COVID kills New Brunswick child aged 0-4
A New Brunswick child aged 0-4 was killed by COVID-19 between March 9-15, according to government data, and influenza killed two people aged 65 or older and one aged 45-64.
The province doesn't provide any information about COVID and flu victims.
Between March 9-15, 10 people were hospitalized with COVID. No one required intensive care.
The province includes data on the number of tests and lab-confirmed cases, but it isn't accurate because it only counts data collected in hospitals.
Forty-five people were hospitalized for influenza between March 9-15, and two people required intensive care.
There were 11 lab-confirmed flu outbreaks, including seven in nursing homes and four in undisclosed facilities. There was also one outbreak of an influenza-like illness in a school.
Finally, there were 66 confirmed cases of RSV between March 9-15. Three people required hospital treatment.
Some New Brunswickers will soon be able to get a new COVID-19 vaccination, the government announced on Monday, but it doesn't appear the shots will be available to most.
The eligible groups are, according to a government press release, 'people aged 65 or older, adult residents of long-term care homes and other congregate-living settings for seniors,' and 'people six months or older who are moderately to severely immunocompromised due to underlying conditions or treatment.'
The release doesn't explain why the vaccine isn't available to everyone, other than a note saying the province is following 'updated guidance from the National Advisory Committee on Immunization.'
Shots will be available from April 7 to June 30, and will be administered by 'participating pharmacies,' the release read. However for children under 12, the shots will only be available until June 21 because 'vaccine products for this age group are expiring and additional vaccines will not be immediately available.'
'Getting vaccinated is one of the best ways to help protect yourself and your community against the impact of vaccine-preventable diseases and illnesses, including COVID-19,' chief medical health officer Dr. Yves Léger said in the release.
'Vaccines against COVID-19 are very effective at preventing severe disease in the elderly and those who are at higher risk. However, studies show that this protection does drop after many months, which is why getting a spring dose is important for those groups.'
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Newsweek
40 minutes ago
- Newsweek
Inside Hospitals' Digital Command Centers
Based on facts, either observed and verified firsthand by the reporter, or reported and verified from knowledgeable sources. Newsweek AI is in beta. Translations may contain inaccuracies—please refer to the original content. During the winter of 2023, staff at Children's Mercy Kansas City were waiting for the "surge": a dreaded period when viral illnesses like influenza and RSV abound, leading to an increase in hospital admissions. But as the winter bled into 2024, it became clear that something had changed. Children were still getting sick and requiring advanced medical care. However, staff at Children's Mercy weren't "feeling the angst" like they had in years past, according to Dr. Jennifer Watts, the hospital's associate chief medical officer of acute care and inpatient operations. The difference, Watts said, came from technology. That was the hospital's first year using GE HealthCare's Command Center software, a product that allows it to digitally monitor care delivery and track patients' progress throughout their stay. It's like the "NASA" control hub for the health system, Watts told Newsweek. During the first winter partnering with GE, Children's Mercy staff began asking, "Is the surge here?" "They just didn't feel it," Watts said. "We were able to prepare. We were able to have [sufficient] staff present. We got rid of the scramble that typically occurs when you don't prepare for things." Hospital staff inside Children's Mercy Kansas City's Patient Progression Hub, which uses GE Healthcare Command Center technology to paint a real-time picture of hospital happenings. Hospital staff inside Children's Mercy Kansas City's Patient Progression Hub, which uses GE Healthcare Command Center technology to paint a real-time picture of hospital happenings. Children's Mercy Kansas City Patient Progression Hub Children's Mercy is one of 300 hospitals around the world that use GE's Command Center technology. As hospitals across the U.S. face rising demand for their services—driven, in part, by sicker patients and an aging population—many are turning to these digital "command centers" to improve operational efficiency and polish the patient experience. Before developing a Patient Progression Hub, driven by GE's tech, Children's Mercy was still dealing with inefficient and outdated processes, according to Watts. Different departments were playing "phone tag" with one another to move patients through the hospital. Information was not centralized, and it was common to see staff with packets of papers in front of them, pinning memos on bulletin boards and communicating with fax machines. Within seven months of implementing the Command Center technology, the hospital saw an 86 