Category: COVID
COVID-19 Immunity: Catching a Disease to Prevent a Disease?
(Infection Control Today) Catching COVID-19 to prevent a more severe case is not a good strategy, says Kevin Kavanagh, MD. I had to stop and read the Seattle Times news article “UW study: Catching COVID gives protection from its worst effects.” The title appears to advocate catching a dangerous virus so you will not have to worry […]
Feb 21, 2023
SARS-CoV-2 Weekly Update
This week, Dr. Joseph Fauver, Assistant Professor at UNMC’s College of Public Health provides us with SARS-CoV-2 updates and informs us of the accelerated evolution of Covid-19 in free-ranging white tailed deer.
Feb 21, 2023
How scientists are protecting themselves from COVID-19
(The Age) I spent the past couple of days reporting on federal parliament’s long COVID inquiry. Amid the discussion of science and policy and just how we are going to care for all these sick people, one small detail caught my eye: a box sitting on the desk in front of Burnet Institute director Professor Brendan […]
Feb 21, 2023
An ICU Doctor on How This COVID Wave Is Different
(The Atlantic) It’s hard to tell from the data who’s still getting hospitalized with COVID. One frontline worker shares her observations. Last week, 3,171 COVID deaths were reported in the United States. In the past seven days, an average of 13 COVID deaths were reported each day in Los Angeles County, California, the country’s most populous county. […]
Feb 19, 2023
Fibroblast-expressed LRRC15 is a receptor for SARS-CoV-2 spike and controls antiviral and antifibrotic transcriptional programs
(PLoS Biology) Although ACE2 is the primary receptor for Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection, a systematic assessment of host factors that regulate binding to SARS-CoV-2 spike protein has not been described. Here, we use whole-genome CRISPR activation to identify host factors controlling cellular interactions with SARS-CoV-2. Our top hit was a TLR-related cell […]
Feb 17, 2023
How Deadly Was China’s Covid Wave?
(New York Times) Two months after China ended “zero Covid,” rough estimates suggest that between 1 and 1.5 million people died — far more than the official count. After China relaxed the world’s most stringent Covid-19 restrictions in December, the virus exploded. Hints of the surge were everywhere: Hospitals turned away patients. Crematories were overwhelmed with […]
Feb 16, 2023
Causal Effects of COVID-19 on Structural Changes in Specific Brain Regions: A Mendelian Randomization Study
Lancet Preprint Background: Previous studies have found a correlation between coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and changes in brain structure and cognitive impairment, but it remains unclear whether COVID-19 causes structural changes to the brain and which specific brain regions may be affected. Herein, we conduct a Mendelian randomization (MR) study to determine this causal relationship […]
Feb 16, 2023
Covid-19 Is Now Harder to Stop and Easier to Survive
(Washington Post) To figure out what’s going on with Covid-19, a good place to start is in the sewers. Since early in the pandemic, the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority has been testing inflows to its Deer Island Wastewater Treatment Plant in Boston Harbor for the virus. The readings provide a remarkably detailed picture of the course […]
Feb 16, 2023
What Not to Ask Me About My Long COVID
(Atlantic) Before I got long COVID, I tuned out virtually all stories about it. They were tedious because I was tired of the pandemic, because we are all tired of the pandemic, because it is as familiar as rain and honestly just as dreary; I can hardly believe we once called the coronavirus novel. Today, I still tune […]
Feb 15, 2023
COVID Rebound Can Happen Even without Paxlovid
(Scientific American) Concerns about Paxlovid rebound are preventing some doctors from prescribing the lifesaving drug and some high-risk patients from taking it. Paxlovid gets a bad rap over concerns about COVID “rebound.” That’s the primary takeaway from a series of papers showing that whether or not people take the antiviral medication, many have symptoms that […]
Feb 14, 2023