Tag Archives: CDC

U.S. sperm count in decline

Deuteronomy 28:1,4 “And if you faithfully obey the voice of the Lord your God, being careful to do all his commandments that I command you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth. 4 Blessed shall be the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your ground and the fruit of your cattle, the increase of your herds and the young of your flock.”

Important Takeaways:

  • The decline in sperm count has become steeper since 2000
  • The latest analysis added seven years of sample collection and 44 study results to the 244 included in the earlier 2017 analysis. That study, in its analysis of data trends between 1973 and 2011, found an average decline in mean sperm concentration of 1.6% per year, and an overall decline of 59.3%. The latest study found an even steeper decline – to 2.64% post-2000 and an overall fall of 62.3% among unselected men. This, add the authors, represents a decline of –4.70 million/year, and indicates that this world-wide decline is continuing into the 21st century at an accelerated pace.

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CDC shows stats on infertility

Deuteronomy 28:1,4 “And if you faithfully obey the voice of the Lord your God, being careful to do all his commandments that I command you today, the Lord your God will set you high above all the nations of the earth. 4 Blessed shall be the fruit of your womb and the fruit of your ground and the fruit of your cattle, the increase of your herds and the young of your flock.”

Important Takeaways:

  • Infertility FAQs
  • In the United States, among heterosexual women aged 15 to 49 years with no prior births, about 1 in 5 (19%) are unable to get pregnant after one year of trying (infertility). Also, about 1 in 4 (26%) women in this group have difficulty getting pregnant or carrying a pregnancy to term (impaired fecundity).

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Shortages in the Supply Chain affecting Insulin

FILE PHOTO: Insulin supplies are pictured in the Manhattan borough of New York City, New York, U.S., January 18, 2019. REUTERS/Carlo Allegri

Rev 6:6 NAS “And I heard something like a voice in the center of the four living creatures saying, “A quart of wheat for a denarius, and three quarts of barley for a denarius; and do not damage the oil and the wine.”

Important Takeaways:

  • Insulin shortage might be next supply chain crisis
  • According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention there are 37.3 million people with diabetes in the U.S. which is 11 percent of the U.S. population. An additional 96 million over the age of 18 have prediabetes. 7.4 million Americans with diabetes use one or more formulations of insulin and this number is growing. Unfortunately, the insulin supply is not. Just the opposite, in fact.
  • The FDA announced just before the pandemic started, in February, 2020, that there was going to be a drug shortage including insulin due to the initial COVID outbreak in China. Insulin prices have skyrocketed 600 percent in the past 20 years, and at least three states, California, Washington, and Maine, have been passing legislation with the intention of producing their own insulin
  • The insulin supply chain involves the delivery of insulin to patients and the flow of payments back. There are multiple middlemen that clog up the chain, and the monopolies of the three major companies involved, Novo Nordisk, Sanofi, and Eli Lilly, is part of the problem, as it is with baby formula.
  • The solution is multi-faceted and it includes more generics, biosimilars, public production, federal reserve, management algorithms and slow replacement of insulin with newer drugs which both help control diabetes and also decrease hunger and weight, a handy “two-for” which decreases insulin requirements

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Fentanyl the leading cause of overdose deaths. Making up 64%

2 Thessalonians 2:11 “Therefore God sends them a strong delusion, so that they may believe what is false”

Important Takeaways:

  • Drug overdose deaths up again in Virginia in 2021, fentanyl the leading cause
  • Virginia saw an overall 15% increase in drug overdose deaths from 2020 to 2021
  • The fourth-quarter report shows 2,656 total overdose deaths in 2021, a 15% increase from 2020. Synthetic fentanyl was reported as contributing to the most deaths, with 2,033 deaths recorded. Cocaine proved the second most common contributor to drug overdoses in Virginia in 2021, with 801 deaths reported versus the 650 reported in 2020.
  • The CDC reported a 28.5% increase in overall drug overdoses from 2020 to 2021. Opioid overdoses also saw a nearly 26% increase from 2020 to 2021 nationally, with 75,673 total opioid overdose deaths reported in 2021, according to the CDC.
  • “Fentanyl and fentanyl related substances are fueling the overdose epidemic, killing 64,178 Americans between May 2020 and April 2021 and making up 64% of total U.S. overdose deaths,” the letter said.
  • Approximately 10,586 pounds of fentanyl were seized at the southern border in 2021, with US Customs and Border Patrol reporting a “substantial increase” in fentanyl seizures as of January.

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WHO: Sudden spike in Monkeypox cases suggests virus has been spreading undetected

Matt 24:7 For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places.

Important Takeaways:

  • We don’t really know whether it’s too late to contain
  • There is no need for mass vaccination
  • The virus has spread “pretty wide,” but predicted that it will not evolve into an epidemic akin to the coronavirus
  • Given the fact we found so many disconnected cases, it does suggest the spread is pretty wide

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CDC monitored cell phone location to perform analysis of compliance

Isaiah 1:23 “Your rulers are rebels, And companions of thieves; Everyone loves a bribe, And chases after rewards. They do not defend the orphan, Nor does the widow’s plea come before them.

