Many repeat infections are mild, but some studies suggest people who have been infected with COVID more than once are at a greater risk of severe disease or long COVID.
Comments closedCategory: News
Topic: childrenView all posts for the topic: children
Opinion: Treating kids as invulnerable is treating them as disposable
Comments closedAre we OK with children being hospitalized for infectious diseases at far higher rates, as they have recently been? Are we fine with COVID being the No. 1 cause of infectious disease-driven death in children? Also, what if there is a number of reinfections at which average outcomes really start to worsen?
Topic: universal maskingView all posts for the topic: universal masking
Yes, masks reduce the risk of spreading COVID, despite a review saying they don’t
There is strong and consistent evidence for the effectiveness of masks and (even more so) respirators in protecting against respiratory infections. Masks are an important protection against serious infections.
Comments closedTopic: childrenView all posts for the topic: children
COVID-19 is a leading cause of death in children and young people in the US
For the one-year period August 1, 2021, to July 31, 2022, COVID-19 was a leading cause of death in children and young people in the United States, ranking eighth overall.
The researchers believe that vaccines and nonpharmaceutical interventions are needed to limit transmission of SARS-CoV-2, and mitigate severe disease.
Comments closedTopic: ChinaView all posts for the topic: China
What can the world learn from China’s “zero-Covid” lockdown?
For the first time in three years, millions traveled within China earlier this month to reunite with loved ones for the country’s most important holiday, the Lunar New Year. Unfortunately, these celebrations coincided with — and are sure to exacerbate — a Covid-19 outbreak currently spreading throughout the country.
Comments closedTopic: pandemic responseView all posts for the topic: pandemic response
We Now Face an Army of COVID Viruses
As leaders have shifted to the position that masks and tests are matter of personal choice rather than collective self-preservation, they have implicitly silenced a vital message to the citizenry about how pandemics actually come to an end. It is this: less transmission means fewer mutations; fewer mutations means less variation, the fuel of evolution. Reducing infections, then, puts the brakes on viral evolution.
The combined actions of “letting the virus rip” in a population with varying degrees of protective and waning immunity created by vaccines or previous infections “has led to unprecedented increase in viral diversification in 2022,” as one group of researchers explained in a recent paper published in the International Journal of Molecular Sciences.
Comments closedTopic: anti-vaccine movementView all posts for the topic: anti-vaccine movement
Residents abandoned to a violent occupation during ‘Freedom Convoy’: Report
Comments closedPeople who live and work in downtown Ottawa endured several weeks of widespread human rights abuse, amidst a climate of threats, fear, sexual harassment and intimidation marked by racism, misogyny, antisemitism, Islamophobia, homophobia, transphobia, and other expressions of hate and intolerance.
While convoy organizers claimed there was diversity among the participants and supporters, and that was true to a limited extent, it is clear that the overwhelming majority of people involved in the protests were white males.
Topic: anti-vaxxersView all posts for the topic: anti-vaxxers
Anti-vaccine activism melded with US antisemitism – study
Because of rising anti-vaccine activism and some key global policy missteps, more than 70 years of global health gains are in danger of being eroded, according to a physician writing in the peer-reviewed Rambam Maimonides Medical Journal published by the Rambam Health Care Campus in Haifa.
Comments closedTopic: antisemitismView all posts for the topic: antisemitism
Antisemitism surges during pandemic
“International Holocaust Remembrance Day is important to recognize, because it commemorates arguably the worst-case scenario for a liberal democracy,” declared Daniel Panneton, director of allyship and community engagement at the Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies.
Comments closedTopic: researchView all posts for the topic: research
Covid increases risk of grave illness and death in pregnant women – study
Women are more likely to die in pregnancy if they catch Covid, according to researchers, who found the infection raised the risk of a swath of serious illnesses for mothers and their newborns.
Reports throughout the pandemic have highlighted how pregnant women are particularly vulnerable to the virus, with doctors urging women to take up the offer of Covid vaccination to reduce the risk to themselves and their children.
Comments closedTopic: indoor air qualityView all posts for the topic: indoor air quality
We Need a Revolution in Clean Indoor Air
Comments closedThe thing about cleaner indoor air is that it works on any variant and any airborne disease; it helps against pollution; it helps against all kinds of things.
Topic: OntarioView all posts for the topic: Ontario
‘Gross negligence’: Judge gives go-ahead to COVID-deaths lawsuit against Ontario
Governments saw broad immunity against COVID civil suits, but the class-action suit for deaths in nursing homes could have an impact throughout the country.
Comments closedTopic: long COVIDView all posts for the topic: long COVID
Long COVID stemmed from mild cases of COVID-19 in most people
Even mild COVID-19 cases can have major and long-lasting effects on people’s health. That is one of the key findings from our recent multicountry study on long COVID-19—or long COVID—recently published in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
Comments closedTopic: pandemic mythsView all posts for the topic: pandemic myths
Ten COVID Facts Health Officials Dangerously Downplay
Do not listen to powers that be who pretend that getting infected with COVID multiple times is now no big deal. They’re asking you to lower your guard for a nasty virus that can invade the brain, disregulate the immune system and damage the vascular system.
This strategy has led to predictable results — more direct deaths, more excess deaths, more disease and some 1.4 million Canadians reporting some form of long COVID over the last two years.
Comments closedTopic: immune systemView all posts for the topic: immune system
Immune systems seriously weakened by COVID
Emergency wards remain busy two years after the first COVID-19 vaccines arrived in Ontario in part because the virus depletes the body’s supply of T-cells, leaving young and old alike vulnerable to secondary infections, says a University of Waterloo immunologist.
T-cells are the front-line soldiers of the immune system, and the number of T-cells typically increases when the body is fighting off an infection, said Barb Katzenback, who studies viruses.
“Individuals who are infected with COVID have many fewer T-cells,” said Katzenback. “That’s a problem for us because T-cells are a really important part of our immune system that helps defend us against infection.”
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