CLEARLAKE, Calif. — Clearlake Animal Control has friendly dogs waiting for new homes this week.
The Clearlake Animal Control website lists 38 adoptable dogs.
The available dogs include “Bugsy,” a nearly 2-year-old pit bull mix who likes to play with toys and is good with other dogs. He is neutered and vaccinated.
Also up for adoption is “Jupiter,” a 2 and a half year old male German shepherd mix with a tricolor coat. Staff said he’s still learning to walk on a leash and is a bit shy at first but then warms up when he meets people. He's neutered, up to date on his vaccines and microchipped.
The shelter is located at 6820 Old Highway 53. It’s open from 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday.
For more information, call the shelter at 707-762-6227, email This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., visit Clearlake Animal Control on Facebook or on the city’s website.
This week’s adoptable dogs are featured below.
Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.
LAKE COUNTY, Calif. — On Thursday evening the Clearlake City Council approved a new school resource officer contract with the Konocti Unified School District for the coming school year.
The district has reported that enrollment is growing across its nine schools in Clearlake, Clearlake Oaks and Lower Lake, and the agreement with the Clearlake Police Department is meant to increase safety through having a full-time police officer dedicated to the district.
Police Chief Tim Hobbs said this is the latest contract with the district and covers the 2024-25 school year.
There had been a school resource officer in place until October 2020, when the longtime assigned officer retired. The school resource officer arrangement was put back in place beginning in 2023, Hobbs said.
Hobbs said nothing in the new memorandum of understanding changes except for price increases for the school district.
Konocti Unified will pay $160,992.62 to fund the cost of the full-time school resource officer, which includes salary, benefits, overtime, training and vehicle usage costs. Hobbs said that cost increased by about $14,300 since last year due to a cost of living adjustment required with the police bargaining unit and an increase in the vehicle lease cost and additional fuel cost.
He said there is provision in the agreement to add additional officers with reimbursement.
In response to a question from Mayor David Claffey’s question about how much time the officer spends at which schools, Hobbs said that prior to last year, the office was mostly at Lower Lake High School and Lower Lake Elementary School, with the rest of the time spent at the other schools.
Last year, with the new Obsidian Middle School being open, he said the officer spent the majority of the time at that location, followed by the high school and the elementary school.
Councilman Russ Cremer moved to approve the memorandum of understanding with Konocti Unified, with Councilwoman Joyce Overton seconding and the council voting unanimously in support.
In other business, the council voted to support a mitigation fee program on behalf of the Lake County Fire Protection District; approved updates to the city’s management classification and benefits plan and city salary schedule, including a 3% cost of living adjustment to management; and approved the first reading of Ordinance No. 270-2024, which amends Section 2-3.7 of the Clearlake Municipal Code to authorize the city manager to sign documents as specified in Government Code Section 40602, with a second reading scheduled for the next meeting.
Email Elizabeth Larson at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Follow her on Twitter, @ERLarson, or Lake County News, @LakeCoNews.
With the lightning storm that passed through the state July 13 to 15, California sustained 7,139 lightning strikes.
Anticipating the incoming storms, the USDA Forest Service had pre-positioned resources throughout the state.
These resources were able to quickly respond to initial attack fires, resulting in a successful response rate of 94%.
In this three-day period, the Forest Service and its cooperators responded to 97 fires on Forest Service lands. Only six new fires from this storm went into extended attack.
Given the extremely dry, record-setting fuel conditions where much of the lightning struck, fire officials said this success rate stands out as a significant achievement for California.
Initial attack response was also aided by readily available staff, quick detection technologies, and intermittent cloud cover with rain.
“Over the past few days, our firefighters have been able to aggressively respond to fires that resulted from this lightning storm. The ability to maintain readiness for emerging initial attack fires is critical, even when we have large ongoing fires in the state,” said Pacific Southwest Region Fire Director Jaime Gamboa.
An additional 412 resources were brought into the state to assist with California’s wildland fire response.
On the Mendocino National Forest, fire restrictions went into effect on July 3 and will remain in force through the end of this year’s fire season.
The Forest Service said it remains at the ready during these critical summer months, to respond to emerging wildland fires across the state.
