Author: Claudinne Miller
A Better Covid Winter
(NYT) Some of the worst days of Covid in the U.S. have come as winters have settled in, and surges led hospitals to overflow and caused hundreds of thousands of deaths. A comparable surge has yet to materialize on a similar timeline this winter. By now, hospitalizations in particular would have started to sharply rise. […]
Jan 17, 2023
Can you use an expired at-home COVID-19 test?
(NBC) Many of us may have stored extra at-home COVID-19 tests in case they are needed in the future, but what should you do if the kit is past its expiration date? According to the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, a COVID-19 testing kit should not be used if it is expired since the parts […]
Jan 17, 2023
What seniors need to know about taking Paxlovid
(CNN) A new coronavirus variant is circulating, the most transmissible one yet. Hospitalizations of infected patients are rising. And older adults represent nearly 90% of US deaths from Covid-19 in recent months, the largest portion since the start of the pandemic. What does that mean for people 65 and older catching Covid for the first […]
Jan 17, 2023
Pregnant Women With Covid-19 Are Eight Times More Likely To Die Than Uninfected Counterparts
(Forbes) A new BMJ Global Health study warns that getting infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus at any point during pregnancy increases the mother’s risk of death by nearly eight times compared to those who remain uninfected. A group of researchers screened 137 studies and analyzed 12 studies conducted in Sweden Italy, Spain, the United States of America, […]
Jan 17, 2023
Why it’s easier to catch a cold, the flu or COVID in the winter
(Science News) When bitter winds blew and temperatures dropped, my grandmother would urge me to come inside. “You’ll catch your death of cold out there,” she’d say. Sure, freezing to death is possible in frigid temperatures. But doctors and other health experts have long stressed that being cold won’t give you a cold. Still, winter is undisputedly […]
Jan 17, 2023
Conspiracy Theories Prompt Top Finnish Health Authority to Quit Twitter
(Bloomberg) The rampant spread of conspiracy theories on Twitter has pushed Finland’s top health authority to stop using the platform to disseminate its public-health messages. A lack of proper tools on the social media site means the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare is unable to effectively weed out false and deliberately misleading information, as […]
Jan 17, 2023
Antigenic mapping of emerging SARS-CoV-2 omicron variants BM.1.1.1, BQ.1.1, and XBB.1
(The Lancet) Novel SARS-CoV-2 omicron variants, including BM.1.1.1, BQ.1.1, and XBB.1, continue to emerge at an unprecedented rate, evading pre-existing immunity from vaccination and previous infection. Quantifying the antigenic diversity of variants might assist in selecting future vaccine strains. To determine the antigenic relationships between emerging SARS-CoV-2 omicron variants, we and others used antigenic cartography, […]
Jan 17, 2023
CDC, FDA Flag Early Signal of Stroke Risk With Bivalent COVID Vaccine
(MedPageToday) An early signal of stroke risk was detected in older adults who received Pfizer-BioNTech’s bivalent COVID-19 vaccine, the FDAopens in a new tab or window and CDCopens in a new tab or window announced in a joint statement late on Friday, yet the agencies found no link in further analyses and are not recommending a change in COVID-19 […]
Jan 17, 2023
Adverse maternal, fetal, and newborn outcomes among pregnant women with SARS-CoV-2 infection: an individual participant data meta-analysis
(BMJ) Despite a growing body of research on the risks of SARS-CoV-2 infection during pregnancy, there is continued controversy given heterogeneity in the quality and design of published studies. We screened ongoing studies in our sequential, prospective meta-analysis. We pooled individual participant data to estimate the absolute and relative risk (RR) of adverse outcomes among pregnant […]
Jan 17, 2023
WHO recommends that China monitor excess COVID-19 mortality
(Reuters) The World Health Organization (WHO) said on Monday it recommended that China monitor excess mortality from COVID-19 to gain a fuller picture of the impact of the surge in cases there.
Jan 17, 2023
