A U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) news release warns of cons that take advantage of the coronavirus to exploit older adults, reports the Virginia Gazette . DOJ said scammers have set up websites, called and e-mailed targets, and posted false information on social media websites. The scams include fake treatments for COVID-19; stealing money from people for household essentials or face masks through fake online stores; calling and demanding money for treating friends and family for the virus; calling/e-mailing to solicit donations as part of fraudulent relief schemes; sending phishing e-mails to download malware or obtain a person's financial data; persuading people to download smartphone apps that download malware to steal personal information; and offering investment advice and so-called research on the effects of COVID-19 on the economy and the stock market. Scammers will frequently try to create false urgency and push people into making irrational decisions. DOJ recommends that if something sounds too good to be true, it likely is. Consumers who do not know who they are talking to should hang up, and are advised not to click on links in e-mails. They also should conduct research on whatever service or product is being offered to ensure its legitimacy. DOJ also is adamant that no company or government agency will ever ask consumers to pay for a service with gift cards.

Research from the University of Birmingham in the FASEB Journal has identified a key mechanism that drives the purging of damaged mitochondria, which could lead to new drug therapies to help older adults maintain their skeletal muscle mass and physical function for longer, reports EurekAlert . A tool that uses fluorescent tags to study mitochondria in muscle cells was used to determine that activating a master energy sensor molecule, called AMP-activated protein kinase (AMPK), helps stimulate mitochondrial breakdown. This implies that other established AMPK activators, such as exercise, may stimulate the clearance of damaged mitochondria, thus keeping mitochondria in muscle healthy and extending older people's physical capabilities. "Many studies . . . demonstrate that AMPK activation in muscle elicits many beneficial effects for treating type 2 diabetes," said Birmingham's Yu-Chiang Lai. "As a consequence, many pharmaceutical companies are currently working to develop pre-clinical compounds that activate AMPK. We hope that our new discovery will accelerate targeted drug development to help identify new and safe compounds to activate this key molecule in muscle."

The University of North Carolina's (UNC's) Phone-A-Friend program connects student volunteers with seniors in retirement communities for 30-minute daily phone calls, to help salve their loneliness during the COVID-19 quarantine, reports the Daily Tar Heel . Program founder and UNC PharmD candidate Diana Lee said she has reached out to senior living communities in Chapel Hill, Raleigh, and Durham and enlisted 70 undergraduate and graduate volunteers. "I thought it would be nice if we could just talk to somebody, and it would be nice to talk to somebody who is feeling more isolated than I am," she said. MBA student Alex Brandwein envisions Phone-A-Friend as a learning opportunity. "Whatever nuggets that I can pick up from older adults that I can absorb, learn from, and gain from their experiences is really valuable in the long-term," he remarked. UNC senior Mary McCall Leland explained that the collective sense of grief on the sudden pandemic lifestyle changes makes the need for connection even stronger. "Hopefully . . . this could change some people's mindsets from thinking about the future to thinking about today — because that's all we really have," she noted.

An 18-year study in Neurocase of the mind of a Buddhist monk by the University of Wisconsin-Madison's Center for Healthy Minds found daily, intensive meditation slowed brain aging by up to eight years compared to controls, reports CNN . Center director Richard Davidson and lead scientist Nagesh Adluru examined the mind of Tibetan Buddhist meditation master Yongey Mingyur Rinpoche using magnetic resonance imaging and a machine learning framework to calculate "brain age." Rinpoche was scanned four times, at the ages of 27, 30, 32, and 41 years old. At the time of the last scan, his brain was estimated to be 33 — eight years younger than his biological age. Comparison of Rinpoche's brain to a control group showed that his brain seemed to age much slower than the general focus group. "If these effects accumulate over time, we think there will be very important health and well-being implications," Davidson said.

Oklahoma police departments are offering to pick up medications and other necessities for senior citizens or people who cannot leave their homes due to the COVID-19 epidemic, reports KFOR . Police in the town of McLoud are offering to get medicine, groceries, or anything else a senior or someone who is immunocompromised may require. "If you've got parents that live in our community or any other community, reach out to the police department to go by and do a welfare check, check on them, see if they need anything," advised McLoud Police Chief Wes Elliott. He explained that "we're intertwined with our community . . . as other agencies are. We just want them to know that we're there to serve them." The Blanchard police are taking similar steps, with their Facebook page announcing that "Operation HABS is being initiated . . . in response to the shut down of some city services, one of them being the senior citizen's center." Through the HABS (Helping All Blanchard Seniors) program, the police said they will "conduct regular welfare checks on senior citizens who are not able to get out and about, and . . . assist the Blanchard Senior Citizen's Center with delivery of food, as well as picking of provisions like groceries and delivering them to homebound citizens." Lisa Standridge with Blanchard Drug and Gift also has volunteered to deliver medications to homebound seniors.