Some types of assets are difficult to sell or to distribute to the beneficiaries when settling a decedent’s probate or trust estate.
Recognizing such assets and considering the foreseeable difficulties may prompt action during the owner’s life and avoid leaving problems behind. Let us discuss some scenarios.
Timeshares are notoriously difficult to sell or to surrender and cease paying the maintenance fees. Leaving time shares in one’s estate may be a dubious gift to one’s loved ones unless perhaps some beneficiary actually wants to receive it.
That said, a timeshare owner may choose to address the difficulty by calling the company to discuss how to leave the timeshare to a specific beneficiary or how to sell or surrender it now or after one’s death. The answers vary depending on the timeshare involved.
Fractional ownership in real property is another difficult asset to sell as it requires the cooperation of the co-owners. Typically, the only interested buyers are the other co-owners.
Moreover, it is impossible to borrow against a fractional interest of real property because the lender cannot foreclose on only a partial interest. Otherwise, a court partition action to force a sale of the real property is necessary. It may, therefore, be wise to address this issue while alive.
Stock shares held in certificate form are increasingly rare but some stock certificates that were issued years ago remain. These certificates are title documents and must be safeguarded.
Replacing lost certificates takes time and money. Moreover, selling certificated shares often involves the additional step of using a transfer agent to retitle the certificates into a brokerage account to sell the shares.
Thus, it is wise for the owner to transfer all certificated shares (stocks) into brokerage shares while alive. The brokerage account can then be titled in the owner’s living trust or be titled as a transfer on death account, each avoids probate.
Gold and silver coins or bars can be misplaced, lost or stolen. Sometimes these assets are kept in storage or in a hiding place (e.g., buried). The person administering the estate may not know whether they still exist and if so where or how to find them.
Storing the gold or silver in a bank deposit (and making sure the necessary persons know the account) or else selling the gold and silver while alive and investing the proceeds may avoid costly mishaps. One can buy shares in companies that invest in precious metals to avoid the risks of direct ownership.
Probably one of the biggest headaches now in settling a decedent’s estate is owning cryptocurrency – i.e., a portion of a block chain asset like “Bitcoin” — for a variety of reasons.
First, cryptocurrency is highly speculative (i.e., value fluctuations are wild). Such volatility usually makes cryptocurrency an unacceptable asset for a successor trustee or an executor of a decedent’s estate to hold.
Second, so-called, “cryptocurrency keys” are essential to owning, controlling and selling the intangible assets. The keys can easily be lost and when lost cannot be recovered. Like investing in gold and silver, it is possible to buy shares in a company that invests in cryptocurrency and so avoid the risks of a cryptocurrency key.
Sole proprietorships, especially those that require licenses (e.g., a law or medical practice), are very difficult, time consuming, and often fraught with risk for the person settling the deceased owner’s estate.
Succession planning involves placing the sole proprietorship into a legal entity (such as an LLC or corporation) and then legally nominating, or providing authority for nominating, qualified replacements to step in and manage the business should the principal (owner) unexpectedly become incapacitated or die.
Otherwise, emergency probate court proceedings and frantic efforts to find suitable persons become necessary at the worst of times and do not guarantee saving the business.
Some problems are foreseeable. No one plans to fail but people do fail to plan. Why take unnecessary risks?
The foregoing discussion is not legal advice. Consult a qualified attorney for guidance.
Dennis A. Fordham, attorney, is a State Bar-Certified Specialist in estate planning, probate and trust law. His office is at 870 S. Main St., Lakeport, Calif. He can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. and 707-263-3235.
CLEARLAKE, Calif. — Golden State Finance Authority will host an upcoming homebuyer workshop for the ReCoverCA Homebuyer Assistance Program aimed at providing crucial support to individuals affected by wildfires in Lake County in 2018.
The event will take place on Wednesday, July 24, at 7 p.m. at the Clear Lake Masonic Lodge, 7100 S. Center Drive in Clearlake.
Residents who were renters or homeowners residing in high or very high fire hazard severity zones during the devastating Lake County fires of 2018 are encouraged to attend.
