Members get a daily Covid-19 topic focused on Covid in Tennessee.
Supporters are part of a self-improvement sub-group where value is dispensed daily on personal growth in all aspects of life, informed by many sources. New members welcome!
Tennessee Covid update:
Hospitalized: 1,287
Deaths: 125
Positivity: 27.19%
Testing issues: Some antigen tests do not detect omicron well. With omicron being by far the most prevalent variant now, that renders Linea COVID-19 Assay Kit from Applied DNA Science and Revogene SARS-CoV-2 to be essentially useless. If you are looking for a home test or antigen test, Abbott BinaxNOW and Quidel QuickVue are the ones to use.
Remember that antigen testing (the so-called rapid tests) are less sensitive than PCR tests. That means that they may fail to detect the presence of SARS-CoV2. But they are highly specific, in that they are not likely to be wrong if they show positive.
If you are high risk for severe disease and wish to pursue monoclonal antibody treatment, you need to have a lab determine what variant you have. Labs using the TaqPath COVID-19 Combo Kit are able to detect what's referred to as S Gene Dropout, a phenomenon unique to omicron. Aside from full sequencing, this is the easiest way to determine if you have omicron or not. If you do not have omicron, monoclonal antibodies may still be available. The challenge is that this has to be determined very early in your disease course, or there's probably no benefit. I don't have info on what labs use the TaqPath test, so you'd have to be really proactive to get this strategy to work for you.
Distribution of the new oral anti-Covid pills by Pfizer and Merck is being centrally controlled by the federal government's "Office of the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response," and it is expected that 65,000 courses will be distributed before New Year's Day. The feds have purchased 10 million doses of Paxlovid and 3 million of molnupiravir, but apparently the complexities of production have limited the rate at which they are being made.
Yes, I did notice that really big positivity number. Don't be surprised if it continues to rise. Local hospitalizations are well under the last peak so far, though we could see some really rough times in the hospitals for a few weeks coming up shortly.
It's a great time for young people to pursue nursing. Our hospitals nationwide will be desperate for nurses because of the damage that Covid has inflicted on so many of our experienced nurses. A lot of nurses are going to leave the field and not return, I expect.
We as a nation will have to do something to improve the working conditions of nurses, though. In my opinion, caring has been relegated to a secondary service, below chart generation and med management for our overworked and generally undercompensated nurses. And a nurse who is unable to care will never make enough money to stay in the job. A person who chooses to be a nurse usually benefits first from the human interaction and only secondarily from the paycheck. Take the humanity out of the job and you can't pay enough to keep them there. And they're not wrong.
I love our nurses. We need to get them back to patient CARE.
Stay healthy!
I'm on a weekend night call schedule this weekend, which always leaves me feeling under-rested and generally icky.
But I wanted to remind you that outdoor exercise without screens is really good for your mental health.
Go outdoors, preferably into the woods.
Get in tune with those surroundings, the sights, the sounds, the smells, even the movement of air and the varying temperatures as you walk.
We were made to be outdoors.
We were definitely not made to work in cubicles.
One Degree!
What you want from your body will dictate what you need to set as goals, and the goals will determine what you'll end up having to change to attain them.
I've spoken many times about systems being better than goals, and my position has not changed.
But goals are easier to discuss and to understand, so for this week, we'll be very specific about goals.
Do you want more muscle mass?
Do you want to be stronger?
Do you want to run faster?
Do you want to gain weight?
Do you want to lose weight?
Do you want to improve general fitness?
Do you want longevity?
Do you want strong bones?
Do you want to earn a Black Belt?
Understanding the benefits and costs of each particular goal may help you decide what you want.
For example, if you want to compete in body-building competitions, you'll not be doing the same thing as if you were focused on longevity. Same with strength competitions.
But general fitness and longevity go fairly well together.
Running is great but will increase the likelihood of needing knee or hip ...
I'll make this one short and to the point.
Spring time change is hard on all of us. Having to get up an hour early doesn't make going to bed an hour earlier much easier.
Yes, it's nice to have more productive time in the evening.
But it's at the cost of forcing us out of be an hour earlier, as we all know.
Our challenge is to adjust our circadian rhythm to match the world's expectations around us.
My main strategy is supplementing with a dose of melatonin about a half hour before I need to be asleep. It helps most people fall asleep more readily.
If you need a nap during your day, take it between mid-morning and early afternoon. Limit it to 20 minutes.
Taking a longer or later nap may make it even harder to get off to sleep in time.
All of the other normal advice applies even moreso:
- Take a 20-minute walk after supper.
- No screen time for the last hour before bed.
- Listen to calm music after supper.
- Don't eat for 2 hours before bed.
- Don't have conflict-laden conversations ...
