,000 people were estimated to have died during the two-month uprising, most of them civilians. The city's 650,000 inhabitants were evicted and the Germans levelled what remained of Warsaw. By January 1945 the Soviets took possession of the empty ruins.

Hunting Down and Curing Hepatitis C

The Liver

"Hepatitis C is a viral infection that causes liver inflammation sometimes leading to serious liver damage. the hepatitis C virus [HCV] spreads through contaminated blood."

"Until recently hepatitis C treatment required weekly injections and oral medications that many hepatitis C -infected people couldn't take because of other health problems of unacceptable side effects."

"That's changing. Today, chronic HCV is usually curable with oral medications taken every day for two to six months."

Mayo Clinic

"It is fantastic to think of all the future misery that has been diminished and eliminated because of these efforts [new treatments for hepatitis C]."

"One of the key challenges we face is having accurate numbers about how many people are getting sick, getting diagnosed and starting on treatment. We need a better structure in place to provide those numbers and to know how we are doing as far as our elimination goals."

"This treatment is saving lives and preventing them from needing liver transplants."

Dr.Curtis Cooper, director, The Ottawa Hospital/regional hepatitis program

Targets have been set by various countries in collaboration with the World Health Organization to decrease new infections of hepatitis C by 80 percent, to diagnose 90 percent of new cases and to treat 80 percent of people living with hepatitis C within a ten-year span. It can be done and medical science has shown the way. A program to do all of the above and remove a morbid threat to health within society is well underway. But like all medical procedures that have hit a bump in their methods, purpose and attention to the public's needs, the entry of the global pandemic has complicated their plans.

A Canadian network of experts in the field of hepatitis C has a blueprint jointly developed to achieve elimination of the infection in the country. Policy recommendations include tracking progress and moving toward elimination of hepatitis C, despite the barriers to achieving the goal. Today, July 28, is in fact, World Hepatitis Day. A critical issue is that an estimated 40 percent of Canadians have the disease but are unaware that they are in fact infected with it.

While a large percentage of infections are unidentified, the pandemic slowed or apprehended referrals in the protocol of identifying cases which has resulted in fewer cases being identified and consequently treated. Virtual visits -- telemedicine -- has stepped in to fill the breach. The Ottawa hepatitis clinic which Dr.Cooper oversees is starting patients on therapy through telemedicine; nurses and social workers representing the clinic, are seeing greater numbers of people in the community.

This is, after all, a disease traditionally feared as a death sentence waiting to happen, in view of the fact that symptoms don't appear until the disease begins its mission of destroying the liver. The good news now is that treatments that take between eight and 12 weeks work for almost everyone. In the 2-1/2 years just passed, the Ottawa and regional clinic has cured over one thousand people.

As a result of this program's success to date, a steep decline in the frequency of liver cancers has been recognized as a fallout of hepatitis C treatment, even while hepatitis C itself no longer represents the major reason in Canada for liver transplants. Validation of the success of the new treatments.

High-risk groups are identified as injection drug users, and infections are continuing to expand within that group.

Long-term infection with the hepatitis C virus is known as chronic hepatitis C. Chronic hepatitis C is usually a "silent" infection for many years, until the virus damages the liver enough to cause the signs and symptoms of liver disease.

Signs and symptoms include:

• Bleeding easily
• Bruising easily
• Fatigue
• Poor appetite
• Yellow discoloration of the skin and eyes (jaundice)
• Dark-colored urine
• Itchy skin
• Fluid buildup in your abdomen (ascites)
• Swelling in your legs
• Weight loss
• Confusion, drowsiness and slurred speech (hepatic encephalopathy)
• Spiderlike blood vessels on your skin (spider angiomas)

Mayo Clinic

Vaccinating Against Alzheimer's?

"Our study suggests that regular use of a very accessible and relatively cheap intervention -- the flu shot -- may significantly reduce risk of Alzheimer's dementia."

"More research is needed to explore the biological mechanism for this effect -- why and how it works -- which is important as we explore effective preventive therapies for Alzheimer's."

"There has been a concern in the medical community that many sources of inflammation, such as urinary tract infections, worsen the course of patients with Alzheimer's disease."

