Category: COVID
Did My Strong COVID Vax Reaction Give Me Better Immunity?
(MedPageToday) Is a strong reaction to the COVID-19 vaccine a sign of a more robust immune response that ultimately brings better protection against infection, hospitalization, and death? Many are asking that question as they roll up their sleeves for yet another booster. Science doesn’t have a definitive answer, as the literature is generally mixed — […]
Nov 1, 2022
Cardiovascular disease and mortality sequelae of COVID-19 in the UK Biobank
(BMJ) To examine association of COVID-19 with incident cardiovascular events in 17 871 UK Biobank cases between March 2020 and 2021. COVID-19 cases were defined using health record linkage. Each case was propensity score-matched to two uninfected controls on age, sex, deprivation, body mass index, ethnicity, diabetes, prevalent ischaemic heart disease (IHD), smoking, hypertension and high […]
Nov 1, 2022
Covid-19 Infection Linked With Poor Cardiovascular Outcomes And Death
(Forbes) A new UK study shows that being infected with Covid-19 is linked to an increased risk of poor cardiovascular health and death. The risk is greatest within the first 30 days of infection and for those whose infection required hospitalization, but the risk also remains heightened for those who did not experience a severe infection. When […]
Nov 1, 2022
‘A silent killer’ – COVID-19 shown to trigger inflammation in the brain
(University of Queensland) Research led by The University of Queensland has found COVID-19 activates the same inflammatory response in the brain as Parkinson’s disease. The discovery identified a potential future risk for neurodegenerative conditions in people who’ve had COVID-19, but also a possible treatment. The UQ team was led by Professor Trent Woodruff and Dr Eduardo Albornoz Balmaceda from UQ’s School […]
Nov 1, 2022
A novel method to monitor COVID-19 fatality rate in real-time, a key metric to guide public health policy
(Nature) An accurate estimator of the real-time fatality rate is warranted to monitor the progress of ongoing epidemics, hence facilitating the policy-making process. However, most of the existing estimators fail to capture the time-varying nature of the fatality rate and are often biased in practice. A simple real-time fatality rate estimator with adjustment for reporting […]
Nov 1, 2022
Covid uses our proteins against us. A new strategy seeks to block that.
(Washington Post) With the United States headed into its third full winter of the pandemic amid fears that new variants will evade immunity from vaccines and prior infections, some scientists are seeking ways to blunt the coronavirus’s slippery evolution by blocking the human proteins it uses against us. If the strategy works, it has the potential […]
Nov 1, 2022
Chinese authorities race to contain new waves of ‘dire and complicated’ outbreaks
(South China Morning Post) Covid flare-ups in Guangzhou have authorities ramping up restrictions, mass testing to contain infections. New variants are spreading faster, forcing parts of the country to endure chaotic Covid curbs. Authorities in Guangzhou said they faced a “dire and complicated” outbreak as the number of Covid-19 cases rose sharply reporting more than […]
Nov 1, 2022
China rolls out first inhalable COVID vaccine
(Reuters) In what is believed to be a world first, China’s commercial capital of Shanghai this week introduced a new type of COVID-19 vaccine that is inhaled rather than administered via injection. Chinese regulators approved the vaccine, produced by Chinese pharmaceutical firm CanSino Biologics for use as a booster in September. And now the first […]
Oct 28, 2022
U.S. government to test Pfizer’s Paxlovid for long COVID
(Reuters) The U.S. National Institutes of Health’s $1 billion RECOVER Initiative has picked Pfizer Inc’s (PFE.N) antiviral drug Paxlovid as the first treatment it will study in patients with long COVID, organizers of the study said on Thursday. The complex medical condition involves more than 200 symptoms ranging from exhaustion and cognitive impairment to pain, fever and […]
Oct 28, 2022
Recurrence of Symptoms Following a 2-Day Symptom Free Period in Patients With COVID-19
(JAMA) Recurrence of symptoms after finishing treatment for COVID-19 with nirmatrelvir-ritonavir (Paxlovid) has become increasingly recognized.1–3 The biological underpinning of this phenomenon is unclear, and its etiology may be multifactorial, including rapid clearance of nirmatrelvir coupled with delayed immune responses or possible development of drug resistance.1–3 The contribution of treatment to symptom rebound needs to be differentiated […]
Oct 28, 2022