Golden State Finance Authority, or GSFA, also encourages all wildfire recovery agencies and organizations, real estate professionals, and members of the media to attend this pivotal event.
Community participation is vital in supporting the recovery efforts and spreading awareness about the ReCoverCA Homebuyer Assistance Program.
“We extend a warm invitation to all residential service providers, fire departments, disaster assistance organizations, real estate agents, and the media to join us at this event,” said Carolyn Sunseri, GSFA marketing director. “Your participation is vital for gaining insights into the program and for assisting in educating the residents of our community.”
Eligible participants may qualify for up to $350,000 in financial assistance, specifically designed to facilitate homeownership outside of high or very high fire hazard severity zones within California.
“This financial assistance could really make a difference in people’s lives,” said Lake County Supervisor EJ Crandell. “When one family gains some stability, they are better able to show up in their employment, in their education, in their relationships with friends and family and in their community. When one family succeeds in taking a step forward in recovery, we all benefit.”
Key highlights of the Homebuyer Assistance program include:
• Financial assistance up to $350,000. • Forgiveness of financial assistance after five years. • Accessibility for applicants with varying credit histories.
The event promises to be informative and empowering, offering attendees the opportunity to learn more about the program and begin their journey towards homeownership.
“We invite all interested individuals to join us at the Clear Lake Masonic Lodge to explore how this program can benefit them,” added Sunseri. “Imagine owning your own home, free from the worries and insurance costs of living in a high fire zone. This event is the first step towards making that dream a reality for you or someone you know.”
To ensure inclusivity, GSFA will provide translation services in Spanish and Tagalog, as well as American Sign Language interpretation upon request. Attendees are encouraged to indicate their preference for translation services during the free ticket reservation process.
For more information and to register for this free event, please visit https://qrco.de/bfDqzG.
The ReCoverCA Homebuyer Assistance Program is provided by the California Department of Housing and Community Development, funded by a HUD Community Development Block Grant - Disaster Recovery grant and managed by GSFA.
Complete program policies, eligibility requirements, interest rates, APRs and loan applications are available through a network of ReCoverCA HBA approved lenders, published on the GSFA website.
Gov. Gavin Newsom on Wednesday announced that the Department of Industrial Relations awarded $31 million in California Opportunity Youth Apprenticeship, or COYA, grants to 51 projects across the state to increase pre-apprenticeships and apprenticeships in healthcare, education, advanced manufacturing, information technology, public sector, transportation and more.
“California is committed to helping disadvantaged youth prepare for high-quality careers. Through our nation-leading career education efforts, we’re boosting apprenticeships throughout the state and across industries to help young people launch into the right career for them,” said Gov. Newsom.
These apprenticeships will help break career barriers for opportunity youth across California, helping them launch into their future careers.
Opportunity youth include those aged 16 to 24, including young parents, former foster youth, people with disabilities, and young people who face educational achievement gaps, attend schools in communities struggling with high poverty, or are fully disconnected from the education system.
COYA will also ensure employers are supported and encouraged to hire young workers based on their talent and skills.
The state is working to ensure all Californians have the freedom to succeed through investments like this that help young people learn skills to obtain high-quality, fulfilling careers.
This program is in alignment with the Governor’s Master Plan for Career Education, which will include proposals to align and simplify the TK-12, university, and workforce systems in California to support greater access to education and jobs for all Californians.
We areneuroscientists who are passionate about reducing socioeconomic disparities in child development. To better understand how socioeconomic disadvantage affects sleep health and brain development in children, we recruited 94 5- to 9-year-old children from socioeconomically diverse families living in New York. About 30% of the participating families had incomes below the U.S. poverty threshold.
We asked parents to report on their child’s sleep environment, the consistency of their family routines, and their child’s bedtime and wake-up time. We also had children complete a magnetic resonance imaging scan of their brains to analyze the size of a brain region called the amygdala and the strength of its connections with other regions of the brain. The amygdala plays a critical role in processing emotions and the amount of negative emotion a person experiences. Adversity experienced early in life can affect how the amygdala works.
