A study to be presented at the American Stroke Association's upcoming annual meeting found that older adults with the eye disease retinopathy were at higher risk of dementia and stroke and may die sooner than people their age without the disease, reports WebMD . The investigators determined that people with symptoms of retinopathy were twice as likely to report a history of stroke than those with no evidence of the disease. They also were 70 percent more likely to report memory problems, a potential sign of dementia. Moreover, people with the most severe retinopathy had a two- to three-fold higher risk of dying. Mayo Clinic Professor Michelle Lin advised people with retinopathy to work with their physician to get control of their risk factors for cardiovascular disease, like high blood pressure and high cholesterol.

Auburn University's Harrison School of Pharmacy is organizing an effort to provide care packages to residents in assisted living communities in Lee County, Ala., reports the Auburn Plainsman . The effort had raised $11,665 of the school's $7,000 goal on Tiger Giving Day late last year. The objective is to arrange 300 packages, with each package costing $25. Packages will carry essential supplies like pillboxes, toiletries, and hand sanitizer, as well as other non-essential items such as stress balls, activity books, and treats. Harrison School of Pharmacy Professor Jeanna Sewell said the school wants to pack these packages to help residents feel more connected, while their interpersonal connection outside of the communities is limited on account of health issues. Sewell added that "the primary purpose of providing these packaging is letting the residents of these assisted living communities know that we are thinking about them."

Target and CVS announced a partnership Wednesday in which CVS will administer the COVID-19 vaccine at CVS pharmacies in Target stores in more than 600 locations in the United States, reports KXAN-TV . The vaccine will be for both Target and CVS customers, as well as for workers. "We'll continue to partner with CVS closely as they administer the vaccine while following state and federal guidelines," Target announced. "We're also making fitting rooms available to CVS at select stores to host appointments." Persons who want to get a vaccine at a CVS store inside Target will still have to visit CVS.com to check their eligibility and look for a nearby participating location. Target also intends to contribute to public vaccine education efforts, including the Health Action Alliance and the Ad Council's latest campaign to reach communities of color.

President Biden urged U.S. states to extend COVID-19 vaccine eligibility to all adults by May 1, reports the Wall Street Journal . "If we do this together, by July the Fourth, there's a good chance you, your families, and friends will be able to get together in your backyard or in your neighborhood and have a cookout or a barbecue and celebrate Independence Day," he declared during a Thursday night address. The president on the same day signed into law a $1.9 trillion COVID-19 relief package. Biden stressed that whether Americans will be able to congregate in small groups by early July depends on the vaccination effort's success. "I will not relent until we beat this virus, but I need you, the American people," he emphasized. "There is hope and light and better days ahead, if we all do our part." Although the White House has let states dictate who is prioritized for vaccination for the most part, a Department of Health and Human Services spokesperson said the administration has "full authority" to authorize that vaccines supplied to states by the federal government be distributed in accordance with its guidelines.

The Biden administration on Wednesday issued revised guidelines for nursing community visits during the pandemic, allowing guests to go inside to visit residents, whether they or the residents have been vaccinated or not, reports the New York Times . This is the first revision to the federal government's nursing community guidance since September, and it was published as over 3 million vaccine doses have been administered in communities, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Chief Medical Officer Lee Fleisher said the new recommendations are based on the millions of vaccines administered to residents and staff of these care communities, along with decreasing infections. However, the guidance does recommend certain limits, with "responsible indoor visitation" permitted at all times unless a guest is visiting an unvaccinated resident in a county where the COVID-19 positivity rate is higher than 10 percent, and less than 70 percent of residents in the community have been fully vaccinated. The guidance also recommends limiting visits if residents have the virus or are in quarantine. Federal officials also said outdoor visits were still preferable due to a lower risk of transmission, even when residents and guests have been fully inoculated.

