Three years in,
the US Health Secretary renewed
the Public health emergency on the
status of the coronavirus pandemic.
It was supposed to expire this month.
This month that is.
I wanna go ahead and bring in Doctor
David winner from Baylor Scott and
White Health for some perspective
on all of this doctor winner,
what does renewing the emergency mean?
Well, first it emphasized the fact
the government believes this pandemic
is not gonna go away anytime soon.
And I've seen that myself with steady
surges the last couple of weeks.
But the secretary now with this
extension can continue to direct dollars
to the prevention, the detection,
the treatment of coronavirus and also he
can actually influence I'm told Medicare,
Medicaid dollars,
also the Children's Health Insurance plan.
So hopefully with this will continue
to see these costs of treatment and.
The testing is going to be actually free,
or at least decreased from what it
might have been if this went away.
Hmm, give us an update on where things
are with COVID. What are you seeing?
Yeah, more and more cases every week.
This has been a six week run now
and understand that what we're
seeing is reported cases is just
a fraction of all the cases.
Most of my patients test themselves at
home and call me and say I'm positive,
what do I do now and then we talk about that.
Those aren't reported.
So there's a lot more cases
that we know that are out there.
And also the fact we're starting to
see increase in hospitalization,
that's a big concern.
That means more and more people are
getting seriously ill with this the
best thing you can do to protect
you of yourself and your family.
Is to get a vaccine because we're
seeing most of these folks in the
hospital now are unvaccinated.
Or it's been more than six months since
the last vaccine that's wearing off.
Hmm.
The chart
that that new coronavirus variant
called XB 1.5 said to be taken over as
the dominant strain now in America.
Are you concerned at all about this?
Yeah, I am.
It's clearly more contagious.
It spreads easier and faster,
has some way you can work
around the immune system.
Now the new Pfizer and Moderna
bivalent vaccine does work against it.
So again, that will work if you
want to prevent this because
this is going to take over,
I think increased more
cases for some time now.
So I'm very concerned
about this new variant.
Yes,
OK. I want to switch gears
now from the coronavirus.
Tell us about this new drug that the FDA
recently approved to treat Alzheimer's.
What are you telling your patients about it?
Yeah, I'm getting lots
of questions about this.
Tushar, it's called the Kanab or the
brand name is gonna be like Quimby
and 1st it's not available now,
it's gonna be at least a month or so
before it's available in the study.
In 18 month study it showed that for
folks who took this versus the placebo,
there was a 27% decrease in progression
of the Alzheimer's symptoms.
That's a good thing.
Now the drug is given with an
infusion every two weeks is going
to be probably pretty expensive.
There were some significant side effects.
Actually, 2 deaths from leading the
brain they thought related to the drug.
So pros and cons about this,
need to look more studies.
And I'm encouraging people to wait and
let's talk about this because it's
not for everybody and there's going
to be some really concerns about who
should get this and who should not.
Oh,
absolutely. This one here sounds
interesting. Too much sitting can
lead to heart attacks and strokes.
What is the correlation between the two?
Well, supposedly the majority of
Americans sit 6 to 8 hours every day.
Now when you're sitting you're
not burning that many calories,
so that's a weight control problem.
Also, your circulation isn't moving
as well as when you're up and around.
And what this report says is
increased chance of heart attacks
and strokes from people who sit.
Also, it's bad for your back,
bad for your hips, increases osteoporosis,
even can increase depression in some folks.
So what do you do?
Well, if you have a sit down job,
there are these deaths that go
up and down so you can stand up.
And sit down with those.
That's a good idea.
Some of you have a treadmill so you could
walk while you're working on your computer.
If you don't have that though,
getting up every 30 minutes
and walking around a bit,
going to the water cooler.
If you have one of those in your
office building, that's a good
idea to get that circulation going.
Some people talk about these
balls you sit on.
They actually help with
your back end with posture.
That works well.
The main thing is just don't
sit all day long.
It's not good for you,
tashara.
OK, well, thank goodness
we're standing right now.
We usually stand most of the show.
And WFA, we have water coolers.
We got the standing desk.
I think we're doing alright around here.
Thank you so much, Doctor Winter.
Thank you, deshar. Have a good day. You too.