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COVID

Editorial: Still time to get those shots before holiday season

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With Thanksgiving fast approaching, state health officials are encouraging residents to get a COVID booster and flu shot before the holidays.

The Massachusetts Department of Public Health also recommends getting the respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccine — especially expectant mothers, newborns, and those 60-plus.

“Getting vaccinated now will maximize protection against these respiratory viruses,” said Public Health Commissioner Robert Goldstein. “We want Massachusetts residents to have a safe, healthy, and fun holiday season, and part of that is getting vaccinated to protect yourself and those around you.”

The seasonal flu vaccine and updated COVID booster both take up to two weeks to provide full protection.

This time of year, when family and friends gather to celebrate the holidays, COVID, flu and RSV are the most likely causes of severe disease resulting in hospitalization and sometimes death.

In the past week, 13% of Bay State hospital admissions were due to acute respiratory disease.

The lack of vaccine participation in this state to date concerns health officials, who fear complacency has overtaken caution.

The latest data from the health department shows that just 9% of residents have received the shot since the latest COVID boosters started to roll out in mid-September.

A greater share, 21%, have received a flu vaccine, but that’s still tracking behind previous years, according to public health officials.

“We are dramatically lower in our COVID vaccination rates than we have been in prior years,” Goldstein recently told hospital leaders. “And RSV vaccination — a new vaccine — is really lagging where we had expected it to be.”

Similar to the flu vaccine, COVID doses were reformulated this fall to better match the current strains of the virus.

Many chain pharmacies like CVS and Walgreens administer these vaccines. After a rocky rollout, CVS officials, for example, now say they are “well positioned” to meet patient demand. Call or visit their websites to find one in your local area. Your primary-care physician’s office or local health department may also be a vaccination resource.

COVID vaccine location information is also available at mass.gov/CovidVaccine. Appointments can also be made for in-home COVID and flu vaccinations by going to mass.gov/VaccinesAtHome or calling 833-983-0485.

DPH will be holding COVID and flu clinics in many communities and at upcoming cultural events. A listing of these community clinics that are accepting appointments and, in some locations, walk-ins – updated weekly – can be found at mass.gov/MobileVax.

While their ability to prevent these potentially life-threatening diseases remains a subject of much debate, an ounce of their protection might still be worth a pound of cure.

Beware of deer in the headlights

It’s peak season again for deer crashes in the Bay State.

Most deer collisions in Massachusetts happen in the last three months of the year, according to AAA Northeast, with November consistently being the top month for incidents reported to the Massachusetts Environmental Police.

These crashes peak during autumn’s mating season, which means males are on the prowl at dusk and dawn, coinciding with commuting traffic.

It’s a recipe for potentially serious crashes, particularly because visibility decreases in the fall, when sunrises get later and sunsets earlier.

In 2021, motor-vehicle accidents involving deer soared to an all-time high from October through December.

In that three-month span, the state recorded 1,656 deer accidents, the highest number since 2002, according to a AAA Northeast analysis of crash data available from the state’s IMPACT crash portal.

Last year, deer collisions in the October-December timeframe jumped to 1,806. That’s equivalent to a deer crash every 74 minutes.

While deer accidents can occur anywhere, the most accident-prone towns from October to December last year were all in the southeast past of the state: Middleboro (48); Taunton (39); Westport (29); Swansea (28); Rehoboth (22); East Bridgewater/Seekonk (tied at 20); Freetown (19); and Acushnet/Plymouth/Wareham (tied at 18).

Here’s a sampling of AAA’s driver-safety tips:

• Scan the shoulders of the road in front of you. Deer may dash out from the shoulder or wooded areas next to the road.

• Keep to the speed limit. It will give you more time to respond to unexpected wildlife movements.

• Be careful rounding curves and climbing hills, where visibility is limited.

• If you spy one deer, look for others. Deer rarely travel alone.

• If a collision is unavoidable, apply the brakes firmly and try to remain in your lane and avoid other vehicles. Swerving sharply can cause an even more serious crash.

• If a crash occurs, move the vehicle to a safe location if possible and report the incident to the Environmental Police at 1-800-632-8075.

• Contact your insurance company to report any damage to your car. Take photos of the damage if you can do so safely. Damage to the car from animal crashes generally falls under a driver’s comprehensive coverage.

