Timing is everything, unless you're in quarantine during a pandemic

The NPC Podcast is on the air. The organizers of the National Pharmaceutical Congress are proud to release the first episode of our new weekly series, hosted by Peter Brenders. Peter's guest this week is Durhane Wong-Rieger, patient advocate. Listen here now, or download the episode and play it at your convenience. The NPC Podcast is presented in cooperation with Impres Pharma.

⇒ Issue #72 [In numerology, the number 72 represents energy that includes the ideas of philanthropy, analysis, and relationships to accomplish goals as a team]
⇒ Confirmed Covid cases in Canada as of 07/09: 108,656*
⇒ Confirmed Covid fatalities in Canada as of 07/09: 8,797*
⇒ Worldwide Covid cases as of 07/09: 12,294,117*
⇒ Worldwide Covid fatalities as of 07/09: 555,541*

July 10, 2020—Hello, young Curveflatteners. It's John Evans here with your weekend update. It has been 101 days since March ended, and somehow that feels... wrong. Even with the regular routines of work and shopping, the days seem to blur together. If you are feeling the same, you are not alone. Researchers from Liverpool, U.K., conducted an online survey, and they found that more than 80 per cent of survey respondents were experiencing distortions of their perception of the passage of time during Covid-19 lockdown. In particular, they found that the perception of the slower passage of time during the day was predicted by increased age, a higher level of stress, reduced task load, and less satisfaction with their current level of social interaction. So keeping busy with things that help you relax, and chatting with friends should help. 

Regarding more in-person socializing, while a recent announcement from the Public Health Agency of Canada said that “the current patterns of COVID-19 infections show limited to no transmission in most areas of the country,” spokesperson Dr. Howard Njoo, deputy chief public health officer of Canada, warned about becoming complacent. CBC News reports Dr. Njoo noting that due to a few hotspots, Canada's Rt number—the measure of how many new cases each case of Covid-19 causes—is back above 1.0 again. Dr. Njoo also noted that other countries have seen resurgences after periods of control.

COVID CHRONICLE 07-10-2020

• This week the CDC added three new official symptoms of Covid-19: nausea, diarrhoea, and runny nose, reports Global News. These join the six added by the CDC in April: loss of taste or smell; chills; shaking with chills; muscle pain or aches; sore throat; and headache.
• From the telemedicine front, researchers from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology say that minute changes in how an individual sounds when speaking could be a biomarker for Covid-19 infection in otherwise asymptomatic people. Their thought is that the infection causes disruption in the movement of muscles across the respiratory, laryngeal, and articulatory systems, changing how sounds are formed. The group has previously investigated vocal biomarkers for neurological conditions including amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) and Parkinson's disease. While the science is still in early days if it bears out the investigators imagine that a mobile app that you talk to could be part of public screening.
• Researchers from the U.K. have looked at the primary care records of 17,278,392 adults, pseudonymously linked to 10,926 Covid-19-related deaths, to identify risk factors for mortality. Risk factors they identified included: being male; older age; diabetes; severe asthma; and other medical conditions. As well, Black and South Asian people were at elevated risk compared with White people, even after adjusting for other factors. Here's the paper in Nature.
• A study of 249 front-line health care workers who cared for Covid-19 patients during the first month of the pandemic in Tennessee found that 8% tested positive for antibodies to the virus by serology testing, suggesting they had contracted Covid-19 in the first several weeks of taking care of infected patients. Notably, 42% of the studied health care workers with positive serology results reported no symptoms of a respiratory illness in the prior two months. The study authors say this finding suggests that front-line health care workers are at high risk for Covid-19 infection, and that many health care workers with the virus may not have typical symptoms of a respiratory infection. “Our results suggest that screening health care workers for Covid-19 even when they don't have any symptoms could be important to prevent the spread of the virus within hospitals,” said Dr. Wesley Self, associate professor of Emergency Medicine at Vanderbilt University Medical Center and lead investigator for the study, in a press release.

STORIES CHRONICLE IS WORKING ON TODAY

My colleague Dhiren Mahiban is pursuing interviews on a new combination treatment approach to treating acne scars

TODAY I AM COOKING

Friday is my day to order delivery, and I have been doing a sort of world tour of international cuisines from non-chain, local restaurants in my area. So far Tibetan has been the most unique I've found, but the South African barbecue was also pretty good. Today, though, I'm thinking British. Fish and chips? I think so.

LATER I AM WATCHING

Assignment Outer Space. 1950s sci-fi films are an interesting experience because they were still in the process of establishing the archetypes, tropes, and language conventions that would become standard in such films in later decades. 

RIGHT NOW I AM LISTENING TO

Yesterday Mitch 'blessed' us with an infectiously catchy song from a TV show soundtrack. Well, the prime source of earworm songs from my own youth was Shuki Levy, composer of the theme songs to more cartoons than most people even remember existing. Some champion has compiled most of them into a single youtube video, and it is nearly two hours long. Good luck if you click on this link.

ENJOY YOUR WEEKEND

Treat yourself well and look after the people you care about. My colleague Kylie Rebernik will be back here Monday to inform you all.