Public Health Disasters
Unaddressed mental health issues have been weighing on the young generation well before the COVID-19 pandemic and lockdowns. An estimated 13% of 10-19-year-olds live with a diagnosed mental disorder globally.
ONLY 2% of government health budgets are allocated to mental health spending globally, (UNICEF)
Can technology help to meet the mental health needs of the young (next) generation?
Recent news of $1.7 billion of student loans will be forgiven of US Public Service Workers and Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen providing testimony to US Senate Commerce Committee show an opportunity for better engagement to help the next generation through financial and technological efforts.
COVID-19 pandemic has raised concerns about mental health impact among everyone especially children and young adults. As we lead to the World Mental Health Day (Oct 10), let’s discuss latest thought leadership and global mental health reports this week.
Today’s discussion question:
How can healthcare and technology help to meet the mental health needs of the young generation?
Opting in to COVID-19 vaccine mandates at your company? Strategy working to curb new infections at workplace?
COVID-19 cases in the United States have dropped by 25% over the last two weeks (Axios).
Today Pfizer / BioNTech SE announced positive topline results from COVID-19 vaccine trial in children 5 to 11 years old via press release (still waiting for full report and data).
Highlights given in Press Release of Phase 2/3 trial (link in below):
Yesterday, our paper addressing how disaster risk in conflict areas can be reduced to meet United Nations Sendai Framework disaster risk reduction priorities was presented at Conflict Research Society’s annual conference.
A constant message: the pandemic is not over until it is over everywhere.
United States is first country to hit 40 million coronavirus cases. The next country near that mark is India with 33 million coronavirus cases, then followed by Brazil with 20 million coronavirus cases.
Monday morning and news arrived that FDA fully approves Pfizer / BioNTech SE Coronavirus Vaccine as the first COVID-19 vaccine for prevention of #COVID19 disease in 16 years of age and older.
COVID-19 vaccines are working to protect against death along with some protection against hospitalization and mild infections. The latter protections seem to be declining in effectiveness plus Delta variant (and Lamba variant) are some of the reasons why US announce approval of a third shot (dose) for US population at 8 months or later after receiving the first two doses of Pfizer/BioNTech SE & Moderna.
Recently named by Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, racism is a serious public health threat. CDC recently shared published studies quantifying COVID-19’s disproportionate toll in America’s communities. CDC director Rochelle Walensky stated, “these disparities were not caused by the pandemic, but they were certainly exacerbated by [it].”