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Useful news for all to advance knowledge of the world and how it works

China NHC: COVID Survivors To Refrain From Donating Blood For 6 Months

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Credit WHO/O. O’Hanlon








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Here in the United States recovered COVID-19 survivors are encouraged to donate plasma for convalescent therapy trials, and – due to ongoing concerns about blood shortages – are generally allowed to donate blood after it has been at least 14 days since their last COVID symptoms (including fever, cough and shortness of breath). 

The CDC monitors and reports on their Multistate Assessment of SARS-CoV-2 Seroprevalence in Blood Donors, and in their latest report (Nov 13th) state:

Safety of US blood supply

There have been no reported cases of people getting SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, from a blood transfusion. Generally, respiratory viruses such as SARS-CoV-2 are not spread by blood transfusion.

 

Even so, people who want to donate blood are evaluated for any current or past illness. If they are ill at the time of donation, they cannot donate blood. For example, they must have normal body temperature on the day of donation. See FDA recommendations for blood donation among persons diagnosed with or suspected to have COVID-19 for more information.

The FDA’s above referenced criteria, since May of 2020, reads:

The blood establishment’s responsible physician must evaluate the prospective donor and determine eligibility (21 CFR 630.5). The responsible physician may want to consider the following:

  • individuals diagnosed with COVID-19 or who are suspected of having COVID-19, and who had symptomatic disease, refrain from donating blood for at least 14 days after complete resolution of symptoms,
  • individuals who had a positive diagnostic test for SARS-CoV-2 (e.g., nasopharyngeal swab), but never developed symptoms, refrain from donating at least 14 days after the date of the positive test result,
  • individuals who are tested and found positive for SARS-CoV-2 antibodies, but who did not have prior diagnostic testing and never developed symptoms, can donate without a waiting period and without performing a diagnostic test (e.g., nasopharyngeal swab).

Other countries have adopted different rules on blood donations, their time and rationale for ending isolation or quarantine, and their definition of `recovered’ from COVID – but despite these differences – most fall fairly close together. 

Which makes the following announcement from China’s National Health Commission two days ago a bit of an outlier, in that buried deep in the announcement is the order to refrain from accepting blood donations from COVID-19 survivors for at least 6 months. 

It is a long, detailed, and tedious document that specifies everything from blood storage, transportation and supply to the clearing of door handles, staircase handrails, elevators and buttons and other facilities or devices. 

I’ve only included the pertinent excerpt, so follow the link to read the full document if you are inclined. 

(Translated)


Notice on the issuance of guidelines for the prevention and control of the new crown pneumonia epidemic in blood stations in autumn and winter

Release time: 2020-11-17 Source: Medical Administration and Hospital Authority

National Health Office Medical Letter ( 2020) No.930

(EXCERPT)

2. In the supplementary consultation content, if the blood donor has experienced any of the following conditions, it is recommended to postpone blood donation, and the postponement time is at least 28 days after the end of the relevant conditions:

( 1) I have fever or respiratory symptoms;

( 2) Have had close contact with persons or patients with fever or respiratory symptoms;

( 3) There has been a history of contact or epidemiological association with people infected with the new coronavirus or clustered patients;

( 4) Recent residence history abroad or in high-risk areas;

( 5) Have received influenza or new coronavirus vaccination .

It is recommended that common conditions such as occasional coughing should be screened during health consultations.

3. For those who have been diagnosed with new coronavirus infection, they will temporarily refuse to donate blood within 6 months after being cured and discharged.

         (Continue . . . )

 
The following notice, published today in China Youth Daily, has been appearing across Chinese state media the past 24 hours.

National Health Commission: People with new coronavirus infection temporarily refuse to donate blood within 6 months after being discharged from hospital

China Youth Daily November 18th at 12:08

The National Health Commission issued a notice yesterday (November 17) to issue the “Guidelines for Prevention and Control of New Coronary Pneumonia Epidemics in Blood Stations in Autumn and Winter”. The “Guidelines” stipulate that for people who have been diagnosed with new coronavirus infection, they should temporarily refuse to donate blood within 6 months after being cured and discharged. The temperature of each blood donor is measured and accurately recorded. If the blood donor has a body temperature of ≥37.3℃, the staff should inform the blood donor to postpone blood donation, arrange for him to leave the consultation site, and remind the blood donor to go to the designated fever clinic in time. 

