Comments closedWe now know that an infection can trigger several heart diseases. There is a clear expectation in the coming years that consultations for various cardiovascular conditions will increase
March 11 marks 3 years since WHO declared COVID-19 to be a pandemic. While the world is determined to move on from the acute phase, at least 65 million people are estimated to struggle with long COVID, a debilitating post-infection multisystem condition with common symptoms of fatigue, shortness of breath, and cognitive dysfunction, impairing their ability to perform daily activities for several months or years. Although the majority of patients infected with SARS-CoV-2 recover within a few weeks, long COVID is estimated to occur in 10–20% of cases and affects people of all ages, including children, with most cases occurring in patients with mild acute illness. The consequence is widespread global harm to people’s health, wellbeing, and livelihoods—an estimated one in ten people who develop long COVID stop working, resulting in extensive economic losses.
Comments closedNova Scotia’s very first cases of COVID-19 were announced Sunday, March 15, 2020. The province’s newest weekly disease numbers were released at the data dashboard Thursday, March 9, 2023, making it the last pandemic report before the three-year COVID anniversary.
Comments closedLong COVID threatens about 10% of Quebecers who contract the virus, leaving patients helpless and the few clinics overwhelmed. Although vaccination reduces the risks, they are still present.
Comments closedComments closedWe are the first to show reduced oxygen uptake in the brain during a cognitive task in the months following a symptomatic COVID-19 infection. This is important because a lack of sufficient oxygen supply is thought to be one of the mechanisms by which COVID-19 may cause cognitive impairment.
Masks have played a key role in keeping us all safe throughout the Covid-19 pandemic. At the start, masks helped flatten the curve to protect our hospital systems, and since, masks have helped make public spaces and essential services more open and accessible to everyone. Many studies show that masks work, and they work best when everyone wears a high-quality one to protect each other. Masks are magnificent.
Comments closedMélanie Lacasse has a heart that beats much too fast when she makes the least physical effort. This family doctor from Gatineau, suffering from the post-COVID-19 syndrome, called long COVID, had to learn to reinvent herself and change her lifestyle. A situation all the more difficult because it affects her profession considerably.
More than half of patients with long Covid suffer from organ damage a year after the initial symptoms, new research suggests.
Even those who were not seriously ill when diagnosed with the virus report problems, with extreme difficulty breathing and cognitive impairment among the persistent symptoms.
The study, the results of which were published in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine, involved 536 people.
Six months after their initial diagnosis with coronavirus, the patients underwent an MRI scan which revealed ongoing health problems, with 62% of participants suffering from organ damage.
Comments closedMany repeat infections are mild, but some studies suggest people who have been infected with COVID more than once are at a greater risk of severe disease or long COVID.
Comments closedComments closedAre we OK with children being hospitalized for infectious diseases at far higher rates, as they have recently been? Are we fine with COVID being the No. 1 cause of infectious disease-driven death in children? Also, what if there is a number of reinfections at which average outcomes really start to worsen?
There is strong and consistent evidence for the effectiveness of masks and (even more so) respirators in protecting against respiratory infections. Masks are an important protection against serious infections.
Comments closedFor the one-year period August 1, 2021, to July 31, 2022, COVID-19 was a leading cause of death in children and young people in the United States, ranking eighth overall.
The researchers believe that vaccines and nonpharmaceutical interventions are needed to limit transmission of SARS-CoV-2, and mitigate severe disease.
Comments closedFor the first time in three years, millions traveled within China earlier this month to reunite with loved ones for the country’s most important holiday, the Lunar New Year. Unfortunately, these celebrations coincided with — and are sure to exacerbate — a Covid-19 outbreak currently spreading throughout the country.
Comments closedAs leaders have shifted to the position that masks and tests are matter of personal choice rather than collective self-preservation, they have implicitly silenced a vital message to the citizenry about how pandemics actually come to an end. It is this: less transmission means fewer mutations; fewer mutations means less variation, the fuel of evolution. Reducing infections, then, puts the brakes on viral evolution.
The combined actions of “letting the virus rip” in a population with varying degrees of protective and waning immunity created by vaccines or previous infections “has led to unprecedented increase in viral diversification in 2022,” as one group of researchers explained in a recent paper published in the International Journal of Molecular Sciences.
Comments closedComments closedPeople who live and work in downtown Ottawa endured several weeks of widespread human rights abuse, amidst a climate of threats, fear, sexual harassment and intimidation marked by racism, misogyny, antisemitism, Islamophobia, homophobia, transphobia, and other expressions of hate and intolerance.
While convoy organizers claimed there was diversity among the participants and supporters, and that was true to a limited extent, it is clear that the overwhelming majority of people involved in the protests were white males.
Because of rising anti-vaccine activism and some key global policy missteps, more than 70 years of global health gains are in danger of being eroded, according to a physician writing in the peer-reviewed Rambam Maimonides Medical Journal published by the Rambam Health Care Campus in Haifa.
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