"Hence, we have been worried that vaccinations, a form of inflammation, could also worsen the course of AD."

"We were very surprised, because of the concern noted above about the potential to increase AD, when our statistical colleagues told us that the flu vaccination was one of the 'medications' that is so strongly associated with a lower Alzheimer's incidence."

Albert Amran, researcher, McGovern Medical School, University of Texas Health Science Centre, Houston

"[The link between a flu shot and reduced dementia risk is] intriguing."

"This study indicates there is a benefit of having one flu vaccination on dementia risk."

"It is difficult to speculate on the reasons behind this link, and understanding why a seasonal flu vaccine is linked to reduced dementia risk is an important avenue for further research."

"This research does not mean that Alzheimer's disease is caused by the common flu and there are potential non-biological explanations for this association, such as people who get the flu vaccine being more likely to take other steps to protect their health."

Dr.Rosa Sancho, Alzheimer's Research UK

"This is an encouraging finding that builds upon prior evidence that vaccination against common infections diseases -- such as the flu -- is associated with a reduced risk for Alzheimer's and a delay in disease onset."

"Regular use of the flu vaccine, especially starting at an early age, may help prevent viral infections that could cause cascading effects on the immune system and inflammatory pathways."

"These viral infections may trigger Alzheimer's related cognitive decline."

Dr. Richard Isaacson, neurologist, founder, Alzheimer's Prevention Clinic, New York-Presbyterian and Weill Cornell Medical Center

"We do need more research to understand what that connection is."

"Is it direct, the vaccine to disease? Or is it protective, as a part of the risk reduction strategies that we have, like lower your BMI [body mass index], watch your sugar intake, keep an eye on your cholesterol and high blood pressure, exercise, get vaccinated."

"It's one of those sort of health tips that we need to make sure that our public knows about."

"We've always known that vaccines are very important to our overall health. And maybe they even contribute to protecting our memory, our cognition, our brain."

Maria Carrillo,  Alzheimer's Association chief science officer

Several lines of evidence now suggest that two common vaccines against respiratory illnesses can help protect against Alzheimer's, too. How much brain protection they offer will require more intensive study to quantify, scientists say. Themba Hadebe/AP

According to research presented at the Alzheimer's Association international conference, an inoculation against flu has the potential to reduce dementia risk by close to a fifth. This, according to a study suggesting that vaccinating people while they're in their relatively younger years could prove to be beneficial in this regard.

The conference also heard that infections in dementia patients could increase death risk seven-fold. While the University of Texas study suggests flu vaccination could reduce dementia development by 17 percent. Bad news/good news.

The protective association between flu vaccine and the risk of Alzheimer's came out of a study of 9,000 people. The reduced risk of Alzheimer's associated with the flu vaccine was greatest in the instances of those receiving their first vaccine at a younger age as compared to those whose first documented flu shot was at age 70. Those of age 60 saw greater benefit accruing to them than their counterparts a decade older.

Research by the University of Copenhagen involving 1.5 million people suggests that people suffering from dementia have a 6.5-fold risk of dying after contracting any infection. Over half the the British population is scheduled to be offered inoculations free of charge in an effort to ensure the National Health Service will be able to cope should there be a second coronavirus wave.

Bearing in mind that complications related to COVID risk increase with age.

The Alzheimer's association pointed out that people with dementia had been infected in great numbers by COVID-19. The irony in the presentation of these findings is that it had generally been assumed previously that vaccination was implicated in Alzheimer's onset.

"We [tried] to make sure that both groups [in the controlled study] had an equal amount of, say, smoking status, obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular disease [known risk factors for Alzheimer's]", pointed out Dr.Amran. Factors such as education and income, along with indicators like the number of prescriptions a person had been prescribed, in an effort to ensure that people who received vaccines weren't just healthier overall were also investigated. As it turned out, they weren't.

Female Governing Intuition

"Our findings show that COVID-19 outcomes are systematically and significantly better in countries led by women. Even accounting for institutional context and other controls, being female-led has provided countries with an advantage in the current crisis."