While accidents can inadvertently help cull the state’s soaring deer population, it’s a dangerous way to accomplish that goal.

For drivers and deer alike.

Men die nearly 6 years before women, as US life expectancy gap widens: Harvard Public Health

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The life expectancy of American women is now 5.8 years longer than that of men, a trend that researchers say is driven by the COVID pandemic and the opioid overdose epidemic.

U.S. men dying nearly 6 years before women is now the largest life expectancy gap between sexes since 1996, according to new research led by Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health and UC San Francisco.

The life expectancy gender gap of 5.8 years in 2021 was a jump from 4.8 years in 2010, when the gap was at its smallest in recent history.

The pandemic, which took a disproportionate toll on men, was the biggest contributor to the widening gap from 2019 to 2021 — followed by unintentional injuries and poisonings (mostly drug overdoses), accidents, and suicide.

“There’s been a lot of research into the decline in life expectancy in recent years, but no one has systematically analyzed why the gap between men and women has been widening since 2010,” said first author Brandon Yan, a UCSF internal medicine resident physician and research collaborator at Harvard Chan School.

Life expectancy in the U.S. dropped in 2021 to 76.1 years — falling from 78.8 years in 2019, and 77 years in 2020.

The shortening lifespan of Americans has been attributed in part to so-called “deaths of despair.” The term refers to the increase in deaths from such causes as suicide, drug use disorders, and alcoholic liver disease, which are often connected with economic hardship, depression, and stress.

“While rates of death from drug overdose and homicide have climbed for both men and women, it is clear that men constitute an increasingly disproportionate share of these deaths,” Yan said.

Using data from the National Center for Health Statistics, Yan and fellow researchers from around the country identified the causes of death that were lowering life expectancy the most. Then, they estimated the effects on men and women to see how much different causes were contributing to the gap.

Before the COVID pandemic, the largest contributors were unintentional injuries, diabetes, suicide, homicide, and heart disease.

But during the pandemic, men were more likely to die of the virus. That was likely due to a number of reasons — including differences in health behaviors, as well as social factors, such as the risk of exposure at work, reluctance to seek medical care, incarceration, and housing instability.

“We have brought insights to a worrisome trend,” Yan said. “Future research ought to help focus public health interventions towards helping reverse this decline in life expectancy.”

Massachusetts residents should get vaccinated against COVID, flu ahead of Thanksgiving gatherings: Department of Public Health

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With Thanksgiving only a couple of weeks away, state health officials are again encouraging residents to get a COVID booster and flu shot before the holiday gatherings.

The Massachusetts Department of Public Health is also urging eligible residents to get the respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) vaccine — including those who are pregnant, newborns, and many people 60-plus.

“With Thanksgiving just two weeks away, now is a great time for those preparing to celebrate with friends and loved ones to get vaccinated for flu, COVID-19, and RSV, if eligible,” said Public Health Commissioner Robert Goldstein.

“Getting vaccinated now will maximize protection against these respiratory viruses,” Goldstein added. “We want Massachusetts residents to have a safe, healthy, and fun holiday season and part of that is getting vaccinated to protect yourself and those around you.”

The seasonal flu vaccine and updated COVID booster both take up to two weeks for full protection.

COVID, flu and RSV are the three viruses that are most likely to cause severe disease resulting in hospitalization and sometimes death.

“Adding vaccinations to your holiday season to-do list is one of the best gifts you can give yourself and people you’ll gather with, especially older adults, people who are immunocompromised, and pregnant people, who are at higher risk for severe complications,” said State Epidemiologist Catherine Brown.

“While it’s never too late to get your COVID or flu shots, getting vaccinated sooner rather than later will provide increased protection ahead of holiday celebrations, the start of winter, and peak respiratory disease season,” Brown added.

In the last week, 13% of hospital admissions in the Bay State were due to acute respiratory disease.

COVID vaccine location information is available at mass.gov/CovidVaccine. Residents who cannot get to a vaccination location can schedule an appointment for in-home COVID and flu vaccination by going to mass.gov/VaccinesAtHome or calling 833-983-0485.

DPH will be holding COVID and flu clinics in many community locations and at upcoming cultural events. A listing of these community clinics that are accepting appointments and, in some locations, walk-ins, is updated weekly and can be found at mass.gov/MobileVax.

