Category: COVID
Older patients more likely to report long-COVID symptoms
CIDRAP – Among patients seen at long-COVID clinics in four countries, older people were the most likely to report symptoms and have abnormal chest imaging and lung function tests, finds a study published late last week in the International Journal of Infectious Diseases. Researchers in Israel, Italy, Spain, and Switzerland followed 2,333 COVID-19 survivors for an average of […]
Oct 4, 2022
A Public Health Success Story
NYT – The Covid mass vaccination program in the U.S. began on Dec. 14, 2020, when a nurse at a hospital in Queens, N.Y., received a shot on live television. But more than two months later, a major health clinic based in North Birmingham, Ala. — which focused on lower-income, Black and Latino residents — […]
Oct 4, 2022
Long Covid Has Become a Parallel Pandemic
Bloomberg – There are millions of long-haulers in the US alone, and there will be millions more if we don’t develop better vaccines and treatments. The price of “living with Covid” in a free and open society is turning out to be much heftier than public health experts predicted. Even with good vaccines and treatments, […]
Oct 3, 2022
Two thirds of U.S. adults don’t plan on getting COVID boosters soon
Reuters – Around two-thirds of adults in the United States do not plan to get updated COVID-19 booster shots soon, according to a survey conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF), a health policy nonprofit organization.Only a third of adults polled said they either already received the updated shots or plan to get the booster […]
Oct 3, 2022
The Pandemic’s Legacy Is Already Clear
The Atlantic/by Ed Yong – Recently, after a week in which 2,789 Americans died of COVID-19, President Joe Biden proclaimed that “the pandemic is over.” Anthony Fauci described the controversy around the proclamation as a matter of “semantics,” but the facts we are living with can speak for themselves. COVID still kills roughly as many Americans every week as died […]
Sep 30, 2022
Effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines against Omicron and Delta hospitalisation, a test negative case-control study
Nature – The Omicron variant has been associated with reduced vaccine effectiveness (VE) against mild disease with rapid waning. Meanwhile Omicron has also been associated with milder disease. Protection against severe disease has been substantially higher than protection against infection with previous variants. We used a test-negative case-control design to estimate VE against hospitalisation with […]
Sep 30, 2022
What are the differences in transmissibility between novel and emerging SARS-CoV-2 variants?
Medical News – Currently, the majority of reporting of secondary attack rates (SAR) in coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) have defined secondary infection as recent polymerase chain reaction (PCR) positivity in a contact who is displaying symptoms. By only including those who are symptomatic while having detectable viral ribonucleic acid (RNA) during sampling, this method undercounts […]
Sep 30, 2022
Two COVID boosters effective against severe Omicron in nursing homes
CIDRAP – A study today in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report shows that US nursing home residents who received a second mRNA COVID-19 vaccine booster dose 60 days earlier were 26% protected against Omicron infection, 74% against hospitalization or death, and 90% against death alone. A team led by researchers from the Veterans Administration Medical Center in Providence, Rhode […]
Sep 29, 2022
COVID-19 Cases on the Rise in the UK. Is the US Next?
Newsmax – The recent rise in coronavirus cases in the U.K. isn’t due to a new variant say experts, but rather a signal that the predicted fall surge is upon us. Experts calculated COVID-19 cases would rise in October and continue to increase during the winter as people spend more time indoors. According to the Zoe […]
Sep 29, 2022
New Guidance Focuses on Long COVID in Kids
Med Page Today – When it comes to long COVID in children, physicians should focus on mitigating symptoms and encouraging multidisciplinary rehabilitation designed to improve age-appropriate development, according to new clinical guidance from the American Academy of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation (AAPM&R). Long COVID can present differently in children, so standard practices for managing the […]
Sep 29, 2022