"Risk aversion may manifest differently in different domains -- human life versus economic outcomes -- with women leaders being significantly more risk-averse in the domain of human life, but more risk-taking in the domain of the economy."

Report: Centre for Economic Policy Research, Washington

A new study published by economists Supriya Garikpati and Uma Kambhampati under the imprint of the Centre for Economic Policy Research lays claim to having proven without a doubt that those countries led by women have been superior in controlling the global pandemic for their nations' ultimate benefit, right from the very start when the world was placed on high alert that a global pandemic was in the process of laying the world low.

It isn't all that hard to identify those countries where the executive administration in collaboration with the individual nations' top health advisers have conducted a poorly-envisioned and -outcomed national strategy to deal with the fallout of the SARS-CoV-2 virus causing COVID-19, simply by reviewing the numbers of infected cases and the deaths caused by COVID-19. The United States, where the research for the study citing women-led outcomes as superior, a case in point for high infection and death rates.

The top ten  countries in the world whose outcomes have been poor are all male-led, according to the Independent, with a cautionary note from the report's authors that every country possesses variables unique to the country itself, making a one-on-one comparison difficult. And then there is the simple fact that merely ten percent of nations worldwide are led by women to begin with.

Photo-Illustration: Sam Whitney; Getty Images

The report's authors began by comparing women-led countries with other countries and matching  demographics linked to the spread of the coronavirus; primarily population size and GDP, so New Zealand for example, was matched with Ireland, Germany with the United Kingdom, and Bangladesh with Pakistan.

What the investigators found across the board is that those countries with fewer COVID-19 cases were all led by women, and fewer deaths occurred in those women-led countries than occurred in those countries governed by their male counterparts.

Led by Jacinda Ardern, New Zealand's 1,455 cases and 22 deaths compared favourably with Ireland's counts of 25,826 cases of coronavirus and 1,763 deaths reported as caused by the complications linked to COVID-19. The disparity could conceivably be linked to the fact that women-led countries were more inclined to swiftly bring in social distancing regulations and impose lockdowns to curb the first wave of the virus, according to the report's authors.

Women, according to the research conclusion. are more averse to risks in comparison to their male counterparts. Representing a potential explanation clarifying why it is that countries led by women made the determination to lock down more immediately than their male-led counterpart nations. The added recognition that women are more risk-averse relating to saving lives meant that women were conversely prepared to risk their economies, in exchange.

Taiwanese President Tsai Ing-wen celebrates victory with her supporters in Taipei. Taiwan has managed to curb the coronavirus pandemic despite its proximity to China. (AP Photo/Chiang Ying-ying)

COVID-19 Responsible for One Positive Outcome : Global Sound Reduction : "Anthropause"

"We could actually see a very sharp cutoff starting in China and Italy and then everywhere else as the pandemic spread and the policies and the lockdown spread."
"There is a different amount of background noise to start with. But if you look at the percentage decrease, people in Vancouver stayed at home much faster."
"We're getting a much better understanding of what these human-generated wave shapes are, which is going to make it easier in the future to be able to filter them back out again."
Mika McKinnon, study co-author. Geophysicist, adjunct professor, department of earth, ocean and atmospheric sciences, University of British Columbia

"We have a pod going by and sometimes you just hear a single whale vocalizing and sometimes they're all chatting at the same time."
"We don't necessarily know how to interpret that."
Richard Dewey, associate director of science, Ocean Networks Canada, University of Victoria

Abstract

Human activity causes vibrations that propagate into the ground as high-frequency seismic waves. Measures to mitigate the COVID-19 pandemic caused widespread changes in human activity, leading to a months-long reduction in seismic noise of up to 50%. The 2020 seismic noise quiet period is the longest and most prominent global anthropogenic seismic noise reduction on record. While the reduction is strongest at surface seismometers in populated areas, this seismic quiescence extends for many kilometers radially and hundreds of meters in depth. This provides an opportunity to detect subtle signals from subsurface seismic sources that would have been concealed in noisier times and to benchmark sources of anthropogenic noise. A strong correlation between seismic noise and independent measurements of human mobility suggests that seismology provides an absolute, real-time estimate of population dynamics.

