Category: Clinical Considerations
How your first brush with COVID warps your immunity
(Nature) The immune system responds more strongly to the strain of a virus that it first met, weakening response to other strains. Can this ‘imprinting’ be overcome? During the summer of 2022, with the Omicron coronavirus variant running rampant, friends and relatives of immunologist Bob Seder kept asking him if they should postpone their COVID-19 […]
Jan 24, 2023
COVID-19 Infection May Induce Fetal Brain Hemorrhages, Scientists Warn
(Science Alert) There are already plenty of reasons to worry about COVID-19, but there’s another to add to the list: There’s evidence of the virus in fetal brain tissue in instances of pregnant people passing the infection to their children. So it’s not just the effects of the illness on our bodies that are of concern, but also […]
Jan 24, 2023
Early Promise for PCSK9 Inhibition in Severe COVID-19
(MedPageToday) PCSK9 inhibitors may have a role in dampening vascular inflammation to improve outcomes in severe COVID-19, a pilot study suggested. Among people with severe COVID-19 with respiratory failure and heightened inflammation, the advantage of getting PCSK9 inhibition therapy was a significantly reduced incidence of death or need for intubation at 30 days (23.3% vs […]
Jan 17, 2023
Pregnant people with COVID-19 are 7 times more likely to die in childbirth
(Popular Science) The study of over 13,000 pregnancies across 12 countries found that those infected with COVID-19 were seven times as likely to die during childbirth and are more than three times more likely to be admitted to an intensive care unit during during pregnancy, compared to COVID-free pregnant people. About 2,000 patients had a […]
Jan 17, 2023
Long COVID Rehab Program Shows “Impressive” Results
(SciTechDaily) A rehabilitation program that helps people with long COVID reduce their symptoms and increase activity levels has shown “impressive” results. The program is based on a gradual or paced increase in a patient’s physical activity. The findings showed that before the start of the program, patients were reporting an average of three “crashes” a […]
Jan 17, 2023
Pregnant Women With Covid-19 Are Eight Times More Likely To Die Than Uninfected Counterparts
(Forbes) A new BMJ Global Health study warns that getting infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus at any point during pregnancy increases the mother’s risk of death by nearly eight times compared to those who remain uninfected. A group of researchers screened 137 studies and analyzed 12 studies conducted in Sweden Italy, Spain, the United States of America, […]
Jan 17, 2023
(JAMA) An analysis of data from nearly 154 000 US veterans with SARS-CoV-2 infection provides a grim preliminary answer to the question: What are COVID-19’s long-term cardiovascular outcomes? The study, published in Nature Medicine by researchers at the Veterans Affairs (VA) St Louis Health Care System, found that in the year after recovering from the illness’s acute phase, patients had […]
Jan 10, 2023
COVID Autopsies Reveal The Virus Spreading Through The ‘Entire Body’
(ScienceAlert) Dozens of recent autopsies show persistent evidence of SARS-CoV-2 throughout the body, including in the lungs, the heart, the spleen, the kidneys, the liver, the colon, the thorax, muscles, nerves, the reproductive tract, the eye, and the brain. Related Study in Nature
Jan 10, 2023
Most people who ended up with long COVID started with a mild case, new study shows
(CBS News) 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. Long COVID is defined as the continuation or development of symptoms three months after the […]
Jan 10, 2023
COVID Smell Loss: ‘Retraining’ Mostly Flops in Trial
(MedPageToday) Bimodal olfactory training with visual cues and the use of patient-preferred scents did not produce a clinically meaningful improvement in sense of smell among individuals with COVID-19–related olfactory loss, a 275-patient randomized trial showed. Among participants with post-COVID infection olfactory loss equally randomized to bimodal patient-preferred, bimodal physician-assigned, unimodal patient-preferred, and unimodal physician-assigned scents arms, […]
Jan 3, 2023