Category: COVID
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
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
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
China Reports Nearly 60,000 Covid-Linked Deaths Since Lifting Restrictions
(NYT) The unexpected disclosure was made as the country faces mounting criticism for providing unreliable data on its latest coronavirus outbreak.
Jan 17, 2023
For long covid fatigue, a strategy called ‘pacing’ helps, but at a cost
(Washington Post) Taking a lesson from people with chronic fatigue, many patients with long covid are scaling back daily activity to cope. What is it like to live with the chronic fatigue of long covid? It feels like dragging your body through wet cement, says Judy Schaefer, 58, a once avid hiker who lives in […]
Jan 17, 2023
China’s COVID surge prompts CDC to expand a hunt for new variants among air travelers
(NPR) It’s early morning at Dulles International Airport outside Washington, D.C.,and Ana Valdez is already hard at work at one of the international gates. “Hello everybody. Welcome,” she shouts with a big smile as arriving travelers flood through two large swinging doors. “Do you like to help the CDC to find new variants for COVID?” […]
Jan 14, 2023
The quiet cost of covid: A million people missing work each month
(Washington Post) Some 1.5 million people missed work because of an illness last month, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The month before that, it was 1.6 million. In October, 1.3 million and in September 1.2 million. In fact, the last time there were fewer than a million Americans missing work because of an illness […]
Jan 10, 2023
NIH funds eight studies to advance rapid diagnosis of COVID-19-related inflammatory syndrome in children
(LabPulse) The National Institutes of Health on Monday said it has awarded eight research grants to refine new technologies for early diagnosis of severe illnesses resulting from SARS-CoV-2 infection in children. The new awards follow grants issued in 2020 to foster methods for diagnosing children at high risk for multisystem inflammatory syndrome MIS-C) — a rare, severe, […]
Jan 10, 2023
Second Year of Pandemic Took a Heavy Mental Health Toll on Young Adults
(MedPageToday) Nearly half of 18- to 25-year-olds experienced any mental illness or a substance use disorder in 2021, according to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health’s latest reportopens in a new tab or window. While the national rate of mental illness was 22.8% for adults overall in the second year of the pandemic, that […]
Jan 10, 2023