As the pandemic wears on, study authors say data from the quiet period will help scientists detect more earthquakes and better differentiate between human-caused and natural seismic noises. (The Associated Press)

Published in the journal Science, a study undertaken by an international team of researchers made use of seismic station data from 117 countries in determining that COVID-19 restrictions has resulted over the period of March to April, particularly in urban areas, by a fifty percent noise reduction representing vibrations generated through human activity. One of the study's authors pointed out the quiet period has been named the "anthropause", caused by the curtailing of traffic, planes, cruise hips, conventions, concerts and sports games.

Underwater frequencies effect marine mammals. Photo: Juergen Ritterbach/Alamy

Silence was palpable its quiet level seen reflected in data sourced from an abandoned mine shaft deemed to represent one of the quietest places on Earth, an abandoned mine shaft in Germany. Noise levels plummeted when the province of British Columbia closed schools, then bars, restaurants and other social establishments, according to a seismic station located in Vancouver. Seismic sound dropped later and returned earlier in Seattle, explained Ms.McKinnon.

It is anticipated that data from this quiet period will be of assistance to scientists, enabling them to detect a greater number of earthquakes and to improve methods of differentiating between natural seismic sounds and those caused by human activity. While the latest data may not help in predicting if and when earthquakes will occur, scientists will be able to acquire a deeper insight into the seismology of the planet and its volcanic activity.

The data does perform a useful function in demonstrating that human activity is having far less of an impact on noise levels around the world; not by choice but through the circumstantial effect of coping with a global pandemic, in practising practical avoidance of infection. The noise reduction is having its impact on Earth's oceans, explained Richard Dewey, the pandemic bringing the opportunity for marine acoustic researchers to study the ocean free of noise pollution from massive tankers and cruise ships, whale watching and commercial fishing vessels.

The recovery of endangered southern resident killer whales -- also known as orcas --  will be enhanced by a quieter ocean. Returning each year to the Salish Sea around southern Vancouver Island, the whales are in serious decline, resulting from the hazards they face in an ocean environment complicated with man-made noise confusing to the whales, and presenting a morbid danger of collisions between whales and ships.

It is generally agreed among ocean specialists that whales could communicate with each other, navigate and assess their environment and acquire food more efficiently and effectively should the ocean be quieter. Researchers are set to examine data from before, during and after the current quiet period to determine whether distinctions between the meaning, frequency and density of the orcas' calls can be interpreted.

Residents of Brussels have been told to stay at home, leaving the city’s streets empty.   Credit: Jonathan Raa/NurPhoto via Getty

Hutterite Communities : Living COVID Transmission Laboratories

"The question we need to ask is, 'What are a minority of our people doing that brings suffering like this upon the rest of us'?"
"Such situations are a golden opportunity to be a light to the world and show mainstream society that we have many great people among us."
Hutterian Safety Council

"We can answer a lot of questions [in Hutterite colonies] that can't be answered in mainstream communities. [This is] knowledge that couldn't be obtained anywhere else."
"It's a very giving culture. There is a generosity of spirit [here]."
Dr.Mark Loeb, infectious disease professor, McMaster University

Members of the Box Elder Hutterite Colony stand on the headers of eight combines just before they start to combine what is left of the 20,000 acres of barley they were harvesting near Tregarva, Sask. in September 2008. Don Healy/Leader-Post

Founded in 16th century Switzerland together with Mennonites and Amish, Hutterites represent a branch of the Anabaptist movement of Protestanism. All of these minority breakaway groups were historically persecuted throughout Europe, inspiring them to self-exile when they moved to North America in the late 1800s. There they found freedom in the establishment of limited colonies of 100 souls, living remote from others in the mainstream community. Hutterites have a unique mode of dress and most are involved in farming and in small-scale manufacturing.

A number of Hutterite colonies located in Alberta, Saskatchewan and Manitoba have had outbreaks recently of COVID-19 infections, as well as several deaths resulting from COVID. Where in the general community within which their remote and isolated communities exist the incidents of COVID have receded in numbers, in the Hutterite communities they have proliferated. Speculation is that communal meals and prayer, traditions within the community, may prove to have been a factor in the infection rate.

