The mystery of long COVID, Supreme Court set for historic nominee: 5 Things podcast
On today's episode of the 5 Things podcast: The mystery of long COVID
Patient safety reporter Karen Weintraub fills us in on what experts call a mystery. Plus, the Coast Guard calls off the search for 34 missing people from a capsized boat off the coast of Florida, President Joe Biden speaks out on the future of the Supreme Court, Digital Editor Fellow Cady Stanton talks about this weekend's nor'easter and Joe Exotic is due back in court.
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Taylor Wilson:
Good morning. I'm Taylor Wilson and this is 5 Things you need To know Friday, the 28th of January 2022. Today, what's the deal with long COVID? Plus the future of the Supreme Court and more.
Here are some of the top headlines:
- President Joe Biden warned Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky yesterday that Russia could take military action against Ukraine in February. Russia also released a memo saying it saw little ground for optimism in ongoing tensions.
- The African CDC says the continent is on pace to reach its target of 70% vaccination against COVID-19 by the end of this year. About 11% of Africa's 1.3 billion people are fully vaccinated.
- And the United States men's soccer team inched closer to qualifying for this year's World Cup last night. They beat El Salvador 1-0 in Columbus, Ohio, thanks to a winning goal from Anthony Robinson. They next head to Canada for a match on Sunday.
Long COVID. You've probably heard the term and you might even have had symptoms yourself. Across the country and world, people who have recovered from COVID-19 are reporting issues ranging from breathlessness to blood clots and lack of smell. As Patient Safety Reporter Karen Weintraub, tells us, experts say long COVID largely remains a mystery, but a few clues are emerging.
Karen Weintraub:
We still have a lot of unanswered questions about long COVID, but there are studies that are starting to be published. One of them that made me happy was that people who have been vaccinated twice appear to be protected against long COVID. It's not clear how long that protection lasts, but at least for four or five months the symptoms of long COVID, people who are vaccinated twice don't get symptoms for long COVID.
Another major issue is, what is long COVID? There are people with a huge range of symptoms that linger more than a month after a COVID infection, which is by definition long COVID. But it can be anything from a blood clot to loss of taste and smell, to weird shakes and neurological symptoms. And the researchers aren't sure whether that's... They think it's probably not one thing, but many different conditions potentially caused by different things.
Certainly an older person who was hospitalized for several months or who's in ICU is going to have lingering symptoms. A new study out says 72% of people in the Netherlands who were hospitalized in ICU have symptoms a year later. So, clearly being in the hospital leaves you with symptoms, but that's probably different than somebody who was in their 30s who got it, barely noticed they had a COVID infection, but still having debilitating fatigue months later. It's probably a different cause and researchers are trying to understand those differences.
One of the major concerns with long COVID is that a lot of people seem to have neurological symptoms, brain fog and weird tingling sensations, things like that. And anything that affects the nervous system or the brain makes researchers nervous about long-term implications. We know for instance that after the 1918 flu, there was a huge uptick in the number of people with Parkinson's Disease and other neurological conditions. So there's concern that there may be long-term impacts for some people who had severe disease, which is pretty scary.
Taylor Wilson:
For more on long COVID, check out Karen's piece in today's episode description, and you can always stay up with our live COVID updates page on USATODAY.com.
The Coast Guard is calling off the search for the 34 people still missing after a boat capsized off the coast of Florida last weekend. Four more bodies were found yesterday after the suspected human smuggling boat ran into bad weather. Coast Guard teams have now found five bodies in all after one survivor was found on Tuesday by a passing towboat in the area. The survivor told authorities that the boat sailed from Bimini in The Bahamas on Saturday with 40 people on board and no life jackets before the boat hit rough seas. Coast Guard Captain Jo-Ann Burdian said yesterday that she does not believe anyone else survived.
Jo-Ann Burdian:
We have found four deceased bodies in the last 24 hours, bringing the total to five deceased bodies we've recovered inside our search area. We know we're searching in the right area, we've overflown the vessel a number of times, and have found additional deceased persons. It does mean that we don't think it's likely that anyone else has survived.
Taylor Wilson:
High-risk human trafficking is common in the region. On the same day the survivor was found, the Coast Guard intercepted 191 Haitian migrants on an overloaded sail freighter 40 miles from The Bahamas. Authorities have not revealed the identity or nationality of this week's survivor or anyone else on board.
