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Are COVID-19-linked arrhythmias caused by viral damage to the heart’s pacemaker cells? The SARS-CoV-2 virus can infect specialized pacemaker cells that maintain the heart’s rhythmic beat, setting off a self-destruction process within the cells, according to a preclinical study co-led by researchers at Weill Cornell Medicine, NewYork-Presbyterian and NYU Grossman School of Medicine. The findings offer a possible explanation for the heart arrhythmias that are commonly observed in patients with SARS-CoV-2 infection. In the study, reported on March 8, 2022, in Circulation Research, the researchers used an animal model as well as human stem cell-derived pacemaker cells to show that...

Researchers at the Department of Microbiology of The University of Hong Kong (HKU) have found that the COVID19 virus can cause acute testicular damage, chronic asymmetric testicular atrophy, and hormonal changes in hamsters despite a light pneumonia. “In managing convalescent COVID-19 males, it is important to be aware of possible hypogonadism (low sex drive) and subfertility,” said Chair of Infectious Diseases Professor Kwok-yung Yuen, who led the research effort. “ COVID-19 vaccination can prevent this complication.” The HKU study of testicular damage of the virus, SARS-CoV-2, has been accepted for publication in the leading journal Clinical Infectious Diseases. COVID 19...

As it turns out, one man’s bodily reaction to COVID has proven that the virus truly isn’t confined to the throat and upper respiratory tract. According to a foreign medical journal, an Iranian man has drawn the interest of doctors after reporting “agonizing” pain in his penis that turned out to have been caused by blood clots that seriously threatened the man’s sexual health.The man, who wasn’t named in the news reports about the incident, had suffered penile pain for three days before being seen by a urologist in Iran, who referred him for tests. Keep in mind: one of...

The number of Americans hospitalized with Covid-19 has surpassed last winter’s peak, underscoring the severity of the threat the virus continues to pose as the extremely contagious Omicron variant tears through the United States. As of Sunday, 142,388 patients with the virus were hospitalized nationwide, according to data from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, surpassing the peak of 142,315 reported on Jan. 14 of last year. The seven-day average of daily hospitalizations was 132,086, an increase of 83 percent from two weeks ago. The Omicron wave has overwhelmed hospitals and depleted staff who were already worn out...

It may be a respiratory disease, but COVID-19 impacts more than just the lungs. A whole host of vital organs can be affected, including the kidneys, and a recent study has finally worked out how. SARS-CoV-2 – the virus that causes COVID-19 – can infect and directly damage the kidneys by causing scarring, according to research in the journal Cell Stem Cell. The resulting scar tissue could have long-term impacts on kidney function, the authors say. While the ability of the virus to bind and infect kidney cells is old news, the finer details of what exactly causes damage have...

CAMP HUMPHREYS, South Korea — U.S. Forces Korea counted 467 new COVID-19 cases in the week ending Monday, the highest number of infections reported by the command since the pandemic began in March 2020. USFK reported 457 locally generated coronavirus cases between Dec. 21 and Monday, and another 10 cases among recent arrivals to South Korea. Army Col. Seth Graves, garrison commander at Camp Humphreys, the largest U.S. base overseas, in an announcement Wednesday on Facebook said the spike in cases “is like nothing we’ve seen here on the installation since the beginning of the pandemic.” ...The command requires its...

The omicron-fueled surge that is sending COVID-19 cases rocketing in the U.S. is putting children in the hospital in record numbers, and experts lament that most of the youngsters are not vaccinated. “It’s just so heartbreaking,” said Dr. Paul Offit, an infectious-disease expert at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. “It was hard enough last year, but now you know that you have a way to prevent all this.”

In Colorado, there is a backlash from people who can't get into hospitals because they are full of unvaccinated COVID-19 patients. Administrators say facilities "are on the verge of collapse."

For hospital workers across the state, the scenes are becoming more familiar. After weeks of surging COVID numbers, many hospitals have reconfigured rooms, reassigned staff and done everything possible to cope with a fourth surge of COVID-19 in Michigan. On Wednesday, the state of Michigan reported this surge has now hit hospitals harder than any of the previous surges. The number of confirmed COVID cases in Michigan hospitals now stands at 4,419, according to data published by the state on Wednesday. That’s a new record high.

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Minnesota hospitals are scrambling to make room for patients as patients needing medical care for COVID-19 have hit a high for the year. Hospitals have delayed non-essential procedures, diverted less serious cases to outpatient clinics, and treated emergency room patients in hallways and ambulance bays that have been converted to urgent care centers, the St. Paul Pioneer Press reported. “We don’t have anywhere to put our new patients as they come in,” said Dr. Mark Sannes, senior medical director and infectious disease specialist for HealthPartners. “Normally, they’d be up in an emergency room bed. It’s true across...

