The homicide rate for older U.S. teenagers rose to its highest point in nearly 25 years during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the suicide rate for adults in their early 20s was the worst in more than 50 years, government researchers said Thursday.Video above: COVID-19 pandemic increases awareness about youth suicideThe Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report examined the homicide and suicide rates among 10- to 24-year-olds from 2001 to 2021.The increase is alarming and "reflects a mental health crisis among young people and a need for a number of policy changes," said Dr. Steven Woolf, a Virginia Commonwealth University researcher who studies U.S. death trends and wasn't involved in the CDC report.Experts cited several possible reasons for the increases, including higher rates of depression, limited availability of mental health services and the number of guns in U.S. homes.Guns were used in 54% of suicides and 93% of homicides among the age group in 2021, the most recent year for which statistics were available."Picture a teenager sitting in their bedroom feeling desperate and making a decision, impulsively, to take their own life," Woolf said. If they have access to a gun, "it's game over."Suicide and homicide were the second and third leading causes of death for 10- to 24-year-olds, after a category of accidental deaths that included motor vehicle crashes, falls, drownings and overdoses. Other researchers have grouped the data by the method of death and concluded that guns are now the biggest killer of U.S. children.Earlier this year, Woolf and other researchers looking at CDC data noted dramatic increases in child and adolescent death rates overall at the beginning of the pandemic and found suicide and homicide were essential factors.The report also found:Suicide and homicide death rates remained far higher for older teenagers and young adults than they were for 10- to 14-year-olds.In 2021, there were about 2,900 suicides in youths ages 10 to 19, and 4,200 in 20- to 24-year-olds. About 3,000 homicide deaths were reported in the younger group, and nearly 3,900 in the adults in their early 20s.The homicide death rate jumped from 8.9 deaths per 100,000 teens aged 15 to 19 in 2019 to 12.3 in 2020. It rose to 12.8 deaths per 100,000 in 2021, the highest since 1997, according to CDC data.Homicide deaths became more common than suicide deaths among 15- to 19-year-olds, while suicide was more common in the younger and older age groups.While large increases were seen in homicide rates for young Black and Hispanic people in the U.S., there were no significant increases for their white counterparts, other CDC data shows.Among 20- to 24-year-olds, the homicide death rate jumped 34% from 2019 to 2020 — from 13.4 per 100,000 population to 18 per 100,000. It held stable in 2021, but the suicide rate rose enough in 2021 — to 19.4 per 100,000 — to surpass the homicide rate.Suicide death rates in children and teens were rising before COVID-19, but they jumped up at the beginning of the pandemic. Dr. Madhukar Trivedi, a psychiatrist at the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center, said the reasons may be hard to pinpoint, but that isolation during COVID-19 lockdowns could be a factor."There is a misperception that if you talk to young people about depression, they'll get depressed. A don't-ask, don't-tell policy for depression is not effective," Trivedi said. "The earlier we can identify the ones who need help, the better chance we'll have at saving lives."

Brad Stolz cherishes every moment he has with his 92-year-old grandmother, Marion. She’s been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease.

“Bradley, I love him," Marion said. "The best grandson ever. Well, they're all good.”

Alzheimer's is a type of dementia that affects memory, thinking and behavior. Stolz says he tries to visit his grandmother whenever he gets the chance.

“Dementia gets a lot worse when they don't interact with people," Stolz said. "I saw that with another grandparent of mine where he was very isolated just because of the circumstances and kind of where he ended up being later in life. And he declined very quickly.”

Social isolation among older people was already a problem before the pandemic. COVID-19 has only made the situation worse.

Farhana Ferdous, who is an assistant professor at Howard University, recently released a report that analyzes the impact of COVID-19-related social distancing requirements on older adults living in long-term care facilities.

“There has been a growing body of research about the social isolation and how it is associated with anxiety, depression and faster cognitive decline,” Ferdous said.

