Category: COVID
Was a study that created a hybrid COVID-19 virus too risky?
(Science) Science looks at the furor over an experiment that combined Omicron with a more lethal SARS-CoV-2 variant. This week, Twitter exploded with outrage about a study that seemed to have created a Frankenstein COVID-19 virus: a version of SARS-CoV-2 that combines Omicron, the fast-spreading but relatively mild variant that’s now everywhere, and a deadlier […]
Oct 18, 2022
Risk of reinfection, vaccine protection, and severity of infection with the BA.5 omicron subvariant: a nation-wide population-based study in Denmark
(The Lancet) Estimates of immunity and severity for the SARS-CoV-2 omicron subvariant BA.5 are important to assess the public health impact associated with its rapid global spread despite vaccination. We estimated natural and vaccine immunity and severity of BA.5 relative to BA.2 in Denmark, a country with high mRNA-vaccination coverage and free-of-charge RT-PCR testing.
Oct 18, 2022
Authorized COVID Antiviral Fails to Cut Hospitalization Risk
MedPageToday – Molnupiravir failed to reduce the risk for hospitalization or death in high-risk COVID-19 outpatients who took the oral antiviral within 5 days of symptoms, a large open-label multicenter trial found. In more than 25,000 participants in the PANORAMIC study, the rate of all-cause hospitalization or death at 28 days was an identical 0.8% […]
Oct 18, 2022
The new COVID booster will protect older Americans this flu season. Here’s how to get shots into arms
Harvard Public Health – The new bivalent booster protects against the original COVID and the dominant Omicron variant. And yet, only 5% of adults eligible for the new COVID booster have received it. Local health departments can change that. Public health leaders have blamed Americans’ lack of urgency on mixed public health messaging about boosters, […]
Oct 18, 2022
Radiographic Lung Changes Common With Pulmonary Long COVID Symptoms
MedPageToday – Radiographic evidence of pulmonary pathology was common months after acute infection among people with ongoing exertional or respiratory symptoms, early results of a study exploring the physiology of long COVID showed. Fully 55% of the subset of persistently symptomatic patients with a high-resolution CT showed radiographic evidence of pulmonary pathology at least 3 […]
Oct 18, 2022
Study Shows Benefits of COVID-19 Vaccines and Boosters
NIH Director’s Blog – As colder temperatures settle in and people spend more time gathered indoors, cases of COVID-19 and other respiratory illnesses almost certainly will rise. That’s why, along with scheduling your annual flu shot, it’s now recommended that those age 5 and up should get an updated COVID-19 booster shot [1,2]. Not only […]
Oct 18, 2022
Dr Anthony Fauci: long Covid is an ‘insidious’ public health emergency
Guardian – Dr. Fauci urged US Congress to avoid complacency and resume funding to combat the virus as well as long Covid, a chronic and prolonged illness that continues to elude scientists and healthcare providers. “It’s a very insidious beneath-the-radar-screen public health emergency,” Fauci said via Zoom. “It isn’t that you have people who are […]
Oct 18, 2022
Dr. Fauci: These 2 new fast-spreading omicron Covid subvariants are ‘pretty troublesome’
CNBC – As winter inches closer, Dr. Fauci is sounding the alarm about a pair of “pretty troublesome” Covid variants. The two descendants of omicron’s BA.5 subvariant, called BQ.1 and BQ.1.1, both have dangerous “qualities or characteristics that could evade some of the interventions we have,” Fauci told CBS News on Friday. The two sublineages are responsible for […]
Oct 18, 2022
Could These New Variants Drive a Dreaded Winter COVID Surge?
MedPageToday – Public health experts have warned of a new winter wave of COVID-19, and now the latest data from the CDC showed several fast-spreading variants that may drive such a trend. The Omicron BA.5 variant’s dominance among sequenced cases in the U.S. has been declining since late August. Though it remained responsible for nearly 68% […]
Oct 18, 2022
Boston University researchers’ testing of lab-made version of Covid virus draws government scrutiny
STAT News – Research at Boston University that involved testing a lab-made hybrid version of the SARS-CoV-2 virus is garnering heated headlines alleging the scientists involved could have unleashed a new pathogen. There is no evidence the work, performed under biosecurity level 3 precautions in BU’s National Emerging Infectious Diseases Laboratories, was conducted improperly or […]
Oct 18, 2022