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.
Comments closedTag: SARS-CoV-2
Topic: N95 respiratorsView all posts for the topic: N95 respirators
Experts Call For N95s To Replace Surgical Masks As Flu, Covid Viruses Spread
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.
Comments closedTopic: respiratorsView all posts for the topic: 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.
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.
Comments closedTopic: vaccinesView all posts for the topic: vaccines
RFK Jr. appoints 2 vocal opponents of vaccine use in pregnancy to federal advisory board
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.”
Comments closedTopic: long COVIDView all posts for the topic: long COVID
Increased levels of Alzheimer’s-linked protein found in some with long COVID
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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Moderna COVID vaccine 53% effective against adult hospitalization in 2024-25 season, data suggest
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.
Comments closedTopic: Northwest TerritoriesView all posts for the topic: Northwest Territories
Yellowknife adds more flu and Covid shot walk-in clinics
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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‘Incomprehensibly stupid:’ How U.S. cuts in vaccine recommendations will impact Canadians
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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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.
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.”
Comments closedTopic: universal maskingView all posts for the topic: 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
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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In utero COVID exposure linked to brain changes, developmental delays, anxiety, and depression
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.
Comments closedTopic: six yearsView all posts for the topic: six years
COVID-19 Is Six Today. What We’ve Learned
We need cleaner air, which requires changes in medical culture.
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.
Comments closedTopic: influenzaView all posts for the topic: influenza
As H3N2 sweeps across Canada, what to know about flu’s heart attack risk
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.”
Comments closedTopic: indoor air qualityView all posts for the topic: indoor air quality
Schools must improve air quality to slow spread of respiratory illness, advocates say
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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Schools have become cesspools for cold and flu, but they don’t have to be: Ontario School Safety
The volunteer-led organization Ontario School Safety is renewing calls to the Ontario government to improve indoor air quality in schools.
The call comes as Ontario sees a rapid increase in cases of the flu, particularly impacting young children.
In April, 2021, the Government of Ontario announced it was investing over $130 million, in addition to funds from the Canadian government, to upgrade school infrastructure to protect children from COVID-19. The majority of this funding was earmarked for ventilation projects to improve indoor air quality.
Comments closedTopic: long COVIDView all posts for the topic: long COVID
Workplace exposures tied to higher risk of long COVID
Work-related factors may increase the risk of developing long COVID, according to a new population-based study from Spain.
The findings, published in BMJ Occupational & Environmental Medicine, suggest that the primary work-related drivers of increased long COVID risk were irregular or limited use of respirators, close contact with coworkers and/or the public, inability to physical distance, and use of public transportation to commute to work.
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