Can touching a barbell in the gym get you sick with the coronavirus?

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

Recently, I found myself in the all-too-familiar position of texting a new date before our first meetup at an outdoor bar, studying my punctuation for signs of overzealousness (are exclamation points desperate?) and carefully selecting only the most elegant of emoji. Amid the usual so-what-do-you-do banter, though, was a more urgent question I didn’t know how to ask: “When was your last COVID-19 test?”

If we were merely getting together for masked outdoor drinks, I wouldn’t have necessarily felt the need to pose this question. What’s so often unspoken on a first date, though—for myself and many of my sexually active friends, at least—is the awkward question of whether the night will end in a passionate street make-out and a furtive shared cab ride home. Bradshaw-style, I couldn’t help but wonder: Could a casual, should-be-spontaneous sexual encounter possibly survive the requisite amount of health-info processing beforehand?

That sense of how-will-tonight-end mystery used to be one of the fun parts of dating, but in the COVID-19 era, it’s a potential risk factor. For months, I didn’t date or meet new people in person at all, letting Zoom take the place of my preferred first-date diner. Seven months into the pandemic, though, I find myself communicating with potential partners in a way I never did before, exchanging negative test results before dates and explicitly discussing who else I’m seeing (and, more crucially, sleeping with) in an effort to contact trace myself in the direction of romance.

Every time I do sleep with a new person, I know it technically counts as COVID-19 exposure, no matter how careful we both swear we’ve been or how recently we’ve been tested. ...

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

That mask-wearing has become such a gendered issue isn’t surprising for public health researchers. A 2016 paper by the Los Alamos National Laboratory found that men are less likely than women to adopt protective behaviors, like washing hands, social distancing and wearing masks. More recently, three different studies — published this summer by Cambridge University Press — arrived at the same conclusions. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5074573/

“Masculine toughness is consistently related to higher negative feelings and lower positive feelings about mask wearing,” noted the authors of one of those studies conducted in June.

This particular image of masculinity, which hinges on muscular strength, has in fact been a through line of the president’s leadership style — he has characterized everything from trade relations with China and disarmament negotiations with North Korea to budget negotiations with Congress in confrontational, mano a mano terms.

But the president’s strong exterior hides weakness, argues Anand Giridharadas, the author of “Winners Take All: The Elite Charade of Changing the World.”

“He is a weak man who has always longed to be a strong man, and he is a weak man’s idea of a strong man,” Mr. Giridharadas wrote in a recent article for his newsletter The Ink.

In Her Words caught up with Mr. Giridharadas to dig deeper into the notion of masculinity and how it relates to American systems and institutions. The conversation has been edited for length and clarity.

 

[Villain]

How’s our hospital systems????

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

[OA] The Role of Androgens in COVID-19

Highlights

Severity of COVID-19 is higher in men compared to women and the disease is usually mild in children.

There is epidemiological and biological basis for the role of androgens in mediating the pathophysiology of COVID-19.

Further studies on the severity of symptoms in COVID-19 patients in other hyperandrogenism conditions are recommended.

Background and aim: The coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic is a global health emergency. According to the findings, male patients with COVID-19 infection are at an increased risk for severe complications than females. The causes of this issue are unknown and are most probably multifactorial. Sexual hormones affect the immune system, so estrogen strengthens the immune system, and testosterone suppresses it.

Due to the reports of the high prevalence of androgenic alopecia in hospitalized patients with COVID-19 and a higher risk of respiratory disease and increased use of allergy/asthma medications among patients with polycystic ovary syndrome (PCOS) as a hyperandrogenism condition compared with non-PCOS women, this review aimed to evaluate androgens role in COVID-19.

Methods: 42 related articles from 2008 to 2020 were reviewed with the keywords of androgens, hormonal factors, and hair loss in combination with COVID-19 in medical research databases.

Results: The evidence of transmembrane protease, serine 2 (TMPRSS2) expression in lung tissue, which is an androgen-regulated gene and expressed mainly in the adult prostate may interpret the increased susceptibility of the male gender to severe COVID-19 complications. Moreover, angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE-2) acts as a functional receptor for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), and male hormones are effective in the ACE-2 passageway and simplify SARS-CoV-2 entry into host cells.

Conclusion: Further studies on the severity of symptoms in patients with COVID-19 in other hyperandrogenism conditions compared to the control group are recommended.

Moradi F, Enjezab B, Ghadiri-Anari A. The role of androgens in COVID-19. Diabetes Metab Syndr. 2020 Oct 15;14(6):2003-2006. doi: 10.1016/j.dsx.2020.10.014. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 33091758. The role of androgens in COVID-19

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Joe Morgan]

How’s our hospital systems????

I don’t think Michael has a reply button feature on his end. I think Millard took that away from him. he could post but can never reply to anyone. it’s weird.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

U.S. hits highest daily COVID-19 case count since pandemic began

The U.S. recorded at least 83,010 cases on Friday, surpassing the previous daily record set in July.

www.axios.com

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Michael Scally MD]

The coronavirus has made a routine trip to the gym feel like a health threat.

Many epidemiologists consider gyms to be among the highest-risk environments, and they were some of the last businesses to reopen in New York City in early September.

Now gyms must comply with a long list of regulations. Checking in requires a health screening; masks are mandatory, even during the most strenuous workouts; only one-third of normal occupancy is allowed; and everyone must clean, then clean some more.

 

[Villain]

Seatbelt safety stats are like 50%!!! Great analogy!!!! I just heard this stat the other day lol

 

[Michael Scally MD]

 

[Villain]

Yep

 

[Sampei]

I don’t think Michael has a reply button feature on his end. I think Millard took that away from him. he could post but can never reply to anyone. it’s weird.

is it a joke? or it's true? lol why he did that?

 

[MisterSuperGod]

is it a joke? or it's true? lol why he did that?

It's a joke. More of a pot shot, as the good doctor seldom ever writes replies.

 

[Michael Scally MD]

The European Union’s chief drug regulator would approve a vaccine against Covid-19 even if trials showed that it was effective in less than half the people who take it, lower than the threshold the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is likely to apply in assessing vaccine candidates for the U.S. population.

According to officials at the European Medicine Agency, the body would be willing to approve a Covid-19 vaccine even if it showed a so-called efficacy rate below 50%, as long as the shot were safe enough to justify the benefits.

That line of thinking differs from the FDA, which expects a shot to demonstrate at least a 50% efficacy rate. Approval by the EMA is valid in all 27 countries in the EU, as well as some neighboring countries and in the U.K. until it formally leaves the bloc on Dec. 31.

No vaccine is 100% effective. Seasonal flu shots sometimes fail to protect even half of the people who receive them.

Whether regulators should approve a Covid-19 vaccine that shows lower efficacy results is a pitched debate among some immunologists, who worry a mediocre shot—which will only be available to a small percentage of the population at first—will erode public trust in vaccines without doing much to stop the pandemic.