A Kaiser Health News analysis estimates that over half of U.S. counties lack intensive care unit (ICU) beds, potentially jeopardizing more than 7 million older Americans who face the highest risk of serious illness or death from COVID-19. Numbers of ICU beds even in communities that have them vary wildly — some only have one bed available for thousands of senior residents, for example. Even counties listed in the top 10 percent for ICU bed count still have up to 450 older people potentially vying for every bed. "This is just another example of geography determining access to healthcare," said New York University Langone Medical Center Professor Arthur Caplan. In general, 18 million people live in counties that have hospitals but no ICU, and about 25 percent are 60 or older; almost 11 million more live in counties with no hospital, with roughly 2.7 million seniors. Washington University School of Medicine Professor Karen Joynt Maddox said hospitals with greater density of ICU beds usually concentrate in higher-income areas where many patients have private health insurance. University of Maine Center on Aging Director Lenard Kaye is worried that the pandemic will put older Americans at great risk due to a widespread lack of ICU beds. He suggested that healthcare workers may have resort to "triaging and tough decisions on who beds are allocated to."

The loss of sense of smell and taste are now considered unique symptoms of COVID-19 and potential biomarkers of coronavirus infection, reports the New York Times . U.K. ear, nose, and throat doctors on Friday recommended that adults who lose their sense of smell should quarantine themselves for a week, and urged healthcare workers to use personal protective equipment when treating anyone who has lost their sense of smell. They also advised against nonessential sinus endoscopy procedures, as the virus replicates in the nose and the throat and an exam can cause coughs or sneezes that expose the doctor to a high level of possible infection. The British physicians cited reports from other countries indicating that significant numbers of persons with coronavirus experienced anosmia (loss of smell). On Sunday, the American Academy of Otolaryngology posted information online that mounting anecdotal evidence suggests that lost or reduced sense of smell and loss of taste are associated with COVID-19 and have been exhibited in people who ultimately tested positive for the virus with no other symptoms.

Politico Pro is reporting that the FDA has given emergency authorization for a rapid point-of-care coronavirus test that can deliver results in 45 minutes instead of hours. This test could prove to be an important development for hospitals that have struggled so far to get timely results from the coronavirus tests currently in use. The existing tests depend on real-time polymerase chain reaction, a technique that can take several hours to run. By comparison, many point-of-care tests — for such conditions as flu or strep infection — can be processed quickly at a physician's office. The point-of-care coronavirus test, which is being manufactured by Cepheid, runs on the company's GeneXpert System. "An accurate test delivered close to the patient can be transformative — and help alleviate the pressure that the emergence of the outbreak has put on healthcare facilities that need to properly allocate their respiratory isolation resources," remarks David Persing, Cepheid's chief medical and technology officer.

A recent Palm Beach symposium by the Alzheimer's Drug Discovery Foundation (ADDF) highlighted the promise that startups offer far better treatment and hopefully a cure for Alzheimer's disease, reports the Palm Beach Post . ADDF Founding Executive Director Howard Fillit and Cornell University's Ronald Crystal led the symposium. Fillit said Alzheimer's research has been hobbled by a lack of understanding, and ADDF is fully committed to funding research. The next major advance in research is expected to be the diagnostic accelerator, a device that uses a blood test to determine whether people as young as 40 could develop Alzheimer's. Crystal cited studies in Finland, Japan, and the United States indicating that reduced hypertension, a good diet, exercise, less drinking, and less smoking delay the onset of the disease — and prevention drugs are available. ADDF's high-risk, high-return funding approach is aimed at partnerships with venture capitalists like Bill Gates and aggressive startups, with the hope of finding a game-changing drug or treatment that will be more affordable and more effective than current medical procedures.

Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis has announced that state emergency managers are developing a contingency plan for Sumter County's massive The Villages retirement community, reports WUSF News . Lake and Sumter counties have had positive tests for coronavirus, and The Villages' aging population makes the community particularly vulnerable. The governor said the state, The Villages, and the University of Florida (UF) have partnered on a program to expand available testing for the virus. DeSantis envisions drive-thru testing will slightly differ from the setup in Broward County. "With the Broward thing, people kind of drive up their car, you do it," he said at a Wednesday press conference. "In The Villages, they're going to be driving up in their golf carts a popular mode of travel throughout this massive, master-planned community and they're going to be getting swabbed." A UF Health spokesperson said in-house testing at their medical centers, including those in Lake and Sumter counties, will accelerate coronavirus screening.