Americans who do choose to fly will be subject to evolving COVID safety policies that vary by airline, a result of the continuing lack of a unified federal strategy.

This article was published on Friday, November 20, 2020 in Kaiser Health News.

By Victoria Knight

The holidays are approaching just as COVID-19 case rates nationwide are increasing at a record-breaking pace, leading to dire warnings from public health experts.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has issued cautions and updated guidelines related to family gatherings. Dr. Anthony Fauci, a White House coronavirus adviser and director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said in interviews that his kids won’t be coming home for Thanksgiving because of coronavirus risks. “Relatives getting on a plane, being exposed in an airport,” he told CBS News. “And then walking in the door and saying ‘Happy Thanksgiving’ — that you have to be concerned about.”

Are Americans listening? Maybe not. Especially as airlines, reeling from major revenue blows since the pandemic took hold in March, tell passengers they can travel with peace of mind and sweeten the deal with special holiday fares.

The airlines argue more is now known about the virus and recent industry-sponsored studies show flying is just as safe as regular daily activities. They also tout policies such as mask mandates and enhanced cleaning to protect travelers from the coronavirus.

Time for a reality check.

Americans who do choose to fly will be subject to evolving COVID safety policies that vary by airline, a result of the continuing lack of a unified federal strategy. Under the Trump administration, government agencies such as the Federal Aviation Administration and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have failed to issue and enforce any national directives for air travel.

And, though President-elect Joe Biden has signaled he will take a more robust federal approach to addressing COVID-19, which may result in such actions, the Trump administration remains in charge during the upcoming holiday season.

Here’s what you need to know before you book.

Airlines Say It’s Safe to Fly During the Pandemic. Is it?

The airline industry pins its safety clearance to a study funded by its leading trade group, Airlines for America, and conducted by Harvard University researchers, as well as one headed by the Department of Defense, with assistance from United Airlines.

Both reports modeled disease transmission on a plane, assuming all individuals were masked and the airplane’s highly effective air filtration systems were working. The Harvard report concluded the risk of in-flight COVID-19 transmission was “below that of other routine activities during the pandemic, such as grocery shopping or eating out,” while the DOD study concluded an individual would need to, hypothetically, sit for 54 straight hours on an airplane to catch COVID-19 from another passenger.

But these studies’ assumptions have limitations.

Despite airlines’ ramped-up enforcement of mask-wearing, reports of noncompliance among passengers continue. Most airlines say passengers who outright refuse to wear masks will not only be refused boarding, but will also be putting their future travel privileges at risk. Recent press reports indicate Delta has placed hundreds of these passengers on a no-fly list. Some passengers may still try to skirt around the rule by removing their mask to eat or drink for an extended time on the flight, and flight attendants may or may not feel they can stop them.

And though public health experts agree that airplanes do have highly effective filtration systems spaced throughout the cabin that filter and circulate the air every couple of minutes, if someone who unknowingly has COVID-19 takes off their mask to eat or drink, there is still time for viral particles to reach others seated nearby before they get sucked up by the filter.

Public health experts said comparing time on an airplane with time at the grocery store is apples and oranges.

Even if you wear a mask in both places, said Dr. Henry Wu, director of Emory TravelWell Center and associate professor of infectious diseases at Emory University School of Medicine, the duration of contact in both locales can be very different.

“If it’s a long flight and you are in that situation for several hours, then you are accumulating exposure over time. So a one-hour flight is 1/10 the risk of a 10-hour flight,” said Wu. “Whereas most people don’t spend more than an hour in the grocery store.”

Also, both studies analyzed only one aspect of a travel itinerary — risk on board the aircraft. Neither considered the related risks involved in air travel, such as getting to the airport or waiting in security lines. And public health experts say those activities pose opportunities for COVID exposure.

“Between when you arrive in the airport and you get into a plane seat, there is a lot of interaction that happens,” said Lisa Lee, a former CDC official and associate vice president for research and innovation at Virginia Tech.