We found that children in families with low economic resources were getting less sleep at night and going to sleep later compared with children in families with higher economic resources. In turn, shorter sleep and going to sleep later were associated with reduced amygdala size and weaker connections between the amygdala and other emotion-processing brain regions. This link between socioeconomic disadvantage, sleep duration and timing, and amygdala size and connectivity was found in children as young as 5.
Our results suggest that both amount and timing of sleep matter for the functioning of these brain regions involved in emotion processing.
Why it matters
Not getting enough sleep increases the risk of developing mental health problems and interferes with academic achievement. Reduced sleep may make it harder for children to cope with stress and manage their emotions. Children from families or neighborhoods with low socioeconomic resources may be at increased risk for stress-related mental health problems due in part to the negative effects of their environment on sleep health.
During childhood, the brain develops at a fast pace. Because of this, childhood experiences can have effects on brain function that last a lifetime. Problems from childhood can continue throughout life.
Our findings reinforce the importance of ensuring all families have sufficient economic resources to provide for their children. Research suggests that income supplements for families in need can help support children’s brain function, along with their mental health and academic outcomes.
What still isn’t known
Why do socioeconomically disadvantaged environments make it hard for children to sleep?
Our research suggests that parents who were struggling to make ends meet had a harder time maintaining consistent family routines, possibly leading to less consistent bedtime routines, which may have contributed to children getting less sleep.
However, there are likely multiple factors connecting socioeconomic disadvantage and poor sleep quality, such as not being able to afford a comfortable bed, overcrowding, neighborhood noise, excessive light and heat.
What’s next
Most sleep research has focused on teens, who are especially at risk for poor sleep. However, our results suggest that environmental effects on sleep patterns and habits start a lot earlier.
Interventions to improve sleep may need to start earlier than adolescence to be optimally effective. Bolstering economic resources for families in need may also be key to supporting children’s sleep health, brain development and emotional well-being.
The Research Brief is a short take about interesting academic work.
Shorter sleep and later bedtimes are linked to potentially harmful functional changes to parts of the brain important for coping with stress and controlling negative emotions, our recently published research found. And children in families with low economic resources are particularly at risk.
KELSEYVILLE, Calif. — The SPCA of Lake County has reached an important milestone in its work to control Lake County’s animal population.
The organization announced that it has completed 3,000 successful spay/neuter surgeries since 2020.
During the group’s spay/neuter clinic on Sunday, July 14, they reached that milestone with Kyle the cat.
Those numbers reflect 3,000 successful spay and neuters of owned cats and dogs and feral cats in Lake County.
The SPCA said that means millions of cats and dogs were not born due to the efforts of its surgical staff, volunteers and the community.
One pair of cats or dogs can produce three litters a year with an average of five kittens or puppies per litter and each of those can start having babies as young as 4 months old.
“Although we are making progress, there is still so much work to be done. There are still too many cats and dogs in our local communities who need to be spayed or neutered,” the SPCA said in its announcement. “By having owned animals and feral cats spayed or neutered, we can prevent the birth of unwanted animals. What’s more the quality and longevity of their lives will be improved.
“There are many benefits to spaying or neutering your animals,” SPCA veterinarian Dr. Jennifer Eisley explained. “Spaying female dogs and cats can prevent other health problems, such as uterine infections, mammary and ovarian cancers, prostate cancer and inflammation and many more. The behavioral benefits include eliminating heat cycles, in addition to reducing urine-marking behaviors, fighting and roaming.”
Many local residents have already benefited from the SPCA’s low-cost spay and neuter programs, in addition to regular vaccination clinics.
The SPCA staff includes two dedicated veterinarians and multiple veterinary assistants and technicians, with the rest of the organization being composed of volunteers.
As athletes worldwide prepare for the Paris 2024 Olympics, the best of the best in weather research are also gearing up for a friendly competition.
Several international weather research and forecasting organizations will collaborate to provide high-resolution forecast information for Olympics organizers as well as test the capabilities of experimental air quality and weather forecasting models.
The collective forecasts from the participating nations may guide the organizers’ decisions about when actions should be taken to protect athletes from conditions like extreme heat and/or air pollution.
A substantial number of weather data-collecting instruments will be deployed across Paris during the Olympics and Paralympics for these forecasts.
