B.C. COVID hospitalizations at highest level since January

Published July 4, 2024

Published by: CTV News
Published on: July 4, 2024
By Ian Holliday

It may not be on most people’s minds, but COVID-19 is on the rise again in B.C.

The B.C. Centre for Disease Control released its monthly data on the disease Thursday, showing 204 test-positive patients in provincial hospitals. It’s only the second time all year that the hospitalized population has risen above 200, and the first time since early January.

The hospital census is more than double what it was at this time last year, when the BCCDC’s July update showed just 96 COVID patients receiving hospital care.

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‘Visionary’ study finds inflammation, evidence of Covid virus years after infection

Photo of cells infected with SARS-CoV-2. The reds and greens in the image represent cells infected with the novel coronavirus that causes COVID-19. Photo: Alberto Domingo Lopez-Munoz, Laboratory of Viral Diseases, NIAID/NIH.

long COVID

‘Visionary’ study finds inflammation, evidence of Covid virus years after infection

Published July 3, 2024

Published by: STAT
Published on: July 3, 2024
By Isabella Cueto

Remember when we thought Covid was a two-week illness? So does Michael Peluso, assistant professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco.

He recalls the rush to study acute Covid infection, and the crush of resulting papers. But Peluso, an HIV researcher, knew what his team excelled at: following people over the long term.

So they adapted their HIV research infrastructure to study Covid patients. The LIINC program, short for “Long-term Impact of Infection with Novel Coronavirus,” started in San Francisco at the very beginning of the pandemic. By April 2020, the team was already seeing patients come in with lingering illness and effects of Covid — in those early days still unnamed and unpublicized as long Covid. They planned to follow people’s progress for three months after they were infected with the virus.

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vaccines

NIH announces launch of clinical trial for nasal COVID vaccine

Published July 2, 2024

Published by: CIDRAP
Published on: July 2, 2024
By Lisa Schnirring

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) yesterday announced the launch of a phase 1 trial of a nasal vaccine against COVID-19, which also marks the first National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) trial conducted as part of the government’s Project NextGen—an effort designed to advance the development of next-generation vaccines against the disease.

In an NIH statement, NIAID Director Jeanne Marrazzo, MD, said first-generation COVID vaccines have greatly mitigated the toll of the disease and are still effective for preventing severe illness, hospitalization, and death. She added, however, that they aren’t as good at preventing illness and battling milder disease.

“With the continual emergence of new virus variants, there is a critical need to develop next-generation COVID-19 vaccines, including nasal vaccines, that could reduce SARS-CoV-2 infections and transmission,” she said.

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Ontario

‘Really unfortunate:’ Public health losing tool that tracks emerging threats in infectious diseases

Published July 2, 2024

Published by: NewmarketToday
Published on: July 2, 2024
By Joseph Quigley

York Region stands to lose reliability in its warning signs for population-wide COVID-19 and influenza cases as provincial wastewater surveillance ends, public health said.

The Ontario government announced it is ending the program, which allowed public health units to track COVID-19 in wastewater sampling sites across the province, on July 31.

York Region associate medical officer of health Dr. Sarah Erdman said the tool was very useful to help inform public health decisions.

“Given tighter testing eligibility for COVID-19 and influenza, wastewater surveillance provided helpful information about the burden of disease and community transmission among the general population,” Erdman said. “It also provided an early warning of surges ahead of an increase in cases and hospitalizations; without wastewater data, York Region will be unable to reliably obtain these estimates moving forward.”

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What We Can Do about Long COVID’s Growing Toll

A stylized image of a SARS-CoV-2 virus particle, depicted with bright red colours. Illustration by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay.

long COVID

What We Can Do about Long COVID’s Growing Toll

Published July 2, 2024

Published by: The Tyee
Published on: July 2, 2024
By Kaylee Byers, Julia Smith, Kayli Jamieson, Rackeb Tesfaye

Kaylee Byers is an assistant professor in the faculty of health sciences and senior scientist at the Pacific Institute on Pathogens, Pandemics and Society at Simon Fraser University. Julia Smith is an assistant professor in the faculty. Kayli Jamieson is a master’s student in communication and a research assistant for the Pacific Institute. Rackeb Tesfaye is director of knowledge mobilization at the institute. This article was originally published by the Conversation.

We are living through a mass-disabling event: Over 200 million people worldwide have long COVID. In Canada, one in nine people have experienced long COVID symptoms, and this is likely an underestimate.

Occurring weeks to months after a COVID-19 infection, this multi-system chronic illness has led to what some have called “the shadow pandemic.” Although millions are navigating this new illness, four years into the pandemic both patients and their caregivers continue to face challenges accessing the information and care they need.

Most Canadians have had COVID, and at least one in five have been infected more than once. These trends are troubling because evidence suggests that the risk of acquiring long COVID increases with reinfection.

Image description: A stylized image of a SARS-CoV-2 virus particle, depicted with bright red colours. Illustration by Gerd Altmann from Pixabay.

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Month: July 2024