Community transmission COVID-19 cases reported in central Newfoundland, St. Anthony - The Telegram | Canada News Media
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Community transmission COVID-19 cases reported in central Newfoundland, St. Anthony – The Telegram

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There are 18 new cases of COVID-19 reported in Newfoundland and Labrador, with an additional case now being treated in a hospital according to government officials.

In Saturday’s media update, chief medical officer of health Dr. Janice Fitzgerald said there were now two hospitalized cases linked to the global pandemic. Of the 18 new cases announced Saturday, she paid particular attention to a pair of cases in the Central Health and Labrador-Grenfell Health regions. She said these people had not travelled outside the province and did not have contact with a person who was already known to have COVID-19. Contact tracing is underway for both of these individuals. Dr. Fitzgerald said these known cases of community transmission highlight just how important it is to take the threat of COVID-19 seriously.

“We now have known community transmission in the province — this is a significant development,” Dr. Fitzgerald said. “We have said on many occasions that we need to behave as if this virus is circulating in our communities already. Today we have proof that this is true. I am calling on all of you to do your part to reduce the spread of COVID-19 in our province. Stay home unless it is essential, and by that, I mean groceries, medical supplies, hygiene products and essential work. Do not hang out with your friends. If you must go out, maintain a physical distance of six feet between yourself and others. Wash your hands well and frequently.

“Finally — and I cannot stress this enough — if you are sick with cold or flu-like symptoms, you must stay home. It is all of our responsibility to flatten the curve. Our collective actions will have significant impact on how COVID-19 progresses in our province.”

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The person in the Labrador-Grenfell Health region is presently hospitalized in isolation at the Charles S. Curtis Memorial Hospital in St. Anthony. People who were in close contact with that individual are being tested and now quarantined and hospital staff who were in contact with the patient are self-isolating. Dr. Fitzgerald said appropriate precautions are in place to care for the confirmed case at the hospital.

“This includes the use of personal-protective equipment for staff who are caring for the patient,” she said.

The first hospitalization related to COVID-19 was announced Friday and involved a patient in the Eastern Health region.

Testing centre

Meanwhile, a testing and assessment centre was opened in St. Anthony earlier Saturday. That site will support what’s expected to be “the increased number of people requiring assessment,” according to Dr. Fitzgerald.

St. Anthony is considered the regional hub of the Northern Peninsula and located in a relatively remote area. Asked about the hospital’s ability to deal with managing the temporary loss of staff self-isolating due to contact with the confirmed case of COVID-19, Health Minister John Haggie said the regional health authority has told him the hospital remains well equipped to address local health-care needs.

“I have been in discussions with the CEO of Labrador-Grenfell (Heather Brown), and she advises me that given the bed occupancy and the staff pool currently, they do not foresee any issues,” he said. “Obviously, it’s something they’ll monitor as time goes by, and as the numbers of staff firm up in terms of who is able to work and who is not, she and her advisers will be in a better position to be a bit more definitive. But at the moment, we are not anticipating any operational challenges there.”

There have now been 120 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Newfoundland and Labrador. Based on cases per 100,000, the province has the second highest rate of cases in Canada, behind only Quebec.

Of the 18 new cases reported overnight, 16 were in the Eastern Health region and there was one each for the Central Health and Labrador-Grenfell Health regions. 1,927 people have been tested provincewide, with 1,807 confirmed negative.

Summer Games postponed

Premier Dwight Ball also announced Saturday the postponement of the 2020 Newfoundland and Labrador Summer Games. The event was scheduled to take place this August in Bay Roberts. Ball said government consulted with the Town of Bay Roberts in making the decision to postpone the event, noting all relevant sporting facilities have been closed due to the ongoing public health state of emergency.

“Now, the provincial government recognizes that for these athletes, this is disappointing,” Ball said, later cautioning this is not a full cancellation of the event. “But we recognize these athletes, these sporting organizations, the sponsors and all the organizers, they’ve put in a lot of work, and I want to thank you.”

Given this is a pandemic likely to last for months, the premier said the decision to postpone is the right thing to do.

Twitter: @CBNAndrew

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N.L. COVID-19 demographics (as of Saturday, March 28)

• 57 percent of confirmed cases female, 43 per cent male;

• 11 cases under 20 years;

• 16 cases 20-39 years;

• 16 cases 40-49 years;

• 29 cases 50-59 years;

• 22 cases 60-69 years;

• 26 cases 70 years and above.

