Health

The COVID-19 mitigation efforts that Gov. Tom Wolf ordered on Dec. 12 will be lifted as scheduled on Jan. 4, the governor said today. Those restrictions — the 10-person indoor and 25-person outdoor gathering limits, the bans on indoor dining, gyms, bars, entertainment facilities, and extra-curricular activities — will be gone as of 8 a.m. Monday. Wolf said those mitigation efforts “did what they were…

Chester County Health Department issued a set of quarantine guidelines that are in effect today, Dec. 14. Currently, individuals who are in close contact with individuals with COVID-19 or have traveled and not received a negative test result must quarantine. The use and adherence to quarantine requirements continues to be a strong public health measure to mitigate COVID-19, the department said in a press release.…

The challenge of balancing the I and the We has been with us for thousands of years. The philosopher Plato grappled with it in terms of the “one” versus the “many.” Psychotherapists, with an eye to family dynamics, see the dance of the I and the We played out in the lives of their clients. There is little distance from the philosophical to the psychotherapeutic…

COVID-19 has transformed the lives of all of us, whether we are in denial of its lethality and contagion or not. The most recent American Psychological Association bulletin, Monitor on Psychology, also looks at how, not only COVID-19, but other events of 2020 have transformed psychology — and all of us. Ironic how the year 2020 has been quite the re-envisioning of America. The APA…

The Garnet Valley School District is reporting a case of COVID-19 at the high school. District Superintendent Marc Bertrando sent a letter this morning that the Chester County Health Department was notified. Chester County is taking the lead in COVID matters because Delaware County does not have its own health department. Middle and high school students in the district began the school year online and…

My granddaughter has been asking me a lot of questions about the past lately. Now that this 4-and-a-half-year-old has been home with me rather than in daycare, we have a lot of time together. She loves to tell and draw stories, but she also wants to hear real-life stories about her mother as a child, and even about me, her grandmother as a child. If…

Most of us would agree that these are very stressful times. However, how we respond to stress is up to us. One aspect of our lives that we need to attend to, in tense times, is our sleep. There is a two-way street between stress and sleep. While stress can negatively affect our sleep patterns, our sleep patterns themselves can exacerbate stress. The American Psychological…

Americans across the political spectrum may be more in tune with each other than they realize. Even though measures taken to handle the spread of the Coronavirus have been politicized, a recent survey conducted by the Harris Poll for the American Psychological Association shows that there is consensus among Republicans and Democrats about prevention measures to mitigate the spread of Covid-19. Mask wearing and social…

The Chester County Coroner’s Office is releasing data on drug overdose deaths in Chester County from Jan. 1, through June 30. A total of 58 deaths have been confirmed to be due to an accidental drug overdose. This is fewer than the 68 overdose deaths reported mid-way through 2019, but the Coroner’s Office cautioned that it is not possible to accurately predict a total for…