Category: COVID
After Severe COVID, Cognitive Trajectories Go One of Three Ways
MedPageToday Cognitive impairment persisted for 1 year in some patients age 50 and older. Hospital patients discharged after severe SARS-CoV-2 infection followed one of three cognitive trajectories, longitudinal data showed. Of 946 severe COVID patients age 50 and older with no previous dementia or memory complaints, 69.0% had no cognitive impairment 1 month after discharge, […]
Mar 7, 2023
The Virus That Won’t Go Away
Bloomberg As the pandemic drags us into a fourth year, two key questions are on researchers’ minds: What’s driving the proliferation of immune-evasive variants, and what’s causes the persistent symptoms plaguing some 140 million Covid survivors worldwide? Answers to both have been informed by two different and somewhat unsavory lines of inquiry. In the spring of […]
Mar 7, 2023
World’s Failure to Wipe Out Covid Bodes Badly for Next Pandemic
(Bloomberg) Virus elimination has fallen from grace, leaving experts divided on how best to contain infectious diseases. For much of the past century, a strategy known as elimination was the gold standard for dealing with deadly new viruses. But China’s abrupt reversal of its Covid Zero policy, which took it to an extreme, has cast doubts over […]
Feb 21, 2023
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