Tag: COVID-19

Published by: The Sick Times
Published on: February 2, 2026
By Kayli Jamieson

“Are you sick?” the Uber driver asked. “Is that why you’re wearing a mask?”

I launched into my usual monologue, delivered to strangers weekly at this point, explaining how COVID-19 transmission is still high and that I don’t want to be reinfected to worsen my existing Long COVID.

He looked at me, puzzled, through the rearview mirror. “I haven’t heard of that before,” he said, “but you look really good!”

I awkwardly stammered that I can no longer exercise, and a few years ago I could barely leave the house, almost dropping out of my graduate school program. I listed statistics of Long COVID prevalence and the compounding risks of infections.

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vaccines

This year’s Pfizer COVID vaccine estimated to be 57% effective against emergency, urgent care

Published January 27, 2026

Published by: CIDRAP
Published on: January 27, 2026
By Mary Van Beusekom

The 2025-26 Pfizer COVID-19 vaccine is about 57% effective against emergency department/urgent care (ED/UC) visits and 54% effective against outpatient visits among adults roughly 4 weeks after vaccination, with considerable uncertainty, according to preliminary estimates published on the preprint server medRxiv.

A team that included researchers from the Providence Veterans Affairs (VA) Healthcare System and Pfizer used a test-negative case-control design to estimate the early vaccine effectiveness (VE) of Pfizer’s BNT162b2 LP.8.1 vaccine against ED/UC and outpatient visits.

Participants were VA patients who had an acute respiratory infection (ARI) and underwent COVID-19 testing from September 10 to November 30, 2025.

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long COVID

Post-COVID Brain Fog Linked to Elevated pTau-181

Published January 19, 2026

Published by: European Medical Journal
Published on: January 19, 2026
By Ada Enesco

NEW evidence from a prospective cohort study suggests that elevated plasma phosphorylated tau (pTau-181) may be a critical biomarker in patients experiencing neurological post-acute sequelae of COVID-19 (N-PASC), particularly among essential workers.

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Minnesota

Minnesota residents delay medical care for fear of encountering ICE

Published January 16, 2026

Published by: CIDRAP
Published on: January 16, 2026
By Liz Szabo

Tina Ridler has been living with long COVID since 2020. The condition has sent her to the hospital many times, including a trip to the emergency department to treat a life-threatening blood clot.

Until now, Ridler has never been afraid to seek medical care.

Ridler, 60, is delaying health appointments at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota, for fear of crossing paths with agents from Immigration and Custom Enforcement (ICE), who are conducting raids and arrests near the hospital. Although Ridler is a US citizen who was born in this country, she said she worries about being stopped in her car, hassled by ICE agents, or caught up in the crossfire.

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education

How Universities Are Shutting Out Disabled Students and Staff

Some administrators treat accommodations as a favour—and those requesting them as problems

Published January 16, 2026

Published by: The Walrus
Published on: January 16, 2026
By Lygia Navarro

This article contains discussions of suicide. If you or someone you know is having a suicide crisis, please call Talk Suicide Canada (1-833-456-4566). There is also the Hope for Wellness Helpline for Indigenous people across Canada (1-855-242-3310).

NAOMI HAD ALWAYS hated school, so much so that she cried for hours when school breaks ended. She hadn’t always considered herself disabled, though. Sure, she’d felt lucky to have discovered her autism and learning disabilities relatively early—and to have started getting accommodations in junior high— given that most autistic women aren’t diagnosed until adulthood, if at all. But until her second semester of university, Naomi hadn’t realized how much autism impacted her life. Then, just before semester’s end, COVID-19 crashed in.

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N95 respirators

Experts Call For N95s To Replace Surgical Masks As Flu, Covid Viruses Spread

Published January 15, 2026

Published by: Forbes
Published on: January 15, 2026
By Judy Stone

Nationally, we are seeing very high levels of influenza and, again, a growing wave of COVID-19 infections. A new variant of influenza A H3N2 called subclade K is driving some of this epidemic. Subclade K has already appeared in Japan and Europe and is more severe, especially in the elderly and very young.

Last week, the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy reported 39,945 hospital admissions^⁠, up from 33,301 admissions the week before. While numbers have varied some week to week, they have been relatively high. There have been 19 pediatric deaths so far this season. The CDC estimates that there have been at least 15,000,000 illnesses, 180,000 hospitalizations, and 7,400 deaths from flu so far this season.

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respirators

C.D.C. Brings Back Hundreds of Suspended Workplace Safety Employees

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. placed about 90 percent of the roughly 1,000 employees of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health on administrative leave last April.

