🦘Cacatman's Personal Coronavirus COVID-19 Update Thread

[cacatman]

Novavax Vaccine
Novavax’s COVID-19 vaccine was safe and effective in adults in the United States and Mexico, according to the latest phase 3 trial, which showed efficacy of 90.4%.

Efficacy and Safety of NVX-CoV2373 in Adults in the United States and Mexico | NEJM

Original Article from The New England Journal of Medicine — Efficacy and Safety of NVX-CoV2373 in Adults in the United States and Mexico

www.nejm.org

 

[cacatman]

Remdesivir NOT a Silver Bullet

MBS clarifies 'chronic health condition' for telehealth • The Medical Republic

MBS has clarified the definitions of ‘chronic health condition’ and ‘immune compromised’ with respect to telehealth eligibility.

medicalrepublic.com.au

The latest research comes from Michael Ohl, MD, MSPH, and colleagues who studied a large group of VA patients hospitalized with COVID-19. Compared with a matched group of veterans who did not receive the antiviral, remdesivir did not significantly improve survival.

The percentages were close: 12.2% of patients in the remdesivir group died within 30 days compared with 10.6% of those in the control group.

Large Remdesivir Study Finds No COVID-19 Survival Benefit

Investigators studied VA patients with COVID-19 to determine what effect the antiviral might have on hospital stay and survival.

www.medscape.com

A 3-day intravenous course reduced hospitalization by 87%.

NEJM Journal Watch: Summaries of and commentary on original medical and scientific articles from key medical journals

NEJM Journal Watch reviews over 250 scientific and medical journals to present important clinical research findings and insightful commentary

www.jwatch.org

 

[cacatman]

Vaccines Reduce Serious Disease/Death vs Natural Infection

CDC recommends vaccination because it significantly helps reduce your risk of reinfection. There's a study I saw that said your risk of reinfection is more than 2 times higher than those who got vaccinated (after infection).
The chance of people testing positive was about 5.5 times higher in unvaccinated people who had covid previously than those who had been vaccinated and hadn't had an infection before, from a study last Nov.
A small study in Sept showed 1/3 of people with COVID had no seroconversion ie. no natural immunity.
Generally speaking, all authorised vaccines provide protection from death or serious disease to all currently circulating variants.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34383732/
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/70/wr/mm7044e1.htm...
https://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/27/9/21-1042_article

One study published in late October 2021 by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found unvaccinated adults who tested positive three to six months earlier werefive times more likely to test positive for the virus than vaccinated adults who hadn’t previously been infected.

The study acknowledged that research was only done on patients with illness severe enough to require hospitalization, and that results may not be generalizable to non-hospitalized patients.

Laboratory-Confirmed COVID-19 Among Adults Hospitalized ...

This report describes mRNA COVID-19 vaccine recipients as having greater immunity from COVID-19 infection than previously infected, unvaccinated persons.

www.cdc.gov

For delta, Israel found people who had Pfizer were 13 times more likely to get delta than people who had been infected. Sample size 30,000

Comparing SARS-CoV-2 natural immunity to vaccine-induced immunity: reinfections versus breakthrough infections

Background Reports of waning vaccine-induced immunity against COVID-19 have begun to surface. With that, the comparable long-term protection conferred by previous infection with SARS-CoV-2 remains unclear. Methods We conducted a retrospective observational study comparing three groups...

www.medrxiv.org

Research shows that age is also likely to play a role in whether we will be reinfected after having had the virus.

A study involving US war veterans, funded by the US Department of Veterans Affairs Office of Rural Health and still in the peer-review process, shows that among senior citizens, mRNA vaccines offered stronger protection against infection, hospitalization and death than prior COVID infections.

But for participants under 65, the protection offered by vaccines was more or less the same as previous infection, the study found. The authors did disclose previous financial support from Pfizer.

SARS-Cov-2 Infection versus Vaccine-Induced Immunity among Veterans

Background With over 40 million cases of SARS-CoV-2 infection reported in the US and discussion of both vaccine mandates as well as boosters ongoing, we aim to examine protection conferred by previous infection compared with vaccination so that citizens and policy makers can make informed...

www.medrxiv.org

Among younger people who had tested positive during the first wave, protection against repeat infection was around 80%. However among people aged 65 and older, immunity acquired through past infection was only around 47% effective.

(PDF) Assessment of protection against reinfection with SARS-CoV-2 among 4 million PCR-tested individuals in Denmark in 2020: a population-level observational study

PDF | Background The degree to which infection with SARS-CoV-2 confers protection towards subsequent reinfection is not well described. In 2020, as part... | Find, read and cite all the research you need on ResearchGate

www.researchgate.net

Depending on the estimates used for vaccine effectiveness against symptomatic infection from the Delta variant, this translates into vaccine effectiveness estimates against symptomatic Omicron infection of between 0% and 20% after two doses, and between 55% and 80% after a booster dose. Similar estimates were obtained using genotype data, albeit with greater uncertainty.

