An examination of 23 common wildlife species in Virginia finds evidence of SARS-CoV-infection in 6 and antibodies indicating previous infection in 5.
For the study, published today in Nature Communications, Virginia Tech researchers collected 789 nasal and oral swabs and 126 blood samples from animals live-trapped and released or being treated at wildlife rehabilitation centers in Virginia and Washington, DC, from May 2022 to September 2023.
Comments closedA new US study has found that wildfire smoke may be worse for brain health than other types of air pollution and even increase the risk of dementia.
The findings, reported on Monday at the Alzheimer’s Association International Conference in Philadelphia, come as millions spent the weekend under air quality warnings from wildfires spewing smoke across the western US, including a huge wildfire in California that has grown to more than 360,000 acres.
At issue is fine particulate matter or PM 2.5 – tiny particles about 30 times smaller than the diameter of a human hair that can be inhaled deep into the lungs and move to the bloodstream. This pollution – from traffic, factories and fires – can cause or worsen heart and lung diseases, and the new study adds to evidence it may play some role in dementia, too.
Comments closedLong Covid — the name adopted for cases of prolonged symptoms after an acute bout of Covid-19 — is an umbrella diagnosis covering a broad range of clinical presentations and abnormal biological processes. Researchers haven’t yet identified a single or defining cause for some of the most debilitating symptoms associated with long Covid, which parallel those routinely seen in other post-acute infection syndromes. These include overwhelming fatigue, post-exertional malaise, cognitive deficits (often referred to as brain fog), and extreme dizziness.
Given the current gaps in knowledge, some neurologists, psychiatrists, and other clinicians in the United States, United Kingdom, and elsewhere have suggested that an existing diagnosis known as functional neurological disorder (FND) could offer the best explanation for many cases of this devastating illness.
We strongly disagree. Although prominent news outlets such as The New Republic and Slate have promoted this perspective, it is unwarranted to view long Covid through the lens of functional neurological disorder. Despite assertions of robust evidence from those most invested in promoting it, the FND construct is based largely on speculation and assumption. Successful treatments for long Covid are much more likely to emerge from investigations into the kinds of immunological, neurological, hormonal, and vascular differences that have already been documented than from the inappropriate imposition of an often ill-fitting diagnosis onto the broad swath of people with these prolonged symptoms.
Comments closedRemember when we thought Covid was a two-week illness? So does Michael Peluso, assistant professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco.
He recalls the rush to study acute Covid infection, and the crush of resulting papers. But Peluso, an HIV researcher, knew what his team excelled at: following people over the long term.
So they adapted their HIV research infrastructure to study Covid patients. The LIINC program, short for “Long-term Impact of Infection with Novel Coronavirus,” started in San Francisco at the very beginning of the pandemic. By April 2020, the team was already seeing patients come in with lingering illness and effects of Covid — in those early days still unnamed and unpublicized as long Covid. They planned to follow people’s progress for three months after they were infected with the virus.
Comments closedThe National Institutes of Health (NIH) yesterday announced the launch of a phase 1 trial of a nasal vaccine against COVID-19, which also marks the first National Institute for Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) trial conducted as part of the government’s Project NextGen—an effort designed to advance the development of next-generation vaccines against the disease.
In an NIH statement, NIAID Director Jeanne Marrazzo, MD, said first-generation COVID vaccines have greatly mitigated the toll of the disease and are still effective for preventing severe illness, hospitalization, and death. She added, however, that they aren’t as good at preventing illness and battling milder disease.
“With the continual emergence of new virus variants, there is a critical need to develop next-generation COVID-19 vaccines, including nasal vaccines, that could reduce SARS-CoV-2 infections and transmission,” she said.
Comments closedThe rise in the number of cases of avian influenza on farms in the United States, the infection of cow herds and recent cases of transmission to human beings are of concern to Quebec and Canadian authorities, who say they are monitoring the situation very closely.
Avian influenza – specifically avian influenza of subtypes H5 and H7 – is a reportable disease in Quebec. Avian influenza is a zoonosis, meaning it can be transmitted from animals to humans.
Cases of avian influenza in humans remain very rare, but last spring three cases of human infection associated with infected dairy farms were reported in the United States. Two infected people had eye symptoms and the third person suffered a respiratory infection.
Comments closedAs Covid cases rise across California, the Los Angeles mayor Karen Bass announced that city officials were exploring the legality of wearing masks at demonstrations.
The announcement came as a response to a pro-Palestinian protest outside a Los Angeles synagogue that made international headlines.
Bass, a Democrat, said at a press conference with local Jewish leaders on Monday that she would be seeking “several points of clarity” from the city attorney “around what are the parameters with protests: when permits are needed, whether or not people should be masked, and establishing clear lines of demarcation between what is legal and what is not.”
The move represents a stark reversal from 2020, when public health officials urged protesters to wear masks, and Democratic politicians embraced mask-wearing, while Donald Trump and many Republicans rejected masks and other public health measures.
Comments closedThe new COVID-19 subvariants collectively nicknamed FLiRT are continuing to increase their dominance nationwide, fueling a rise in cases in Los Angeles County and growth in the coronavirus levels seen in California wastewater.
Taken together, the data point to a coronavirus resurgence in the Golden State — one that, while not wholly unexpected given the trends seen in previous pandemic-era summers, has arrived earlier and is being driven by even more transmissible strains than those previously seen.