percent reduction in admission delays and cut avoidable bed days by 24 percent—creating capacity for 300 more medical-surgical patients without expanding its facility. The tech sits atop hospitals' preexisting systems, like staffing platforms and electronic health records (EHRs), to generate a comprehensive, real-time picture of the hospital's caseload and available resources. "The software really helps connect the strategy to the day-to-day operations," Bree Bush, general manager of GE's Command Center, told Newsweek. Kristie Barazsu is the president and COO of Duke Health Lake Norman Hospital in Mooresville, North Carolina, and oversees patient flow for Duke Health, which stood up Command Center in 2019. During COVID-19, the health system could use the technology to understand where positive patients were located and deploy personal protective equipment (PPE) from its logistics center. Command Center also utilizes predictive analytics to help hospitals plan for the future. Duke uses it to forecast the area's census, analyzing overall demand by unit, patient population and information has informed the health system's staffing plan, allowing it to reduce reliance on costly, temporary travel labor—and reducing labor expenses by approximately $40 million to date, according to Barazsu. Rather than viewing the hospitals within Duke's system as independent entities, a tech Command Center has enabled leadership to get the full picture, she added. The system can now move patients from one hospital to another more quickly, allowing it to free up bed space and accept more transfers from other health systems. "We're not relying on word of mouth or pagers or systems that don't work well," Barazsu told Newsweek. "There's one source of truth." Staff coordinate care inside UMass Memorial Health's new Digital Hub. Staff coordinate care inside UMass Memorial Health's new Digital Hub. UMass Memorial Health While some health systems are partnering with a tech provider like GE, others are developing internal solutions to manage demand—and to keep tabs on a broadening menu of digital services. UMass Memorial Health has been on the forefront of the digital revolution, according to Dr. Eric Alper, its vice president, chief quality and chief clinical informatics officer. The health system was an early adopter of electronic intensive care unit (eICU) technology, which allows ICU staff to virtually connect with a critical care physician on overnight shifts. But a lot has changed since the advent of eICU tech about two decades ago, Alper told Newsweek. UMass Memorial used to run the service from a basement. Eventually it was supporting 150 critical care beds across the enterprise, and it was time for an upgrade. The health system recently stood up a new Digital Hub, a 20,000-square-foot home for its eICU services, and several other virtual programs, including interpreter services, remote video monitoring, mobile integrated health, "ED at Home," primary care and the Transfer and Access Center, which coordinates the comings and goings of patients across UMass Memorial hospitals. It might sound paradoxical to move virtual services to a physical location, but centralizing these operations has allowed for better communication, according to Alper, "We're collaborating more effectively by being in the same space, and that's allowing us to reduce some of the silos." An urgent care provider conducts a virtual visit from Sanford Health's Virtual Care Center. An urgent care provider conducts a virtual visit from Sanford Health's Virtual Care Center. Sanford Health Across the country in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, leaders at Sanford Health shared similar goals. The system stood up its own 60,000-square-foot Virtual Care Center in November, funded by a $350 million gift from its namesake Denny Sanford. In April, Newsweek followed up on the initiative with Dr. Dave Newman, Sanford's chief medical officer of virtual care. "One of the biggest things that the Virtual Care Center has done for Sanford is it emphasized the validity of virtual care and digital health," Newman told Newsweek. "The investment in the center and the space has shown that it's permanent, that this is what we're doing to help our patients, not just today or tomorrow but also 20 years from now." For Watts at Children's Mercy Kansas City, one incident stands out as a testament to the tech Command Center's importance. Anytime there is a mass casualty event, nearby hospitals need to prepare 20 percent of their beds to accept new patients. That's a challenge for most hospitals, given their daily capacity constraints—but when a shooter opened fire on the Kansas City Chiefs' Super Bowl parade in February 2024, Children's Mercy was able to respond. "This occurred a mile from our children's hospital, and we had no idea up front how many victims we would be receiving," Watts said, "but we were able to use the results of [Command Center predictive] modeling to get us to a point where, yes, we could take 20 percent of our beds and treat all of the victims that may be coming through our doors." She's excited to see hospitals' virtual command centers and digital services grow, saying, "I think we have opened the Pandora's box here."
