Five years after the pandemic’s start, millions of Americans are still struggling with long-lasting symptoms of Covid-19. Cognitive difficulties are among the most troubling and common symptoms in people both old and young.
These ailments can be severe enough to leave former professionals like Ken Todd unable to work and even diagnosed with a form of mild cognitive impairment.
Comments closedThe US National Institutes of Health (NIH) has terminated nearly 800 research projects at a breakneck pace, wiping out significant chunks of funding to entire scientific fields, finds a Nature analysis of the unprecedented cuts.
The administration of US President Donald Trump began purging NIH-funded studies on topics that it deems problematic less than 50 days ago, continuously expanding its list to include research on topics ranging from COVID-19 to misinformation. Hundreds of the 30,000-plus scientists funded by the NIH yearly have been forced to halt their work after receiving notices that their research “no longer effectuates agency priorities”, and some have had to fire personnel or even shut down their laboratories.
Comments closedNearly 1 in 7 working-age US adults had experienced long COVID by late 2023, and socially disadvantaged adults were over 150% more likely to have persistent symptoms, two new studies find.
Yesterday in Communications Medicine, Daniel Kim, MD, DrPH, of Northeastern University, analyzed data from the US Census Bureau’s Household Pulse Survey from September and November 2022 and August to October 2023 on more than 375,000 US adults, including nearly 50,000 with self-reported long COVID.
Kim assessed sociodemographic and socioeconomic factors as predictors of long COVID; estimated the risk of unemployment, financial difficulties, and anxiety and depression among working-age adults (ages 18 to 64 years) and those currently experiencing lingering symptoms; and tallied the economic effects of the resulting lost wages.
Comments closedResearchers have shown a new drug compound can prevent long COVID symptoms in mice – a landmark finding that could lead to a future treatment for the debilitating condition.
The world-first study found mice treated with the antiviral compound, developed by a multidisciplinary research team at WEHI, were protected from long term brain and lung dysfunction – key symptoms of long COVID.
Researchers hope the unprecedented results could lead to clinical trials and the first treatment for the disease in the future.
Comments closedNearly 2,000 doctors, researchers, and scientists have signed an open letter calling for an end to what they describe as the Trump administration’s “wholesale assault on U.S. science.”
The letter, written by 13 scientists from disciplines including medicine, climate science and economics, urges Americans to demand their Congress protect scientific funding and integrity.
The signatories, all members of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, wrote that the Trump administration is “destabilizing this enterprise by gutting funding for research, firing thousands of scientists, removing public access to scientific data, and pressuring researchers to alter or abandon their work on ideological grounds.”
Comments closedThe Trump administration’s enormous cuts to a global AIDS relief program threaten to upend the planned rollout of a groundbreaking HIV prevention drug that was expected to save countless lives.
The medicine, lenacapavir, made by Gilead Sciences, has caused a stir because clinical trial data showed a single set of injections every six months could provide virtually complete protection against infection, a form of prevention known as pre-exposure prophylaxis, or (PrEP). The drug, which is under regulatory review, has raised hopes that the deadly infectious disease can be mitigated around the globe. Early data for an even newer formulation suggest it might need to be given only once a year. “This is magical,” UNAIDS chief Winnie Byanyima declared last year.
Comments closedNew research findings provide solid evidence that annual COVID-19 vaccine booster doses continue to be advisable for certain immunocompromised people, researchers at McGill University say.
The researchers looked at how often people with immune-mediated inflammatory diseases (IMIDs) got COVID-19 despite having received at least three doses of an mRNA COVID-19 vaccine. IMIDs – including rheumatoid arthritis, lupus, inflammatory bowel disease and multiple sclerosis – affect more than seven million Canadians. The medications they take often weaken their vaccine responses, increasing their vulnerability to infection.
Comments closedOttawa Public Health has begun monitoring wastewater for evidence of measles in the city as the highly infectious disease continues to surge throughout Ontario.
That makes Ottawa one of the only communities in the province and across Canada using wastewater as a possible early warning signal for measles. Ottawa Public Health says the tool is promising for detecting measles, but the research is limited and “many unknowns remain”.
There have been no cases in Ottawa so far this year but Dr. Gregory Rose, who is director of infection prevention and control at Queensway Carleton Hospital, warns that it is only a matter of time.
Comments closedAs Canada deals with its largest measles outbreak in more than a decade, health experts say a COVID-era tool could help tame the spread.