She calls social isolation a public health threat that increases a person’s risk for dementia by 40%. Jim Herlihy with the Alzheimer’s Association of Colorado says a person's quality of life is significantly better when those with dementia have social interaction.

“The people who have been isolated, we've heard from their loved ones who said, ‘I've seen my mom or my dad decline faster than I've ever seen them,'" Herlihy said. "And it becomes a spiral.”

That’s one reason why Memories in the Making was created. Herlihy says Memories in the Making is designed to help people with dementia recreate memories through watercolor painting.

“Drawing and art taps into parts of the brain that are still more active than maybe the verbal centers and gives people a chance to tap into memories and express themselves and give them a way to communicate,” Herlihy said.

Kelly Nixon has led the class as an administrator at her facility for six years.

“Once they start that process of painting something, you can generally pull a memory from what they're painting,” Nixon said.

Although the classes were put on hold in the thick of the pandemic, Nixon says she continued with one-on-one sessions.

“But a one-on-one isn't the same as them being together," Nixon said. "Being with each other is really what it's all about to get those memories and to share those memories with everybody.”

Nixon says she loves seeing friendships build through the class.

“You can really see the anxiety lift off of people by being around people that are of that same mindset,” Nixon said.

"The social aspect, I think, definitely helps to keep her sharp and keep her engaged on a day-to-day basis,” Stolz said.

Because of his past experience with his grandfather, Stolz says his family didn’t let the pandemic keep them from visiting Marion. He says he’s happy to see his grandmother is in good hands.

“I was thrilled when I got here to see that she, not only is she, you know, being a part of it, but she's actually enjoying herself and, you know, enjoying the conversation and sort of putting some of her thoughts and ideas on paper,” Stolz said.

 

OTTAWA, Canada — Canada’s Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, tested positive for COVID-19.

He made the announcement on Twitter on Monday.

He wrote, “This morning, I tested positive for COVID-19. I’m feeling fine – and I’ll continue to work remotely this week while following public health guidelines.”

Trudeau encouraged everyone to get vaccinated and boosted.

The news comes after one of the Prime Minister’s children had tested positive for Covid on Friday.

Trudeau has been in isolation since Thursday.

He told The Canadian Press Friday that he felt fine and had no symptoms.

He had tested negative that day.

Trudeau and his family have been quarantined in an undisclosed location since Saturday, following anti-vaccine mandate protests in Ottawa.

WESTCHESTER COUNTY, NY — For the better part of two years, there have been countless seniors across this country who are still too afraid to leave the house for fear of catching COVID-19.

One of those people is my 90-year-old grandmother, who we affectionally call, “Nanny.”

Her real name is Laura and she lives just outside of New York City in a single-story home that she first bought more than three decades ago with her second husband and the man, who I always knew as my grandfather. But after he passed away, it was just Nanny, living alone in her house filled with art, family pictures and relics of the past.

At 91, Nanny has never minded the loneliness that often comes with living by yourself, until the pandemic hit.

"I use to keep my suitcase by the door and packed. I was always ready to go. But I don’t go anywhere anymore. I’ve slept in this house every night for two years. I miss people," Nanny lamented as we sat and talked on her front porch recently.

Like other grandparents her age, Nanny is vaccinated, but with the recent surge in COIVD cases, she doesn’t want to risk getting sick with the virus.

"How do you know with old people that we might have some underlying condition we aren’t even aware of? Is that what’s holding you back? I just don’t think we have all the answers yet," she explained.

We’ve checked in with Nanny a few times during the pandemic. She’s kind of like our barometer, a measurement tool we’ve come to use to see how seniors in this country are holding up.

Last January, things weren’t great. But by the summer, Nanny was vaccinated and even started feeling comfortable enough to let people back inside her house.

But here we sat at the start of 2022, back outside on Nanny’s porch on a cold January morning. With COVID cases on the rise, she has retreated into isolation.

"One day is just like another day. Sometimes when I wake up I think, ‘What’s today?’ I don’t know what day it is," she added.