And while Wu said he agrees that an airplane cabin is likely safer than other environments, with high rates of COVID-19 in communities across the U.S., “there is no doubt people are flying when they’re sick, whether they know it or not.”

Another data point touted by the airline industry has been that out of the estimated 1.2 billion people who have flown so far in 2020, only 44 cases of COVID-19 have been associated with air travel, according to data from the International Air Transport Association, a worldwide trade group.

But this number reflects only case reports published in the academic literature and isn’t likely capturing the true picture of how many COVID cases are associated with flights, experts said.

“It’s very difficult to prove, if you get sick after a trip, where exactly you got exposed,” said Wu.

The low count could also stem from systemic contact-tracing inconsistencies after a person with COVID-19 has traveled on a flight. In a recent case, a woman infected with the coronavirus died during a flight and fellow passengers weren’t notified of their exposure.

That may be due to the decentralized public health system the U.S. has in place, said Lee, the former CDC official, since contact tracing is done through state and local health departments. The CDC will step in to help with contact tracing only if there is interstate travel, which is likely during a flight — but, during the pandemic, the agency has “been less consistently effective than in the past,” said Lee.

“Let’s say there is a case of COVID on a flight. The question is, who is supposed to deal with that? The state that [the flight] started in? That it ended in? The CDC? It’s not clear,” said Lee.

Is Now the Time to Fly?

Most airlines have implemented safety measures beyond requiring masks, such as asking passengers to fill out health questionnaires, enhancing cleaning on planes, reducing interactions between crew members and passengers, and installing plexiglass stations and touchless check-in at service desks.

But many have also stepped back from other efforts, such as pledging to block middle seats. United relaxed its social distancing policy for allowing empty middle seats between customers at the end of May, though there were complaints from customers before then about flights being full. American Airlines stopped blocking middle seats in July. Other airlines plan to fill seats after the Thanksgiving holiday, with Southwest stopping the practice of blocking middle seats starting Dec. 1, and JetBlue planning to increase capacity to 85% on Dec. 2. In January, Alaska Airlines plans to stop blocking middle seats and JetBlue will fly at full capacity. Delta announced this week that it will continue to block the middle seat until March 30.

This policy change is a result of airlines’ lack of cash on hand, said Robert Mann, an aviation analyst. It also reflects a rising demand from consumers who feel increasingly comfortable traveling again, especially as holiday gatherings beckon.

“It was easy to keep middle seats empty when there wasn’t much demand,” said Mann.

Now, they’re instead hoping that new COVID-era services will calm passengers’ fears.

American, United, Alaskan and Hawaiian, among others, offer some form of preflight COVID test for customers traveling to Hawaii or specific foreign destinations that also require a negative test or quarantine upon arrival. JetBlue recently partnered with a company to offer at-home COVID tests that give rapid results for those traveling to Aruba.

Airlines are likely to expand their preflight COVID testing options in the next couple of months. “This is the new dimension of airline competition,” said Mann.

But is it a new dimension of travel safety?

Emory’s Wu said there is certainly a risk of catching the coronavirus if you travel by plane, and travelers should have a higher threshold in making the decision to travel home for the holidays than they would in years past.

After all, COVID case rates are surging nationwide.

“I think the less folks crowding the airports, the less movement in general around the country, will help us control the epidemic,” said Wu. “We are worried things will get worse with the colder weather.”

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All this time, the person I've most wanted to hear from is Fauci. He's a straight shooter, with no apparent conflicts of interest — political or financial — or, at 79, career ambition. He seemingly has no interests other than yours and mine.

This article was published on Thursday, November 19, 2020 in Kaiser Health News.

By Elisabeth Rosenthal

As a health journalist, a physician and a former foreign correspondent who lived through SARS in Beijing, I often get questions from friends, colleagues and people I don’t even know about how to live during the pandemic. Do I think it’s safe to plan a real wedding next June? Would I send my kids to school, with appropriate precautions? When will I trust a vaccine?

To the last question, I always answer: When I see Anthony Fauci take one.

