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THURSDAY, April 28, 2022 (HealthDay News) – The European Union (EU) announced Wednesday that Europe is moving out of the emergency phase of the pandemic, and the EU will now focus on vaccination, surveillance and testing in preparation for a possible COVID surge next fall.“New variants can emerge and spread fast,” said EU President Ms. Ursula von der Leyen, The New York Times reported. “But we know the way forward. We need to further step up vaccination and boosting, and targeted testing — and we need to continue to coordinate our responses closely in the E.U.”The announcement is not binding and national governments within the EU will still be able to set their own public health policies. Several have dropped restrictions recently, the Times reported.Deaths and...

THURSDAY, April 28, 2022 (HealthDay News) -- Frontline nurses were plagued by "moral distress" in the early days of the pandemic because they lacked the support to provide high-quality care, a new report reveals. Between May and September 2020, researchers interviewed 100 nurses across the United States who cared for COVID-19 patients.The nurses reported moral distress caused by knowing how to treat patients and protect themselves, but not having the necessary staff, equipment or information. This led to feelings of fear, frustration, powerlessness and guilt."We go into nursing with the intention of saving lives and helping people to be healthy," said study co-author Shannon Simonovich, an assistant professor of nursing at DePaul University School of Nursing, in Chicago. "Ultimately,...

THURSDAY, April 28, 2022 (HealthDay News) -- If you're battling depression, the success of your treatment might be affected by your race, income, job status and education, a new study says."If you're going home to a wealthy neighborhood with highly educated parents or spouse, then you're arguably in a much better environment for the treatment to be effective than if you're going to a poor neighborhood with other problems," said study co-leader Jeffrey Mills, a professor of economics at the University of Cincinnati. He spoke in a university news release.Mills and his colleagues said their findings could prove valuable in clinical trials and for doctors trying to help people with depression.For the study, they looked at 665 patients who had equal access to depression treatment. After...

WEDNESDAY, April 27, 2022 (HealthDay News) -- Smoking is said by some to be the hardest addiction to break, and certain people might benefit from brain stimulation to quit, French researchers suggest.Smokers who received noninvasive brain stimulation -- using low-intensity electric or magnetic impulses -- were twice as likely to go without cigarettes over three to six months as those who received sham brain stimulation, according to a new study review from researchers at the University Hospital of Dijon. Their work pooled data from seven previously published studies that included nearly 700 patients."This paper recognizes that the basis where the addiction of tobacco dependence comes from is the most primitive parts of the brain," said Dr. Panagis Galiatsatos, a volunteer medical...