Amid all the isolation, though, there are still plenty of bright spots. Once a week on Sundays, Nanny walks across the street to church and sits in the very back so no one is around her.

"I have the same seat, nobody sits there, there’s nobody around me," she said.

And in December of 2021, there was another good day. After a great deal of pleading from her family, we convinced Nanny to let us celebrate her 91^st birthday indoors.

"I think about it all the time. It was so wonderful to be around all those people and talk to everyone," Nanny remarked.

For Nanny and so many other grandparents, though, there is the inevitable acceptance. At 91-years-old the pandemic will just be a piece of the rest of her life.

"I think it’s just always going to be here. And it’s, it’s upsetting because everybody’s lives are turned upside down," she added.

But while the days may run together a bit more than she’d like, Nanny is grateful that even on a cold January afternoon, she can still sit on her front porch and be hopeful about the future.

"I hope that it’ll get better and we can go back to the way it was."

Chris Conte is a National Correspondent for E.W. Scripps. He shares this story with his grandmother as part of a series of stories examining the question, 'How are you doing?' where we check in with people from different walks of life to see how they’re handling the pandemic.

NEW YORK —

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention on Tuesday explained the scientific rationale for shortening its COVID-19 isolation and quarantine recommendations, and clarified that the guidance applies to kids as well as adults.

The CDC also maintained that, for people who catch COVID-19, testing is not required to emerge from five days of isolation — despite hints from other federal officials that the agency was reconsidering that.

The agency announced the changes last week, halving the isolation time for Americans who catch the coronavirus and have no symptoms or only brief illnesses. Isolation should only end if a person has been fever-free for at least 24 hours without the use of fever-reducing medications and if other symptoms are resolving, the CDC added.

It similarly shortened the time that close contacts need to quarantine, from 10 days to five.

CDC officials previously said the changes were in keeping with evidence that people with the coronavirus are most infectious in the two days before and three days after symptoms develop.

Some experts have questioned how the new recommendations were crafted and why they were changed amid a spike in cases driven largely by the highly contagious omicron variant. Some also expressed dismay that the guidelines allowed people to leave isolation without getting tested to see if they were still infectious.

On Tuesday, the CDC posted documents designed to address those — and other — questions about the latest recommendations. The new guidance applies to school children as well as adults, the CDC said, responding to questions raised by school leaders around the country.

In laying out the scientific basis for the revisions, the agency said more than 100 studies from 17 countries indicate that most transmission happens early in an infection. The CDC acknowledged the data come from research done when delta and other pre-omicron variants were causing the most infections. But the agency also pointed to limited, early data from the U.S. and South Korea that suggests the time between exposure and the appearance of symptoms may be shorter for omicron than for earlier variants.

The CDC also took up the question of why it didn't call for a negative test before people emerge from isolation.

On Sunday, Dr. Anthony Fauci — the White House's top medical adviser — said the CDC was considering including the negative test as part of its guidance.

The agency said lab tests can show positive results long after someone stops being contagious, and that a negative at-home test may not necessarily indicate there is no threat. That's why, the agency said, it was recommending that people wears masks everywhere for the five days after isolation ends.

It did offer tips for those who have access to the tests and want to check themselves before leaving isolation.

Dr. Eric Topol, the head of the Scripps Research Translational Institute, accused the agency of furthering confusion. He agreed that it is appropriate to shorten isolation time, but only with testing.

"We do need to come up with a strategy that limits isolation time, but we don't want it to be one that's adding to the spread of the virus and unwittingly leading to the virus circulating," he said.

Yale University's Dr. Howard Forman said the updated recommendations were communicated poorly last week, but he also applauded the CDC for trying to be more nimble while dealing with limited science, a short supply of tests and an intensifying wave of infections.

Under the previous isolation and quarantine recommendations, "it was obvious that ... society was literally going to be disrupted. If you expected people to comply with those (old) rules, you might as well have a lockdown," said Forman, a radiologist who teaches public health policy.

