Media Coverage

Asian Americans are not only struggling to find financial relief. Experts like Dr. Namratha Kandula, the co-director of Northwestern University’s Institute for Public Health and Medicine, said this community has been largely “ignored” in the public health response to COVID-19.

Find a mask that fits properly: An ill-fitting or poorly made face covering will increase the chances that exhaled air escapes from the top of the mask, says Surendra Basti, a professor of ophthalmology at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine.

“Ideally, a mask should have a metal strip at the top incorporated in the mask, so that you can push it, and it takes the contour of your nose and cheekbones,” Basti says.

Despite that damage, study author Dr. Colin Franz said proning “is a lifesaving intervention, and we think it is saving lives during the COVID pandemic.” And although placing patients face down has been known to cause skin pressure injuries in non-COVID-19 patients, he said nerve compression injuries are typically uncommon with regular repositioning and careful padding. “So we were very surprised to find 12 out of 83 patients with nerve injuries,” said Franz, neurology director of the Regenerative Neurorehabilitation Laboratory at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine, in Chicago.

“Our study shows that if your kidney function starts declining as early as your 30s, you may perform like someone nine years older on certain cognitive tests 20 years later,” said study author Sanaz Sedaghat, from Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago. “Yet many people can have a decline in kidney function without being aware of it.”

“For our patients, we’ve made it pretty convenient and easy to get tested,” said Dr. Jeffrey Kopin, chief medical officer at Northwestern Medicine Lake Forest Hospital. We asked Kopin, Illinois Department of Public Health spokesperson Melaney Arnold and the Cook County Department of Public Health what you need to know to navigate the new testing landscape. Here are their answers, supplemented by information from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Even if the university doesn’t get a financial windfall from its testing and tracking innovation, the economic benefits could be substantial, says Philip Hockberger, an associate professor at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine who also was a research administrator. “What those who have the test can do that others can’t is the tracking, the authorization,” he says.

“Standard time is going to be your best situation where your social clock, your internal biological clock and your sun clock are going to be more likely, for the most time, to be better aligned,” said Phyllis Zee, chief of sleep medicine at Northwestern University’s Feinberg School of Medicine. She added: “It may not be true for every single person. It really depends on where you live, whether you’re an owl or a lark. All of these things matter. But I think overall, as a general policy, that would be the healthiest solution.”

Dr. Robert Kushner, the medical director of the Center for Lifestyle Medicine at Northwestern Medicine in Chicago, a professor of medicine at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine and author of the book, Six Factors to Fit: Weight Loss that Works for You!, told TODAY that while a higher body weight isn’t always linked to poorer health outcomes, excessive body fat does present a health risk to many people.

Dr. Robert Murphy, a professor of infectious diseases at Northwestern University and the executive director of the Institute for Global Health, is a fan. “The antigen tests are not PCR and can never be as sensitive as one of those, however, they are much faster — approximately 15 minutes — and don’t require the PCR supply-chain of reagents which is also problematic. The cost is lower because the test is much more simple,” he explained.

Dr. Namratha Kandula of Northwestern University echoed that theory. She also cautioned against generalizing about the underlying health of Asian Americans as a whole, noting that they are a diverse group from many different nations and cultures. “It’s not enough to clump them all together because it does not tell the whole story,” she said.