The extensive data collection also provides researchers with a unique opportunity to test the accuracy of models being developed to predict heat, thunderstorms and air quality in complex urban areas.
Researchers from the U.S. National Science Foundation National Center for Atmospheric Research, or NSF NCAR, will participate in this research demonstration project, which was proposed by Météo-France, France’s national weather service, and approved by the World Meteorological Organization, or WMO.
“All the different agencies will compare notes and learn from one another and maybe it will be a little competitive too,” said Scott Swerdlin, an NSF NCAR program director who is overseeing the organization’s role in the project. “People feel passionate about their models and there are fierce debates about whether different model attributes are superior to others, but in the end this will be a learning experience for everyone.”
Complexities of urban forecasting
Modeling and predicting weather in urban areas is complicated. Buildings interact with the natural environment to create microclimates.
For example, the way the sun hits a building can make it hotter on one side of a building, which in turn affects the flow of winds and air quality. Capturing the effects of all the structures in a heavily populated city is challenging.
To address this, NSF NCAR scientists will use an ensemble modeling approach, which averages multiple forecasts to provide predictions that are statistically more likely to represent the real world. The ensemble is computationally intensive, requiring the use of NSF NCAR’s supercomputer, Derecho. The scientists will utilize the Weather Research and Forecasting model coupled with Chemistry (WRF-Chem) for their weather and air quality predictions.
“We’re excited to be contributing to this international collaboration, and we’re definitely pushing ourselves beyond what is required for the model intercomparison exercise,” said NSF NCAR scientist Hailey Shin. “We are really curious about answering our own research questions on the prediction accuracy and uncertainty of our high-resolution coupled weather-air quality models as we test the sensitivity of our models to our algorithms that represent the real effects of urban buildings, air pollutant emissions, etc.”
For the project, each international organization will provide 36-hour weather forecasts modeled at a prescribed resolution of 100 meters so there is a common base for comparison of results. This means that, for every 100 meters, the participating agencies will provide a prediction for temperature, humidity, winds, and pressure.
For air quality forecasts, most of the participating groups will model at 3-kilometer resolution, but NSF NCAR scientists will zoom in to provide more detailed information. They will model primary fine particulate matter (PM2.5), which are tiny particles found in smoke and haze that can wreak havoc on the lungs and respiratory system, and carbon monoxide at 111-meter resolution, which is a very fine scale for running WRF.
“Air quality is an issue for elite athletes, especially since they are breathing the air at a faster rate when they compete. Hot and polluted air can lead to dehydration and there could also be combined effects of heat and humidity,” said NSF NCAR scientist Rajesh Kumar. “Beyond the Olympics, nearly 80 percent of the world's population will be living in urban areas by the 2050s. It is very important for us to have modeling capabilities that work well in these areas so that they can play a part in ensuring urban sustainability.”
NASA rolled out the Space Launch System, or SLS, rocket’s core stage for the Artemis II test flight from its manufacturing facility in New Orleans on Tuesday for shipment to the agency’s spaceport in Florida.
The rollout is key progress on the path to NASA’s first crewed mission to the Moon under the Artemis campaign.
Using highly specialized transporters, engineers maneuvered the giant core stage from inside NASA’s Michoud Assembly Facility in New Orleans to the agency’s Pegasus barge.
The barge will ferry the stage more than 900 miles to NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida, where engineers will prepare it in the Vehicle Assembly Building for attachment to other rocket and Orion spacecraft elements.
“With Artemis, we’ve set our sights on doing something big and incredibly complex that will inspire a new generation, advance our scientific endeavors, and move U.S. competitiveness forward,” said Catherine Koerner, associate administrator for NASA’s Exploration Systems Development Mission Directorate at NASA Headquarters in Washington. “The SLS rocket is a key component of our efforts to develop a long-term presence at the Moon.”
Technicians moved the SLS rocket stage from inside NASA Michoud on the 55th anniversary of the launch of Apollo 11 on July 16, 1969.
The move of the rocket stage for Artemis marks the first time since the Apollo Program that a fully assembled Moon rocket stage for a crewed mission rolled out from NASA Michoud.