Published January 14, 2026

Published by: The New York Times
Published on: January 14, 2026
By Apoorva Mandavilli

The Trump administration reinstated on Tuesday hundreds of employees of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention who had been placed on administrative leave in April.

The employees are all staff members of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, a C.D.C. unit charged with preventing work-related injuries.

“This moment belongs to every single person who refused to stay silent,” said Micah Niemeier-Walsh, an industrial hygienist at NIOSH and the vice president of an American Federation of Government Employees union local that represents C.D.C. employees.

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vaccines

RFK Jr. appoints 2 vocal opponents of vaccine use in pregnancy to federal advisory board

Published January 13, 2026

Published by: CIDRAP
Published on: January 13, 2026
By Stephanie Soucheray

Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. today appointed two obstetricians-gynecologists to the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP). Both appointees have a history of questioning vaccine safety in pregnancy, and one has erroneously claimed COVID-19 vaccines caused miscarriages.

Adam Urato, MD, of UMass Memorial Health, is the first listed appointee to ACIP. In October of 2024, he wrote on X, “CDC & ACOG recommend 4 vaccines in pregnancy: Flu, Tdap, RSV, & COVID. My patients often ask: ‘How do we know that all these vaccines won’t have adverse effects on my baby & me?’ The answer is: ‘We don’t.’ Women’s vax concerns should be acknowledged & their choices supported.”

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long COVID

Increased levels of Alzheimer’s-linked protein found in some with long COVID

Published January 13, 2026

Published by: Medical Xpress
Published on: January 13, 2026
By Stony Brook University

A study of 227 individuals who experienced neurocognitive difficulties post COVID-19 infection—such as headaches, vertigo, balance dysregulation, changes in taste/smell, and brain fog—displayed a significant increase in their blood plasma of a crucial protein called tau, which is found in nerves and especially in the brain. Excess levels of tau are linked to neurodegenerative diseases and found in many Alzheimer’s patients.

Published in eBioMedicine, the study suggests that people who experience long COVID neurocognitive symptoms could be at further risk for neurodegenerative diseases.

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vaccines

Moderna COVID vaccine 53% effective against adult hospitalization in 2024-25 season, data suggest

Published January 12, 2026

Published by: CIDRAP
Published on: January 12, 2026
By Laine Bergeson

A large observational study using US healthcare claims and electronic health record data suggests that Moderna’s updated 2024-25 COVID vaccine was 39% effective at preventing medically attended illness among adults and 53% effective against hospitalization, particularly those at high risk for severe disease.

The study, led by scientists from the vaccine manufacturer and published late last week in Infectious Diseases and Therapy, analyzed outcomes among 596,248 adults who received the updated mRNA-1273 vaccine, which targeted the Omicron KP.2 variant, from August 2024 to April 2025. Vaccinated people were matched 1:1 with unvaccinated counterparts.

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Northwest Territories

Yellowknife adds more flu and Covid shot walk-in clinics

Published January 12, 2026

Published by: Cabin Radio
Published on: January 12, 2026
By Ollie Williams

Yellowknife public health workers say two walk-in clinics for flu and Covid-19 shots will take place this week.

The first runs from 9am-4pm on Monday including the lunch hour, staff said in a Monday morning email, and the second operates to the same times on Friday, January 16.

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vaccines

‘Incomprehensibly stupid:’ How U.S. cuts in vaccine recommendations will impact Canadians

Published January 11, 2026

Published by: CTV News
Published on: January 11, 2026
By Kamil Karamali

Canadian doctors are warning that a new U.S. policy which slashes the number of vaccines universally recommended to all children could have devastating, and potentially deadly effects in Canada, including increasing disease spread through American travellers visiting north of the border.

“This was just incomprehensibly stupid. I was horrified,” said family doctor and former president of the Ontario Medical Association, Dr. Sohail Gandhi in an interview with CTV News Saturday. “Children in the U.S. are going to die as a result of this move – and, worse, some children are going to have lifelong complications as a result of this move.”

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Germany

German health minister rejects US counterpart’s COVID claims

US Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr has claimed that doctors in Germany who issued COVID-19 vaccine exemptions are facing legal action. Health Minister Nina Warken has hit back vehemently at the accusations.

Published January 11, 2026

Published by: DW / Reuters
Published on: January 11, 2026
By Timothy Jones

German Health Minister Nina Warken has rejected accusations by US Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr that doctors in Germany have faced legal action for issuing vaccine and mask exemptions during the coronavirus pandemic.

Kennedy, a known vaccine skeptic, posted a video on X on Saturday in which he says: “I’ve learned that more than a thousand German physicians, and thousands of their patients, now face prosecution and punishment for issuing exemptions from wearing masks or getting COVID-19 vaccines during the pandemic.”