Like many Americans, I take my signals from Dr. Fauci, the country’s top infectious disease expert and a member of the White House task force on the coronavirus. When he told The Washington Post that he was not wiping down packages but just letting them sit for a couple of days, I started doing the same. In October, he remarked that he was bringing shopping bags into the house. He merely washes his hands after unpacking them. (Me too!)

Now we are in a dangerous political transition, with cases spiking in much of the country and Fauci and the original task force largely sidelined. President-elect Joe Biden has appointed his own, but it can’t do much until the General Services Administration signals that it accepts the results of the election. And Fauci told me he has not yet spoken with the Biden task force. President Donald Trump has resisted the norms on government transition, in which the old and new teams brief each other and coordinate.

The past tumultuous months have been filled with information gaps (we’re still learning about the novel coronavirus), misinformation (often from the president) and a host of “experts” — public health folks, mathematical modelers, cardiologists and emergency room doctors like me — offering opinions on TV. But all this time, the person I’ve most wanted to hear from is Fauci. He’s a straight shooter, with no apparent conflicts of interest — political or financial — or, at 79, career ambition. He seemingly has no interests other than yours and mine.

So I asked him how Americans might expect to live in the next six to nine months. How should we behave? And what should the next administration do? Some answers have been edited for clarity and brevity.

Q: Are there two or three things you think a Biden administration should do on Day One?

There were some states in some regions of the country that somehow didn’t seem to have learned the lessons that could have been learned or should have been learned when New York City and other big cities got hit. And that is to do some fundamental public health measures. I want to really be explicit about this, because whenever I talk about simple things like uniform wearing of masks, keeping physical distance, avoiding crowds (particularly indoors), doing things outdoors to the extent possible with the weather, and washing hands frequently, that doesn’t mean shutting down the country. You can still have a considerable amount of leeway for business, for economic recovery, if you just do those simple things. But what we’re seeing, unfortunately, is a very disparate response to that. And that inevitably leads to the kind of surges that we see now.

Q: Do you think we need a national policy like a national mask mandate? The current administration has left a lot of COVID-19 management to the states.

I think that there should be universal wearing of masks. If we can accomplish that with local mayors, governors, local authorities, fine. If not, we should seriously consider national. The only reason that I shy away from making a strong recommendation in that regard is that things that come from the national level down generally engender a bit of pushback from an already reluctant populace that doesn’t like to be told what to do. So you might wind up having the countereffect of people pushing back even more.

Q: What would a national mask mandate look like to you? It means different things in different states. Many states require face coverings, but not specifically masks. Many 20-somethings use only a bandanna.

I think it is unlikely that there’s a substantial difference. I mean, the typical type of a mask is the surgical mask. It’s not an N95 mask. One that has thick cloth, you know, can be equally as effective. We believe there may be some small differences between them, but the main purpose is that you prevent yourself from infecting others. Recent studies have shown that [wearing a mask] also has the good effect of partially protecting you. So it goes both ways.

Q: Many places that have mask mandates have had trouble enforcing them.

That’s really one of the reasons there’s a reticence on the part of many people, including myself [to support a national mandate]. If you have a mandate, you have to enforce it. And, hopefully, we can convince people when they see what is going on in the country. But I have to tell you, Elisabeth, I was stunned by the fact that in certain areas of the country, even though the devastation of the outbreak is clear, some people are still saying it’s fake news. That is a very difficult thing to get over: why people still insist that something that’s staring you right in the face is not real.

Q: People often think of shutdowns as binary. You’re open or you’re shut. Often, when you answer questions about how to live, you start with. ‘Well, I’m in a high-risk group. …” So I would love to hear Dr. Fauci’s hierarchy of “Safe and important to keep open with precautions” and “Things that aren’t safe under any circumstances.”

The reason I answer with some degree of trepidation is because the people who are the proprietors of these businesses start getting very, very upset with me. There are some essential businesses that you want to keep open. You want to keep grocery stores open, supermarkets open, things that people need for their subsistence. You might, if it’s done properly, keep open some nonessential businesses, you know, things like clothing stores, department stores.

