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Can touching a barbell in the gym get you sick with the coronavirus?
- Thread starter Michael Scally MD
- Start date
View: https://twitter.com/jonathanrockoff/status/1352266077015826433?s=20
A year ago, health authorities announced the first confirmed U.S. Covid-19 case in Snohomish County, Wash., near Seattle. Less than 11 months later, the virus reached an isolated Hawaiian enclave established more than a century ago for patients with leprosy, now called Hansen’s disease.
It appears to be the last county in the U.S. to record a coronavirus case, according to a Wall Street Journal review of state records and data collected by Johns Hopkins University.
Over the course of the year, the roster of hardest-hit counties generally shifted from populous to small ones before the current wintertime surge.
In November, the disease reached Loving County, Texas, with 169 people the second-smallest county in the U.S. after Hawaii’s Kalawao County. The next month, Kalawao was the last county to see a case.
Few places were harder to reach than the tiny Molokai island enclave, which was established in the 1860s and housed thousands of patients with Hansen’s disease who were forced into exile. Geography helped corral an old infectious disease—and for a good while, helped keep a new one out.
“It’s a place of isolation,” said Father Patrick Killilea, the pastor at St. Francis Church in Kalaupapa, the county’s tiny town. “We know the cliffs and the ocean have protected us.”
Kalawao County has limited connections to the outside world. Residents have to take a plane or hike a trail up the towering cliffs even to reach other parts of Molokai, and the settlement relies on once-yearly barge visits for vital supplies.
Despite the county’s isolation, state health authorities took steps to seal off the settlement after watching Covid-19 surge through mainland U.S. nursing homes early last year. The authorities halted visits to the county to protect the settlement’s five remaining Hansen’s disease patients, who are now free to come and go from the county, and enacted other safety protocols.
The five patients are 86 years old on average. Some have serious underlying health conditions that put them at high risk of severe complications or death from Covid-19, said Glenn Wasserman, chief of the communicable disease and public health nursing division at the Hawaii Department of Health, which helps maintain the settlement with the National Park Service.
Yet authorities announced the enclave’s first official case Dec. 10, after a resident who apparently picked up the virus while outside the settlement touched back down on the local airstrip, according to the state health department.
[OA] What’s Testosterone Got to Do with It? A Critical Assessment of the Contribution of Testosterone to Gender Disparities in COVID-19 Infections and Deaths
In the short time since severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (henceforth referred to as coronavirus disease 2019 [COVID-19]) appeared, numerous articles have suggested that testosterone (T) may be a major contributor to infection and death since more men than women die, and two proteins involved in viral host entry are thought to be upregulated by androgens.
We investigated whether the available data supported this supposition. A MEDLINE search was performed with keywords of COVID-19 variations and androgens or T. Data regarding COVID-19 infections and deaths were obtained from the literature, the World Health Organization, and the U.S. Center for Disease Control, GLOBAL HEALTH5050 and the Harvard School of Public Health Gender Science Laboratory.
Studies with T measurements in COVID-19 patients were reviewed. Studies investigating the relationship between T and angiotensin converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) and the transmembrane protease serine 2 (TMPRSS2) expression were reviewed.
Global and U.S. data reveal that infection rates in men and women are similar. Men accounted for 58% and women 42% of global deaths. U.S. data revealed a ratio of 54% male deaths to 46% female deaths. However, this finding was inconsistent, as several countries reported greater numbers of female deaths, for example, Canada, Portugal, Finland, and Vietnam. In the United States, 23.5% of states and territories reported more deaths among females.
Highest death rates for men and women occurred among the elderly, when serum T is at its lifetime nadir, and low death rates were observed in young adults when serum T is at its peak. All four studies reporting T measurements in COVID-19 patients indicated that low T levels were associated with adverse outcomes, that is, transfer to intensive care unit or death.
Although several studies did show androgenic upregulation of TMPRSS2 and ACE2 in prostate, and cancer cell lines of prostate and lung, human and murine lung tissue fails to show a difference in expression between males and females.
Observed data fail to support the popular notion that androgens contribute meaningfully to COVID-19 infection and severity of illness. On the contrary, these data raise the possibility that low T may be responsible for disease severity.
There is no evidence that androgens upregulate key proteins involved with COVID-19 infection in lung. The possibility that T therapy may aid management of hospitalized COVID-19 patients merits investigation.
Traish AM, Morgentaler A. What’s Testosterone Got to Do with It? A Critical Assessment of the Contribution of Testosterone to Gender Disparities in COVID-19 Infections and Deaths. Androgens: Clinical Research and Therapeutics 2021;2:18-35. https://doi.org/10.1089/andro.2020.0012
In the short time since severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (henceforth referred to as coronavirus disease 2019 [COVID-19]) appeared, numerous articles have suggested that testosterone (T) may be a major contributor to infection and death since more men than women die, and two proteins involved in viral host entry are thought to be upregulated by androgens.
We investigated whether the available data supported this supposition. A MEDLINE search was performed with keywords of COVID-19 variations and androgens or T. Data regarding COVID-19 infections and deaths were obtained from the literature, the World Health Organization, and the U.S. Center for Disease Control, GLOBAL HEALTH5050 and the Harvard School of Public Health Gender Science Laboratory.
Studies with T measurements in COVID-19 patients were reviewed. Studies investigating the relationship between T and angiotensin converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) and the transmembrane protease serine 2 (TMPRSS2) expression were reviewed.
Global and U.S. data reveal that infection rates in men and women are similar. Men accounted for 58% and women 42% of global deaths. U.S. data revealed a ratio of 54% male deaths to 46% female deaths. However, this finding was inconsistent, as several countries reported greater numbers of female deaths, for example, Canada, Portugal, Finland, and Vietnam. In the United States, 23.5% of states and territories reported more deaths among females.
Highest death rates for men and women occurred among the elderly, when serum T is at its lifetime nadir, and low death rates were observed in young adults when serum T is at its peak. All four studies reporting T measurements in COVID-19 patients indicated that low T levels were associated with adverse outcomes, that is, transfer to intensive care unit or death.
Although several studies did show androgenic upregulation of TMPRSS2 and ACE2 in prostate, and cancer cell lines of prostate and lung, human and murine lung tissue fails to show a difference in expression between males and females.
Observed data fail to support the popular notion that androgens contribute meaningfully to COVID-19 infection and severity of illness. On the contrary, these data raise the possibility that low T may be responsible for disease severity.
There is no evidence that androgens upregulate key proteins involved with COVID-19 infection in lung. The possibility that T therapy may aid management of hospitalized COVID-19 patients merits investigation.
Traish AM, Morgentaler A. What’s Testosterone Got to Do with It? A Critical Assessment of the Contribution of Testosterone to Gender Disparities in COVID-19 Infections and Deaths. Androgens: Clinical Research and Therapeutics 2021;2:18-35. https://doi.org/10.1089/andro.2020.0012
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