Report 49 - Growth, population distribution and immune escape of Omicron in England

Report 49 - Growth, population distribution and immune escape of Omicron in England

www.imperial.ac.uk

What about that Israeli study suggesting natural immunity is stronger? Infectious diseases expert James Lawler, MD, MPH, FIDSA, carefully evaluates the study design of the retrospective Maccabi Health System study in his Aug. 31 briefing. In the briefing, he identifies two concerning sources of error that were not corrected for: survivorship bias and selection bias.

COVID-19: Disease-induced (natural) immunity, vaccination or hybrid immunity?

If you’ve had COVID-19 before, does your natural immunity work better than a vaccine?

www.nebraskamed.com

Adults who received a double vaccination are in fact 47% less likely to get Long COVID should they contract a COVID-19 infection.

Risk factors and disease profile of post-vaccination SARS-CoV-2 infection in UK users of the COVID Symptom Study app: a prospective, community-based, nested, case-control study

To minimise SARS-CoV-2 infection, at-risk populations must be targeted in efforts to boost vaccine effectiveness and infection control measures. Our findings might support caution around relaxing physical distancing and other personal protective measures in the post-vaccination era, particularly...

www.thelancet.com

Those who contracted COVID-19 after two doses were:
- 73% less likely to be hospitalised
- 31% less likely to experience acute COVID symptoms

Double COVID vaccination halves risk of Long COVID

Your data shows that double vaccination halves the chances of someone contracting Long COVID. Here’s what the research found.

covid.joinzoe.com

 

[cacatman]

Gastrointestinal Paediatric Symptoms
Children with SARS-CoV-2 infections that present with gastrointestinal symptoms more frequently have longer hospital stays and more severe outcomes.

There have also been studies that show 15% of pediatric patients with COVID-19 present with diarrhea, particularly in infancy. Vomiting (10%) or abdominal pain (8%) also have a higher frequency in school-aged children.

In the multicenter retrospective cohort study, the investigators examined 685 inpatient and outpatient pediatric patients with acute SARS-CoV-2 infections between Feb. 25, 2020 and Jan. 20, 2021 in primary care or hospitals in Italy as part of the COVID-19 Registry of the Italian Society of Pediatric Infectious Diseases. Of the patients included in the study, 56.4% (n = 386) were male and the median age of the entire patient population was 7.3 years.

A total of 628 (91.7%) pediatric patients were diagnosed with infections, while 57 (8.3%) patients were diagnosed with MIS-C. In addition, 37.5% (n = 257) of patients exhibited gastrointestinal symptoms during the disease course.

However, the investigators found gastrointestinal symptoms was linked to a higher rate of hospitalization (OR, 2.64; 95% CI, 1.89-3.69), as well as intensive care unit admission (OR, 3.90; 95% CI, 1.98-7.68).

Mild or moderate gastrointestinal involvement was found in 74.7% (n = 192) children, characterized by diarrhea (n = 107; 55.71%) in most cases, vomiting (n = 58; 30.2%), or abdominal pain (n = 39; 20.3%). Also, 77.2% (n = 44) of the patients with MIS-C showed evidence of gastrointestinal involvement.

There were 65 (9.5%) pediatric patients included in the study that showed severe gastrointestinal involvement including disseminated adenomesenteritis (39.6%), appendicitis (33.5%), abdominal fluid collection (21.3%), pancreatitis (6.9%), or intussusception (4.6%).

Of this group, 41.5% (n = 27) underwent surgery.

Gastrointestinal Symptoms in Children With SARS-CoV-2 or Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome

This cohort study assesses the clinical, radiological, and histopathologic gastrointestinal characteristics of a large cohort of children with acute SARS-CoV-2 infection or multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children to identify factors associated with severe gastrointestinal manifestations and...

jamanetwork.com

 

[cacatman]

Post Vaccination - Women Had Marginally Longer Menstrual Cycle but not statistically significant
Women who were immunized against COVID-19 experienced a slight, but non-significant, change in the length of their menstrual cycle compared with those who were unvaccinated, according to a retrospective cohort analysis.

Patients experienced less than 1-day increases in cycle length after their first (0.71 day increase, 98.75% CI 0.47-0.94) and second (0.91-day increase, 98.75% CI 0.63-1.19) shots compared with the 3 months before they got the vaccine, reported Alison Edelman, MD, MPH, of Oregon Health & Science University in Portland.

