“While too many people who should know better are downplaying the ongoing public health risk from Covid, others are trying to signal the peril of our current moment. The New York Times recently reported on new estimates from researchers that Covid might lead to at least 45,000 deaths between September and April—and that’s the best-case scenario.”
Comments closedWeekly hospital admissions have nearly doubled over the past month, including a 19% bump in the most recent week, CDC data shows. And a sample of laboratories participating in a federal surveillance program show that test positivity rates have tripled in the past two months.
Comments closedC.D.C. researchers have estimated that air purifiers may decrease the exposure to aerosols — tiny floating droplets that might contain virus — by up to 65 percent.
Comments closedLast month, the National Institutes of Health updated its considerations for long COVID to say the burden of the condition in children “may be quite large.” Studies estimating its prevalence in pediatric populations are limited and conflicting, estimating up to 25% of children infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus could go on to develop long COVID, though it’s more likely between 2% and 10%. Older children with existing chronic diseases or who had a more severe COVID-19 infection have an increased risk.
Comments closedCovid-19 vaccines that have been tweaked to teach the body how to fend off the current crop of circulating variants are now expected to land in drugstores and clinics in mid-September, CDC and FDA officials said.
Comments closedGiven that 103 million Americans and 770 million people worldwide have been diagnosed as having contracted COVID-19, a future of misery could await a stunningly large cross-section of humanity.
Comments closed“Disabled, sick, immunocompromised and vulnerable people seeking care at a hospital, have the right not to be exposed to a virus that has killed 1.1 million Americans in 3.5 years. They have the right to seek care without having to fear that their care team will quite literally kill them with a preventable illness. Practitioners, on the other hand, have no right to compare the irritation of having to wear a mask at work with the moral injury of infecting vulnerable people who then go on to die at high rates.”
Comments closedThe US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) today issued its initial risk assessment of the BA.2.86 SARS-CoV-2 lineage, which says tests and treatments will likely be effective and that updated vaccines will still be able to reduce severe disease and hospitalizations.
Comments closed“It is unusual for [this virus] to change so significantly and develop 30 new mutations. The last time we saw such a big change was when [Omicron] appeared.”
Comments closed“In the 3 months postinfection, people who’d had COVID-19 had higher rates of death and many health conditions including heart failure, diabetes, Alzheimer’s disease, and depression.”
The World Health Organization and US health authorities announced on Friday that they were closely monitoring a new variant of the COVID-19 virus, although “for the time being, the potential impact of the many mutations in BA.2.86 is unknown.”
Comments closedThe U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced Thursday it is tracking a recently discovered COVID-19 strain, BA.2.86, after a case of the highly mutated variant was discovered in Michigan.
Comments closedHeart attack-caused deaths rose during every virus surge. Worse, young people aren’t supposed to have heart attacks but Cheng’s research documented a nearly 30% increase in heart attack deaths among 25- to 44-year-olds in the pandemic’s first two years.
Comments closedIn a new study, researchers used Medicare data to characterize the long-term risk of death and hospital readmission after being hospitalized with COVID-19 among patients 65 years and older. The study demonstrates that among patients who were admitted to a hospital with COVID-19 and discharged alive, the risk of post-discharge death was nearly twice that observed in those who were discharged alive from an influenza-related hospital admission.
Comments closedThis study provides us with strong evidence that we need to stop looking at COVID-19 as strictly an upper respiratory disease and start viewing it as a systemic disorder that impacts multiple organs. The continued dysfunction we observed in organs other than the lungs suggests that mitochondrial dysfunction could be causing long-term damage to the internal organs of these patients.
A new SARS-CoV-2 variant has emerged, serving as a reminder that the pandemic is not over. The World Health Organization (WHO) has added EG.5 (includes EG.5.1) to the list of variants under monitoring (VUMs).
Comments closedComments closedWith this test, there are no nasal swabs and no waiting 15 minutes for results, as with home tests. A person simply blows into a tube in the device, and an electrochemical biosensor detects whether the virus is there. Results are available in about a minute.
