Advanced Mediterranean Diet

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I’ve reported here before that shockingly high rates of COVID-19 deaths in elder care facilities in a few individual states. Avik Roy looked at data from multiple states:

Roy writes in Forbes:

According to an analysis that Gregg Girvan and I conducted for the Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity, as of May 22, in the 43 states that currently report such figures, an astounding 42% of all COVID-19 deaths have taken place in nursing homes and assisted living facilities.

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And 42% could be an undercount. States like New York exclude from their nursing home death tallies those who die in a hospital, even if they were originally infected in a long-term care facility. Outside of New York, more than half of all deaths from COVID-19 are of residents in long-term care facilities.

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Nearly one-tenth of all New Jersey long-term care residents have died from COVID-19

As I recall, the first COVID-19 outbreak in the U.S. was in a nursing home in Kirkland, Washington.

Do you ever wonder how this pandemic could have been less severe if our rulers had concentrated their public health efforts on elder care facilities and older vulnerable adults? I do.

Steve Parker, M.D.

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I’ve been an advocate of opening up the economy since April 2, 2020. So if millions more in the U.S. die from COVID-19 you’ll know who to blame, partially. Of course, if my recommendations are followed, few will perish.

Despite my following the pandemic fairly closely, I couldn’t remember exactly when the Arizona economy was strangled. The handy chart below indicates March 31, 2020. For you states that don’t return to relative freedom and  capitalism, don’t ask the rest of us for a bailout. You made your bed, now lie in it.

Steve Parker, M.D.

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Artist’s rendition of Coronavirus

Read the article in Advances in Nutrition and then let me know in the comment section:

ABSTRACT

Zinc is an essential trace element that is crucial for growth, development, and the maintenance of immune function. Its influence reaches all organs and cell types, representing an integral component of approximately 10% of the human proteome, and encompassing hundreds of key enzymes and transcription factors. Zinc deficiency is strikingly common, affecting up to a quarter of the population in developing countries, but also affecting distinct populations in the developed world as a result of lifestyle, age, and disease-mediated factors. Consequently, zinc status is a critical factor that can influence antiviral immunity, particularly as zinc-deficient populations are often most at risk of acquiring viral infections such as HIV or hepatitis C virus. This review summarizes current basic science and clinical evidence examining zinc as a direct antiviral, as well as a stimulant of antiviral immunity. An abundance of evidence has accumulated over the past 50 y to demonstrate the antiviral activity of zinc against a variety of viruses, and via numerous mechanisms. The therapeutic use of zinc for viral infections such as herpes simplex virus and the common cold has stemmed from these findings; however, there remains much to be learned regarding the antiviral mechanisms and clinical benefit of zinc supplementation as a preventative and therapeutic treatment for viral infections.

Source: Role of Zinc in Antiviral Immunity | Advances in Nutrition | Oxford Academic

The U.S. economy

As expected, everyone ignored my April 2 advice to open up the economy and let healthy, relatively young people go back to work. Read on, and weep.

Unemployment rates were higher in April in all 50 states and the District ofColumbia, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Similarly, all 50 states and the District had jobless rate increases from a year earlier.

The national unemployment rate rose by 10.3 percentage points over the month to 14.7 percent and was 11.1 points higher than in April 2019.

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Nevada had the highest unemployment rate in April, 28.2 percent, followed by Michigan, 22.7 percent, and Hawaii, 22.3 percent. The rates in 43 states set new series highs. (All state series begin in 1976.)

I can understand the devastating unemployment numbers for Nevada and Hawaii; they’re heavy into travel and tourism. Michigan? I don’t know.

Source: State Employment and Unemployment Summary

Steve Parker, M.D.

PS: I live in Arizona. Our unemployment rate is 12.6%.

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Probably at little risk of serious illness if she’s generally healthy

Note that a prior diagnosis of hypertension (high blood pressure) was NOT a risk factor for death from COVID-19. Most other coronavirus articles list hypertension as a risk factor for serious illness, if not death, from COVID-19. Admittedly, “serious illness” is not the same as death. I’ve never understood how chronically controlled hypertension could increase risk of serious illness or death.

I recently read someone calling coronavirus, instead, controlavirus. Referring to governments controlling our businesses, personal movements, shopping practices, access to “non-essential” services, and violating our constitutional rights to peaceably assemble and worship as we choose. Not as our rulers choose.

“Return to your home and hide under your bed!”

Steve Parker, M.D.

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It’s looking like, nationally, 30-40% of COVID-19 deaths in the U.S. are of nursing home residents, whether they perished at the nursing home or contracted the disease there and died in the hospital. The percentage varies from state to state.

From Daily Caller:

New York nursing homes were forced to accept more than 4,500 coronavirus patients from hospitals thanks to an order from Democratic New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo, a tally by The Associated Press found.

Cuomo has come under heated criticism for his March 25 order forcing recovering COVID-19 patients into New York nursing homes — a decision blamed for the state’s high body count among the elderly. The governor waited roughly six weeks before reversing the order on May 10.

The New York State Department of Health refused to release the results of an internal survey on how many coronavirus patients were placed in nursing homes across the state, the AP reported.

The health department is knowingly under-counting the number of nursing home deaths as a result of a quiet rule change made in late April, a department spokesman previously acknowledged following a Daily Caller News Foundation investigation

Steve Parker, M.D.

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