About one in nine Canadian adults have had long-term symptoms from COVID-19 infection, according to a Statistics Canada report issued Friday.
That amounts to 3.5 million Canadians, it said.
Almost 80 per cent of those people with long-term symptoms have them for six months or more, the report said.
In addition, more than half of those who ever had long-term symptoms still had them as of June 2023.
Comments closedEarly in the pandemic, scientists warned that COVID-19 could cause long-term sequelae even after a mild infection. After all, at least a dozen other known pathogens cause post-infection syndromes. Why didn’t we see this problem coming, and possibly prevent millions of people from developing long COVID?
Comments closedA study yesterday in Open Forum Infectious Diseases shows women who have COVID-19 infections within a week before giving birth are at an increased risk for severe maternal morbidity (SMM) events, including acute renal failure and adult respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS).
Comments closedAir sampling was as effective in monitoring COVID-19 and influenza A (IAV) activity as three other methods in a Wisconsin school district from September 2022 to January 2023, according to a study published today in JAMA Network Open.
Comments closedResearchers in China report thinning of the gray matter and other changes in certain parts of the brain in 61 men after COVID-19 Omicron infection.
For the study, published late last week in JAMA Network Open, the researchers evaluated 61 men before and after infection with the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant in January 2023. The men had been part of a larger cohort who had undergone magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and neuropsychiatric screenings before infection in August and September 2022. Average age was 43 years.
Comments closedAmid a declining life expectancy across the country, new national data released this week show that years on from the beginning of the pandemic, COVID-19…
Comments closedA review and meta-analysis of long-term cardiac complications of long COVID finds a high prevalence of chest pain and abnormal heart rhythms (arrythmias).
Comments closedTwo doses of a COVID-19 mRNA vaccine were 40% effective against emergency department (ED) visits and hospitalization in preschool-aged children during a period of Omicron variant predominance, estimates a test-negative, case-control study using data from the New Vaccine Surveillance Network (NVSN).
Comments closedFor the fifth consecutive week, the community risk index for COVID-19 for the Peterborough, Ont., region remains at a high level, public health officials report.
Comments closedThe world is nearly four years into the COVID-19 pandemic, but how the SARS-CoV-2 virus damages human lives, both in the short term and across a span of years, is still becoming clear. Earlier this month, a study in Lancet showed that 54% of those infected in the first months of the pandemic were still experiencing symptoms over three years later.
Comments closedA study from Israel finds that adult solid-cancer patients had a higher risk of death and hospitalization after COVID-19 infection than infected patients without cancer during a period of Omicron variant predominance and that vaccination lowered that risk.
Comments closedCOVID-19 caused an alarming surge in premature births, but vaccines were key to returning the early birth rate to pre-pandemic levels, according to a new analysis of California birth records.
“The effect of maternal COVID infection from the onset of the pandemic into 2023 is large, increasing the risk of preterm births over that time by 1.2 percentage points,” says Jenna Nobles, a University of Wisconsin–Madison sociology professor. “To move the needle on preterm birth that much is akin to a disastrous environmental exposure, like weeks of breathing intense wildfire smoke.”
Comments closedUse of air purifiers at two daycare centres in Helsinki led to a reduction in illnesses and absences among children and staff, according to preliminary findings of a new study led by E3 Pandemic Response.
Air purifiers of various sizes and types were placed in two of the city’s daycare centres during cold and flu seasons.
The initial results from the first year of research are promising, according to researcher Enni Sanmark, from HUS Helsinki University Hospital.
“Children were clearly less sick in daycare centres where air purification devices were used — down by around 30 percent,” Sanmark explained.
Comments closedPM2.5 particles are tiny enough to enter the bloodstream and lodge in the lungs, where they contribute to respiratory problems such as asthma. They also can prompt heart attacks and strokes. And they have been linked to diabetes, obesity and dementia and may exacerbate COVID.
Comments closedLong COVID is no stranger to either patients or those immersed in studies of its effects. In the U.S., one in 7 adults–about 14% of the adult population–has experienced symptoms that lasted three months or longer after first contracting the virus. The worldwide estimate for long COVID is 65 million people.
What is less clear–because it’s still so early in the process–is the impact of some of SARS-CoV-2’s most dangerous characteristics on those hit by long COVID. But some researchers are warily watching for the worst: a potential connection to cancer.
Comments closedA new study comparing magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) images of patients with long COVID, fully recovered COVID-19 survivors, and healthy controls shows microstructural changes in different brain regions in the long-COVID patients. The findings will be presented next week at the annual meeting of the Radiological Society of North America.
Comments closedLong-COVID diagnoses and long-term symptoms among nonhospitalized adults were tied to 43% and 44% increases in the costs of primary care, respectively, in the United Kingdom, according to a study published yesterday in BMC Primary Care.
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