The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has updated guidance on its website to indicate that people who have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19 do not need to quarantine if exposed to the coronavirus, reports NBC News . The agency said quarantining is unnecessary for fully vaccinated people within three months of having received their last shots, provided they do not develop any symptoms. "Fully vaccinated" means that at least two weeks have passed since a person has received the second shot of a two-dose vaccine or one shot of a single-dose vaccine. The CDC said the risk that fully vaccinated people could spread the virus to others is "still uncertain," but "vaccination has been demonstrated to prevent symptomatic COVID-19." The updated guidance lines up with these earlier recommendations.

This year due to COVID-19, Cupid Crew volunteers organized by Wish of a Lifetime from AARP are sending cards for Valentine's Day instead of the roses and other gifts they usually deliver to seniors who live alone or in assisted living communities, reports the Today Show . To help in this regard, the organization partnered with the Girl Scouts to get even more cards in the hands of seniors. Cupid Crew participants Laura Larson and her family are dedicated volunteers, and the Today Show teamed up with sponsor Planters to recognize their contributions. Larson received surprise Valentine's Day gifts herself, including flowers, chocolates, and balloons. Every resident of RiverPointe Senior Living of Littleton, Colo., also will receive special Valentine's Day gifts in Larson's honor. Planters is additionally donating $20,000 to Wish of a Lifetime from AARP to help continue the Cupid Crew's efforts.

Research indicates that patients with neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's have less glucose metabolism in their brains, which the Mayo Clinic's Eugenia Trushina thinks stems from defective mitochondria, reports Being Patient . She suggested that low glucose metabolism in the brains of asymptomatic people could be an early indicator of Alzheimer's disease. A study in Communications Biology determined that targeting mitochondria with small CP2 molecules induces an adaptive stress response in mice, triggering multiple neuroprotective mechanisms and mildly decreasing Mitochondrial Complex I. "We have shown that not only did we protect memory and improve overall health, but we also blocked neurodegeneration, which is the most important thing, because a loss of neurons actually accounts for the loss of memory in Alzheimer's," Trushina said. Another study in the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease revealed that using small molecules identified by Trushina's team to fight Mitochondrial Complex I helped restore brain function lost to tau tangles. The researchers believe investigating these mitochondrial biomarkers in humans will yield insights on how this future treatment may create new opportunities for Alzheimer's therapy.

U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) officials are urging Americans to keep their masks on, and tighten them or wear two masks to reduce the spread of COVID-19, reports the New York Times . Lab experiments found that viral transmission could be slashed by 96.5 percent if Americans wore snug surgical masks or a combination of cloth and surgical masks. "The bottom line is this: masks work, and they work when they have a good fit and are worn correctly," said CDC Director Rochelle P. Walensky. Although masks reduce the respiratory droplets and aerosols exhaled by infected wearers and protect uninfected wearers, air leaking around the covering's edges can reduce its efficacy. To mitigate this, the CDC recommended wearing a cloth mask over a surgical mask, or fitting the surgical mask more tightly on the face by "knotting and tucking." Until most adults are immunized, "we want to tamp this down," said Vanderbilt University's William Schaffner, adding that masks can help avoid another catastrophic "roller coaster."

ABC News reports that the World Health Organization's (WHO) Strategic Advisory Group of Experts (SAGE) recommended the AstraZeneca COVID-19 vaccine for adults 65 years old and older. Large clinical trials did not include enough people in this age group to reach statistically meaningful conclusions, but SAGE researchers are "very confident" the vaccine will work in this demographic, according to their review of a more limited dataset in conjunction with data from all age groups. SAGE determined that vaccine may effectively prevent severe disease from COVID-19, as well as hospitalizations and death. The panel also supports Britain's policy of administering doses eight to 12 weeks apart, saying the vaccine works better when there is a longer interval between shots. A major issue about AstraZeneca's vaccine is whether it works against virus variants, after data from a small preliminary trial suggested it might offer only minimal protection against mild-moderate infections from a mutation circulating in South Africa. Yet SAGE said any protection against the variant "is better than none." Kate O'Brien, director of the WHO's immunization, vaccines, and biologicals department, argued that "it's still the right thing to do to immunize older adults with a low-efficacy vaccine, because of the high risk of severe disease and mortality in that age group."