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
History Shows the Danger of Trump's Health Policies
U.S. President Donald Trump and Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. attend an event in the East Room of the White House on May 22, 2025 in Washington, DC. Credit - Chip Somodevilla—Getty Images On May 11, 2023, President Joseph Biden ended the COVID-19 public health emergency, calling an finish to the pandemic. By the end of 2023, COVID-19 claimed the lives of over 20 million people around the world. But through international cooperation and evidence-based science, vaccines were developed and the world moved on. Indeed, perhaps the biggest success of the period was the quick production of a COVID-19 vaccine. The research behind the mRNA vaccine had been ongoing since the 1970s, but the emergency of the pandemic and international sharing of knowledge helped bring the vaccine to fruition. Today, the COVID-19 vaccine has been credited with saving 2.4 million lives around the world. But now, the U.S. is choosing competition over cooperation. With President Donald Trump's day one executive order to leave the World Health Organization (WHO)—blaming their COVID-19 response—and the shuttering of USAID, the country is taking steps towards further dividing health efforts across the globe. Here in the U.S., a sudden end to $11.4 billion of covid-related grants is stifling national pandemic preparedness efforts on the local and state levels. And most recently, Health and Human Services Secretary RFK Jr. purged experts from the CDC Advisory Committee, putting lives at risk. Historical lessons demonstrate the need for global health infrastructure that works together, shares knowledge, and remembers that pathogens do not stop at borders. White House's Pandemic Office, Busy With Bird Flu, May Shrink Under Trump One of the greatest global health achievements of all time—smallpox eradication—provides a perfect example of what can be done with independent scientific research and international cooperation. During the Cold War between the U.S. and USSR, decades of tension brought the world to the brink of nuclear war. Yet, incredibly, the nations managed to find common ground to support the efforts of smallpox eradication. Indeed, they understood the strategic benefits that came from letting public health practitioners and scientists work outside of political divides. The WHO was founded after World War II in 1948. Its formation marked a move from international health, that focused on nations, to global health, that would serve humanity first. The WHO's first eradication effort was the failed, U.S.-backed, Malaria Eradication Program from 1955 to 1969. The Smallpox Eradication Program, with intensive efforts beginning in 1967, provided a chance for redemption for the U.S. and WHO. For the United States, investing in disease eradication and poverty helped to mitigate growing backlash against the Vietnam War. In June of 1964, President Lyndon B. Johnson stated, 'I propose to dedicate this year to finding new techniques for making man's knowledge serve man's welfare.' He called for 1965—the same year he ordered ground troops to Vietnam to stop the spread of communism —to be a year of international cooperation that could bypass the politics of the Cold War. Previously, the USSR did not participate in the U.S. and WHO's first, failed global eradication plan for malaria. But upon rejoining the WHO in 1956, it was the Soviets who made the first call and investment into global eradication of smallpox in 1958. The WHO functioning as a mediator was crucial to allowing the USSR and the U.S. to work together. It allowed both nations to avoid giving credit to each other; rather success went to science itself. President Johnson called this 'a turning point' away from 'man against man' towards 'man against nature.' The limited role of politicians in the program proved to be key to its success. Scientists made decisions and worked together—no matter what country they came from—by focusing on disease and vaccination, not international tensions. The Soviet-initiated program was lead by Donald A. Henderson, a U.S. epidemiologist, who worked alongside the Russians until the last case of smallpox occurred in Somalia on October 26, 1977. During the 20th century, smallpox was responsible for an estimated 300 to 500 million deaths. Smallpox was officially declared eradicated by the WHO in October 1980, and is today still the only human disease to achieve this distinction. Less than a year after the declaration of smallpox eradication, the emergence of another pandemic, the HIV/AIDS crisis, reinforced the importance of science-first cooperation over politically-driven decision making. In June 1981, the first cases of a new unknown disease were reported in the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. In short order, gay men were stigmatized and blamed in what would become one of the biggest public health disasters of all time. It took years of grassroots science-based activism to move beyond HIV/AIDS victim-blaming and find medical solutions. The Poster Child for AIDS Obscured as Much About the Crisis as He Revealed Too often, governments across the globe placed blame on the gay community for their 'sins' and did not provide needed support, leaving the sick to suffer and die. The pharmaceutical companies profited from the limited medications they had available and did not pursue sufficient development. The FDA process for new drugs was scheduled to take nine years, at a time when life expectancy after receiving an HIV/AIDS diagnosis was one year. These issues sparked activism, spawning the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power (ACT