The Coronavirus is not letting up, but it is equally important to follow up with other illnesses affecting our bodies. This discussion offers insight into healthier living.
Dr. Lenoir: Is this increase in infections because they’re not vaccinated or is this because these are breakthrough infections?
BDO Ellis Dean: We had some representatives from South Africa on a facebook live last week.. Their vaccination rate is not as high as it is here in the United States. However, that is where the omicron variant was discovered. I’m hearing from their early research is that this variant is more contagious. It is causing more breakthrough cases than the Delta variant did. However, the symptoms are milder. So even though you are protected by vaccines, people that are vaccinated aren’t having the same type of serious health complications as they did from the Delta variant. It’s really just a challenge. Now, the one good news is that people that are getting the booster shots seem to have an extra layer of protection that is resistant to the variant. There are less instances of breakthrough cases with people that have a booster shot than people that are just fully vaccinated from the first go round.
There’s a pill now for combatting COVID, what are your thoughts?
Dr. Lenoir: People can take a pill to treat coronavirus infection. I’m nearly not sure exactly what level of disease you have to have in order to be eligible for these pills. And I don’t know what the side effects are or anything about them, but they’ve been approved by the FDA. So obviously they’ve been some of the rigors that most of these drugs go through. So that’s the good news. Yeah. For those UN vaccinated people. If in fact it keeps you out of the ICU and keeps you from dying. That’s the goal. The coronavirus is not resting. Although we may be tired of the things that we have to do to protect ourselves, you know, lost in the shuffle of the coronavirus, our number of other things we talked about the flu last week, but one of the things that African records must be concerned about continuously is the role that heart disease plays in our lives.
What is hypertension? And is it the same as hyper blood pressure?
Dr. White: Yes. So basically you have a medical terminology and then we have the layman terminology, but it’s the same thing. And it’s pretty much when your blood pressure is greater than 130 over 80. So in order to know where you stand, you gotta check your blood pressure. You wanna be less than 130 over 80, but if you are consistently greater than 130, over 80, that is considered stage one hypertension. Once you get to that 120 to 129, less than over 80, and we’re talking about a systolic and diastolic blood pressure. So the systolic is the top number. The diastolic is the bottom number that’s considered elevated. So the ideal blood pressure is still less than120 over 80.
There is a lot more to hear about with regard to high blood pressure and also the virus. Please click the link to hear more on how to protect yourself.
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