Residents at a senior living community in Virginia Beach, Va., celebrated their vaccination against COVID-19 by beating a piñata in the shape of the coronavirus, reports FOX 10 . The Westminster-Canterbury on the Chesapeake Bay held a party shortly after its campus reached herd immunity when 99 percent of its more than 700 residents were fully immunized. Residents spent most of the past year isolated due to strict pandemic protocols, some of which remain in place. For example, residents can have visitors, but dining services remain limited to residents only. "We're still wearing masks on campus, but their loved ones are able to come and visit them, and they're able to hug their loved ones," Director of Public Relations Ashley Allman said. Nevertheless, she added, "There were no shortages of residents who were ready to take a bat and take a swing at the COVID piñata."

Two national surveys in the Alzheimer's Association 2021 Alzheimer's Disease Facts and Figures Report indicate that people believe or have experienced racial discrimination in access care for dementia and Alzheimer's disease, reports WXII 12 . Thirty-six percent of Black Americans, 18 percent of Hispanic Americans, and 19 percent of Asian Americans consider discrimination a barrier to receiving care for Alzheimer's. Meanwhile, more than half of nonwhite caregivers reported experiencing discrimination when navigating healthcare environments for care recipients. These findings are particularly serious in consideration of projected trends in North Carolina, with 210,000 state residents expected to be living with Alzheimer's and 358,000 North Carolinians serving as unpaid family caregivers in 2025. "We must continue to work toward advancing new treatments that can stop or slow the progression of Alzheimer's, while also continuing to provide care and support services to help all those affected," emphasized Katherine L. Lambert with the Alzheimer's Association's Western Carolina Chapter.

AARP reports that a disproportionate number of older Americans pushed out of the workforce by the pandemic and recession are taking earlier retirement. "Older workers, millions of them, are going to be downwardly mobile from the comforts of middle-class life," said The New School's Teresa Ghilarducci. The Center for Retirement Research at Boston College found that older Americans are more likely than mid-career workers to be out of work now, while a poll from the National Institute for Retirement Security said more than a quarter of all workers say COVID-19 has driven them to move up their retirement date. The New School's Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis estimates that nearly 2 million older workers have left the labor force permanently since the pandemic began, which means the number of older workers still employed is down by about 5 percent, versus less than 2 percent for workers ages 35 to 54. The most affected group is lower-income older workers. Unemployment for those with lower-paying jobs and for Black, Hispanic, and Asian older workers has been more than twice that of higher-income older workers during the crisis.

President Biden on Wednesday said the federal government is purchasing another 100 million COVID-19 vaccine doses from Johnson & Johnson (J&J) to guarantee "maximum flexibility" in ending the pandemic, reports the New York Post . He said this is being done to prepare for unexpected challenges. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated that almost 19 percent of the U.S. population has received at least one vaccine dose, and about 10 percent are fully vaccinated. The nation has already ordered 300 million doses each from Pfizer and Moderna — enough to inoculate 300 million people — in addition to 100 million doses of the J&J vaccine. Biden said the U.S. will eventually help other nations with vaccine distribution if the domestic vaccine supply exceeds demand. "We're not going to be ultimately safe until the world is safe," he declared.

The University of Michigan's latest National Poll on Healthy Aging has found that 71 percent of Americans 50 to 80 years old are ready to get vaccinated for COVID-19 when a dose becomes available, or that they had already been immunized, reports HealthDay News . This is up from 58 percent last October, and poll director Preeti Malani said these findings are "incredibly encouraging, given the amount of hesitancy we saw in our poll from late fall." Boosts in vaccine receptiveness were especially high among people at greater risk of severe COVID-19, including Black and Hispanic Americans, and people in fair or poor health. A 20-point spike was observed in the percentage of Black respondents who said they would likely get vaccinated between October and January, along with an 18-point increase among Hispanics, and a 9-point gain among whites. An 11-point increase also was noted among respondents who called their health fair or poor, including many with chronic ailments that can increase their risk of serious COVID-19 illness. Yet they remained less likely to want to get inoculated than those in better health. As with the October poll, the new poll indicated that older adults with higher household incomes or more education were more likely to say they would get vaccinated.