Epidemiology & Impact (Deaths, Hospitals, Cancer, Alzheimer's etc)

A critical look at the Great Barrington Declaration, exposing the risks of herd immunity strategies and the spread of harmful COVID-19 misinformation.

An unvaccinated child has died of measles, Texas officials announced Wednesday, the first death from measles in the United States in a decade. The child’s death in a hospital in Lubbock, in West Texas, comes as the largest measles outbreak in the state in over 30 years is now spreading to New Mexico. Since last month, 124 people have contracted the disease, most of them unvaccinated children. “The minute you stop vaccinating and maintaining that vigilance of 90-95% vaccine coverage, measles comes roaring back, and that’s what’s happened here in West Texas,” world-renowned pediatrician, virologist and vaccine expert, Dr. Peter Hotez, tells Democracy Now!

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Some 10 to 30% of Americans who’ve been infected with SARS-CoV-2 are still having debilitating symptoms months later, a trend that suggests that “long Covid” is our next public health disaster in t...

New research has found inflammatory markers in the blood of long COVID patients which could explain why many experience ongoing cardiovascular issues.

As the pandemic progresses, we're growing increasingly aware COVID-19 affects multiple parts of the body beyond the lungs. That includes the skin, writes Michael Freeman.

Since 2020, the condition known as long COVID-19 has become a widespread disability affecting the health and quality of life of millions of people across the globe and costing economies billions of dollars in reduced productivity of employees and an overall drop in the work force. The intense scien...

Naturally occurring “zombie or senescent cells” are being produced at an accelerated rate due to Covid-19, according to a recent study.

Scientists have announced a major discovery that has profound importance for our understanding of brain fog and cognitive decline seen in some patients with Long COVID. The findings showed that there was disruption to the integrity of the blood vessels in the brains of patients suffering from Long COVID and brain fog. This blood vessel 'leakiness' was able to objectively distinguish those patients with brain fog and cognitive decline compared to patients suffering from Long-COVID but not with brain fog.

An important new mechanistic study and a blitz of other reports that help our understanding

Links between the complement and coagulation systems could lead to Long Covid therapies

Long COVID sufferers from across Canada are left struggling for words, breath and answers after some specialized clinics have shut down.

A new, rigorous study sheds light on 5 top causes.

Amid the ongoing global repercussions of SARS-CoV-2, it’s crucial to comprehend its potential long-term psychiatric effects. Several recent studies have suggested a link between COVID-19 and subsequent mental health disorders. Our investigation joinsthis exploration, concentrating on Schizophrenia Spectrum and Psychotic Disorders (SSPD). Different from other studies, we took acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS) and COVID-19 lab negative cohorts as control groups to accurately gauge the impact of COVID-19 on SSPD. Data from 19,344,698 patients, sourced from the N3C Data Enclave platform, were methodically filtered to create propensity matched cohorts: ARDS (n = 222,337), COVID-positive (n = 219,264), and COVID-negative (n = 213,183). We systematically analyzed the hazard rate of new-onset SSPD across three distinct time intervals: 0-21 days, 22-90 days, and beyond 90 days post-infection. COVID-19 positive patients consistently exhibited a heightened hazard ratio (HR) across all intervals [0-21 days (HR: 4.6; CI: 3.7-5.7), 22-90 days (HR: 2.9; CI: 2.3 -3.8), beyond 90 days (HR: 1.7; CI: 1.5-1.)]. These are notably higher than both ARDS and COVID-19 lab-negative patients. Validations using various tests, including the Cochran Mantel Haenszel Test, Wald Test, and Log-rank Test confirmed these associations. Intriguingly, our data indicated that younger individuals face a heightened risk of SSPD after contracting COVID-19, a trend not observed in the ARDS and COVID-negative groups. These results, aligned with the known neurotropism of SARS-CoV-2 and earlier studies, accentuate the need for vigilant psychiatric assessment and support in the era of Long-COVID, especially among younger populations. ### Competing Interest Statement The authors have declared no competing interest. ### Clinical Protocols https://ncats.nih.gov/n3c/resources. ### Funding Statement Yes ### Author Declarations I confirm all relevant ethical guidelines have been followed, and any necessary IRB and/or ethics committee approvals have been obtained. Yes The details of the IRB/oversight body that provided approval or exemption for the research described are given below: WVU CTSI, WVU IRB and N3C Publication Committee I confirm that all necessary patient/participant consent has been obtained and the appropriate institutional forms have been archived, and that any patient/participant/sample identifiers included were not known to anyone (e.g., hospital staff, patients or participants themselves) outside the research group so cannot be used to identify individuals. Yes I understand that all clinical trials and any other prospective interventional studies must be registered with an ICMJE-approved registry, such as ClinicalTrials.gov. I confirm that any such study reported in the manuscript has been registered and the trial registration ID is provided (note: if posting a prospective study registered retrospectively, please provide a statement in the trial ID field explaining why the study was not registered in advance). Yes I have followed all appropriate research reporting guidelines, such as any relevant EQUATOR Network research reporting checklist(s) and other pertinent material, if applicable. Yes The data underlying the results presented in the study are available from https://covid.cd2h.org/ which requires institutional access.

A final piece to the puzzle left unresolved in my prior work.