PermiaCare talked about the effects of COVID-19 trauma they've noticed in children who lived through the pandemic.
ODESSA, Texas
For some kids, the COVID-19 lockdown was a complete shift in what was normal for them.
For others, they may not have even known what things were like before the lockdown.
However, both had the potential to experience COVID-19 trauma, according to PermiaCare.
After COVID happened, everything changed and what we're seeing now in kids is, we believe, a direct result of having lived through and experienced the chaos that was the lockdown, quarantine, illness, loss, anti-socialization kind of from a mandated perspective really, said Chandra Wiginton, LPC-A, NCC, MST program manager for PermiaCare.
While the immediate effects of COVID-19 trauma were noticeable at the time and even joked about by society to a degree, Wiginton said theyre beginning to notice the long-lasting effects and what it does to a childs development later in life.
One of the things that they miss out on is problem solving and conflict resolution," Wiginton said. "So, if you get into a disagreement with a friend at school now, you're face to face. Before it was behind a screen, and I think it's fair to say that we speak differently, and we interact differently when there's a screen between us."
Wiginton went on to say that, "We might say things we would never say to somebody's face, which is why we saw an increase in cyber bullying. And then how do we problem solve? How do we figure out what we need to do to be happy that's a healthy coping mechanism?
Even if it's years later, Wiginton said it's not too late for families to help their kids to catch up on their development. Wiginton said it is part of what she and her people at PermiaCare help families do.
So of course some of them are still going to be dealing with repercussions of kids' social development not matching their age, right? But that doesn't mean there's not hope," Wiginton said. "We would call it hope for recovery, right? They can recover and they can develop those social skills even now, even if they sat for four or five years and did nothing toward getting better, coping better, any of those things.
A hospital corpsman processes biological samples during a U.S. Naval Medical Research Unit Indo Pacific study on natural- and vaccine-derived immunity of respiratory diseases in U.S. sailors and Marines in September 2023. (U.S. Navy)
TOKYO Four years after the first confirmed case of COVID-19 in the United States, a Navy research lab is recruiting active-duty volunteers at two bases in Japan for a follow-up study on vaccines.
Singapore-based U.S. Naval Medical Research Unit Indo Pacific will collect blood and saliva samples at Yokosuka Naval Base and Naval Air Facility Atsugi, both south of Tokyo, later this month.
The study is a follow-up to a similar one last year that showed the XBB.1.5 booster is likely to decrease the number of duty days a sailor might lose to COVID-19 by hindering the transmission of the virus behind the respiratory disease, according to a Navy Medicine news release from Dec. 18.
Although other elements in the U.S., including the Department of Defense, have done similar studies, as well as militaries outside of the U.S., Naval Medical Research Unit Indo Pacifics study is the largest and most in-depth that has been conducted, Capt. Andrew Letizia, the units science director, said in a statement emailed by Tommy Lamkin, spokesman for Naval Medical Research Command.
The commands COVID-19 research is focused on the active-duty population, with almost all participants in the range of 20 to 45 years old, Letizia said.
Each participant will provide 1.2 ounces of blood and 0.06 ounces of saliva, Lamkin said. They will also answer a questionnaire about past COVID-19 exposures, vaccination history and infections.
The collection will take place at Yokosuka from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Aug. 27 to Sept. 20 at the second-floor lab of the naval hospital, and at NAF Atsugi from 8 a.m. to noon Aug. 28 at the base health clinic, according to a news release Aug. 6 from the medical research unit.
Volunteers do not need to sign up beforehand and can show up to the respective labs during the hours listed, Lt. Huy Nguyen, a principal investigator for the study, said in an email Wednesday.
The samples will be processed within four hours at Yokosuka Naval Hospitals lab and then shipped to Navy Medicine Readiness and Training Command Diagnostics Surveillance Division and Walter Reed Army Institute of Research B Cell Biology, two DOD labs in Silver Spring, Md., for analysis.
Most other researchers in academia are not studying this demographic of young adults whose immune systems are much different than children or older Americans, Letizia said. Therefore, we cant rely on other researchers to answer this specific scientific question. Instead, we have designed the entire study around DoD members.
The command conducts infectious disease research and studies viruses, microbes and insects in the Indo-Pacific to protect the medical readiness and health of service members, their families and partner nations, according to the research units website.
The units first COVID-19 study, the Survey Immune Response to Coronavirus Disease, took place last year at Yokosuka Naval Base with support from 7th Fleet, Lamkin said.
SARS-CoV-2, the respiratory virus that causes COVID-19, will continue to mutate, producing new variants that are more transmissible, immune-evasive and possibly capable of causing a more severe disease, Nguyen said.
Also, immunity against infection, whether from a natural infection or a vaccination, usually decreases within three to four months, Nguyen said.