Wastewater surveillance, which involves testing sewage samples for viral pathogens, became essential during the pandemic. The data helped overwhelmed health officials map out COVID-19’s path and better predict the trajectory of cases.
At the time, it was praised as a critical public health tool that could serve as a warning system to keep Canadians safe from future harmful infections. And as the current measles outbreak surpasses 500 cases in Canada, experts say this is the moment where leaning into regional wastewater surveillance would be most helpful.
Comments closedThe Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is pulling back $11.4 billion in funds allocated in response to the pandemic to state and community health departments, nongovernment organizations and international recipients, the Department of Health and Human Services confirmed Tuesday.
“The COVID-19 pandemic is over, and HHS will no longer waste billions of taxpayer dollars responding to a non-existent pandemic that Americans moved on from years ago,” HHS Director of Communications Andrew Nixon said in a statement. “HHS is prioritizing funding projects that will deliver on President Trump’s mandate to address our chronic disease epidemic and Make America Healthy Again.”
HHS oversees 13 agencies, including the CDC, which is tasked with protecting the nation’s health. Notices began going out Monday, and awardees have 30 days to reconcile their expenditures. Figures are subject to change.
COVID-19 vaccination reduced the risk of developing ‘long COVID’ by approximately 27% in adults fully vaccinated before infection, according to a literature review carried out…
Comments closedThe Trump administration is shuttering HHS’ long Covid office as part of its reorganization, according to an internal email seen by POLITICO.
The email was sent Monday by Ian Simon, the head of the Office of Long Covid Research and Practice. It said the closing is part of the Department of Health and Human Services’ reorganization.
Comments closedCOVID may no longer be considered an official global emergency, but mounting scientific evidence suggests every COVID infection a person gets increases their risk of developing long-term health issues.
“There is no such thing as a COVID infection without consequence,” says long COVID researcher, David Putrino, from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York.
The long-term effects can show up as long COVID, with symptoms such as shortness of breath, digestive problems, fast or irregular heartbeats, extreme fatigue and brain fog, or as silently accumulating cellular or organ damage.
Comments closedPeople who later experienced persistent shortness of breath or fatigue after a COVID infection were already taking significantly fewer steps per day and had a higher resting heart rate before contracting the virus, according to a CSH study published in npj Digital Medicine. This may indicate lower fitness levels or pre-existing conditions as potential risk factors
Between April 2020 and December 2022, over 535,000 people in Germany downloaded and activated the Corona Data Donation App (CDA). Of these, more than 120,000 voluntarily shared daily data from their smartwatches and fitness trackers with researchers, providing insights into vital functions such as resting heart rate and step count.
“These high-resolution data served as the starting point for our study,” explains CSH researcher Katharina Ledebur. “We were able to compare vital signs in 15-minute intervals before, during, and after a SARS-CoV-2 infection.”
Comments closedIn a Swedish cohort, the risk of long COVID was much lower for vaccinated than unvaccinated participants in the year after infection, even when restricting the analyses to subgroups based on variant, age, sex, and previous infection status, estimates a study published last week in the Journal of Infectious Diseases.
Karolinska Institutet researchers in Stockholm analyzed data from five registries to compare rates of persistent COVID-19 symptoms, or post-COVID condition [PCC], in adults infected from January 2021 to February 2022 by vaccination status in the 14 days before infection. Follow-up was 365 to 660 days.
Comments closedThe blitzkrieg launched against science by the Trump administration is unprecedented, and all the more shocking as it comes from a democratic country. The brutality of the layoffs of civil servants, the halting of funding and the blocking of research programs is astounding. The Orwellian dimension of the move came to light with the publication of a list of terms that must no longer be used in research and working papers – climate, pollution, injustice, reference to gender or race… So much so that some scientists are beginning to devise different phrases to pass Trump’s censors.
Comments closedIt’s now been five years since the COVID pandemic stopped the world in its tracks. The virus is still with us, and continues to make people sick. As many as 1 in 5 Canadians have experienced symptoms of long COVID, but scientists are finding that beyond that, each infection can also lead to long term silent cellular and organ damage. David Putrino, who’s been studying COVID’s long term effects at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York City, says even mild or asymptomatic COVID infections can lead to a wide range of silent long term heath impacts — compromising our immune, vascular, circulatory, renal, metabolic, gastrointestinal systems and even cognitive function.
Comments closed