CNN Business reports that Australian startup PainChek has designed an application that analyzes faces to assess and score pain levels, which could help people with dementia. "It's very difficult for humans to decode the emotions of the person's face," said PainChek's Business Development Director Peter Shergill. "So the tool applies artificial intelligence and algorithms to decode the face based on decades of research." A caregiver records a short video of a person's face using a smartphone, and answers questions about their behavior, movements, and speech. The app identifies facial muscle movements associated with pain, and integrates this with the caregiver's observations to calculate a pain score. PainChek claims the app detects pain with more than 90 percent accuracy, and more than 180,000 pain evaluations have been conducted worldwide on over 66,000 people. PainChek was engineered for use with seniors needing care, and a 2017 validation study in the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease found the app provided reliable evidence of pain. U.K.-based residential home owner Paul Rowley said "people with dementia have difficulty communicating and they can't necessarily articulate what they are feeling, so that often leaves the carer having to interpret their feelings," adding that PainChek helps caregivers quickly determine whether somebody is in pain.

A new survey from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found about one in three Americans said they definitely or probably will not get immunized for COVID-19, reports the Baltimore Sun . Although 67 percent of 1,055 adults polled plan to get vaccinated or have already done so, 15 percent are certain they will not, while 17 percent said they probably will not. Many respondents doubt the vaccine's safety and effectiveness, particularly younger people, those lacking college degrees, African Americans, and Republicans. Of respondents who said they definitely will not get the vaccine, 65 percent mentioned concerns about side effects, despite the shots' safety record over the past months. About the same number said they do not trust the vaccines, while 38 percent do not believe they need one. A similar percentage said they do not know if a COVID-19 vaccine will work, and they do not trust the government. According to leading U.S. government infectious disease researcher Anthony Fauci, between 70 percent and 85 percent of the national population needs to get vaccinated to stop the pandemic, while the spread of more contagious mutations of the virus adds urgency to rapid mass inoculations. Harvard University's William Hanage said 67 percent U.S. immunization is not sufficient to halt the pandemic, adding "you're going to need to get quite large proportions of the population vaccinated before you see a real effect."

WLWT 5 reports that local families recently built snowmen outside an assisted living community in Hamilton, Ohio, to bring a little cheer to residents locked in by the pandemic. Ashley Durbrow said she and her son were inspired by a Facebook post from an employee of The Woodlands of Hamilton community, who noted that many residents have not been able to see their loved ones because of COVID-19. The staffer invited anyone in the area to build snowmen outside of residents' windows and lift their spirits. The Woodlands of Hamilton posted photos of residents enjoying the snowmen and smiling faces from their windows, stating, "Thank you to all who brought their kids to build snowmen for our residents. They absolutely loved seeing them play in the snow."

A study in Alzheimer's & Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer's Association found the risk for contracting COVID-19 is twice as high for persons with dementia than for those without it, reports USA Today . Furthermore, while the overall hospitalization risk during the study was about 25 percent, it was more than twofold for COVID-19 patients with dementia (59 percent). Although overall mortality risk was roughly 5 percent, about 20 percent of patients with dementia died. "Patients with dementia are more vulnerable both to acquire COVID infection and also do much worse with it when they do have it," said Case Western Reserve University Professor Pamela Davis. Moreover, the risk of COVID-19 infection among Black patients with dementia was heightened nearly threefold compared to white patients. Seventy-three percent of Black patients with dementia were hospitalized during the study versus about 53 percent of whites, while 23 percent of Black patients died compared to 19 percent of white patients. North Carolina Central University Professor Brittany Baker suspects that Black people with dementia may be at greater risk of contracting COVID-19 from their adult caregivers. She added that more education and transparency is needed to surmount rational distrust in the medical system after centuries of institutionalized racial discrimination.

New research in the Journal of General Internal Medicine suggests poor rural patients with Alzheimer's disease may lack access to experts who could identify the first signs of memory declines, reports Medical Xpress . The authors aimed to learn whether Medicare beneficiaries with Alzheimer's and related dementias were getting care from specialized geriatric providers, and whether there were socioeconomic disparities in care access. They used the Southern Community Cohort Study, which enrolled roughly 85,000 people, aged 40 to 79, in 12 southeastern U.S. states between 2002 and 2009. A predominantly low-income population was the source of data. The researchers tracked 10,380 participants who had turned 65 by 2016, of whom 1,295 had at least one Medicare claim indicating Alzheimer's disease and related disorders between 1999 and 2016. People with these conditions and incomes above $24,999 were more likely to have seen a geriatric specialist than those earning less than $15,000, while the chances of having at least one visit were lower for those in non-metropolitan areas. "When we're thinking about how to improve care for these populations, we really need to think about how we increase access for these lower socioeconomic groups," said University of Minnesota Professor and lead study author Sayeh Nikpay.