If you or someone you know may be considering suicide or need help, call 988 or message the Crisis Text Line by texting HOME to 741741.
Yes! We first saw a spike in vomiting and diarrhea illnesses in mid-June. It’s been slowly increasing, even after the July 4th holiday, indicating that there’s sustained community spread of GI illnesses. Within the ZHH wellness check program, we’ve seen hotspots in Arizona, Ohio, Minnesota, and Florida. Cases of norovirus on cruise ships are continuing to increase, as well, which is a good indicator that it’s circulating on land, too. Focus on handwashing and reminding employees not to work if they’ve had diarrhea or vomiting or if someone else in their household has noro-like symptoms.
The high temperatures right now are unprecedented. Phoenix is on its second week in a row of 110+ degree days, with no signs of stopping. It’s important to highlight just how extreme these temperatures are for human bodies. Some temps in the US are at or above the maximum that young, healthy bodies can tolerate. Heat illness can cause heart problems (including cardiac arrest), kidney issues, and muscle breakdown.
Water and rest are crucial for preventing heat illness. If someone is dizzy or faint, sweating heavily, and feeling weak or nauseous, they should immediately move to a cool place, drink water, and use cooling cloths to lower their body temp. If someone has signs of heat stroke - they pass out or have a body temp of 103 degrees or higher, a fast and strong pulse, confusion, dizziness, and/or hot, red skin - call 911 and get immediate medical attention, since heat stroke can be fatal even for otherwise healthy people. If you’re in a heatwave, consider printing this poster from the CDC outlining what to look for and what to do for each type of heat illness.
A new study shows that there have been hundreds of confirmed cases of spillover between humans and deer in the US. Most were human to deer, sometimes then spreading within the deer population, but at least three were spread from humans to deer and then back again. That poses a major risk for new variants evolving in deer and then spreading back to humans, and any of those might change in a way that makes them more infectious, more deadly, or a combination of the two. So, continued monitoring of deer populations is key. But we’re not panicking just yet, because most mutations since Omicron haven’t drastically changed transmissibility or severity. Is it possible? Absolutely. Should we be prepared for additional surges of COVID fueled by variant mutations? Yes! Do we think it’s imminent or catastrophic? No, at least not now. We do think you should have pandemic plans in place for the next pandemic, which we expect will be in our lifetime. Whether it’s from deer, bats, ticks, or fungus remains to be seen, but the combo of globalization, climate change, and antibiotic resistance means it’s likely that we’ll see another big one in our lifetimes.
Source: CIDRAP