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London region sees biggest spike in COVID-19 cases over the weekend – CBC.ca

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Health officials have reported 21 new COVID-19 cases in the London region, bringing the total number of cases to 134.

The Middlesex-London Health Unit (MLHU) didn’t report new deaths on Sunday. However, the death toll across the province continues to rise, with a total of 135 to date. 

Intake numbers from the London Health Sciences Centre say 22 patients have been admitted to hospital for COVID-19 and 10 of them are in critical care. 

This weekend, the region saw its biggest spike in COVID-19 cases. There have been a total of 42 new cases reported on Saturday and Sunday combined.

“We’re right inside the pandemic wave now,” said Dr. Chris Mackie, the medical officer of health for the Middlesex-London Health Unit. “We will see more cases over the next few weeks and it’s not clear how long it will last before it comes down again, but it could be some time still.”

On Saturday, health unit also reported two more deaths, bringing the total up to five.

“It’s up to all of us and stay home so we can protect each other,” Dr. Mackie added. 

Seven seniors’ facilities hit with virus

Meanwhile, three more seniors’ facilities in the area have reported COVID-19 outbreaks.

“It’s concerning that we are seeing coronavirus in long-term care homes,” Dr. Mackie said. 

According to records released by the health unit Sunday, there are a total of seven outbreaks at seniors’ facilities in the London region. An outbreak is declared when at least one resident or staff member in a facility tests positive for the virus.

“Those folks are at high risk of having a bad outcome from coronavirus, so we are working closely with them to make sure they have the appropriate protocols, equipment and layout to try and reduce the spread in these settings,” said Dr. Mackie. 

Seniors’ facilities with outbreaks have been isolating sick residents, and are trying to ensure staff refrain from going to work at other facilities, Dr. Mackie added.  

There are at least 36 outbreaks in long-term care homes across Ontario, and at least 54 people have died as a result. 

Cases in surrounding counties continue to rise

Grey Bruce is reporting two new cases of COVID-19 in the area, bringing their total to 21.

Health officials said a woman in her 40s and a man in his 50s have contracted the virus. Both patients are self-isolating. Details on how either of them contracted the virus are pending. 

On Saturday, Elgin County reported one new case, bringing the total of cases in Elgin and Oxford counties to 21. 

Huron-Perth public health officials are only providing updates on weekdays. As of Friday, they reported a total of 17 cases. 

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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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