Q: We’re heading into the winter months. You could social distance in a restaurant or in an indoor gathering. But would you feel OK being in there without a mask?

If we’re in the hot zone the way we are now, where there’s so many infections around, I would feel quite uncomfortable even being in a restaurant. And particularly if it was at full capacity.

Q: I see you’ve been getting your hair cut. What do you think about hair salons?

I mean, again, it depends. I used to get a haircut every five weeks. I get a haircut every 12 weeks now — with a mask on me, as well as a mask on the person who’s cutting the hair, for sure.

Q: Transportation? Trains? Planes? Metro? Where are we at the moment?

It depends on your individual circumstances. If you are someone who is in the highest risk category, as best as possible, don’t travel anywhere. Or if you go someplace, you have a car, you’re in your car by yourself, not getting on a crowded subway, not getting on a crowded bus or even flying in an airplane. If you’re a 25-year-old who has no underlying conditions, that’s much different.

Q: Bars?

Bars are really problematic. I have to tell you, if you look at some of the outbreaks that we’ve seen, it’s when people go into bars, crowded bars. You know, I used to go to a bar. I used to like to sit at a bar and grab a hamburger and a beer. But when you’re at a bar, people are leaning over your shoulder to get a drink, people next to each other like this. It’s kind of fun because it’s social, but it’s not fun when this virus is in the air. So I would think that if there’s anything you want to clamp down on, for the time being, it’s bars.

Q: Some airlines and some states are telling people you have to get a coronavirus test before you get on the plane or visit another state. Does that make sense medically?

If you’re negative when you get on the plane — except in the rare circumstance that you’re in that little incubation window before you turn positive — that’s a good thing.

Q: If you had a national plan for testing, what would it be?

Surveillance testing. Literally flooding the system with tests. Getting a home test that you could do yourself, that’s highly sensitive and highly specific. And you know why that would be terrific? Because if you decided that you wanted to have a small gathering with your mother-in-law and father-in-law and a couple of children, and you had a test right there. It isn’t 100%. Don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the good. But the risk that you have — if everyone is tested before you get together to sit down for dinner — dramatically decreases. It might not ever be zero but, you know, we don’t live in a completely risk-free society.

Q: There are a number of vaccine candidates that are promising. But there’s also a lot of skepticism because we’ve seen the FDA come under both commercial and, increasingly, political pressure. When will we know it’s OK to take a vaccine? And which?

It’s pretty easy when you have vaccines that are 95% effective. Can’t get much better than that. I think what people need to appreciate — and that’s why I have said it like maybe 100 times in the last week or two — is the process by which a decision is made. The company looks at the data. I look at the data. Then the company puts the data to the FDA. The FDA will make the decision to do an emergency use authorization or a license application approval. And they have career scientists who are really independent. They’re not beholden to anybody. Then there’s another independent group, the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee. The FDA commissioner has vowed publicly that he will go according to the opinion of the career scientists and the advisory board.

Q: You feel the career scientists will have the final say?

Yes, yes.

Q: And will the decisions that are being made in this transition period — like the vaccine distribution plan — in any way limit the options of a new administration?

No, I don’t think so. I think a new administration will have the choice of doing what they feel. But I can tell you what’s going to happen, regardless of the transition or not, is that we have people totally committed to doing it right that are going to be involved in this. So I have confidence in that.

Q: When do you think we’ll all be able to throw our masks away?

I think that we’re going to have some degree of public health measures together with the vaccine for a considerable period of time. But we’ll start approaching normal — if the overwhelming majority of people take the vaccine — as we get into the third or fourth quarter [of 2021].

Q: Thank you so much. And have a nice Thanksgiving.

Take care, and you too.

[Editor’s note: Dr. Fauci has said his family is forgoing the usual family Thanksgiving gathering this year because his adult children would have to fly home and that travel would expose him to risk.] 

You can listen to the full interview on KHN’s “What the Health?” podcast.