Edmonton Oilers coach Dave Tippett has said that forward Josh Archibald is out indefinitely after having been diagnosed with myocarditis.

Alaska allowing hospitals to ration care as virus cases surge © Istock The Alaska Department of Health and Social Services (DHHS) on Saturday activated crisis standards of care for 20 hospitals in the state as it struggles with the latest surge in COVID-19 cases, with some hospitals resorting to having to ration health care. "Today’s action recognizes that Alaska has an interconnected and interdependent health care system, requiring the need for activation of the State’s decision-making framework. That framework includes a progression of conventional, contingency and crisis standards of care identifying strategies to be used depending on the situation and...

Hadley Hitson, Montgomery Advertiser Fri, September 10, 2021, 6:30 PM·1 min read The family of a man who died of heart issues in Mississippi is asking people to get vaccinated for COVID-19 after 43 hospitals across three states were unable to accept him because of full cardiac ICUs. Ray Martin DeMonia died last week in Meridian, Mississippi. He was three days shy of his 74th birthday and a well-known native in Cullman, Alabama, his family said. DeMonia suffered from a cardiac event, and emergency staff at Cullman Regional Medical Center had to bring him to the nearest available bed, which...

Idaho Gov. Brad Little described a "heartbreaking" scene at a St. Luke's intensive care unit he visited Monday evening---an ICU nearly filled with unvaccinated patients who contracted COVID-19. Two of them were pregnant, and the average age of the patients was 43, Little said. All were struggling to breathe, and health care workers are "exhausted." Little on Tuesday announced he will deploy up to 150 National Guard members for short-staffed health care facilities. He also secured another 200 contract workers to be available to the state through a contract with U.S. General Services Administration, and a 20-person Department of Defense...

DES MOINES, Iowa (KETV) — Mark McConnaughey was a guy you could count on for anything, according to his long-time friend and doctor Mike Zaruba. "If someone was in need, he would drop whatever he was doing, even if he needed to get what he was doing done, and come help," Zaruba said. KETV reports two weeks ago, when the 57-year-old needed care beyond what the Nemaha County Hospital could provide, Zaruba, a board-certified ER doctor, said they could not find any help available in Nebraska. "That triggered an inflammatory response through his body that cause multi-organ failure," Zaruba said....

BOISE, Idaho (AP) — Idaho public health leaders announced Tuesday that they activated “crisis standards of care” allowing health care rationing for the state's northern hospitals because there are more coronavirus patients than the institutions can handle. The Idaho Department of Health and Welfare quietly enacted the move Monday and publicly announced it in a statement Tuesday morning — warning residents that they may not get the care they would normally expect if they need to be hospitalized.

BOISE, Idaho (AP) — The intensive care rooms at St. Luke’s Boise Medical Center are full, each a blinking jungle of tubes, wires and mechanical breathing machines. The patients nestled inside are a lot alike: All unvaccinated, mostly middle-aged or younger, reliant on life support and locked in a silent struggle against COVID-19. But watch for a moment, and glimpses of who they were before the coronavirus become clear. Artfully inked tattoos cover the tanned forearm of a man in his 30s. An expectant mother’s slightly swollen belly is briefly revealed as a nurse adjusts her position. The young woman...

During earlier surges, most COVID-19 patients at Penn State Health were at least 65 and had other illnesses that made them vulnerable. But that was before arrival of the more contagious delta variant, and before many people, including most seniors and other highly vulnerable people, were protected by COVID-19 vaccine. “Most everyone we see in the ICU at this point is unvaccinated,” Dr. Fahad Khalid, the chief of hospital medicine at Penn State Health Milton S. Hershey Medical Center, said on Friday. About 43 people were hospitalized with COVID-19 at the medical center as of Friday morning, Khalid said. Their...

MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — Healthy and in their 30s, Christina and Josh Tidmore figured they were low-risk for COVID-19. With conflicting viewpoints about whether to get vaccinated against the virus filling their social media feeds and social circles, they decided to wait. On July 20, Josh came home from work with a slight cough initially thought to be sinus trouble. On Aug. 11, he died of COVID-19 at a north Alabama hospital as Christina Tidmore witnessed a doctor and her team frantically try to resuscitate her husband. “She would say, ’I need a pulse. ’I would hear, ‘no pulse,’ “Christina...

Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear (D) on Thursday announced that hospitals in the state are nearing a “critical point” with regard to being able to treat COVID-19 patients. Beshear urged unvaccinated people in his state to get the shot while he explained that hospitals are facing staffing shortages and reaching capacity, noting that the delta variant of the coronavirus is “burning through our population,” according to The Associated Press. “Our hospital capacity, really the capacity that we have based on the staffing that we have, is reaching a critical point,” Beshear said during a Thursday news conference. “At this rate, we...