Category: COVID
One of our best Covid-19 treatments doesn’t work anymore. What now?
(Vox) Covid-19 is once again trending upward in the United States, with new cases reaching more than 450,000 and deaths climbing up to 3,000 per week. But hospitals will have to face this year’s winter surge without a valuable tool. In late November, the Food and Drug Administration revoked its emergency use authorization for bebtelovimab, a monoclonal antibody […]
Dec 20, 2022
China’s Covid-19 Outbreak Has US Worried About New Variants
(Bloomberg) The US is concerned China’s runaway Covid-19 outbreak might spawn new mutations of the virus, as the world’s most populous country continues to grapple with the impact of loosening “Covid Zero” protocols that had kept the pandemic at bay. “When it comes to the current outbreak in China, we want to see this addressed,” […]
Dec 20, 2022
Are Subphenotypes for Long COVID Beneficial?
(MedPageToday) A recent study opens in a new tab or window published in Nature Medicine, “Data-driven identification of post-acute SARS-CoV-2 infection subphenotypes” by Hao Zhang, PhD, et al. used a data-driven framework to stratify patients suffering with post-acute SARS-CoV-2 (PASC), also referred to as long COVID, into different subcategories of sequelae. The bulk of the patients in the […]
Dec 20, 2022
Coronavirus boosters cut hospitalization risk by at least 50%, CDC data shows
(Washington Post) Adults who received the updated coronavirus booster shots are better protected against severe disease than those who haven’t, cutting their risk of having to visit an emergency room or being hospitalized with covid-19 by 50 percent or more,according to new federal data. Two reports released Friday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention give […]
Dec 20, 2022
Just How Bad Is the ‘Tripledemic’?
(NYT) After two difficult Covid winters, the current season of respiratory sickness already rivals some of the worst cold and flu seasons on record — and it started about two months early. R.S.V., or respiratory syncytial virus, has made so many young children ill this fall that weekly pediatric hospitalizations for R.S.V. are the highest recorded. Influenza, […]
Dec 16, 2022
Tripledemic Update: RSV, Covid And Flu
(Forbes) The United States has already plunged into one of the roughest seasons of winter illnesses in decades. After nearly three years of being sequestered, children and adults are back out in crowds, with no masks, no distancing, and viruses waiting with open arms. Well, open RNA strands, at least. We’ve rounded the bend on […]
Dec 16, 2022
U.S. Offers Free At-Home Covid Tests as Part of Winter Plan
(New York Times) With cases on the rise, the Biden administration restarted a program that has provided hundreds of millions of tests through the Postal Service. Households are now able to order four tests at covidtests.gov, with shipments beginning next week.
Dec 16, 2022
The Coronavirus May Spread From Corpses, Scientists Report
(NYT) Like a zombie in a horror film, the coronavirus can persist in the bodies of infected patients well after death, even spreading to others, according to two startling studies. The risk of contagion is mainly to those who handle cadavers, like pathologists, medical examiners and health care workers, and in settings like hospitals and […]
Dec 16, 2022
(MedPageToday) VIDEO Anthony Fauci, MD, talks about retirement, pandemics, and “The Godfather” with Jeremy Faust, MD In this exclusive video, Jeremy Faust, MD, editor-in-chief of MedPage Today, sits down for a conversation with Anthony Fauci, MD, before his departure from the NIH at the end of the year. The following is a transcript of their remarks: […]
Dec 16, 2022
China Covid: Hospitals under strain in wave of infections
(BBC) China’s hospitals are already under so much pressure, following the country’s rapid 180-degree shift in Covid policy that doctors and nurses could be infecting patients. It seems frontline medical workers are being told to come in even if they have the virus themselves because of staff shortages.
Dec 13, 2022