UP) in 1987. ACT UP organizers took science into their own hands and began educating themselves. Members began reading scientific journals religiously, learning the chemistry and epidemiology of drug manufacturing and clinical trials. Members learned how to translate these dense scientific messages to educate the community members on what was—and what was not—being done to help. Because of this work, the FDA changed policies to allow for new treatments to be tested at accelerated rates in times of emergency. ACT UP was able to shift the cultural blame showing that the issue was a result of politics getting in the way of scientific advancements. By 1990, ACT UP influenced the largest federal HIV program to pass Congress, the Ryan White CARE Act. This program was a vital precursor to the 2003 PEPFAR (The U.S. President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief) global initiative. Both of these histories offer a powerful lesson: global health is national health, and national health is local health. With the recent funding cuts from the U.S. government, the future of global health is going in an unknown direction. And yet, the occurrence of pandemics is expected to increase in frequency due to climate change, mass migration, urbanization, and ecosystem destruction. It has been estimated that there is about a 25% chance we will have another COVID-sized pandemic within the next 10 years. No matter how secure the world makes borders, history shows that it can not protect us from disease if we do not have a strong, interconnected public health infrastructure. Luke Jorgensen is a Master of Public Health student at Purdue University where his epidemiology research examines human migration and infectious disease. Made by History takes readers beyond the headlines with articles written and edited by professional historians. Learn more about Made by History at TIME here. Opinions expressed do not necessarily reflect the views of TIME editors. Write to Made by History at madebyhistory@
The Hill
an hour ago
- The Hill
What to know about the new ‘Nimbus' COVID variant
The World Health Organization is keeping an eye on a new COVID-19 variant called NB.1.8.1, or 'Nimbus,' that has spread across Europe, the Americas and the Western Pacific. Nimbus is a descendant of the Omicron variant of the virus and was first identified in late January. Its spike mutations appear to make it more transmissible than other COVID variants, according to the WHO. Spike mutations refer to changes in spike proteins, which sit on the surface of the virus and help it enter healthy cells. While it is spreading in the U.S. and Canada, along with 20 other countries, it does not appear to be driving an increase in sickness or hospitalization. In April, NB.1.8.1 sequences made up 10.7 percent of all submitted sequences from confirmed COVID infections, up from 2.5 percent a month earlier, according to a risk evaluation released by the WHO. The WHO last month deemed NB.1.8.1 a variant 'under monitoring.' Here's what to know about the variant. Most cases of COVID-19 in the U.S. still stem from the LP.8.1 strain, another Omicron descendant. But it looks like NB.1.8.1 might soon replace it as the more common strain, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The CDC estimates that 37 percent of COVID-19 cases in the U.S. stem from the NB.1.8.1 variant while 38 percent are a result from an infection of the LP.8.1 strain of the disease. At the end of May, the agency estimated that the NB.1.8.1 variant caused about 15 percent of all COVID cases. But the agency notes on its website that due to low numbers of virus sequences being reported, precision in the most recent reporting period is low. The NB.1.8.1 variant has been found in at least 13 states, according to Today, which cited data from the Global Initiative on Sharing All Influenza Data (GISAID) database. Those states are: California, New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Arizona, Illinois, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Ohio, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia and Washington. The available data on 'Nimbus' suggests that it poses a low global threat and that existing COVID-19 vaccines provide adequate protection against severe illness and hospitalization, according to the WHO. 'Currently approved COVID-19 vaccines are expected to remain effective to this variant against symptomatic and severe disease,' reads the WHO's risk evaluation. 'Despite a concurrent increase in cases and hospitalizations in some countries where NB.1.8.1 is widespread, current data do not indicate that this variant leads to more severe illness than other variants in circulation.' Lionel Gesh, an international consultant at the WHO, told The Hill that many new cases in Canada are likely linked to the NB.1.8.1 variant, but that there has not been any major changes in the country in terms of cases, hospitalizations, ICU admissions or deaths linked to COVID-19. Symptoms of NB.1.8.1 seem to be similar to those associated with other Omicron variants, according to Gresh. Some common COVID-19 symptoms include cough, fever, fatigue, muscle aches, congestion, headache, nausea, vomiting, and a new loss of smell or taste, according to the CDC. 'We should be as concerned about [NB.1.8.1] as we are concerned for COVID in general,' Gesh said. 'Not more, not less.' Some recent COVID-19 patients have reported experiencing something called 'razor blade throat,' according to Salon. But it is unclear if that symptom is connected to one of the COVID variants or another respiratory illness circulating, Ryan Gregory, an evolutionary and genome biologist at the University of Guelph in Canada, told the outlet.
