Doctor reflects on COVID-19's impact on society and health
MEMPHIS, Tenn. — The World Health Organization declared COVID-19 a global pandemic five years ago shutting down daily life, causing death, crippling the economy and reshaping public health around around the world.
'I think, New York in terms of the impact it was having. So, we were very worried about it. But I don't think we were as worried about it, maybe, as we need to be. It turns out, in retrospect,' said Dr. Steve Threlkeld, Baptist Hospital Infectious Disease Specialist.
Threlkeld remembers one of the first cases confirmed in Shelby County involving a co-worker.
'And Marilyn, who's become something of a hero to all of us, subsequently worked at the hospital, actually,' Threlkeld said. 'And so, I got a phone call when I was out to dinner with my wife and daughter, who's visiting from college, and that the test was positive, and I told him at times, 'Well, things are about to change around here, unfortunately, and it's not going to be good.'
Man charged with stalking, assault after crashing car into woman: MPD
He said that the worst thing was that they didn't know what to do about COVID-19 because as they learned more about it, they were just doing supportive care.
COVID didn't just make people sick, it also divided society.
'But the most depressing thing to me about it other than, of course, the actual people dying of the disease, and we had that going at up to 10 a day, even just in our hospital, and that's very difficult to sort of watch,' said Threlkeld. 'But we saw people divided around things like vaccines in ways that I just truly didn't even understand.'
He said the nurses had it the worst because they were in the rooms with people dying whose family and spouses could not be around them.
Man points gun at Wingstop employee: MPD
'Tremendous emotional toll. And I very frequently say that my worst memories of it were nurses with their own cell phones, video conferencing with families, trying to say goodbye to their relatives,' said Threlked. 'And you don't endure that sort of thing to get the nurses without being changed by it.'
As the country deals with a measles outbreak and cases of the Bird Flu, Dr. Threlkeld hopes we've learned some lessons since dealing with COVID-19.
'So, it's very sad to see that sort of thing popping its head, and you just hope that we can come together and not be going down some sort of historical road here because I think that would be sort of a tragic kind of event,' Threlkeld said.
According to recent data from the WHO, in the last 28 days, ending about Feb. 16th, 2025, about 3,800 Americans were hospitalized due to COVID-19, meaning the virus still has a presence today.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Hashtags

Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
29 minutes ago
- Yahoo
RFK Jr. Says Seed Oils Are Poison. Here's What a Dietitian Says
Seed oils have come under fire, with Health and Human Services Robert F. Kennedy, Jr., leading the charge, saying Americans are being "poisoned" by them While they can cause inflammation, Julia Zumpano, a registered dietitian with the Center for Human. Nutrition at the Cleveland Clinic says the bigger problem is that they're used in ultra-processed food The issue is less about the seed oils themselves and more about the foods they're inSeed oils — a type of processed oil found in packaged food and used for deep-frying — have come under fire, with the secretary of health and human services Robert F. Kennedy Jr. posting on X that Americans are being 'unknowingly poisoned." Wellness influencers have joined in, decrying them as the 'hateful eight": specifically, canola, corn, cottonseed, soybean, sunflower, safflower, grapeseed, and rice bran oils. The real story is a bit more complicated. 'They're not poison, but we're poisoning ourselves with everything else that's ultra-processed and processed that may be cooked in seed oils," Julia Zumpano, registered dietitian with the Center for Human Nutrition at the Cleveland Clinic, tells PEOPLE. 'The bigger picture is the fact that we're eating way too much of seed oils, which happen to be found in highly processed foods," she explains. "That's where I see the problem.' On their own, seed oils are high in Omega-6 fat, which Zumpano says is linked to increased inflammation. But, as she explains, 'instead of deep frying chicken in beef tallow versus the seed oil, let's just focus on the fact that fried chicken is not really that good for us.' Beef tallow, which Kennedy has touted as a healthier option, does have some benefits, Zumpano tells PEOPLE. 'There's nutrients in it, fat-soluble vitamins that are essential.' But when you're using it to cook highly processed foods, she explains, 'we're just flip-flopping between two issues that aren't necessarily better.' As she explains, 'We're heavily focused on the seed oils and not necessarily focused on the fact that the foods that they're in are so processed: sauces and dressings and baked goods and potato chips and candy bars and granola bars and protein bars. Even coffee creamers are loaded with seed oils,' she says. They're in highly processed food because they're more cost-effective to make, Zumpano explains: 'It's cheaper and quicker and easier to process it with chemicals and solvents.' But if you're cooking at home, she says, with 'cold pressed or hi-oleic sunflower seed oil, or a canola oil and you're drizzling it, pan-frying some fish with it, there are no health concerns like