Which led to the Hutterian Safety Council identifying for censure some of the community members for having visited doctors without divulging they were ill; not observing social distancing; and travelling outside their colony for non-essential purposes. The premier of Saskatchewan spoke of imposing travel restrictions to and from the colonies in an effort to curb the cornavirus spread, at the same time cautioning against stigmatizing the communities.

A research project is in the planning stages to view the religious group as a living laboratory, a potential source of vital new information about the coronavirus. McMaster University intends to study the small, self-contained colonies with a view to examining the critical issue of herd immunity related to COVID-19 transmission. Earlier research on flu within the communities could serve as a platform on which to mount this new study.

The Canadian Institutes of Health Research has funded the proposed study with a $1.5-million award. The study now awaits a go-ahead from the University of Alberta which is partnering with McMaster, along with formal consent from the twenty colonies chosen by the team to be part of the study. Dr. Loeb, tagged to lead the study is familiar with the colonies' residents from the flu study, considering them to be "extraordinarily generous" to visiting scientists, in his decades-long association with them.

Laboratory technical assistant, LifeLabs, THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck

The makeup of the communities is unique; small, manageable populations, the colonies are isolated from the outside world, thus becoming the ideal laboratory where the vital issue of herd immunity can be studied to determine how respiratory viruses behave on a community-wide basis. The earlier study dating from 2010 examined the effect immunizing children within the community at ages three to 15, impacted on community members at large.

Communities whose children received flu shots irrespective of whether or not the population was vaccinated, were 60 percent less likely to harbour the virus in comparison to those colonies that received Hepatitis A vaccine, used as a control group. Confirming the herd effect of immunizing children against flu. The study was noted at the time by Dr.Anthony Fauci, director of the U.S.National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases, who praised it as a "really nice study".

As schools prepare to re-open, the research will study the role children play in COVID-19 transmission. "Findings from this cohort study will inform policy-makers about the determinants of community transmission", noted the grant description meant for the attention of the Canadian Institutes of Health Research.

A tradition of communal meals and prayer is considered a likely factor in recent COVID-19 outbreaks among Canada's Hutterite communities. Jordan Verlage/The Canadian Press/File

Emergent Planets in the Immensity of the Universe

"Even though astronomers have indirectly detected thousands of planets in our galaxy, only a tiny fraction of these exoplanets have been directly imaged."
"Direct observations are important in the search for environments that can support life."
Matthew Kenworthy, Associate Professor, Leiden University

"This discovery is a snapshot of an environment that is very similar to our Solar System, but at a much earlier stage of its evolution."
"The possibility that future instruments, such as those available on the ELT, will be able to detect even lower-mass planets around this star marks an important milestone in understanding multi-planet systems, with potential implications for the history of our own Solar System."
Alexander Bohn, PhD student, Leiden University, Netherlands

"These multi-planet systems are intriguing laboratories to study dynamical interactions and scattering events between several planetary-mass companions, which is crucial for understanding the formation and dynamical evolution of planetary systems."
Paper, The Astrophysical Journal Letters 

First ever image of a multi-planet system around a Sun-like star   ESO/Bohn et al

The paper titled the Young Suns Exoplanet Survey, reports results related to a research group led out of the Netherlands' Leiden University. The research team produced new images taken by the Very Large Telescope of the European Southern Observatory in Chile. The announcement was made of the first detectable evidence of a "baby planet", in its birthing stages. In fact, there were two planets. And the images presented are those of a double exoplanetary system, the first time ever such a phenomenon has been observed, of the pair estimated to be 17 million years old.

As time lines go, that can be compared to our Sun, which is estimated to be four billion years old. Two other such systems have previously been discovered; one having four giant planets, another with two "accreting protoplanets". Witnessing their orbits through telescopes capable of removing surrounding starlight has afforded a rare opportunity to test prevailing theories of planetary formation dynamics. What this also holds out promise for in allied observations and research is the potential to explain the origin of Earth itself, thought to have been created from a whirling dust disc in solar orbit which over endless time absorbed infalling asteroid masses.