It is important to gather the most up-to-date immunologic data of our troops against the latest circulating variants to see where we stand to inform future booster recommendations, Nguyen said.
Two European observational studies estimate the vaccine effectiveness (VE) of the COVID-19 XBB.1.5 vaccine approved in fall 2023 against hospitalization, the first one finding 49% overall VE in adults, and one showing good protectionbut uneven uptakeamong pregnant women.
For the firststudy, published in Influenza and Other Respiratory Viruses, researchers with the European Hospital Vaccine Effectiveness Group conducted a test-negative case-control study on the VE against hospitalization of the XBB.1.5 COVID-19 vaccine in the first months of its rollout from October 2023 to January 2024.
The XBB.1.5-like+F456L variant was dominant in Europe from fall to mid-December 2023, when BA.2.86 supplanted it.
The participants were 622 adults hospitalized for COVID-19 and 3,457 control patients admitted for a different severe respiratory infection to 41 hospitals at 7 sites participating in the Vaccine Effectiveness, Burden and Impact Studies (VEBIS) study. In total, 27% of COVID-19 patients and 44% of controls had been vaccinated after fall 2023, most with the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine.
The median time between vaccination and symptom onset was 58days for COVID-19 patients and 52days for controls.
The adapted COVID-19 XBB.1.5 vaccines provided protection against hospitalisation in the first 3.5months post vaccination, by reducing the risk of COVID-19 hospitalisation by approximately half among the vaccinated individuals.
Overall VE was 49% against hospitalization (range, 69% at 14 to 29 days to 40% at 60 to 105 days postvaccination), although confidence intervals overlapped for all estimates, indicating uncertainty. VE was over 70% in adults ages 65 years and older up to 1 month after vaccination. VE in patients ages 80 and older declined from 76% in the first 29 days to 39% after 60 days.
The study authors noted that their VE estimates are lower than those of three previous European studies but in line with a fourth, except for a greater decline in VE with increasing time since vaccination (TSV), proposing that the differences could be attributed to different TSVs bands.
"The findings of our study suggest that the adapted COVID-19 XBB.1.5 vaccines provided protection against hospitalisation in the first 3.5months post vaccination, by reducing the risk of COVID-19 hospitalisation by approximately half among the vaccinated individuals," they concluded.
The second case-controlstudy, published in Vaccine, included all 47,046 pregnancies ending from June 2021 to August 2022 among 39,213 women seen at Northwest London general practices. In 57% of pregnancies, the mother had received at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine during their pregnancy, with 91% of them receiving a second dose.
Pregnant women, the study authors noted, are at higher risk of COVID-19 complications such as hospitalization, intensive care unit admission, invasive mechanical ventilation, and death.
"They are also at increased risk of pregnancy-related complications such as preeclampsia and emergency cesarean delivery, and their infants are at higher risk of being preterm or stillborn," they wrote, adding that uptake has been suboptimal.
Most pregnancies (80%) were among women aged 25 to 39years, those who were White (39%) or Asian (34%), and those living in areas in the second (35%) or third (29%) most deprived quintiles of socioeconomic deprivation. The most common of the five risk factors studied was asthma (9.9%), and chronic heart disease was the least common (0.68%).
A total of 180 women were hospitalized for COVID-19. Admission for COVID-19 was much less likely among vaccinated women than among the unvaccinated. A conditional logistic regression model suggested a five-fold decrease in the chances of COVID-19 hospitalization in vaccinated women, compared with their unvaccinated peers (odds ratio [OR], 0.22).
Future vaccination programmes should engage pregnant women earlier and communicate with them clearly and carefully.
Vaccine uptake was lowest in women ages 18 to 24 years (33%), Black women compared with White (37%; OR, 0.55), and those in socioeconomically deprived areas (50%). Coverage was higher among women with chronic conditions, with the greatest uptake among those with chronic heart disease (75% for first dose, 94% for second).
Among women with chronic conditions, women with asthma (OR, 1.20), chronic heart disease (OR, 2.34), diabetes (OR, 1.54), and morbid obesity (OR, 1.15) had significantly higher odds of receiving at least one vaccine dose during pregnancy, compared with those without the condition.
The probability of receiving a first dose of the vaccine was nearly six times higher in the 45- to 49-year) age group than in those ages 25 to 29, compared with 18- to 24-year-olds.
Second-dose patterns were similar. Hospitalized women were much less likely to have been vaccinated than those not hospitalized (22% vs 57%; OR, 0.22). "This association reinforces evidence on the real-world effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines in preventing severe disease and consequent hospital admission among pregnant women," the researchers wrote.