It isn’t clear what evidence (if any) they have to support this strict and highly conservative approach.  And given the extremely limited number of new cases reported by China over the last 6 months, this would hardly seem to be a big concern. 

China, admittedly has a very low tolerance for COVID-19 risk after finally getting their epidemic under control last spring, and has not shied away from drastic, and oft times draconian, measures to prevent and contain further spread of the virus. 

China has previously required a 14-day home quarantine following release from the hospital with COVID, and has repeatedly locked down and tested millions of people following the detection of even a handful of new cases (see Beijing Cancels Hundreds Of Flights & Reports 31 New COVID-19 Cases).

It seems likely that the risk of transmission via the blood supply after 14 days is incredibly small, but not zero.  With the virus raging in Europe and North America, any contribution to the epidemic from the blood supply would be both insignificant, and probably undetectable. 

But in China, where – if their surveillance and reporting is to be believed – community transmission of the virus is very rare, I suppose even one or two infections via the blood supply could risk restarting their epidemic.  

This is likely more of a reflection of how fragile China’s control of the virus truly is, and how much they fear the introduction and spread of the (presumably) more transmissible COVID strains that have emerged globally over the past 6 months.  

While China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Japan, South Korea, and several other Asian nations have managed to keep community transmission relatively in check, the real test comes this winter, and already we are seeing some cracks appear in South Korea and Japan. 

Stay tuned. 

Anger After North Dakota Governor Asks COVID-Positive Health Staff to Stay on Job | Kaiser Health News

Inaction at the state and federal levels have left many health care workers feeling abandoned. When Gov. Burgum issued the order that infected but asymptomatic nurses could report to work in COVID units, North Dakota had not implemented any kind of statewide mask mandate, despite expert guidance that such a measure could significantly reduce transmission of the virus.

Tessa Johnson is a registered nurse at a Bismarck nursing home and president of the North Dakota Nurses Association, which issued a statement last week denouncing Burgum’s order that infected nurses continue to work.

She said the state could have done much more to ensure patients don’t become infected in the first place. “We’ve asked and asked and asked for a mask mandate, and that hasn’t happened,” she said Thursday.

On Friday night, Burgum did an about-face and issued a mask mandate, ordering individuals to cover their faces when inside businesses, indoor public settings and outdoor public settings where physical distancing may be impossible.

“Our doctors and nurses heroically working on the front lines need our help, and they need it now,” he said in a press statement.

Still, Johnson said there’s a disconnect between what health care workers are experiencing inside North Dakota’s health facilities, and how the general population perceives the virus. And that even before Burgum’s comments, some of her colleagues felt they had to choose between taking all precautions and limited time off. “One of my closest friends, also a health care worker, said to me the other day, ‘There’s no way I will ever get tested unless I’m very sick, because I don’t want to use my paid leave.’”

McKamey, the ER nurse, said she hasn’t had time to process the stress of the past several months. She’s focused on staying healthy, gearing up for what she anticipates will be a difficult winter and keeping her patients alive. “We are willing to break our backs and work as hard as we physically can,” McKamey said. “But then to ask us to come in as a potential infectious source is just stunning.”

Source: Anger After North Dakota Governor Asks COVID-Positive Health Staff to Stay on Job | Kaiser Health News

Moscow has Lost Armenia and Assumed Dangerous Responsibility for Future of Karabakh Dispute, Rosbalt Commentator Says

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Paul Goble

            Staunton, November 16 – Vladimir Putin has suggested that the declaration he orchestrated on the Karabakh dispute will end that conflict, but his claim is at a minimum premature, Irina Dzhobenadze says. What the Kremlin leader has done is embed his country more deeply in that conflict and made it responsible for the conflict’s future course.

            More than that, the Rosbalt commentator continues, Putin has succeeded in losing the only real friend Moscow had in the South Caucasus because Armenians now believe that he betrayed them and consider that “there is no enemy more horrible than Russia” (rosbalt.ru/world/2020/11/16/1873119.html).