inflammation. Fast Food is a part of American culture. But that doesn't mean it has to be unhealthy, and that we can't make better choices. Did you know that McDonald's used to use beef tallow to make their fries from 1940 until phasing it out in favor of seed oils in 1990? This switch was… — Robert F. Kennedy Jr (@RobertKennedyJr) October 21, 2024 'We should just focus on really eliminating highly, ultra-processed and processed foods and going back to basics. Again, if you're gonna use the beef tallow at home to cook your eggs, fine — or the canola oil. "You're using it in moderation, a small amount, just to get the job done versus deep frying a doughnut or deep frying french fries or deep frying whatever breaded food or processed fried food you're consuming.' Ultimately, 'It's not the oil itself. It's the food that's found in the oil that is more of the problem.' If someone were to ban seed oils out of their diet, 'that's great, because they're probably cutting out a bunch of junk food," she says. "But I don't think anyone needs to be very fearful if their grandma made muffins with canola oil. They're gonna be okay if they eat that.' Never miss a story — sign up for to stay up-to-date on the best of what PEOPLE has to offer, from celebrity news to compelling human interest stories. Read the original article on People
Yahoo
39 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Aethlon Medical to Present New Pre-Clinical Data at the Keystone Symposium on Long COVID and Other Post-Acute Infection Syndromes
Poster Presentation Reviews the Hemopurifier® Affinity Resin's Ability to Bind Extracellular Vesicles in Long COVID Samples SAN DIEGO, June 9, 2025 /PRNewswire/ -- Aethlon Medical, Inc. (Nasdaq: AEMD), a medical therapeutic company focused on developing products to treat cancer and life-threatening infectious diseases, today announced that an abstract has been accepted for poster presentation at the Keystone Symposium on Long COVID and Other Post-Acute Infection Syndromes being held at Eldorado Hotel & Spa, Santa Fe, NM, United States, August 10-13,2025 ( Long COVID refers to persistent symptoms following acute SARs-CoV-2 infection (COVID-19). These symptoms - including fatigue, post-exertional malaise, shortness of breath, chest pain and cognitive difficulties such as "brain fog" - may last for weeks or months after the initial illness. Long COVID is estimated to affect between 44 and 48 million people in the United States alone with a projected economic burden of $2 billion for those with symptoms lasting a year. Despite over $1 billion allocated to Long COVID research funding, no treatment has proven effective. Extracellular vesicles (EVs), nanoparticles 50-500nm in diameter, released from all cell types and involved in cell-to-cell communication, have been implicated in the pathogenesis of Long COVID. EVs have been found to contain viral particles and other cargo associated with abnormal blood clotting and inflammation. Aethlon Medical's Hemopurifier® is an investigational extracorporeal device designed to bind and remove harmful EVs from the blood through a combination of plasma separation, size exclusion and binding to a proprietary affinity resin containing the plant lectin Galanthus nivalis agglutinin (GNA), previously found to bind to the sugar mannose. The Hemopurifier has previously been shown to remove EVs in a patient with severe acute COVID-19 infection. Aethlon Medical collaborated with the University of California San Francisco Medical Center Long COVID clinic to evaluate plasma samples from participants with Long COVID and control participants who had fully recovered from COVID-19 in order to examine whether individuals with Long COVID would have EVs with the mannose target on their surface that would bind to the affinity resin in the device. The data to be presented will review the binding of both larger and smaller EVs to GNA lectin and the lectin-based affinity resin, respectively. Presentation details and times are as follows: Title: Extracellular Vesicles from Participants with Long COVID are Mannosylated and Bind to the Galanthus Nivalis Agglutinin Resin in the Aethlon Hemopurifier® Authors: Miguel Pesqueira1, Rosalia de Necochea Campion1, Thomas Dalhuisen2, Emily A. Fehrman2, Jeffrey N. Martin2, Timothy J. Henrich2, Steven G. Deeks2, Michael J. Peluso2, Steven P. LaRosa1 Aethlon Medical Inc., San Diego, CA, USA University of California, San Francisco, San Francisco, CA, USA Presenter: Steven P. LaRosa, M.D, Chief Medical Officer, Aethlon Medical, Number: 2001Date and Time: August 12, 2025, 1930, MDT. This poster will be available following the meeting on the Aethlon Medical, Inc. corporate website at About Aethlon and the Hemopurifier® Aethlon Medical is a medical therapeutic company focused on developing the Hemopurifier, a clinical stage immunotherapeutic device which is designed to combat cancer and life-threatening viral infections and for use in organ transplantation. In human studies, the Hemopurifier has demonstrated the removal of life-threatening viruses and in pre-clinical studies, the Hemopurifier has demonstrated the removal of harmful EVs from biological fluids, utilizing its proprietary lectin-based technology. This action has potential applications in cancer, where EVs may promote immune suppression and metastasis, and in life-threatening infectious diseases. The Hemopurifier is a U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) designated Breakthrough Device indicated for the treatment of individuals with advanced or metastatic cancer who are either unresponsive to or intolerant of standard of care therapy, and with cancer types in which EVs have been shown to participate in the development or severity of the disease. The Hemopurifier also holds an FDA Breakthrough Device designation, and an open Investigational Device Exemption (IDE) application related to the treatment of life-threatening viruses that are not addressed with approved therapies. Additional information can be found at Company Contact:Jim FrakesChief Executive Officer and Chief Financial OfficerAethlon Medical, Inc. Jfrakes@ Investor Contact:Susan NoonanS.A. Noonan Communications, LLCsusan@ View original content: SOURCE Aethlon Medical, Inc. Sign in to access your portfolio