The SLS rocket’s core stage is the largest NASA has ever produced. At 212 feet tall, it consists of five major elements, including two huge propellant tanks that collectively hold more than 733,000 gallons of super-chilled liquid propellant to feed four RS-25 engines. During launch and flight, the stage will operate for just over eight minutes, producing more than 2 million pounds of thrust to propel four astronauts inside NASA’s Orion spacecraft toward the Moon.
“The delivery of the SLS core stage for Artemis II to Kennedy Space Center signals a shift from manufacturing to launch readiness as teams continue to make progress on hardware for all major elements for future SLS rockets,” said John Honeycutt, SLS program manager at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama. “We are motivated by the success of Artemis I and focused on working toward the first crewed flight under Artemis.”
After arrival at NASA Kennedy, the stage will undergo additional outfitting inside the Vehicle Assembly Building. Engineers then will join it with the segments that form the rocket’s twin solid rocket boosters.
Adapters for the Moon rocket that connect it to the Orion spacecraft will be shipped to NASA Kennedy this fall, while the interim cryogenic propulsion stage is already in Florida. Engineers continue to prepare Orion, already at Kennedy, and exploration ground systems for launch and flight.
All major structures for every SLS core stage are fully manufactured at NASA Michoud. Inside the factory, core stages and future exploration upper stages for the next evolution of SLS, called the Block 1B configuration, currently are in various phases of production for Artemis III, IV, and V.
Beginning with Artemis III, to better optimize space at Michoud, Boeing, the SLS core stage prime contractor, will use space at NASA Kennedy for final assembly and outfitting activities.
Building, assembling, and transporting the SLS core stage is a collaborative effort for NASA, Boeing, and lead RS-25 engines contractor Aerojet Rocketdyne, an L3Harris Technologies company. All 10 NASA centers contribute to its development with more than 1,100 companies across the United States contributing to its production.
NASA is working to land the first woman, first person of color, and its first international partner astronaut on the Moon under Artemis. SLS is part of NASA’s backbone for deep space exploration, along with the Orion spacecraft, supporting ground systems, advanced spacesuits and rovers, the Gateway in orbit around the Moon, and commercial human landing systems. SLS is the only rocket that can send Orion, astronauts, and supplies to the Moon in a single launch.
The intense scientific effort that long COVID sparked has resulted in more than 24,000 scientific publications, making it the most researched health condition in any four years of recorded human history.
Long COVID is a term that describes the constellation of long-term health effects caused by infection with the SARS-CoV-2 virus. These range from persistent respiratory symptoms, such as shortness of breath, to debilitating fatigue or brain fog that limits people’s ability to work, and conditions such as heart failure and diabetes, which are known to last a lifetime.
Over the first half of 2024, a flurry of reports and scientific papers on long COVID added clarity to this complex condition. These include, in particular, insights into how COVID-19 can still wreak havoc in many organs years after the initial viral infection, as well as emerging evidence on viral persistence and immune dysfunction that last for months or years after initial infection.
How long COVID affects the body
A new study that my colleagues and I published in the New England Journal of Medicine on July 17, 2024, shows that the risk of long COVID declined over the course of the pandemic. In 2020, when the ancestral strain of SARS-CoV-2 was dominant and vaccines were not available, about 10.4% of adults who got COVID-19 developed long COVID. By early 2022, when the omicron family of variants predominated, that rate declined to 7.7% among unvaccinated adults and 3.5% of vaccinated adults. In other words, unvaccinated people were more than twice as likely to develop long COVID.
While researchers like me do not yet have concrete numbers for the current rate in mid-2024 due to the time it takes for long COVID cases to be reflected in the data, the flow of new patients into long COVID clinics has been on par with 2022.
We found that the decline was the result of two key drivers: availability of vaccines and changes in the characteristics of the virus – which made the virus less prone to cause severe acute infections and may have reduced its ability to persist in the human body long enough to cause chronic disease.
Despite the decline in risk of developing long COVID, even a 3.5% risk is substantial. New and repeat COVID-19 infections translate into millions of new long COVID cases that add to an already staggering number of people suffering from this condition.