            Putin recently remarked that he “hoped that now we will not use the term – Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, …. and soon we will pass to the discussion of other issues.” But that hope is at least premature and likely completely without foundation given what is happening in Armenia as a result of the declaration provisions.

            Those arrangements have had the effect of changing the main enemies of Armenia from Azerbaijan and Turkey to Russia, Dzhobenadze says. And at the same time, because it now has peacekeepers in the region, Russia will be held responsible for anything that happens first and foremost by Armenians but also by others.

            To be sure, the Rosbalt commentator says, “Russia has changed the balance of military-political forces in the region in its own favor, but at the name time one must not forget that it has taken on itself colossal responsibility for the preservation of peace, and if something goes wrong, all the blame will go in its direction.”

            This underlying reality has been somewhat obscured by the conflict that has emerged between Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan who argues he had no choice but to agree to these terms lest Yerevan lose its army and the Armenian people and political class who want to denounce the accord and fight on no matter what.

            Pashinyan’s state machine is holding the crowd in check for the time being, but many in the political elite agree with the streets rather than with him. And there is a very real chance that the country could descend into civil war.  Revanchist attitudes remain strong even after “the almost complete destruction” of the Armenian army.

            And that danger is compounded by the fact that there has been an influx not only of a massive number of refugees but also of arms. That raises the question, Dzhobenadze says, “when and for what purposes will they be used and transform Armenia into a territory of domestic terrorism?”

 

Window on Eurasia — New Series: Russia has Suffered 254,000 Deaths from Pandemic, Not 33,000 Moscow Reports, Demographer Says

Staunton, November 16 – Russia has suffered up to 330,000 additional premature deaths over the past year, demographer Aleksey Raksha says. Of these, 80 percent  or 264,000 are the result of the coronavirus pandemic, eight times more than the 33,000 the Russian government maintains (business-gazeta.ru/article/488438). Source: Window on Eurasia — New Series: Russia has Suffered 254,000 Deaths from Pandemic, Not 33,000 Moscow Reports, Demographer Says

For Posterity’s Sake

lesson for now

yaskhan

I do not think anybody has the right 
To see anybody as black or white.
To judge a person by his/her race
Discrimination is a disgrace
To humanity and to humaneness
Xenophobia is awefulness
Will man ever transcend these barriers
Erected through segregation carriers.
Have we been taught to see only in color
We have lessons to learn, lessons in valour.
What our heart needs is compassion's fervour
For all posterity to preserve, persevere.

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The horror of El Paso’s latest COVID surge.

The state government has basically stripped local government of any power to take meaningful steps to abate the spread. So we’ve seen this to the point where 50,000 have been infected with COVID-19 in the past six weeks. I think we’ve become something of unwitting guinea pigs in an experiment on herd immunity, and the price we’re going to pay for that—we’ve already lost, by my best estimates, about 1,100 people. We’re going to lose another thousand or more between now and Christmas. Source: The horror of El Paso’s latest COVID surge.

Ugandan opposition candidate arrested

AFRICA DIPLOMATIC

Ugandan presidential candidate and pop star, Bobi Wine, who is seeking to replace long-ruling President Yoweri Museveni, was arrested on Wednesday while campaigning in the east of the country, he said on Twitter.

In two tweets, Wine, whose real name is Robert Kyagulanyi, said police had violently broken into his vehicle and taken him into custody. Police did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“The price of freedom is high but we shall certainly overcome,” Wine, 38, said in one of the tweets.

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These Are the Days of Our Lives

Blogs Notes

“These Are The Days Of Our Lives”

Sometimes I get to feeling
I was back in the old days long ago.
When we were kids, when we were young
Things seemed so perfect. You know?

The days were endless, we were crazy, we were young.
The sun was always shining. We just lived for fun.

Sometimes it seems like lately.
I just don’t know.
The rest of my life’s been just a show.

Those were the days of our lives.
The bad things in life were so few.
Those days are all gone now,
But one thing is true
When I look and I find I still love you.

You can’t turn back the clock,
You can’t turn back the tide.
Ain’t that a shame?
I’d like to go back one time on a roller-coaster ride
When life was just a game.

No use sitting and thinking on what you…

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