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universal masking

Face masks ‘inadequate’ and should be swapped for respirators, WHO is advised

Experts are urging guideline changes on what health professionals should wear to protect against flu-like illnesses including Covid

Published January 9, 2026

Published by: The Guardian
Published on: January 9, 2026
By Kat Lay

Surgical face masks provide inadequate protection against flu-like illnesses including Covid, and should be replaced by respirator-level masks – worn every time doctors and nurses are face to face with a patient, according to a group of experts urging changes to World Health Organization guidelines.

There is “no rational justification remaining for prioritising or using” the surgical masks that are ubiquitous in hospitals and clinics globally, given their “inadequate protection against airborne pathogens”, they said in a letter to WHO chief Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus.

“There is even less justification for allowing healthcare workers to wear no face covering at all,” they said.

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research

In utero COVID exposure linked to brain changes, developmental delays, anxiety, and depression

Published January 5, 2026

Published by: CIDRAP
Published on: January 5, 2026
By Mary Van Beusekom

In utero SARS-CoV-2 exposure may predispose children to altered brain volumes, impaired cognition, and internalizing emotional problems such as anxiety and depression, researchers from Children’s National Hospital and George Washington University write in Brain, Behavior, and Immunity.

The team enrolled 39 mother-baby pairs in Washington, DC, who had been exposed to COVID-19 during pregnancy from 2020 to 2022 and compared them with 103 normative pairs from before the pandemic (2016 to 2019). None of the infected women had been vaccinated against SARS-CoV-2.

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six years

COVID-19 Is Six Today. What We’ve Learned

We need cleaner air, which requires changes in medical culture.

Published December 31, 2025

Published by: The Tyee
Published on: December 31, 2025
By Crawford Kilian

Last year on this date, I published a Tyee article about the fifth anniversary of the first public announcement of what we now know as COVID-19.

My conclusions then were that we hadn’t learned much from the experience. A year later, many of us have unlearned the value of vaccination. Outbreaks of measles and whooping cough have predictably followed. Alberta has stopped reporting COVID-19 in hospitals.

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influenza

As H3N2 sweeps across Canada, what to know about flu’s heart attack risk

Published December 23, 2025

Published by: Global News
Published on: December 23, 2025
By Uday Rana

It’s more than just a bad cold: influenza can also raise your risk of a heart attack shortly after an infection, medical experts are warning as the H3N2 strain spreads rapidly in Canada.

At the same time, flu season is coinciding with another risk factor for heart attacks – shovelling snow.

“Any time you get an infection, including a viral infection, there’s the release in your body of molecules that both trigger inflammation and sustain inflammation. And part of that is an increased tendency for your blood to clot,” said Dr. Fahad Razak, internal medicine physician at St. Michael’s Hospital and professor at the University of Toronto.

“That can have immediate effects within the weeks following an infection, resulting in things like strokes or heart attacks.”

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indoor air quality

Schools must improve air quality to slow spread of respiratory illness, advocates say

Published December 23, 2025

Published by: The Globe and Mail
Published on: December 23, 2025
By Dave McGinn

Heather Hanwell’s 12-year-old daughter recently missed almost two weeks of school after being hit hard by a viral infection. She’s among many parents who are caring for sick kids this flu season, which so far has seen a surge of cases among school-age children.

But the experience was particularly frustrating for Dr. Hanwell, an epidemiologist who says that improving the air quality in schools would help reduce the spread of contagious respiratory illnesses.

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Tag: COVID-19

Still COVIDing Canada Posts

Still COVIDing Canada Posts

Still COVIDing Canada Posts

Still COVIDing Canada Posts

Some administrators treat accommodations as a favour—and those requesting them as problems

Still COVIDing Canada Posts

Still COVIDing Canada Posts

Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. placed about 90 percent of the roughly 1,000 employees of the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health on administrative leave last April.

Still COVIDing Canada Posts

Still COVIDing Canada Posts

Still COVIDing Canada Posts

Still COVIDing Canada Posts

Still COVIDing Canada Posts

Still COVIDing Canada Posts

US Health Secretary Robert F Kennedy Jr has claimed that doctors in Germany who issued COVID-19 vaccine exemptions are facing legal action. Health Minister Nina Warken has hit back vehemently at the accusations.

Still COVIDing Canada Posts

Experts are urging guideline changes on what health professionals should wear to protect against flu-like illnesses including Covid

Still COVIDing Canada Posts

Still COVIDing Canada Posts

We need cleaner air, which requires changes in medical culture.

Still COVIDing Canada Posts

Still COVIDing Canada Posts

Still COVIDing Canada Posts