Thanksgiving and COVID-19

Thanksgiving gatherings with family and friends are meaningful and fun but can increase the chances of getting or spreading COVID-19. The safest way to celebrate is to celebrate with people in your household. If you do plan to spend Thanksgiving with people outside your household, take steps to make your celebration safer.

As cases continue to increase rapidly across the United States, the safest way to celebrate Thanksgiving is to celebrate at home with the people you live with.

Gatherings with family and friends who do not live with you can increase the chances of getting or spreading COVID-19 or the flu.

Read more on the CDC website.

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CDC Recommendation Regarding Cloth Mask Coverings

CDC Recommendation Regarding the Use of Cloth Face Coverings

CDC continues to study the spread and effects of the novel coronavirus across the United States.  We now know from recent studies that a significant portion of individuals with coronavirus lack symptoms (“asymptomatic”) and that even those who eventually develop symptoms (“pre-symptomatic”) can transmit the virus to others before showing symptoms.  This means that the virus can spread between people interacting in close proximity—for example, speaking, coughing, or sneezing—even if those people are not exhibiting symptoms.  In light of this new evidence, CDC recommends wearing cloth face coverings in public settings where other social distancing measures are difficult to maintain (e.g., grocery stores and pharmacies) especially in areas of significant community-based transmission.

It is critical to emphasize that maintaining 6-feet social distancing remains important to slowing the spread of the virus.  CDC is additionally advising the use of simple cloth face coverings to slow the spread of the virus and help people who may have the virus and do not know it from transmitting it to others.  Cloth face coverings fashioned from household items or made at home from common materials at low cost can be used as an additional, voluntary public health measure.

If you are shopping for face masks, have a look at what is being sold on Amazon, here is my Affiliate Link (every sale pays me a small percentage, which helps pay the bills!)  https://amzn.to/3b2F1Fk
Be sure to check where the product is shipped from. A lot of sales on Amazon originate in China and can take a month to arrive.

The cloth face coverings recommended are not surgical masks or N-95 respirators.  Those are critical supplies that must continue to be reserved for healthcare workers and other medical first responders, as recommended by current CDC guidance.

This recommendation complements and does not replace the President’s Coronavirus Guidelines for America, 30 Days to Slow the Spread, which remains the cornerstone of our national effort to slow the spread of the coronavirus.  CDC will make additional recommendations as the evidence regarding appropriate public health measures continues to develop.

Thanks for checking out my Amazon Affiliate links.

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Navy Hospital Ship Comfort Arrives in New York Harbor

The 1,000-bed ship, the Comfort, with 12 operating rooms, a medical laboratory and more than 1,000 Navy officers, will treat patients who do not have the virus. The city’s hospitals are now so full that paramedics in the field are forced to make on-the-spot judgments about who lives and who is left to die.

USNS Comfort (T-AH-20) is the third United States Navy ship to bear the name Comfort, and the second Mercy-class hospital ship to join the U.S. Navy's fleet. The USNS prefix identifies Comfort as a non-commissioned ship owned by the U.S. Navy and operationally crewed by civilians from the Military Sealift Command (MSC). 

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Environmental Cleaning and Disinfection Recommendations

Interim Recommendations for US Community Facilities with Suspected/Confirmed Coronavirus Disease 2019

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#COVID-19 - Coronavirus updates from the CDC

I am featuring this post for quick reference to updates on Coronavirus / COVID-19. Feel free to link to this, stevemiami.blogspot.com

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See Also: Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) at Johns Hopkins University (JHU)

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Chocolate cake or ice cream for breakfast?

Study shows eating chocolate cake or ice cream for breakfast may help improve mental performance. The reports are going around social media boasting chocolate cake is a good breakfast and ice cream is good for mental performance.

Yoshihiko Koga, a professor at Tokyo's Kyorin University, claims that eating ice-cold food immediately after waking up shocks the brain into an active state, increasing alertness and mental capacity. People who ate ice cream first thing experienced an increase in high-frequency Alpha waves, leading to boosted alertness and reduced mental irritation, The Daily Telegraph reported.

According to a recent study from Syracuse University, chocolate may help brain activity and cognition. The researchers had participants perform specific tests and in a long study showed this is a result, “Chocolate intake was significantly and positively associated with the Global Composite, Visual-Spatial Memory and Organization, Working Memory, Scanning and Tracking, the Similarities test (abstract reasoning), and the MMSE.”

Call me a health nut, or risk adverse but I'm not taking any chances. Chocolate cake with a scoop of ice cream for me, just to be safe :)

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Poor health tied to stress

Donate to the RelaxSteve campaign.  

Can't donate? Spread the word about https://www.gofundme.com/f/relaxsteve to others!

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Yoga and the brain #BrainAwarenessWeek

It is Brain Awareness Week and I'm posting about the brain-yoga connection related to neurological disorders.  And I'm sharing info on a yoga group a friend is starting up just for people with movement disorders. Please check out Nimbah Yoga's Facebook page for the details.

Movement disorders can be defined as neurologic syndromes in which either an excess of movement or a paucity of voluntary and automatic movements, unrelated to weakness or spasticity. The term movement disorders is used synonymously with basal ganglia or extrapyramidal diseases.

Yoga is a favorite non-medical therapy of many people living with a movement disorder for its functional and psychosocial benefits. Studies suggest modest benefits from yoga for:
Mobility. Yoga can improve functional mobility and how a person with walks.
Balance. Research shows yoga-related improvements in balance (tandem, one-leg) and an associated reduction in fear of falling.
Strength. Gains in lower-body strength occur following yoga practice and are associated with improved postural stability.
Flexibility. Improvements in flexibility and range of motion (ROM) are important since rigidity is a common clinical manifestation. Research shows improvements in flexibility/ROM of the shoulder, hip and spine.
Mood & Sleep. The calming effect of yoga (by enhancing parasympathetic output) may lessen perceived stress, enhance relaxation, and benefit sleep.

Read more:

• This Is Your Brain and Body on Yoga and Meditation: 4 Powerful Scientific Findings
• Sergey Brin’s Search for a Parkinson’s Cure
• Your Brain on Yoga (Harvard Medical School Guides)
• Exercise, nutrition, sleep aid brain

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