Category: Emerging Infectious Diseases
The doctor won’t see you now: Covid winters are making long hospital waits the new normal
(Washington Post) As the United States enters its third full covid winter, a top administration official is warning that the permanence of the coronavirus in the disease landscape could mean brutal and long-lasting seasonal surges of cold-weather illnesses for years to come, resulting in hospitals struggling to care for non-covid emergencies and unable to give patients timely, lifesaving treatments. Winter […]
Jan 17, 2023
The Genetic Mutation That Makes ‘Kraken’ Covid So Contagious
(Rolling Stone) A particular change in the spike protein means the virus is spreading faster than ever. There is a new, more contagious form of the novel-coronavirus. It’s got a greater ability to evade our antibodies. And it’s spreading easier than ever. You’ve read these words before, and you’ll almost certainly read them again as the Covid pandemic […]
Jan 17, 2023
Why kids are “great little vectors” for COVID-19
(AMA) Offering new revelations on the behavior of SARS-CoV-2, a National Institutes of Health (NIH) study suggests that young children and people with obesity may be significant vectors of viral transmission in households. NIH’s National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) enlisted scientists from Henry Ford Health and other groups to participate in the project, which focused on […]
Jan 17, 2023
The quiet cost of covid: A million people missing work each month
(Washington Post) Some 1.5 million people missed work because of an illness last month, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The month before that, it was 1.6 million. In October, 1.3 million and in September 1.2 million. In fact, the last time there were fewer than a million Americans missing work because of an illness […]
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
COVID was the leading cause of law enforcement deaths in 2022 for 3rd year in a row: Report
(CBS News) COVID-19 remained the leading cause of law enforcement deaths in 2022 despite the number attributed to the virus dramatically declining. A new report released Wednesday by the National Law Enforcement Officers Memorial Fund looked at preliminary data and found that 226 federal, state, tribal and local law enforcement officers died last year while in the line of […]
Jan 17, 2023
China is finally divulging covid data. The WHO says there’s more to the story.
(Washington Post) The World Health Organization is ramping up pressure on China to share key data on its latest coronavirus outbreak, using public statements and behind-the-scenes meetings to push Beijing as it tries to map the largest surge of the pandemic — even if it risks the government’s wrath. It is a stark contrast with the WHO’s […]
Jan 17, 2023
Airplane lavatories deliver new hope for the CDC’s variant hunt
(Politico) The cramped, damp and poorly lit airplane toilet is among the scourges of air travel, a source of dread for young and old alike. But the deafening “swoosh” of the airplane lavatory may have finally found a higher calling: helping government scientists detect deadly viruses entering the United States. As Covid-19 cases explode in […]
Jan 17, 2023
(The Conversation) Despite intensive public health efforts to grind the COVID-19 pandemic to a halt, the recent emergence of the highly transmissible, extensively drug-resistant and profoundly immune system-evading XBB.1.5 SARS-CoV-2 subvariant is putting the global community on edge. What is XBB.1.5? In the naming convention for SARS-CoV-2 lineages, the prefix “X” denotes a pedigree that arose […]
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