Estimates for the first year of the pandemic suggests that at least 65 million people globally have had long COVID. Along with a group of other leading scientists, my team will soon publish updated estimates of the global burden of long COVID and its impact on the global economy through 2023.
In addition, a major new report by the National Academies of Sciences Engineering and Medicine details all the health effects that constitute long COVID. The report was commissioned by the Social Security Administration to understand the implications of long COVID on its disability benefits.
It concludes that long COVID is a complex chronic condition that can result in more than 200 health effects across multiple body systems. These include new onset or worsening:
post-exertional malaise, a state of severe exhaustion that may happen after even minor activity — often leaving the patient unable to function for hours, days or weeks
Long COVID can affect people across the lifespan from children to older adults and across race and ethnicity and baseline health status. Importantly, more than 90% of people with long COVID had mild COVID-19 infections.
The National Academies report also concluded that long COVID can result in the inability to return to work or school; poor quality of life; diminished ability to perform activities of daily living; and decreased physical and cognitive function for months or years after the initial infection.
The report points out that many health effects of long COVID, such as post-exertional malaise and chronic fatigue, cognitive impairment and autonomic dysfunction, are not currently captured in the Social Security Administration’s Listing of Impairments, yet may significantly affect an individual’s ability to participate in work or school.
A long road ahead
What’s more, health problems resulting from COVID-19 can last years after the initial infection.
Such findings parallel other research showing that the virus persists in various organ systems for months or years after COVID-19 infection. And research is showing that immune responses to the infection are still evident two to three years after a mild infection. Together, these studies may explain why a SARS-CoV-2 infection years ago could still cause new health problems long after the initial infection.
Important progress is also being made in understanding the pathways by which long COVID wreaks havoc on the body. Two preliminary studies from the U.S. and the Netherlands show that when researchers transfer auto-antibodies – antibodies generated by a person’s immune system that are directed at their own tissues and organs – from people with long COVID into healthy mice, the animals start to experience long COVID-like symptoms such as muscle weakness and poor balance.
These studies suggest that an abnormal immune response thought to be responsible for the generation of these auto-antibodies may underlie long COVID and that removing these auto-antibodies may hold promise as potential treatments.
An ongoing threat
Despite overwhelming evidence of the wide-ranging risks of COVID-19, a great deal of messaging suggests that it is no longer a threat to the public. Although there is no empirical evidence to back this up, this misinformation has permeated the public narrative.
The Nutrition Facts label, that black and white information box found on nearly every packaged food product in the U.S. since 1994, has recently become an icon for consumer transparency.
From Apple’s “Privacy Nutrition Labels” that disclose how smartphone apps handle user data, to a “Garment Facts” label that standardizes ethical disclosures on clothing, policy advocates across industries invoke “Nutrition Facts” as a model for empowering consumers and enabling socially responsible markets. They argue that intuitive information fixes could solve a wide range of market-driven social ills.
Yet this familiar, everyday product label actually has a complicated legacy.
I study food regulation and diet culture and became interested in the Nutrition Facts label while researching the history of Food and Drug Administration policies on food standards and labeling. In 1990, Congress passed the Nutrition Labeling and Education Act, mandating nutrition labels on all packaged foods to help address growing concerns about rising rates of chronic illnesses linked to unhealthy diets. The FDA introduced its “Nutrition Facts” panel in 1993 as a public health tool that empowered consumers to make healthier choices.
The most obvious purpose of the Nutrition Facts label is for consumers to learn the nutritional properties of a food. In practice, however, this label has done much more than simply inform shoppers. It also encodes a wide range of political and technical compromises about how to translate food into nutrients that meet the diverse needs of the American public.
Where do “% Daily Values” come from?
The daily value, or DV, percentages on the label don’t all come from the same source. This is a reflection of differing public health targets for the label.
Recommended values for micronutrients like vitamins are based on Recommended Dietary Allowances, or RDAs, from the National Academies of Sciences Engineering and Medicine. Vitamin RDAs were developed out of historical concerns with undernourishment and meeting minimum needs.
