Areas of Northampton, Wellingborough, Corby, Kettering, Daventry and Towcester in Covid-19 spotlight

Areas of Northampton, Wellingborough, Corby, Kettering, Daventry and Towcester in Covid-19 spotlight  These are the areas of Northamptonshire currently in the Covid-19 spotlight.

Eight neighbourhoods in Northampton and Wellingborough, four parts of Corby and Kettering, plus areas of Towcester and Daventry have all seen increases in the number of new coronavirus cases while figures are going down across the rest of the country. Northampton Chronicle and Echo

See also:

• KGH's Anna wins national award for pandemic work Northamptonshire Telegraph
• All the UK lockdown changes from 17 May - including meeting indoors and overnight stays  Northamptonshire Telegraph
• Scientist warns ‘Covid nails’ could be sign of previous infection - the symptoms to look for Northamptonshire Telegraph

Mum brutally attacked in Northampton General Hospital children's ward while baby son was being treated

Mum brutally attacked in Northampton General Hospital children's ward while baby son was being treated A man beat the mother of his children during a brutal attack in a hospital ward where their baby son was being treated.

Northampton Crown Court heard John McNamara, 37, repeatedly punched and kicked the woman, stamping on her face and trying to choke her. Northampton Chronicle and Echo

Was building the NHS Nightingale hospitals worth the money?

Was building the NHS Nightingale hospitals worth the money? Florence Nightingale received seven unexpected tributes in the 200th-anniversary year of her birth. In late March 2020, as concerns grew that Covid-19 would overwhelm the NHS’s critical care capacity, emergency NHS ‘Nightingale’ hospitals sprung up from Exeter to Sunderland with the aim of supporting the NHS to cope with surging number of people with Covid-19. The King's Fund

Racism and discrimination: the experience of primary care professionals in the Humberside region

Racism and discrimination: the experience of primary care professionals in the Humberside region This report highlights discrimination faced by staff and patients from ethnic minority backgrounds in general practice. It finds that respondents reported experiences of discrimination in a wide range of areas such as training, working patterns and complaints and it calls for a zero tolerance approach to tackle racism in all its forms. Humberside LMCs

Coronavirus and depression in adults, Great Britain: January to March 2021

Coronavirus and depression in adults, Great Britain: January to March 2021 Analysis of the proportion of the British adult population experiencing some form of depression in early 2021, by age, sex and other characteristics. Includes comparisons with 2020 and pre-pandemic estimates.

Around 1 in 5 (21%) adults experienced some form of depression in early 2021 (27 January to 7 March); this is an increase since November 2020 (19%) and more than double that observed before the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic (10%). Office for National Statistics

See also:

• Covid: Depression rises in young and women during second peak BBC News
• One in five adults experienced some form of depression in early 2021 The Daily Mail
• One in five UK adults have had depressive symptoms during pandemic The Guardian

Covid: Black leaders blame lower vaccine take-up on racism

Covid: Black leaders blame lower vaccine take-up on racism Barely a month into England's coronavirus vaccine programme, a stark inequality began to reveal itself. Black people were less likely than any other group, and half as likely as white people, to have had the jab.

By April, 64% of black over-50s had been vaccinated compared with 93% of white people of the same age.

The reasons for this are complex. Unethical medical treatment in the past, ongoing discrimination and personal experiences of insensitive treatment by the NHS are all believed to play a part.

But doctors, researchers and campaigners who spoke to the BBC said they feared black communities were being blamed. BBC News

See also:

• Covid: Canada authorises Pfizer vaccine for children aged 12 to 15 BBC News
• Coronavirus: More real-world data proves Pfizer Covid jab is 77-98% effective The Daily Mail
• Moderna's 'tweaked' Covid vaccine effective against Brazil and South Africa variants The Daily Telegraph
• Ministers urged to reveal details of £2bn Covid deals with private health firms The Guardian
• The stress of the Covid pandemic is driving NHS doctors like me out of frontline care The Guardian

Mental health: 'We need to care for patients, but also ourselves'

Mental health: 'We need to care for patients, but also ourselves' It is estimated that a doctor dies every three to four weeks in the UK from suicide.

Dr Dan Gearon's cousin Liz took her own life in 2016. She had been an anaesthetist at King's College London.

Following Liz's death, Dan created the charity, You Okay, Doc? to provide doctors with a safe space to talk about their mental health.

Now as the pandemic starts to ease, Dan and many other doctors across the country are voicing the need to have better mental health services for medics. BBC News

Teens, tech and mental health: Oxford study finds no link

Teens, tech and mental health: Oxford study finds no link There remains "little association" between technology use and mental-health problems, a study of more than 430,000 10 to 15-year-olds suggests.

The Oxford Internet Institute compared TV viewing, social-media and device use with feelings of depression, suicidal tendencies and behavioural problems.

It found a small drop in association between depression and social-media use and TV viewing, from 1991 to 2019, BBC News

See also:

• There Is No Evidence That Associations Between Adolescents’ Digital Technology Engagement and Mental Health Problems Have Increased (open access) Clinical Psychology Science

Alzheimer’s patients and hospital staff prescribed music in NHS trial

Alzheimer’s patients and hospital staff prescribed music in NHS trial Exclusive: playlist based on listeners’ backgrounds and tastes found to lower heart rate, agitation and distress

Bob Marley knew it when he sang on Trenchtown Rock: “One good thing about music when it hits you, you feel no pain.”

Now trials are under way at an NHS trust to see if an algorithm can curate music playlists to reduce suffering in Alzheimer’s patients as well as in stressed medical staff. The Guardian

Air pollution may impair memory and verbal fluency in older men, study suggests

 Air pollution may impair memory and verbal fluency in older men, study suggests Exposure to spikes in air pollution, even for just a few weeks, can impair older men’s ability to think and speak as clearly, new research suggests.

Studying nearly 1,000 white males from Greater Boston with an average age of 69, Columbia University-led scientists found that the men’s cognitive abilities fell following spikes in air pollution in the 28 days before testing. The Independent

See also:

• Short-term air pollution, cognitive performance and nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drug use in the Veterans Affairs Normative Aging Study (abstract) Nature Aging