Month: August 2021

Dr. Per Gesteland, a hospitalist for University of Utah Health and Primary Children’s Hospital, speaks about an uptick in Respiratory Syncytial Virus in Utah on Wednesday. (Intermountain Healthcare, via Zoom) SALT LAKE CITY — A recent rise in a respiratory disease that is common in children has the potential to match up with a surge in COVID-19 as Utah kids head back to school. Pediatricians have seen a rise in Respiratory Syncytial Virus, or RSV, in August, according to Dr. Per Gesteland, a hospitalist for University of Utah Health and Primary Children's Hospital. The disease can severely affect infants and toddlers and land them in the hospital. "It has a substantial impact on the children in our communities," Gesteland said d...

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- Louisville's health department said it found mosquitos carrying the West Nile virus in four Louisville zip codes. In a news release Wednesday, the Department of Public Health and Wellness said it identified cases in mosquitos in 40205, 40212, 40214 and 40215. “West Nile infected mosquitos are not unusual for this time of year,” Connie Mendel, assistant director of the health department, said in the release. “Being outdoors is great for our wellbeing, and with COVID-19 widespread in our community it’s less risky than being indoors. Enjoy the outdoors but take the appropriate precautions no matter what ZIP Code you live in. You should wear insect repellent if you go outside and remove standing water around your home.” No human ca...

Federal health officials on Wednesday bolstered their recommendation that pregnant people be vaccinated against Covid-19, pointing to new safety data that found no increased risk of miscarriage among those who were immunized during the first 20 weeks of gestation. Earlier research found similarly reassuring data for those vaccinated later in pregnancy. Until now, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has said the vaccine could be offered during pregnancy; the recent update in guidance strengthens the official advice, urging pregnant people to be immunized. The new guidance brings the C.D.C. in line with recommendations made by the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and other medical specialty groups, which strongly recommend vaccination. “At this time, the benef...

"There are sensitive periods in early childhood development in which language development and emotional development are really rapidly developing for the first few years of life," said Ashley Ruba, a postdoctoral researcher in the University of Wisconsin-Madison's Child Emotion Lab. Being able to use others' verbal or facial cues to figure out how someone is feeling or pick up on safe or dangerous aspects of environments and people is a critical task for young kids, Ruba added. Concerns that wearing masks might interfere with these natural learning experiences and communication skills have been studied before the pandemic. When children ages 3 to 8 viewed faces covered with face masks, they didn't show any impairment in classifying the expressions, according to a 2012 study published ...