It is also hypothesized that another planet called Theia collided with the infant Earth knocking its centre off orbit by 23 degrees and in the process creating the Moon as rock splashed upward, expressing the sheer dynamic force of the collision. Theia's fate was sealed when most of it shattered and clung to Earth's orbit which absorbed its shattered mass within its own. The process revealed by this new telescopic sighting has presented researchers with an opportunity to observe the formative stages of a planet, an event never before seen.

A subtle "twist" where two spirals intersect to become a whirling disc of dust and gas orbiting around a young star titled AB Aurigae, located 520 light years' distance from Earth, was detected by the four linked mirrors of the Very Large Telescope, in a constellation identified as The Charioteer. Theory has it that the cosmic maelstrom birthing a future planet coalesced into an expanding mass that attracted other orbiting masses -- attaining sufficient gravity over the eons to become a spherical planet.

Publication of this new research from the VLT illustrating the first images ever seen of a pair of immature twin planets -- two gas giants -- in distant orbit around a young star, represents the first time such a celestial event has been directly imaged, ever. Both these exoplanets are larger than gas giants Jupiter or Saturn, in our own Solar System. They orbit  the star called TYC 8998-760-1 at a distance far greater than Jupiter and Saturn orbit our own Sun, at 150 and 320 times the distance between Earth and the Sun, in comparison to about five and ten times for Jupiter and Saturn; both as well six and 14 times a greater mass than that of Jupiter.

Double Duty : Oral Contraceptives and Depression

"The women who started contraception during puberty don't show that stress response that they should when they're presented with a stressor. And that is worrisome because that means that, first, they're not reacting to the stressor, and secondly, they're not bringing their system back to homeostasis. So, objectively, they're telling us that they're stressed, but their body is not reacting to it."

"It points to a mechanism that could explain why many women suffer depression once they start oral contraceptives."

"Women's health research has been lacking because we've given priority to issues related more to men's health, or those affecting most of the population, and we've kind of forgotten that 50 percent of the population has unique problems. But it's worth investigation, and it needs investigation."

"We want to find out the impact that it has on these young women, too. And we want to find the mechanism that would help us understand why some women are more susceptible than others to developing mood disorders, and whether the birth-control pill is a contributing factor, and if there is any way to predict, before a woman even starts to take the pill, whether it will be the right fit for her, or if there might be injuring consequences that we could prevent by using an alternate method."

"We don't want to discourage women or girls from taking oral contraceptives. We just want them to be informed, to be able to weigh the pros and cons, and then make an informed decision."

Nafissa Ismail, associate psychology professor, University of Ottawa

With the use of stress tests and magnetic resonance imaging, Dr. Ismail, research chair in stress and mental health at University of Ottawa, along with Andra Smith, psychology professor at University of Ottawa, are involved in a research team that graduate student Rupali Sharma is heading. The issue is the synthetic hormones in birth control pills affecting women's health, in particular women young enough that their brains are still in development. The purpose of the research is to determine how the hormones interact with the brain.

The research involving MRIs and stress tests reveals that women using oral contraceptives display more activity in their prefrontal cortices, while engaged in the performance of memory tasks. This increased activity requires additional investigation to verify the implications, but the suggestion is that their brains are working overtime to arrive at similar outcomes in comparison to women not on the pill.

The first phase of the research results are pending publication in the journal Hormones and Behavior. What is of concern to Dr.Ismail is the dulled response to social stress since it suggests the brains of youthful users of the pill have developed differently than what is considered normal, as a result of the chemicals present in the oral contraceptive, resulting in an inability to react to stress; that condition ensuring that the stress is never resolved.

Women diagnosed with mental-health issues were deliberately excluded from the study but even so definitive causal relationship remains inconclusive. A blunted stress response is common in women suffering from depression, points out Dr.Ismail. Part of the problem of this grey area where use of the contraceptive pill and depression in users -- though a casual link has long been noted, is the relative paucity of research devoted to the potential of neural development linked to the use of oral contraceptives.