Many public health experts wonder whether it's time to move beyond the anything-goes approach toward more standardization and higher-quality masks.

This article was published on Thursday, November 19, 2020 in Kaiser Health News.

By Markian Hawryluk

BOULDER, Colo. — Brady Bowman, a 19-year-old student at the University of Colorado-Boulder, and two friends strolled down 11th Street, all sporting matching neck gaiters branded with the Thomas' English Muffins logo. He had received an entire box of the promotional gaiters.

He thinks they are just more comfortable to wear than a face mask. "Especially a day like today, where it's cold out," he said, with the top of his gaiter pulled down below his chin.

More stylish? Perhaps. More comfortable? Maybe. But as effective? Not necessarily.

With states such as Colorado requiring face coverings indoors to prevent the spread of COVID-19, gaiters and bandannas have become popular accessories, particularly among college students and other young adults. Less restrictive than masks, they can easily be pulled up or down as needed — and don't convey that just-out-of-the-hospital vibe.

But tests show those hipper face coverings are not as effective as surgical or cloth face masks. Bandannas, like plastic face shields, allow the virus to escape out the bottom in aerosolized particles that can hang in the air for hours. And gaiters are often made of such thin material that they don't trap as much virus as cloth masks.

As new COVID cases, hospitalizations and deaths surge upward heading into winter, many public health experts wonder whether it's time to move beyond the anything-goes approach toward more standardization and higher-quality masks. President-elect Joe Biden reportedly is mulling a national face-covering mandate of some sort, which could not only increase mask-wearing but better define for Americans what sort of face covering would be most protective.

"Unlike seat belts, condoms or other prevention strategies, we have not yet standardized what we are recommending for the public," said Dr. Monica Gandhi, an infectious disease specialist at the University of California-San Francisco. "And that has been profoundly confusing for the American public, to have all these masks on the market."

Patchwork of Regulations

Masks have been shown to reduce the spread of respiratory droplets that contain the coronavirus. And the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention now says that masks not only help prevent people from infecting others but help protect the wearers from infection as well.

According to a recent analysis by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, implementing universal mask-wearing in late September would have saved nearly 130,000 American lives by the end of February.

Even so, many Americans still aren't wearing masks. And in some states, they haven't been required to do so.

At least 37 states and the District of Columbia have mandated face coverings but show wide variation in defining what qualifies. States such as Maryland and Rhode Island include bandannas or neck gaiters in their definitions, while South Carolina and Michigan do not, according to a KHN review of the orders. Some spell out the circumstances in which coverings must be worn or establish enforcement policies.

But according to Lawrence Gostin, a Georgetown University law professor, many states are not holding residents to those rules. Some state or local officials are choosing not to enforce them.

"We have a patchwork of inconsistent rules and laws around the country," Gostin said. "And when we are dealing with a nationwide pandemic, a patchwork just won't get the job done."

Cloth mask manufacturing was nearly nonexistent in the U.S. before the pandemic, so public health officials opted early in the year to stress the importance of wearing any face covering rather than trying to focus on one standard. As a result, Americans are wearing a hodgepodge of coverings, from home-sewn to commercial versions, with various levels of protection.

And what is worn matters. Dr. Iahn Gonsenhauser, an infectious disease specialist at the Ohio State University Wexner Medical Center, said face coverings generally fall into three categories of effectiveness. N95 masks (not those with valves), surgical masks and well-made cloth masks (constructed of tightly woven material, folded over two or three times, and properly covering the mouth and nose) are in the highly effective category.

Bandannas, neck gaiters and face shields lie at the other end of the spectrum, and most everything else falls in the middle.

"Bandannas are typically a thinner material, so if they're not doubled or tripled up, that can allow respiratory droplets, in particular, to move through the masks," he said. "But the fact that they're open along the bottom of the mouth and neck, if they're not tucked into a shirt or something like that, also allows for a lot of that exhalation droplet to escape around the mask and become airborne."

A plastic face shield can block larger droplets but won't stop aerosolized particles from flowing beyond its edges.