COVID wastewater data jumps south of Boston; Massachusetts launches new viral respiratory illness dashboards

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The COVID wastewater data for the south-of-Boston region has been jumping in the last few days, while overall reported virus cases across the Bay State ticked down last week.

Meanwhile, Massachusetts health officials on Thursday launched several new dashboards to track viral respiratory illness trends in the state. The new dashboards are focused on COVID-19, influenza, and respiratory syncytial syndrome (RSV).

“As we experienced to a certain extent last year, we’re heading into a winter where COVID-19, influenza and RSV are likely to co-circulate,” State Epidemiologist Catherine Brown said during a recent briefing about the dashboards.

“We all experienced kind of the predominance of COVID for so long, and then last season with the tripledemic, we started to really see what our future might look like,” Brown added. “And it was during that tripledemic where everybody needed information about what was happening with more than just COVID. We needed to look at respiratory diseases more widely.”

The new dashboards include the percentage of emergency department visits that are due to acute respiratory disease, the current severity of flu and COVID, and the current percentage of people who have gotten the current season’s flu vaccine and the updated COVID-19 vaccine.

In the first dashboard on Thursday, the state reported that 10.2% of emergency department visits this week were due to acute respiratory disease.

In the COVID dashboard, the state reported that there were 3,608 confirmed and probable virus cases last week, which was down 5% from the previous week’s report of 3,808 cases.

Meanwhile, the south-of-Boston COVID wastewater was ticking up in the last few days. The seven-day average for the region’s virus wastewater went up 49% in the last week. Virus wastewater data has been the first sign of COVID cases at the community level.

In recent weeks, the Boston Public Health Commission has been urging all residents ages 6 months and older to get their yearly flu shot.

“Getting your annual flu shot should be at the top of your fall to-do list because vaccination is the best way to decrease the risk of severe illness and hospitalization from the flu especially if you are older, very young, pregnant, or have a weakened immune system,” said Bisola Ojikutu, executive director of the Boston Public Health Commission. “If you are at higher risk and develop flu symptoms, reach out to your health care provider. Treatment may be available.”

The state’s new respiratory illness dashboards can be found at www.mass.gov/info-details/respiratory-illness-reporting.

Worcester man sentenced for COVID-related funding fraud

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BOSTON  — A Worcester man was sentenced to two years in prison for fraudulently applying for business loans under the Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act, and then spending the money on personal expenses.

On Tuesday, Richard Oworae, 59, was sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge Timothy Hillman to two years in prison and one year of supervised release in connection with his 2021 guilty plea to three counts of wire fraud and one count of aggravated identity theft.

Between late July 2020 and late August 2020, Oworae schemed to defraud the Small Business Administration (SBA) by submitting applications through the SBA’s website for at least three Economic Injury Disaster Loans (EIDL) totaling approximately $194,700. Oworae fraudulently applied for EIDL funding, provided false statements on the loan applications that used stolen IDs and misappropriated the loan funds for personal use.

Oworae also created fictitious companies when applying for EIDL funding fraudulently, and spent those funds on unauthorized personal expenses and money transfers to numerous individuals in Ghana.

EIDL funds were available to eligible individuals and businesses pursuant to the CARES Act. The provisions of the CARES Act allowed for the SBA to offer EIDL funding to business owners negatively affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The provisions of the EIDL program require that loan proceeds only be used on certain permissible business expenses, which can include payment of fixed business debts, payroll, accounts payable, and other business-related expenses that could have been paid had the COVID-19 disaster not occurred.

The Tuesday announcement was made by Acting U.S. Attorney Joshua Levy, Inspector in Charge Ketty Larco-Ward, of the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, and Special Agent in Charge Matthew Modafferi at the U.S. Postal Service, Office of Inspector General.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Danial Bennett of the Worcester Branch Office prosecuted the case.

In May of 2021, the attorney general established the COVID-19 Fraud Enforcement Task Force to marshal the resources of the Department of Justice (DOJ) in partnership with agencies across government to enhance efforts to combat and prevent pandemic-related fraud.

For more information on DOJ’s response to the pandemic, please visit justice.gov/coronavirus. Anyone with information about allegations of attempted fraud involving COVID-19 can report it by calling the DOJ’s National Center for Disaster Fraud Hotline at (866) 720-5721 or via the NCDF Web Complaint Form at justice.gov/disaster-fraud/ncdf-disaster-complaint-form.