Oral contraceptives work by inhibiting ovulation, preventing sperm from entering the Fallopian tubes, deterring fertilized eggs from attaching to the uterine wall. And they are prescribed and used by young women to control acne problems, heavy menstrual flow, and premenstrual syndrome. 

Birth control pills contain hormones. These hormones change how your reproductive organs work in order to prevent pregnancy. Combination pills contain man-made versions of the female hormones estrogen and progesterone. These hormones prevent the release of an egg from the ovary, or ovulation. They also thicken your cervical mucus, which makes it hard for sperm to travel to your uterus and fertilize an egg.

healthline

 

How Important is Good Dental Hygiene?

"The authors point to possible reasons for an association between oral bacteria (oral microbiota) and oesophageal and gastric cancer, with evidence from other studies suggesting that tannerella forsythia and porphyromonas gingivalis - members of the 'red complex' of periodontal pathogens - were associated with the presence or risk of oesophageal cancer."
"Another possible reason is that poor oral hygiene and periodontal disease could promote the formation of endogenous nitrosamines known to cause gastric cancer through nitrate-reducing bacteria."
"This was an observational study, so no firm conclusions can be drawn about cause and effect, and the researchers cannot rule out the possibility that some of the observed risk may be due to other unmeasured (confounding) factors."
"However, they conclude: "Together, these data support the importance of oral microbiome in oesophageal and gastric cancer. Further prospective studies that directly assess oral microbiome are warranted to identify specific oral bacteria responsible for this relationship. The additional findings may serve as readily accessible, non-invasive biomarkers and help identify individuals at high risk for these cancers."
EurekAlert

Image: © Glayan/Thinkstock

"The study authors who found the link between cancer and oral health came to their conclusions using self-reported information from questionnaires given to some 65,869 older women as part of the Women's Health Initiative Observational Study, which began collecting information in 1994. The women in the study were asked if a dentist or dental hygienist had ever told them they had gum disease."
"Study authors followed these women for an average of eight years to see who went on to develop cancer. More than 7,000 cancers occurred among the women during the study period, and researchers found that women with periodontal disease had a 14% higher overall cancer risk than women without gum disease — and a higher risk specifically of breast, lung, and esophageal cancers, and melanoma."
Harvard Health Publishing, Harvard Medical School

"The link between oral health and heart health may seem an unlikely one. But proper care for your teeth and gums may help lower your risk for developing heart disease.
Gum disease leads to inflammation, the immune system's response to infection and injury. The chemicals produced by inflammation of the gums get into the blood. When they reach the heart, those chemicals may increase inflammation inside plaques of atherosclerosis in the arteries of the heart, thereby increasing the risk of heart attacks and strokes."
"That association is controversial, however. 'That's because people with severe gum disease have many of the usual risk factors for coronary artery disease, such as age, diabetes, poor diet, and untreated diseases', says cardiologist Dr. Peter Zimetbaum, an associate professor at Harvard Medical School."
"While some studies have shown that cleaning and flossing result in lower levels of inflammatory markers and other improvements in known risk factors for heart disease, it's not yet clear if good oral care will prevent heart attacks, stroke, or death from heart disease, says Dr. Harvey White, a member of a Harvard affiliated academic research group that studies cardiovascular disease. Even so, it will certainly help protect your dental health."
Harvard Health Publishing, Harvard Medical School

Representational Image (Source: Internet)

A new study published in the journal Gut, a specialist periodical by the British Medical Journal, suggests that gum disease has a part to play in risking throat and stomach cancer. The Harvard University study emphasized that the risk, calculated at 50 percent, was higher among people who had experienced tooth loss given that gum disease becomes an entry point for bacteria to proliferate through blood. On the good news side, mild instances of gum disease are readily treatable with practising good oral hygiene.

The research studied 98,459 women and 49,685 men over a period of more than twenty years for rates of throat and stomach cancer. The study assessed dental measures, demographics, lifestyle and diet. The link between bacteria commonly found in the mouth and esophageal cancer was validated in previous studies which results this more recent one confirms given its large sample size, long-term followup and "rigorous control" for lifestyle impacts.