It remains unclear how bad the COVID situation may get this summer, however. Doctors have said that by the Fourth of July, we may have a better feel for how the rest of the season will play out.
Comments closedThe former director of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Robert Redfield, has said that the next pandemic could be from bird flu.
The World Health Organization recently announced the first human death from bird flu in Mexico, and the virus has been found in cattle across the US.
“I really do think it’s very likely that we will, at some time, it’s not a question of if, it’s more of a question of when we will have a bird flu pandemic,” Redfield told NewsNation on Friday.
He added that the mortality rate is likely to be much higher from bird flu compared to Covid-19.
While the mortality rate was 0.6 per cent for Covid-19, Redfield said the mortality for the bird flu would probably be “somewhere between 25 and 50 per cent.”
Comments closedIf you or any of your friends have gotten sick with COVID-19 recently, you’re not the only ones: Case rates are rising in the Bay Area and the proof is in the pipes. According to the California Department of Public Health, the region now has the most viral wastewater than anywhere else in California.
In an email to SFGATE, Amanda Bidwell, a wastewater researcher and data analyst at Stanford, said that over the past 21 days “consistently high concentrations” of SARS-CoV-2 have been detected in wastewater samples collected across San Francisco.
“Currently we are seeing some of the highest concentrations we’ve ever measured” at these locations, Bidwell continued. And across San Francisco, the levels are approaching those last seen in December and January. Because individuals shed the virus before getting tested, this method of monitoring wastewater helps predict upcoming surges while including data from those who are asymptomatic.
Comments closedToday a new report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine presents a number of conclusions about long-COVID diagnosis, symptoms, and impact on daily function, including that the condition can cause more than 200 symptoms, and that a positive COVID-19 test is not necessary to make a long-COVID diagnosis.
The findings are meant to guide the Social Security Administration (SSA) and are published one week before the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine is set to offer a new single definition of long COVID that can be used across US governmental groups as a way to streamline treating the condition in the years to come.
“This report offers a comprehensive review of the evidence base for how Long COVID may impact a patient’s ability to engage in normal activities, such as going to work, attending school, or taking care of their families,” said Victor J. Dzau, MD, president of the National Academy of Medicine, in a National Academies press release. “Its findings will be useful to anyone attempting to understand how Long COVID may affect the millions of people in the U.S. who have reported symptoms.”
Comments closedEven as national institutions struggle to coordinate meaningful trials for possible long COVID treatments, researchers continue to tally the damage. New findings suggest that the disease’s reach isn’t merely long—it’s still growing.
Three years after their initial bouts with COVID-19, patients who’d once been hospitalized with the virus remained at “significantly elevated” risk of death or worsening health from long COVID complications, according to a paper published May 30 in Nature Medicine.
Even among those whose initial cases didn’t require a hospital stay, the threat of long COVID and several of its associated issues remained real, the researchers found. And cumulatively, at three years, long COVID results in 91 disability-adjusted life years (DALY) per 1,000 people—DALYs being a measure of years lost to poor health or premature death. That is a higher incidence than either heart disease or cancer.
Comments closedDisabled North Carolina residents say a mask restriction that is under consideration in the state legislature would make it harder for them to access parts of their communities, pushing them back into isolation.
“This law says to them that you are not welcome in our community and we don’t value your presence to accommodate your need to wear a mask,” Tara Muller, a policy attorney at Disability Rights North Carolina, told ABC News.
House Bill 237, dubbed the “Unmasking Mobs and Criminals” bill, would repeal a COVID-19 pandemic exception that allowed people to wear a face mask in public. It allows exceptions for holiday costumes, rituals or ceremonies, theatrical productions, gas masks or employment-based usage, but would remove the ability for someone to wear a mask to ensure “the physical health or safety of the wearer or others.”
The North Carolina House voted against a bill that would’ve banned mask-wearing in public Wednesday.
The Senate passed it last week as part of an effort to crack down on people who wear masks at protests so they can commit crimes.
Lawmakers in the House worried it went too far, saying the law may be unfairly enforced against people who wear masks for health concerns.
Leaders in the House and Senate will soon meet to try to iron out a compromise.
Comments closedA North Carolina bill partially meant to address mask-wearing at protests was under review Wednesday after some House Republicans raised issue with the legislation’s impact on people who wear masks for health reasons.
The state House voted not to accept changes made to the bill by the state Senate that would remove a pandemic-era masking exemption for health purposes.
Comments closedCue Health, the once high-flying San [Diego] biotech supplying rapid COVID-19 test kits to the NBA and others, is shutting down this week.
Cue’s closure comes a week after the U.S. Food and Drug Administration warned consumers to throw out any of its COVID-19 test kits because they could give false results. The San Diego firm said it has stopped selling the COVID-19 tests, which was its only fully FDA-approved commercial product.
Comments closedCovid-19 levels are about the lowest they’ve ever been in the United States, but another new crop of virus variants once again threatens to disrupt the downward trend as the country heads into summer.
KP.2 — one of the so-called FLiRT variants — has overtaken JN.1 to become the dominant coronavirus variant in the United States, according to data from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Data through May 11 shows that it’s responsible for more than a quarter of cases in the country, which is nearly twice as many as JN.1. A related variant, KP.1.1, has caused about 7% of cases, CDC data shows.
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