Important Takeaways:

  • CDC Tracked Millions of Phones to See If Americans Followed COVID Lockdown Orders
  • Newly released documents showed the CDC planned to use phone location data to monitor schools and churches, and wanted to use the data for many non-COVID-19 purposes, too.
  • (CDC) bought access to location data harvested from tens of millions of phones in the United States to perform analysis of compliance  with curfews, track patterns of people visiting K-12 schools, and specifically monitor the effectiveness of policy in the Navajo Nation
  • SafeGraph, the company the CDC paid $420,000 for access to one year of data, includes Peter Thiel and the former head of Saudi intelligence among its investors. Google banned the company from the Play Store in June.
  • Zach Edwards, a cybersecurity researcher: “The CDC seems to have purposefully created an open-ended list of use cases, which included monitoring curfews, neighbor-to-neighbor visits, visits to churches, schools and pharmacies, and also a variety of analysis with this data specifically focused on ‘violence.’”

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Two New Omicron Sub-Variants have Popped Up in NYC

Revelations 6:8 “And I looked, and behold, a pale horse! And its rider’s name was Death, and Hades followed him. And they were given authority over a fourth of the earth, to kill with sword and with famine and with pestilence and by wild beasts of the earth.”

Important Takeaways:

  • Two NEW sub-variants of the Omicron ‘stealth’ variant are discovered in NYC as cases jump 60% in the Big Apple and some experts warn they could be a setback for the US: HHS EXTENDS America’s Covid state of emergency until July
  • New York health officials have detected two fast rising sub-strains of the BA.2 COVID-19 ‘stealth’ variant, which is itself a sub-variant of Omicron
  • The ‘stealth’ variant makes up 86% of US Covid cases, the CDC revealed during its weekly data report earlier this week
  • Some experts, including those at the WHO, warn that it is too early to put the pandemic behind up and it will continue to be a threat going forward
  • The Department of Health and Human Services also extended the country’s Covid state of emergency into July as cases rise in some parts of the country

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CDC cuts quarantine time for all Americans with COVID-19 to 5 days

(Reuters) -U.S. health authorities on Monday shortened the recommended time for isolation for asymptomatic Americans with COVID-19 to five days from the previous guidance of 10 days.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also said the people who test positive after quarantining should follow five days of wearing a mask when around others.

Omicron accounts for 73% of U.S. coronavirus infections, the federal CDC had said last week.

Breakthrough infections are rising among the fully vaccinated population, including those who have had a third booster shot. However, Omicron appears to be causing milder symptoms in those people, some of whom have no symptoms at all.

Reducing the CDC’s 10-day quarantine recommendation would help asymptomatic people return to work or school, with proper precautions, White House medical adviser Anthony Fauci had told CNN last week.

The CDC on Monday also gave guidance for people who are unvaccinated or are more than six months out from their second mRNA dose or more than two months after the Johnson & Johnson vaccine and not yet boosted. It recommended quarantine for them for five days followed by strict mask use for an additional six days.

Individuals who have received their booster shot do not need to quarantine following an exposure should wear a mask for 10 days, the CDC said.

(Reporting by Dania Nadeem in Bengaluru; Editing by Maju Samuel)

CDC releases new guidance to allow children exposed to coronavirus to attend school

By Nandita Bose and Carl O’Donnell

WASHINGTON (Reuters) -The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released a new strategy called “test-to-stay” that allows unvaccinated children to stay in school even if they have been exposed to the coronavirus, agency Director Rochelle Walensky said on Friday.

“If exposed children meet a certain criteria and continue to test negative, they can stay at school instead of quarantining at home,” Walensky said during a press briefing.

Some states are already advising their schools to use “test-to-stay” strategies in order to keep more children in class.

Schools must test their students twice a week to implement the test-to-stay strategy, Walensky said, adding that many schools already meet that standard.

The new guidance comes as the Omicron variant continues to spread in the United States. More than 39 states and 75 countries have reported cases of the new variant, which is highly contagious and infects vaccinated people at elevated rates.

“We expect it to become the dominant strain in the United States, as it has in other countries, in the coming weeks, Walensky said.

Some data has suggested that cases of Omicron are less severe than past variants, but top U.S. infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci said the severity of the new variant is “still up in the air.”

Fauci said that third booster shots of currently authorized COVID-19 vaccines provide increased protection against Omicron. He said there has been no decision yet on whether to encourage people to get boosted sooner than six months after their initial inoculations.

(Reporting by Carl O’Donnell and Nandita Bose in Washington; editing by Jonathan Oatis)

U.S. drug overdose deaths jump over 28%, top 100,000 in the past year

(Reuters) – Over 100,000 people in the United States died from drug overdoses during the 12-month period ending April 2021, data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed on Wednesday.

That marks a 28.5% jump from the previous year, with deaths from opioids such as fentanyl, which can be 100 times more potent than morphine, and psychostimulants such as methamphetamine helping drive the increase, provisional data from the health agency showed.

“As we continue to make strides to defeat the COVID-19 pandemic, we cannot overlook this epidemic of loss, which has touched families and communities across the country,” U.S. President Joe Biden said in a statement.

Data in July showed that last year’s drug overdoses jumped 30% as pandemic lockdowns made getting treatment difficult and dealers laced more drugs with a powerful synthetic opioid.

The new data showed that deaths from cocaine and prescription pain drugs also increased compared to data from the previous year.

(Reporting by Manas Mishra in Bengaluru; Editing by Bill Berkrot)