Coronavirus

Decreased racial and ethnic disparities in COVID-19 mortalities between the first and Omicron waves of the pandemic could be explained by increased deaths in non-Hispanic White adults and changes in the geographic spread of the pandemic.

The vaccine efficacy of the Novavax’s NVX-CoV2373 was 79.5% in adolescents.

The complexity of dealing with emerging infectious diseases makes preparedness difficult.

An epidemiologist offers some insights on what we need to take into a potential next pandemic including infrastructure investment and more effectively communicating messages to the public.

Panel moderator Rodney Rohde, PhD, notes that word choice is important and clinicians should emphasize the COVID-19 vaccine is not a live virus but is instead designed to challenge the immune system to protect against the virus.

The study authors wanted to further understand post-COVID-19 infection “brain fog” and sought a new name for the phenomenon.

The antiviral is being studied for treatment for those at high-risk for severe COVID-19, no matter their vaccine status.

The key is using the right dose on the right patient at the right time.

This study surveyed parents’ opinions on the risks of COVID-19 infection versus vaccination to determine how they affected the decision to vaccinate a child against COVID-19.

The combination appears more likely than either agent alone to reduce risk of early COVID-19 symptoms worsening and requiring hospitalization.

Omicron lineages, and especially BA.5, were determined to have higher reinfection rates and lower disease severity than previously circulating variants of concern.

The CDC and FDA now recommend the Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech mRNA bivalent COVID-19 vaccines be used for all vaccinations in the US.

Patients who contracted COVID-19 later in the pandemic (2021-2022) were more likely to develop new chronic diseases after infection than patients who caught COVID-19 in 2020.

Anemia is both common and independently associated with poor clinical outcomes in respiratory infections, including COVID-19.

The FDA moved to harmonize primary and booster COVID-19 vaccine doses, deciding only the Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech bivalent mRNA vaccines should be administered to individuals 6 months and older.

Post-COVID-19 conditions were more common in unvaccinated children than in children who had received at least 1 dose of a COVID-19 vaccine.

Poor sleep quality, deterioration in sleep quality, and sleep regularity were all linked to impaired lung function.

These study findings suggest COVID-19 admission testing may not be necessary in hospitals, as most asymptomatic COVID-19 patients were not infectious.

People with COVID-19 who were hospitalized had a slightly higher rate of death than those with influenza. However, there were considerably more severe COVID-19 cases than the flu, leading to a much higher number of overall deaths associated with SARS-CoV-2.

This study of health care access and affordability found adults with long COVID reported more unmet health care needs in the past 12 months.

Can anakinra reduce inflammation and the need for mechanical ventilation in patients with severe COVID-19 pneumonia?

A literature review found we lack a consistent definition of long COVID, which can lead to variance in if and how these patients are treated.

How likely is COVID-19 reinfection? A new study estimates the protection from past COVID-19 infection by variant and time since infection.

These maternal infections caused seizures, developmental delays, and other health issues in two newborns.

Simulations suggest deaths from COVID-19 could be cut in half if 80% of eligible patients took the antiviral therapy.

A retrospective study indicated higher rates of neurodevelopmental abnormalities in areas such as motor function and speech and language during the first year among babies born to women who had experienced a COVID-19 infection during pregnancy.

Vilobelimab (Gohibic) was granted Emergency Use Authorization to treat adults hospitalized with severe COVID-19 infection.

COVID-19 prevention practices such as masking, social distancing, and school closures lowered children’s exposures to circulating respiratory viruses and other environmental triggers of asthma.

A novel "antibody-mimetic" molecule administered intranasally in animal model prevented coronavirus infection from older, current and emerging variants.

These findings suggest the World Health Organization's definition of post-COVID-19 condition (long COVID) may be too broad.