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WEDNESDAY, May 20, 2020 (American Heart Association News) -- Every weeknight in April, Charley Bednarsh flung open the windows of her fifth-floor apartment across from the World Trade Center. At 7 p.m., she'd lean out, bang a metal spoon against a pan and shout with joy as part of the chorus of New Yorkers saluting health care workers fighting the coronavirus. With the kids below cranking their noisemakers, another neighbor blowing his trumpet and car horns honking, it got pretty loud inside Bednarsh's home. Yet her 85-pound, caramel-colored, floppy-eared Labradoodle named Atticus hardly stirred. Around the middle of April, though, something began setting off Atticus during the serenity of the early morning hours. Nearly every night, he howled until she woke up. Looking back, she...

WEDNESDAY, May 20, 2020 (HealthDay News) Young to middle-aged asthmatics who are hospitalized for COVID-19 are likely to be on a ventilator longer than patients without asthma, new research reports. Patients with asthma who were between 20 and 59 years of age needed a ventilator to help with breathing five days longer than patients without asthma in that age group, researchers reported. "Among the patients who developed severe respiratory symptoms requiring intubation [the use of a ventilator], asthma was associated with a significantly longer intubation time in the younger group of patients who would seemingly have a better disease course than patients over the age of 65," said lead author Dr. Mahboobeh Mahdavinia. She's chief of allergy and immunology in the Department of...

WEDNESDAY, May 20, 2020 (HealthDay News) -- More than one-fifth of hospitalized COVID-19 patients in New York City have critical illness, and nearly 80% of critically ill patients need ventilators to help them breathe, according to a new study. The findings have important implications for U.S. hospitals, specifically the need to prepare for large numbers of COVID-19 patients who require intensive care, the researchers said. The study was published May 19 in The Lancet journal. Since January, the United States has had more than 1.5 million confirmed cases of COVID-19 and more than 90,000 deaths. "Although the clinical spectrum of disease has been characterized in reports from China and Italy, until now, detailed understanding of how the virus is affecting critically ill patients in...

WEDNESDAY, May 20, 2020 (HealthDay News) -- All 50 states have started reopening their economies as of Wednesday, more than two months after the new coronavirus first forced America into lockdown. Connecticut will be among the last states to return to business, when its stay-at-home order lifts and stores, museums and offices are allowed to reopen, The New York Times reported. States in the Northeast and on the West Coast, as well as Democratic-led states in the Midwest, have moved more slowly toward reopening, the Times reported. But a number of states in the South opened earlier and more expansively, albeit with social distancing restrictions in place, the newspaper said. On Tuesday, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a 60-page document that gave more...