The evidence around neck gaiters has been mixed, in part because so many materials and designs are used. But recent testing suggests even the thin material commonly used to make gaiters is nearly as effective as a cloth mask if doubled over.

"With few exceptions, the best mask is the mask that somebody is going to use regularly and consistently," Gonsenhauser said. "It may be that the best technical mask is not going to be the mask that everybody's going to be willing to wear all the time."

Researchers at the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health have found most of the commercially produced cloth masks block 40% to 60% of droplets, approaching the effectiveness of surgical masks.

"You can't possibly test everything, but certainly one take-home message is that anything is better than nothing," said William Lindsley, a NIOSH biomedical engineer. "We haven't tested anything that has not worked."

Call for Standardization

But Gandhi believes it's time to raise the standards for masks, ramp up the production of disposable surgical masks and encourage, if not order, Americans to wear them. Early in the pandemic, the Trump administration reportedly considered sending masks to every American but ultimately decided against it.

Taiwan, on the other hand, invested in manufacturing and distributing surgical masks, and it has one of the lowest COVID death counts in the world: fewer than 10 deaths in a country of 24 million people.

"It makes more sense to standardize masks, to mass-produce surgical masks, which are not very expensive," Gandhi said. "We're spending a lot more on everything else."

She said surgical masks might even reduce the severity of COVID-19. Gandhi and several colleagues recently wrote in a medical journal article that evidence suggests the less virus a person is exposed to, the less sick they become.

That's been backed up in tests with lab animals exposed to the coronavirus and with humans exposed to other, less dangerous respiratory viruses.

Other evidence also supports that theory. While the CDC estimates about 40% of COVID cases are asymptomatic, outbreaks in food processing plants where workers were handed surgical or N95 masks as they entered showed a much higher proportion of infected workers never developed symptoms. That could explain why many Asian countries, where mask-wearing has been a cultural norm for decades, have been able to reopen their economies without seeing death rates as high as in the United States.

"Tokyo is a good example. It's wide open, the people are walking around shoulder to shoulder, people are going to offices, people are going to school," Gandhi said. "But they're all masked and they have very low rates of severe illness."

If she's right, a national mandate calling for surgical masks could both reduce transmission and prevent serious disease.

"We can't wait," Gandhi said. "We've had enough deaths from this infection. Our case fatality rates in a country of this degree of development are just tragic."

It remains to be seen whether Americans will be more willing to wear dowdier, less comfortable but more effective masks to protect themselves and others. When Bowman, the Boulder college student, was asked if he was worried that his gaiter might not block as much of the virus as a face mask, he seemed unconcerned.

"As long as the other person is wearing a mask," he said.

Markian Hawryluk: MarkianH@kff.org, @MarkianHawryluk

South Asians account for 60% of all heart disease cases, even though — at 2 billion people — they make up only a quarter of the planet's population.

This article was published on Wednesday, November 18, 2020 in Kaiser Health News.

By Vignesh Ramachandran

For years, Sharad Acharya's frequent hikes in the mountains outside Denver would leave him short of breath. But a real wake-up call came three years ago when he suddenly struggled to breathe while walking through an airport.

An electrocardiogram revealed that Acharya, a Nepali American from Broomfield, Colorado, had an irregular heartbeat on top of the high blood pressure he already knew about. He had to immediately undergo triple bypass surgery and get seven stents.

Acharya, now 54, thought of his late father and his many uncles who have had heart problems.

"It's part of my genetics, for sure," he said.

South Asian Americans — people with roots in Nepal, India, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh, Bhutan and the Maldives — have a disproportionately higher risk of heart disease and other cardiovascular ailments. Worldwide, South Asians account for 60% of all heart disease cases, even though — at 2 billion people — they make up only a quarter of the planet's population.

In the United States, there's increasing attention on these risks for Americans of South Asian descent, a growing population of about 5.4 million. Healthcare professionals attribute the problem to a mix of genetic, cultural and lifestyle influences — but researchers are advocating for more resources to fully understand it.

Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) is sponsoring legislation that would direct $5 million over the next five years toward research into heart disease among South Asian Americans and raising awareness of the issue. The bill passed the U.S. House in September and is up for consideration in the Senate.

The issue could gain more attention after Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) becomes the nation's first vice president with South Asian lineage. Harris' mother, Shyamala Gopalan, moved from India to the U.S. in 1958 to attend graduate school. Gopalan, a breast cancer researcher, died in 2009 of colon cancer.

A 2018 study for the American Heart Association found South Asian Americans are more likely to die of coronary heart disease than other Asian Americans and non-Hispanic white Americans. The study pointed to their high incidences of diabetes and prediabetes as risk factors, as well as high waist-to-hip ratios. People of South Asian descent have a higher tendency to gain visceral fat in the abdomen, which is associated with insulin resistance. They also were found to be less physically active than other ethnic groups in the U.S.

One of the nation's largest undertakings to understand these risks is the Mediators of Atherosclerosis in South Asians Living in America study, which began in 2006. The MASALA researchers, from institutions such as Northwestern University and the University of California-San Francisco, have examined more than 1,100 South Asian American men and women ages 40-79 to better understand the prevalence and outcomes of cardiovascular disease. They stress that high blood pressure and diabetes are common in the community, even for people at normal weights.

That's why, said Dr. Alka Kanaya, MASALA's principal investigator and a professor at UCSF, South Asians cannot rely on traditional body mass index metrics, because BMI numbers considered normal could provide false reassurance to those who might still be at risk.

Kanaya recommends cardiac CT scans, which she said help identify high-risk patients, those who need to make more aggressive lifestyle changes and those who may need preventive medication.

Another risk factor, this one cultural, is diet. Some South Asian Americans are vegetarians, though it's often a grain-heavy diet reliant on rice and flatbread. The AHA study found risks in such diets, which are high in refined carbohydrates and saturated fat.

"We have to understand the cultural nuances [with] an Indian vegetarian diet," said Dr. Ronesh Sinha, author of "The South Asian Health Solution" and an internal medicine physician. "That means something totally different than … a Westerner who's going to be consuming a lot of plant-based protein and tofu, eating lots of salads and things that typical South Asians don't."

But getting South Asians to change their eating habits can be challenging, because their culture expresses hospitality and love through food, according to Arnab Mukherjea, an associate professor of health sciences at California State University-East Bay. "One of the things South Asians tend to take a lot of pride in is transmitting cultural values and norms knowledge to the next generation," Mukherjea said.

The intergenerational transmission goes both ways, according to MASALA researchers. Adult, second-generation South Asian Americans might be the key to helping those in the first generation who are resistant to change adopt healthier habits, according to Kanaya.

In the San Francisco Bay Area, El Camino Hospital's South Asian Heart Center is one of the nation's leading centers for educating the community. Its three locations are not far from Silicon Valley tech giants, which employ many South Asian Americans.

The center's medical director, Dr. César Molina, said the center treats many relatively young patients of South Asian descent without typical risk factors for cardiovascular disease.

"It was like the typical 44-year-old engineer with a spouse and two kids showing up with a heart attack," he said.

The South Asian Health Center helps patients make lifestyle changes through meditation, exercise, diet and sleep. The nearby Palo Alto Medical Foundation's Prevention and Awareness for South Asians program and the Stanford South Asian Translational Heart Initiative provide medical support for the community. Even patients in the later stages of heart disease can be helped by lifestyle changes, Sinha said.

Dr. Kevin Shah, a University of Utah cardiologist who co-authored the AHA study, said people with diabetes, hypertension and obesity are also at higher risk of COVID-19 complications so should now especially work to improve their cardiovascular health and fitness.

In Colorado, Acharya's health is still an issue. He said he had to get four more stents this year, and the surgeries have put pressure on his family. But he's breathing well, watching what he eats — and once more exploring his beloved mountains.

"Nowadays, I feel very, very good," he said. "I'm hiking a lot."