The agency acknowledged people weren't following the longer recommendations: Research suggests only 25% to 30% of people were isolating for a full 10 days under the older guidance, the CDC said.

The CDC also suggests that people exposed to the virus quarantine for five days, unless they have gotten booster shots or recently received their initial vaccine doses. The agency said anyone exposed — regardless of vaccination status — should get tested five days later, if possible.

___

Associated Press writer Carla K. Johnson contributed to this report.

___

The Associated Press Health & Science Department receives support from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute's Department of Science Education. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

Several states have already started loosening their stay-at-home restrictions, and by the end of next week, more than half of the country will start to reopen.

"This is a global pandemic. Things are going to be different as we move back out of quarantine and into society," said Children's Hospital Colorado psychologist Laura Anthony.

These past few weeks have been hard on most Americans. As we start thinking about what the future might look like, Anthony says we could be seeing some changes in our children’s behavior.

"Most of us parents are seeing signs of stress or sadness or grief or frustration, disappointment in our kids, and we need to really be OK with letting them feel those things, just like we need to be okay with ourselves feeling those things," said Anthony.

Anthony says it’s important to share our feelings with our children. It's best to explain to them what the next few weeks might hold like having to wear masks, staying 6 feet apart, and whatever other recommendations the CDC makes.

"Our kids are going to feel more in control when they know what they can do as they’re kind of coming back out into society,” said Anthony. “It’s good for the rest of us, too. And it’s OK to say the reasons why we need to do those things.”

She also says it’s important to try to lessen the stress we put on ourselves as parents working from home and helping with school work.

"We’re all just doing the best we can, and I think parents should not feel guilty, offer themselves a little bit of kindness, and a little bit of grace,” she said. “You’re not in this alone.We’re all struggling, and all you can do is the best you can. That’s all any of us can do is the best we can.”

It is important to pay attention if your child feels overwhelmed to the point where they can’t function. That’s when you need to seek help from a professional.

HINSDALE, IL — Remote learning has transformed how schools handle sex education.

During the pandemic, students spent more time online, further isolated from social, emotional, and mental health. But experts say the internet should not be the source of sexual education for kids, and the current health crisis has complicated the issue.

When it comes to sex education, like most parents, Laura Burns doesn’t want her 5^th grader clicking around on the internet.

“Unfortunately, when it comes to sex ed and things that they might be really curious about, there's way more misinformation than good and true information, in my opinion,” said Burns.

Her 11-year-old daughter, Katie, is now at an age when children start to become curious.

“If I feel uncomfortable, I might think about it, but I mostly still go to my mom,” said Katie Burns said.

“I also realize that she's getting to the point where it may become uncomfortable to ask me something,” said Laura Burns.

According to one study conducted at the outset of the COVID outbreak, half of 11 to 13-year-olds reported having seen pornography in some way. Nearly two-thirds of them said they had done so to learn about sex generally.

“The average age of first exposure to some sort of online pornography is 9,” said Katie Gallagher, director of education for Candor Health Education.

Originally a health museum for more than half a century, the nonprofit Candor Health Education has taught health, sex education, and drug prevention to students from 4^th to 8^th grade.

Gallagher points out with social isolation and increased time spent online, the pandemic has only compounded the issue.

“Kids are going to see this now. We have to make sure that we they know what to do when they do, and they have the right places to go and the right information,” said Gallagher.

Over the last few years, the nonprofit's outreach programming has had to shift, accelerated by remote schooling.

“We saw that it was not going to be a possibility this year, and we spent all of last summer really reworking our programs so that we could offer various virtual delivery models,” said Gallagher.

Katie Burns recently went through the new learning system with her mom at her side.

“I thought it was going to make it a bit uncomfortable and impersonal,” said Laura Burns. “And I actually found it to be the exact opposite.”

“They went deeper, and I understood things differently and more clearly,” said daughter Katie.

And while experts say sexual education should not come from the internet, the future of its delivery will likely end up becoming more virtual and online.