Porphyromonas gingivalis bacteria, Credit:Kateryna Kon / Shutterstock

During the 22 to 28 followup years 199 cases of esophageal cancer and 238 cases of gastric cancer occurred. A related history of gum disease was seen to be associated with a 43 percent and 52 percent increased risk of esophageal cancer and gastric cancer respectively.  Risk of esophageal and gastric cancer for people who lost two or more teeth were  higher as well, compared to people with no tooth loss experience; 42 percent and 33 percent respectively.

A history of gum disease and who may or may not have had tooth loss were linked with a 59 percent increased risk of esophageal cancer in comparison to people lacking a history of periodontal disease, and no loss of teeth. Periodontal disease results in abnormal gum conditions reflecting decreased health of gums which recede to expose the roots of teeth, resulting in vulnerability of tooth stability, and eventually tooth loss.

Finally, a history of gum disease resulting in no loss of teeth gave people a 50 percent increased risk of gastric cancer, rising to 68 percent when people have a history of both gum disease and tooth loss, in comparison to others with no history and no loss of teeth.

Mouth health often reflects general health, according to Prof Leo Stassen, president of the Irish Dental Association. Photograph: John Giles/PA Wire

 

Global Pandemic Entertainment Fallout

"I never thought in my life that I would wake up one day and basically in 48 hours we end up with no shows, no revenues."
"It was very tough because from hour to hour I was learning that one country was shut down and then the other country was shut down."
"We think that it will take a year to 18 months before we're back to normality, which means having a vaccine or a cure that makes people feel safe in a theatre."
"And then from there we think that within a couple of years we'll be able to bring back the company where it was."
Daniel Lamarre, CEO, Cirque du Soleil

Cirque du Soleil

"We feel frustrated when we know the show is suspended. And we also have fears because we have no idea how bad the epidemic is."
"When we stepped on the stage again, we felt almost the same [as] when we made our debut last August."
"The effort we made during this time was not in vain."
He Guowei, performer, Land of Fantasy show, Hangzhou, China

Cirque du Soleil, Travel Zoo

Cirque du Soleil, arguably the most famous circus troupe circulating at global venues, known for the quality of its extravagant shows, and the dexterity and professionalism of its performers, has gone from the heights of success to the doldrums of global pandemic inaction. The travelling extravaganza that has raked in billions in profits over the years, suddenly finds itself in financial insecurity. The troupe originating in Quebec street performance that took the entertainment world by storm has now seen most of its worldwide operations grind to a halt. All it took was 48 hours of unbelievably bad news.

The company, renowned for featuring acrobats, jugglers, firebreathers and musicians saw circumstances force it to shut down productions in China, Italy and the United States, just for starters, with other countries' productions to follow in quick order. Leaving it to file for bankruptcy protection. Its CEO was placed in a very difficult emergency position in a desperate effort to save what he could of the company. To help performers return home from productions closing abroad, to find warehouses where the company's 40 trucks of equipment per show could be stored.

Corteo, Cirque du Soleil

There were no fewer than 44 performances running simultaneously worldwide before the pandemic hit the global community. About $1billion in annual revenues from its shows featuring underwater performances, and shows focused on Michael Jackson, and The Beatles were realized. Then there was no option but to lay off 95 percent of the company's workers following show cancellations. In the end, court documents show the company had close to $1.5 billion in liabilities.

Cirque du Soleil saw its emergence in the early 1980s, billed as "The Stiltwalkers of Baie-Saint-Paul" in Quebec. And then it became a global entertainment colossus after sold-out shows in Las Vegas when touring productions and acquisitions followed. Many of those associated with the company became wealthy. A performer and co-founder of the company, Gqy Laliberte was listed by Forbes as a Canadian billionaire.

For the near future, a potential fall reopening for its resident productions in Las Vegas and Orlando, gives hope that things will eventually turn out for the company. The reopening of the Chinese production last month and another show set to open in Mexico in July show positive momentum. In Hangzhou, China, the masked audience appears to be more enthusiastic than it had been before the onset of the novel coronavirus pandemic.

Allegria Act, Cirque du Soleil