Comments closedIt is a constant deluge of pain that slowly strips you of everything you used to be by taking away everything you used to do — daily exercise, going out more nights than not, seeing friends, attending concerts.
In an attempt to establish a definitive objective cognitive marker for PCC, or post-COVID-19 condition, researchers tested long COVID patients in Germany and the United Kingdom with cognitive speed tests, and found long COVID patients have a significant lag, suggesting cognitive slowing.
The study, published yesterday in eClincialMedicine, was based on findings on an initial 194 long COVID patient seen at a PCC clinic in Germany. Findings were then replicated in a follow up COVID clinic in the United Kingdom.
All study participants had one or more symptoms of PCC at least 12 weeks following a lab-confirmed COVID-19 infection. They were compared to two control groups, one group that had never had a COVID-19 infection and one group that had COVID-19 12 or more weeks prior but no evidence of PCC.
Comments closedAs all of us know, the COVID-19 pandemic was the worst public health crisis in more than a century. Since the first cases four years ago, well more than 100 million Americans have gotten the virus, more than 6.7 million Americans have been hospitalized and more than 1 million Americans have died.
More Americans have died from COVID-19 than were killed during World War II.
The pandemic created the most painful economic downturn since the Great Depression, disrupted the education of our young people and increased isolation, anxiety and mental illness.
I am more than aware that many Americans are tired of hearing about COVID-19 and would like to sweep it under the rug. Unfortunately, the virus is not done with us.
Comments closedHundreds of doctors are planning to sue the NHS over claims inadequate PPE on the frontline has left them with long COVID, disabled, and in financial ruin.
Dr Kelly Fearnley, 37, was working on a COVID ward at Bradford Royal Infirmary in November 2020 when she caught coronavirus.
More than three years later, the effects of long COVID mean she is still unable to work. After episodes of violent shakes, hallucinations, and a resting heart rate more than double the average, she was diagnosed with limbic encephalitis – inflammation of parts of the brain.
Comments closedComments closedThe burden of disease and disability from long COVID is on par with the burden of cancer and heart disease. We must develop sustainable solutions to prevent repeated infections with SARS-CoV-2 and long COVID that would be embraced by the public.
Over the last four years, Angela Meriquez Vázquez has faced a long list of health scares and conditions, any of which could have had a profound impact on her life individually. From mini-strokes to brain swelling to seizures to painful heart palpitations — not to mention severe shortness of breath, extreme confusion and numbness in her face — Vasquez didn’t start to experience these events until after she got infected with COVID-19 in March 2020.
Prior to the infection, Vázquez was a healthy runner for nearly 20 years. Today, she is on 12 different prescription medications, including weekly IV treatments at the hospital. She has a “strict pacing regimen” that allows her to work from home, but not much else.
“I do not socialize, or enjoy my old hobbies, and I don’t really leave my home, especially now that I am now considered high-risk,” Vázquez said in a hearing with the Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, emphasizing that Congress needs to treat long-COVID like the crisis it is. “We are living through what is likely to be the largest mass disabling event in modern history.”
Vázquez was one of three long COVID patients who confronted Congress about the issue for the first time on Jan. 18 in Washington D.C.
Comments closedResearchers have developed a computational model that predicts how likely a person is to develop long COVID, based on an analysis of more than 6,500 proteins found in blood.
In a study published on 18 January in Science, the team compared blood samples from people who tested positive for COVID-19 with ones from healthy adults, and found notable differences in the composition of proteins in people with long COVID, those who recovered and those who were never infected.
The analysis suggests that proteins involved in immune responses, blood clotting and inflammation could be key biomarkers in diagnosing and monitoring long COVID, which affects an estimated 65 million people worldwide.
Comments closedThe answers lie in poop. Based on the latest national sample of wastewater taken on January 13, 2024, the concentration of the SARS-Cov-2 virus is 1,132 copies/mL of sewage, an alarming increase compared to 280 copies/mL six months ago. This is one sign that cases of COVID infections have been rising, resulting in more hospitalizations, deaths, and people developing long COVID.
Like millions of other high-risk people who are service workers, older, chronically ill, disabled, or immunocompromised, I have done everything I can to remain as safe as possible. Due to neuromuscular disability and respiratory failure, my chances of surviving an infection are slim to none. With the latest JN.1 variant likely even more contagious – or better practiced at evading immune system defenses – than previous ones, I wonder if this is the surge when I will become infected, which is terrifying.
Comments closedA study today in the journal Pediatrics from researchers at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia suggests COVID-19 vaccines have a moderately protective effect in kids against long COVID.
The authors of the retrospective study mined electronic health records from 17 healthcare systems to assess whether the vaccine protected children from long COVID, which has been less common in kids than in adults. The study began in October 2022.
Comments closedQueenslanders are flooding GPs practices with heart problems sparked by long Covid, the state’s peak medical body has revealed.
Doctors are seeing more patients with myocarditis and pericarditis due to inflammation caused by the virus that can cause palpitations chest pain or shortness of breath.
Comments closedComments closedFive years, 10 years, 20 years from now, what are we going to see in terms of cardiac impairment, pulmonary impairment, neurologic impairment? It’s year five in the pandemic, but there’s still a lot we don’t know about it.
Comments closedThe tide is turning. Thanks to all the people making noise on social media and bugging their families, while continuing to wear masks and build air purifiers no matter what anyone says, there’s a trace of hope.
People who had multiple infections were three times more likely to be hospitalized for their infection up to six months later than those who only got COVID-19 once, and were also more likely to have problems with clotting, gastrointestinal disorders, kidney, and mental-health symptoms. The risks appeared to increase the more infections people experienced.
Comments closedCovid-19 is still infecting and reinfecting millions of people around the world — causing more and more people to develop Long Covid. But public health and government agencies worldwide have failed to warn people about Long Covid and support those affected, and still aren’t effectively funding research to find effective treatments.
In response to the lack of support, people with Long Covid in the U.S., Canada, U.K., and Europe are buying billboard ads to raise awareness about the disease and promote the urgent need for clinical trials. These billboards aim to do the job of public health authorities, advocates who spoke to The Sick Times explained.
Comments closedMany people with long Covid feel tired, unwell and in pain for lengthy periods after exercise, and researchers say they now know why.
Experts say they have evidence that biological changes are to blame, such as severe muscle damage, mitochondrial problems and the presence of microclots in the body.
“It’s really confirming that there is something inside the body going wrong with the disease,” said Dr Rob Wüst, an author of the study at Vrije Universiteit (Free University) Amsterdam.
Long Covid is thought to affect tens of thousands of people in the UK alone, and many experience a worsening of symptoms for weeks after a single bout of exercise.
Comments closedThe pandemic is far from over, as evidenced by the rapid rise to global dominance of the JN.1 variant of SARS-CoV-2. This variant is a derivative of BA.2.86, the only other strain that has carried more than 30 new mutations in the spike protein since Omicron first came on the scene more than two years ago. This should have warranted designation by the World Health Organization as a variant of concern with a Greek letter, such as Pi.
By wastewater levels, JN.1 is now associated with the second-biggest wave of infections in the United States in the pandemic, after Omicron. We have lost the ability to track the actual number of infections since most people either test at home or don’t even test at all, but the very high wastewater levels of the virus indicate about 2 million Americans are getting infected each day.
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