DVs reflect two fundamentally different causes for concern. The numbers for micronutrients represent a floor: the basic minimum vitamin needs a child should meet to avoid malnutrition. The numbers for macronutrients, on the other hand, are a ceiling: a target maximum limit that adults should avoid surpassing if they want to prevent future health problems caused by eating too much high sodium or fatty food.
Why 2,000 calories?
The FDA almost used 2,350 calories as the baseline for calculating daily values, because it was the recommended population-adjusted average caloric need for Americans ages four and older. But after pushback from health groups concerned the higher baseline would encourage overconsumption, the FDA settled on 2,000 calories.
FDA officials felt this figure was less likely to be “misconstrued as an individualized goal since a round number has less implied specificity.” This means 2,000 calories is not actually a target for most American consumers reading the label. Instead, it is an example of the public health preoccupation with collective risk – what one scientist called “treating sick populations not sick individuals.”
By choosing a round number that was easy to do math with, and a calorie count below the average American’s, FDA officials were favoring practicality and utility over accuracy and objectivity. Advocating for the lower 2,000 calorie baseline, they reasoned, would offset Americans’ tendency to overeat and do more good than harm for the population overall.
Who determines serving sizes?
According to the Nutrition Labeling and Education Act of 1990, serving sizes should reflect “an amount customarily used.”
In practice, this involves routine negotiations between the FDA, U.S. Department of Agriculture – which also sets serving sizes for dietary guidance tools like the MyPlate – and food manufacturers. Each conducts research on consumer expectations and food consumption data, taking into consideration how a food is prepared and “typically eaten.”
Serving sizes are also determined by product packaging. For example, a soda can is generally considered a single-serving container and therefore just one serving, regardless of how many fluid ounces it contains.
What’s in a name?
The label was almost called “Nutrition Values” or “Nutrition Guide” to highlight that Daily Values were recommendations. Then FDA Deputy Commissioner Mike Taylor proposed “Nutrition Facts” to sound more legally neutral and scientifically objective.
The new design – a staid, black Helvetica text against a white background, using indented subgroups and hairlines for readability – and the authoritative boldface title helped establish “Nutrition Facts” as an easily recognized government brand.
The Nutrition Facts panel has remained largely consistent since the 1990s, despite some updates like adding lines for trans fats in 2002 and for added sugars in 2016 to reflect evolving public health priorities.
New ways to calculate the facts
Establishing the Nutrition Facts label required building an entirely new technical infrastructure for nutrition information. Translating the diverse American diet into a consistent set of standardized nutrients necessitated new measures, testing procedures and standard references.
A key player in developing that technical infrastructure was the Association of Official Analytical Chemists. In the early 1990s, an AOAC Task Force developed a food triangle matrix dividing foods into categories based on their proportions of carbs, fats and protein. The intention was to determine appropriate ways to measure nutritional properties like the amount of calories or sugars, as the food’s physical properties would affect how well each test worked.
Legacy of the Nutrition Facts label
Today, public-private collaborations have taken this translation of foods into simplified nutrient profiles further by making nutrition facts plug-and-play. The USDA FoodData Central provides a comprehensive database of nutrient profiles for individual ingredients that manufacturers use to calculate Nutrition Facts for new packaged foods. This database also powers many diet and nutrition apps.
The analytic tools developed for the Nutrition Facts label helped create the basic information infrastructure for today’s digital diet platforms. But critics argue these databases reinforce an overly reductionist view of food as simply the sum of its nutrients, ignoring how the different forms a food takes – such as its moisture, fibrous materials or porous structures – affect the way the body metabolizes nutrients.
Indeed, many nutrition researchers concerned about the negative health effects of ultra-processed foods now talk of a food matrix to emphasize precisely the opposite of what the AOAC sought with its food triangle: a need for a holistic understanding of how food shapes health.
Surprisingly, the Nutrition Facts label’s greatest impact may have been driving the food industry to reformulate products to achieve appealing nutrient profiles – even if consumers weren’t closely reading the labels. While envisioned as an education tool, I believe the Nutrition Facts label in practice has worked more like a market infrastructure, reshaping the food supply to meet shifting dietary trends and public health goals long before consumers find those foods at the supermarket.