Association Between Menstrual Cycle Length and Coronavirus... : Obstetrics & Gynecology

Natural Cycles.” We included U.S. residents aged 18–45 years with normal cycle lengths (24–38 days) for three consecutive cycles before the first vaccine dose followed by vaccine-dose cycles (cycles 4–6) or, if unvaccinated, six cycles over a similar time period. We calculated the mean...

journals.lww.com

 

[cacatman]

Smoking, Cancer & COVID 19 Potentiates Each Other
During the pandemic, there were reduced Quitline referrals, there were less cancer screenings, was a trigger for increased cig use.

Tragic Triad of Tobacco Dependence, Cancer, and COVID-19 Pandemic: An Urgent Call for Attention by Health Care Systems and Professionals | JCO Oncology Practice

Tobacco smoke is a well-known carcinogen associated with multiple malignancies. Patients with cancer, as well as survivors, who continue to smoke are at a greater risk for poor cancer treatment outcomes. With the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic, there is increased frequency and severity of...

ascopubs.org

Patients with cancer and COVID-19 had a 26% mortality compared to 1.8% Americans without cancer.

Mortality in patients with cancer and coronavirus disease 2019: A systematic review and pooled analysis of 52 studies

Patients with coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) who have underlying malignancy have a higher mortality rate compared with those without cancer, alth…

www.sciencedirect.com

 

[Carrera1963]

Hair Loss Long Term Symptoms
1. Individuals may find their hair falling out in large clumps months after recovering from COVID-19.
2. Temporary hair loss can be normal after fever or illness, according to the AADA. Fever is a possible symptom of COVID-19. Some people see noticeable hair shedding two to three months after fever or illness.
3. This hair loss is a hair shedding process known as telogen effluvium. It occurs when more hairs than normal enter the shedding phase of the growth cycle at the same time. Fever or illness can push more hairs into this phase.
4. The shedding can last for six to nine months. For most, hair then stops shedding and returns to normal.
5. Among the millions of Americans who have had COVID-19, hair loss has been a common consequence for patients whose symptoms resolve relatively quickly and for those who develop long COVID, Esther Freeman, MD, PhD, dermatologist and epidemiologist at Boston-based Harvard Medical School and principal investigator for the COVID-19 Dermatology Registry, told The Atlantic. Researchers don't yet know exactly how prevalent hair loss is among COVID-19 patients. A study published by the Lancet in January 2021 found that 22 percent of virus patients at a China hospital reported hair loss months later.
6. Hair loss can also be caused by excessive stress or trauma, which millions of Americans had suffered amid the pandemic. Intense physical or emotional stress can push as much as 70 percent of your hair into the telogen phase, according to The Atlantic.

COVID-19 may cause noticeable hair loss: 6 notes

COVID-19 can be linked to noticeable hair loss, according to the American Academy of Dermatology Association.

www.beckershospitalreview.com

Have I had covid for about 25 years?!

 

[cacatman]

Self-harm/Overdose Amongst Adolescents/Young Adults
In this cohort study of 1 690 733 adolescents and young adults in all of Ontario, the rate of self-harm or overdose was lower during (39.7 per 10 000 person-years) than before (51.0 per 10 000 person-years) the pandemic.

In this study, there was a relative decline in hospital encounters for self-harm or overdose among adolescents and young adults during the first 15 months of the COVID-19 pandemic. It should be determined if this phenomenon continued within subsequent waves of the pandemic, or if unrealized self-harm or overdose events have occurred outside of a hospital setting.

Self-harm or Overdose Among Adolescents and Young Adults Before vs During COVID-19

This cohort study evaluates the risk of self-harm and overdose among adolescents and young adults during vs before the COVID-19 pandemic.

jamanetwork.com

 

[cacatman]

Frequent Boosters Spur Warning on Immune Response
Repeat booster doses every four months could eventually weaken the immune response and tire out people, according to the European Medicines Agency. Instead, countries should leave more time between booster programs and tie them to the onset of the cold season in each hemisphere, following the blueprint set out by influenza vaccination strategies, the agency said.

Frequent Boosters Spur Warning on Immune Response

European Union regulators warned that frequent Covid-19 booster shots could adversely affect the immune response and may not be feasible.

www.bloomberg.com

 

[cacatman]

Nasal Spray - Experimental
Antibody-like synthetic protein that recognizes and binds to the spike protein of the coronavirus for 8 hours

Intranasal inhibitor blocks omicron and other variants of SARS-CoV-2

The emergence of the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant capable of escaping neutralizing antibodies emphasizes the need for prophylactic strategies to complement vaccination in fighting the COVID-19 pandemic. Nasal epithelium is rich in the ACE2 receptor and important for SARS-CoV-2 transmission by suppo...

www.researchsquare.com