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Whooping cough is at a decade-high level in US

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MILWAUKEE (AP) — Whooping cough is at its highest level in a decade for this time of year, U.S. health officials reported Thursday.

There have been 18,506 cases of whooping cough reported so far, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said. That’s the most at this point in the year since 2014, when cases topped 21,800.

The increase is not unexpected — whooping cough peaks every three to five years, health experts said. And the numbers indicate a return to levels before the coronavirus pandemic, when whooping cough and other contagious illnesses plummeted.

Still, the tally has some state health officials concerned, including those in Wisconsin, where there have been about 1,000 cases so far this year, compared to a total of 51 last year.

Nationwide, CDC has reported that kindergarten vaccination rates dipped last year and vaccine exemptions are at an all-time high. Thursday, it released state figures, showing that about 86% of kindergartners in Wisconsin got the whooping cough vaccine, compared to more than 92% nationally.

Whooping cough, also called pertussis, usually starts out like a cold, with a runny nose and other common symptoms, before turning into a prolonged cough. It is treated with antibiotics. Whooping cough used to be very common until a vaccine was introduced in the 1950s, which is now part of routine childhood vaccinations. It is in a shot along with tetanus and diphtheria vaccines. The combo shot is recommended for adults every 10 years.

“They used to call it the 100-day cough because it literally lasts for 100 days,” said Joyce Knestrick, a family nurse practitioner in Wheeling, West Virginia.

Whooping cough is usually seen mostly in infants and young children, who can develop serious complications. That’s why the vaccine is recommended during pregnancy, to pass along protection to the newborn, and for those who spend a lot of time with infants.

But public health workers say outbreaks this year are hitting older kids and teens. In Pennsylvania, most outbreaks have been in middle school, high school and college settings, an official said. Nearly all the cases in Douglas County, Nebraska, are schoolkids and teens, said Justin Frederick, deputy director of the health department.

That includes his own teenage daughter.

“It’s a horrible disease. She still wakes up — after being treated with her antibiotics — in a panic because she’s coughing so much she can’t breathe,” he said.

It’s important to get tested and treated with antibiotics early, said Dr. Kris Bryant, who specializes in pediatric infectious diseases at Norton Children’s in Louisville, Kentucky. People exposed to the bacteria can also take antibiotics to stop the spread.

“Pertussis is worth preventing,” Bryant said. “The good news is that we have safe and effective vaccines.”

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AP data journalist Kasturi Pananjady contributed to this report.

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.

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Scientists show how sperm and egg come together like a key in a lock

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How a sperm and egg fuse together has long been a mystery.

New research by scientists in Austria provides tantalizing clues, showing fertilization works like a lock and key across the animal kingdom, from fish to people.

“We discovered this mechanism that’s really fundamental across all vertebrates as far as we can tell,” said co-author Andrea Pauli at the Research Institute of Molecular Pathology in Vienna.

The team found that three proteins on the sperm join to form a sort of key that unlocks the egg, allowing the sperm to attach. Their findings, drawn from studies in zebrafish, mice, and human cells, show how this process has persisted over millions of years of evolution. Results were published Thursday in the journal Cell.

Scientists had previously known about two proteins, one on the surface of the sperm and another on the egg’s membrane. Working with international collaborators, Pauli’s lab used Google DeepMind’s artificial intelligence tool AlphaFold — whose developers were awarded a Nobel Prize earlier this month — to help them identify a new protein that allows the first molecular connection between sperm and egg. They also demonstrated how it functions in living things.

It wasn’t previously known how the proteins “worked together as a team in order to allow sperm and egg to recognize each other,” Pauli said.

Scientists still don’t know how the sperm actually gets inside the egg after it attaches and hope to delve into that next.

Eventually, Pauli said, such work could help other scientists understand infertility better or develop new birth control methods.

The work provides targets for the development of male contraceptives in particular, said David Greenstein, a genetics and cell biology expert at the University of Minnesota who was not involved in the study.

The latest study “also underscores the importance of this year’s Nobel Prize in chemistry,” he said in an email.

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The Associated Press Health and Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute’s Science and Educational Media Group. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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