Editorial: COVID, RSV shots’ rollout off to a rocky start

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After a relatively low number of coronavirus cases through the summer, Massachusetts has seen a rise in COVID cases in August and September.

It’s a sign that COVID, as well as the flu and RSV, will be with us through the autumn and winter, which necessitates taking the proper precautions to mitigate their effects.

That’s done by rolling up a sleeve and arming yourself with the appropriate booster shot, whose availability and coverage have so far been spotty and inconsistent, respectively.

On Sept. 21, as a part of its weekly update, the state Department of Public Health reported 2,700 new COVID cases across the commonwealth, prompting hospitals like Baystate Health to update its policy requiring visitors to mask up, MassLive reported.

As of Sept. 20, MWRA COVID wastewater data showed an 8% rise over a 14-day period north of Boston and a 21% increase south of Boston.

Even with these increasing numbers, less than 2% of the state’s hospital beds are occupied by someone with COVID. Middlesex County mirrors the statewide average of 1.8%.

At the start of this month, the Boston Herald reported that COVID cases and hospitalizations were on the rise.

The daily average of COVID cases at that time was 310, more than four times the daily rate of 75 cases from the beginning of July.

As the Herald noted, the increase in cases and hospitalizations coincides with the emergence of a new variant, BA.2.86. The large number of mutations in BA.2.86 raises concerns that the variant will be able to evade existing immunity from vaccines and previous infections.

The rise in cases as we transition from summer is to be expected. For the last three years, the state’s Department of Public Health has documented an increase in COVID-19 cases during the early fall of 2020, 2021 and 2022.

“These increases are most likely due to a combination of end-of-summer travel and back-to-school and work activities,” said Ann Scales, director of media relations for the state health department.

Scales added that Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders, Hispanic people, and Black/African Americans are the demographic most affected by the COVID-19 virus.

And we can’t leave out the elderly and those with underlying health conditions, both highly susceptible populations.

The DPH hasn’t indicated whether the state has started to document the number of flu cases so far this season.

Changes in the oversight of COVID vaccine deliveries has caused some disruptions in the supply chain, delaying their availability.

That may be due to the federal government’s decision to let the private market handle the purchasing for the first time since the pandemic began, according to CDC Director Dr. Mandy K. Cohen, who acknowledged the distribution problems.

“It’s important to know that there is vaccine available,’’ Cohen said in a video posted on social media last week. “You will be able to get one. And it should be free for you — whether or not you have insurance.’’

Millions of the newly formulated vaccines have shipped out since the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention signed off on them earlier this month for ages 6 months and older.

But this private rollout has experienced a somewhat bumpy ride locally.

The Boston Globe reported that one Ipswich woman was told at a CVS pharmacy in Newburyport where she had booked an appointment that it had exhausted its supply of boosters.

On top of that, the pharmacy wanted to charge her “a couple hundred dollars’’ for the RSV vaccine she had scheduled at the same time.

Her insurer, Tufts Health Plan, attributed the coverage mix-up to “coding issues on their (CVS’) end.’’

This fall is the first time that seniors have access to the vaccine for RSV, which the FDA approved in May and the CDC recommends for adults 60 and older.

Under the Affordable Care Act, private health insurers must cover the cost of preventive care, including vaccines recommended by the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices.

CVS apparently still hasn’t gotten that message. As of Tuesday, Tufts reported still receiving complaints about RSV vaccine coverage through its call centers.

Tufts said its members on Medicare plans should call the member services phone number on their health plan identification cards to receive reimbursements. Tufts Health Plan members who have Medicaid plans will not have coverage for the RSV vaccine until Oct. 2, said Hemant Hora, senior medical director at Tufts Health Plan.

Walgreens temporarily paused online appointment scheduling last weekend and apologized for the inconvenience that canceled appointments had caused customers.

To avoid any insurance-related headaches, the CDC’s Cohen advised those getting vaccinated at their local retail pharmacy to confirm their details before heading to an appointment, including whether their pharmacy is “in network’’ with their insurance plan.

So, to all the potential patients of these three viruses, we say have patience.

Getting vaccinated is still your best shot at avoiding them.