President Joe Biden yesterday formally announced the retirement of Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer. He praised the liberal judge and also pledged to nominate a Black woman to the court by the end of February.
President Joe Biden:
Choosing someone to sit on the Supreme Court, I believe, is one of the most serious constitutional responsibilities a president has. Our process is going to be rigorous. I will select a nominee worthy of Justice Breyer's legacy of excellence and decency. While I've been studying candidates' backgrounds and writings, I've made no decision except one. The person I will nominate will be someone with extraordinary qualifications, character, experience, and integrity, and that person will be the first Black woman ever nominated to the United States Supreme Court. It's long overdue in my view.
Today, Justice Breyer announced his intention to step down from active service after four decades. Four decades on the federal bench and 28 years on the United States Supreme Court. His legacy includes his work as a leading scholar and jurist in administrative law, bringing his brilliance to bear to make government run more efficiently and effectively. It includes his stature as a beacon of wisdom on our Constitution and what it means. And through it all, Justice Breyer's work tirelessly to give faith to the notion that the law exists to help the people.
Taylor Wilson:
At the age of 83, Breyer is the second most senior Associate Justice and his retirement was encouraged by liberals who wanted to make sure Biden's nominee would benefit from a Senate controlled by Democrats. Biden said he will seek out advice from both parties for his pick and Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said he will give the Biden nominee a fair look.
Mitch McConnell:
One of the things I really admired about Justice Breyer is that he believed in the institution, believed that it was apolitical, and there's no way to interpret court packing other than trying to get a political outcome out of a body that's supposed to be completely independent. So look, I'm going to give the President's nominee, whoever that may be, a fair look.
Taylor Wilson:
McConnell though also said yesterday that he hopes Biden does not "outsource this decision to the radical left." But Democrats will likely scoff at those comments, the Republican leader previously blocked Barack Obama's Supreme Court pick, Merrick Garland, in 2016, before putting Donald Trump's nominee, Amy Coney Barrett, on a confirmation fast track.
A storm with the potential to grow into a powerful nor'easter is forecast to hit the Northeast this weekend. And along with it comes the possibility of snow, strong winds, and coastal flooding. But what exactly is a nor'easter? Digital Editor Fellow, Cady Stanton, explains.
Cady Stanton:
Nor'easters are characterized by really big, intense areas of low pressure that typically develop off of the East Coast during the late fall, winter and early spring. They're called nor'easters because of the strong northeast winds that they usually bring over the east as they move along the Atlantic Coast. And they're usually characterized by heavy rain, heavy snow, and severe coastal flooding in the East. The last notable nor'easter to hit the East Coast was in October and it left around 600,000 homes and businesses without power because of the heavy wind and rains that it caused.
So the storm right now is aimed right at the East Coast and could have an impact anywhere from the Washington DC more southern area, all the way up the East Coast into New England. It's still forming right now, we're still quite a few days away from the storm itself. It's supposed to form off the coast of the Carolinas probably around Friday. And as a result, we don't know the exact path or the exact impact quite yet. Depending on how close the storm tracks along the East Coast will change the amount of snow that different areas could get. The closer the path is to the coast, the higher the potential for heavy snowfall.
Taylor Wilson:
For more from Cady, you can find on Twitter @cady_stanton, that's C-A-D-Y.
The star of Tiger King, Joe Exotic, is set to appear in court today. He'll be resentenced in Oklahoma City Federal Court in his murder for hire case. Joe Exotic, whose real name is Joseph Maldonado-Passage, was originally sentenced to 22 years in federal prison for hiring hit men to kill Carole Baskin, an animal rights activist who long feuded with him over his exotic animal park, and also featured on the hit Netflix show. Exotic was also sentenced for killing tigers, selling tiger cubs, and falsifying wildlife records, but a Federal Appeals Court ruled last year that he should get a shorter sentence since the trial court treated two murder for hire convictions separately in calculating his prison term.
Thanks for listening to 5 Things. You can find us wherever you get your audio, including Apple Podcast, where we ask for a 5 star rating and review if you have a chance. Thanks, as always, to PJ Elliott for his great work on the show and I'm back tomorrow with more of 5 Things from Paste BN.