AWAY, formerly the Women’s Resource Center, is announcing its Purple Halo Gala to be hosted at Tamarack on October 7 at 6:30pm. Tickets will include an evening of dinner, dancing, and an inspiring story from Christy Martin.
Martin, a former professional boxer and Wyoming County native, will heelp raise awareness, support, and funding for AWAY, sharing her story as seen on Netflix, of the fight for survival in a domestic abusive relationship.
The Purple Halo Gala will help AWAY continue its mission of serving victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, stalking, and human trafficking throughout Southern WV. AWATY supports victims throughout the legal, medical, and healing processes, serving Fayette, Nicholas, Raleigh and Summers counties.
For additional information please contact Erin Jones or learn more at https://www.awaywv.org/event/purple-halo-gala/
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Counting Covid-19
The latest numbers as of Monday, Aug. 29, 2022:
West Virginia
Covid cases — 580,697
Deaths — 7,274
Source: DHHR
United States
Cases — 94,280,083
Deaths — 1,044,335
Source: CSSE
World
Cases — 601,463,204
Deaths — 6,488,251
Source: CSSE
W.Va. Vaccinations
1st shot — 1,146,836
Fully vaccinated — 990,442
Source: DHHR
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The interplay of omicron, reinfections and long Covid – and the apparent waning with numbers falling
By Liz Szabo /Kaiser HealthNews
The latest Covid-19 surge, caused by a shifting mix of quickly evolving omicron subvariants, appears to be waning, with cases and hospitalizations beginning to fall.
Like past Covid-19 waves, this one will leave a lingering imprint in the form of long Covid, an ill-defined catchall term for a set of symptoms that can include debilitating fatigue, difficulty breathing, chest pain and brain fog.
Although omicron infections are proving milder overall than those caused by last summer’s delta variant, omicron has also proved capable of triggering long-term symptoms and organ damage. But whether omicron causes long Covid symptoms as often – and as severe – as previous variants is a matter of heated study.
Michael Osterholm, director of the University of Minnesota’s Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy, is among the researchers who say the far greater number of omicron infections compared with earlier variants signals the need to prepare for a significant boost in people with long Covid. The U.S. has recorded nearly 38 million Covid-19 infections so far this year, as omicron has blanketed the nation. That’s about 40 percent of all infections reported since the start of the pandemic, according to the Johns Hopkins University Coronavirus Research Center.
Long Covid “is a parallel pandemic that most people aren’t even thinking about,” said Akiko Iwasaki, a professor of immunobiology at Yale University. “I suspect there will be millions of people who acquire long Covid after omicron infection.”
Scientists have just begun to compare variants head to head, with varying results. While one recent study in The Lancet suggests that omicron is less likely to cause long Covid, another found the same rate of neurological problems after omicron and delta infections.
Estimates of the proportion of patients affected by long Covid also vary, from 4 percent to 5 percent in triple-vaccinated adults to as many as 50 percent among the unvaccinated, based on differences in the populations studied.
Even at the low end of those estimates, the sheer number of omicron infections this year would swell long Covid caseloads. “That’s exactly what we did find in the UK,” said Claire Steves, a professor of aging and health at King’s College in London and author of the Lancet study, which found patients have been 24 percent to 50 percent less likely to develop long Covid during the omicron wave than during the delta wave.
A recent study analyzing a patient database from the Veterans Health Administration found that reinfections dramatically increased the risk of serious health issues, even in people with mild symptoms. The study of more than 5.4 million VA patients, including more than 560,000 women, found that people reinfected with COVID-19 were twice as likely to die or have a heart attack as people infected only once.
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SALS book sale open during Oak Leaf Festival
The September SALS book sale is scheduled for Saturday, Sept. 3, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. coinciding with Oak Hill’s Oak Leaf Festival.
The book sale is in the annex behind the Historic Oak Hill at 140 School St., two blocks up the hill from Main Street where many of the festival activities take place.
SALS has been receiving book donations faster than it can sort through them, so there is plenty of “new” stock for our repeat customers.
For new customers there are thousands of books including novels, history, religion, psychology, classics, politics, crafts, cookbooks, children’s books, mysteries, thrillers and more.
Most books are priced at $1 for hardbacks and 50 cents for paperbacks. Everything on the romance table is priced at 25 cents including hard back editions by writers such as Danielle Steele and Nora Roberts.
To find the sale, enter the property at the right parking lot and drive (or walk) around the building to the back. The annex is at the end of the back parking lot.
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State agriculture dept. to spray for black flies
The West Virginia Department of Agriculture will be conducting aerial treatments for biological suppression of black flies on the Greenbrier, New, and Bluestone rivers on Tuesday, August 30th , weather, and water levels permitting. Based on weather and water levels, the treatments may potentially continue into Wednesday, August 31.