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
‘Unfathomable': Seth Rogen Torches Lawmakers Threatening Cuts to Medicaid
Lauren Miller Rogen was 22 years old, celebrating her graduation from college the first time she noticed something was happening to her mother, Adele. It was relatively minor: 'She repeated herself — she told a story a few times about a friend of hers,' Rogen says. But for Lauren, who had watched Adele care for her own parents as they slowly succumbed to Alzheimer's disease, it was the potential future that unnerved her. Within two years, Adele, a first-grade teacher, would be diagnosed with early-onset Alzheimer's at age 55. By that time, Lauren was living in Los Angeles, and dating her then-boyfriend, the actor Seth Rogen. When the couple married a few years later, Adele's condition had progressed to the point that it wasn't clear at their wedding if she even realized who Lauren was. 'She knew I was the bride — she kept calling me the bride,' Lauren recalled in Taking Care, a documentary the couple made to raise awareness about the challenges that families face while caring for a person with advancing dementia. The toll of caring for Adele was hardest on Lauren's father. 'There was a time early on, before we brought care in, where we were like, 'Oh, we're gonna lose him first.' This — caring for her — seemed like it's literally killing him,' she says. 'Without being able to afford outside help, I dread imagining what would have happened,' Lauren says. The couple went on to found a nonprofit, Hilarity for Charity, that disburses grants to offset the cost of caring for a person with dementia. 'Until we were part of the care system, we didn't realize how broken it was,' Seth says in a video they recorded on behalf of the organization Caring Across Generations, to raise alarms about the threat families face under a pair of proposals to slash health care programs for the poor and disabled that are being considered at the state and federal level, and encourage people to contact their legislators. He adds, 'Millions of low income families, families of people with disabilities, families that have older adults in them, are facing this struggle every day right now. And that is why it is so unfathomable that federal and state legislatures are making massive cuts to Medicaid as we speak.' 'We are cutting crucial services for people who are aging and disabled,' he explains. 'That means these people will be losing access or have less access to the health care they need, creating more out-of-pocket expenses and medical debt.' In Washington, President Donald Trump's 'Big Beautiful Bill,' which was recently approved by the Republican majority in the House of Representatives, would cut roughly $600 billion from Medicaid in order to help pay for a new round of tax cuts for the wealthy. The Trump tax bill is projected to kick over 10 million people off Medicaid, the government health insurance program for low-income and disabled Americans. The legislation would also limit so-called provider taxes, which states use to provide supplemental payments to hospitals, doctors, and other health care providers to help pay the costs of treating Medicaid patients. The bill would additionally impose a financial penalty on states, like California, that offer health coverage to undocumented immigrants. In California, the situation could be compounded by further cuts proposed by Governor Gavin Newsom (D) that would slash Medi-Cal, the state's Medicaid program. Roughly one quarter of the five million Americans with dementia rely on Medicaid, the country's largest payer of long-term care. Medicaid is a pillar for caregivers — some 12 percent of recipients are people who can't work because of their responsibilities caring for a family member. Their ability to access the program could be jeopardized by the Big Beautiful Bill, which would impose work requirements on all able-bodied adults under 65 in order to qualify for Medicaid. 'Almost everyone in this country knows or loves someone that relies on Medicaid, even if they don't rely on Medicaid themselves. And we have the power together,' Lauren says in the video. 'We need to reject any cuts or changes that would take more care away from families that need and deserve it,' Seth adds. 'At the state level and the federal level.' More from Rolling Stone Trump Continues Inflaming L.A. Protests: 'BRING IN THE TROOPS!!!' ABC News Suspends Journalist for Calling Stephen Miller and Trump 'World-Class Haters' Republicans Say They're Cool With Trump Deploying Troops Against Protesters Best of Rolling Stone The Useful Idiots New Guide to the Most Stoned Moments of the 2020 Presidential Campaign Anatomy of a Fake News Scandal The Radical Crusade of Mike Pence