"COVID-19 vaccine uptake among pregnant women is suboptimal, particularly in younger women, Black women, and women in more deprived areas," they added. "Interventions should focus on increasing uptake in these groups to improve health outcomes and reduce health inequalities. Future vaccination programmes should engage pregnant women earlier and communicate with them clearly and carefully."
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World Health Organization official says regardless of strain, mpox is not the new COVID, as authorities know how to control its spread.
The mpox outbreak is not another COVID-19, says the World Health Organization, because much is already known about the virus and the means to control it.
While more research is needed on the clade 1b strain which triggered the UN agency into declaring a public health emergency of international concern (PHEIC), the spread of mpox can be reined in, the WHOs European director Hans Kluge said onTuesday.
In July 2022, the WHO declared a PHEIC over the international outbreak of the less-severe clade 2b strain of mpox, which mostly affected gay and bisexual men. The alarm was lifted in May 2023.
Mpox is not the new COVID, Kluge insisted.
We know how to control mpox. And, in the European region, the steps needed to eliminate its transmission altogether, he told a media briefing in Geneva, via video-link.
Mpox, a viral infection that causes pus-filled lesions and flu-like symptoms, is usually mild but can kill.
The clade 1b variety of mpox has triggered global concern because it seems to spread more easily through routine close contact. A case of the variant was confirmed last week in Sweden and linked to a growing outbreak in Africa.
Kluge said that the focus on the new clade 1 strain gives Europe a chance to refocus on the less severe clade 2 variety, including better public health advice and surveillance.
About 100 new cases of the clade 2 mpox strain are now being reported in the European region every month, added Kluge.
Kluge said the predominant route of transmission remained close skin-to-skin contact.
But he said it was possible that someone in the acute phase of mpox infection, especially with blisters in the mouth, may transmit the virus to close contacts, by droplets, in circumstances such as in the home or hospitals.
The modes of transmission are still a bit unclear. More research is required.
WHO spokesperson Tarik Jasarevic said the WHO was not recommending the use of masks.
We are not recommending mass vaccination. We are recommending to use vaccines in outbreak settings for the groups who are most at risk, he added.
The WHO declared an international health emergency on August 14, concerned by the rise in cases of clade 1b in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) and its spread to nearby countries.
The Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (Africa CDC) on Tuesday said the DRC and other African countries could start vaccinating against mpox within days.
Africa CDC has been working with countries experiencing mpox outbreaks on logistics and communication strategies to roll out vaccine doses that are due to arrive following pledges by the European Union, vaccine maker Bavarian Nordic, the United States and Japan.
We didnt start vaccinations yet. Well start in a few days, if we are sure that everything is in place. End of next week vaccines will start to arrive in DRC and other countries, Africa CDC Director General Jean Kaseya told a briefing.
We need to make sure that the supply chain management, the logistics are readyto ensure that this vaccine will be safely stored and can be safely administered to people who need them.
He said studies on the efficacy of different vaccines would continue in Africa while shots are being administered, so countries better understand which shots are appropriate in their context.
African states reported more than 1,400 additional mpox cases over the past week, taking the total number of cases in the 12 African countries where mpox has been detected to almost 19,000 since the start of the 2024, an Africa CDC presentation showed.
As schools reopen for another year, they are focused on improving student attendance. Butback-to-schoolis hitting just as COVID-19 cases are increasing, raising the question: When is a child too sick for school?
School absences surgedduring the pandemic and have yet to recover. Nearly 1 in 4 students remains chronically absent, defined as missing 10% or more of the academic year, according to the latest data analyzed by The Associated Press.
One reason for continued high absences: After years of COVID-19 quarantines, parents are more cautious about sending children to school when they might be contagious with an illness.
When a child misses school, even for an excused absence like a sick day, its harder for them tostay on track academically. So schools and health experts are trying to change the culture around sick days.
Heres what they want parents to know.
During the pandemic, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention urged people who tested positive for COVID-19 to isolate at home for a set number of days and to quarantine after exposure to the coronavirus. In some settings, people with any mild illness were urged to remain home until symptoms were clear.
Those standards, and the caution behind them,remained for yearsafter schools reopened to in-person instruction. That meant children often missed large portions of school after contracting or being exposed to COVID-19 or other illnesses.
This spring, COVID-19 guidance officially changed. Now, the CDC suggests peopletreat COVID-19 like other respiratory illnesses, such as the flu and RSV.
If a child has a fever, they should stay home, no matter the illness.
A child can return to school when their fever has been gone for 24 hours without fever-reducing medication. Other symptoms should be improving.
If a child doesnt have a fever, its OK to send them to classwith some signs of illness, including a runny nose, headache or cough, according to schools and theAmerican Academy of Pediatrics. If those symptoms arent improving or are severe, such as a hacking cough, call your childs doctor.
The guidance around vomiting and diarrhea varies across school districts. Generally, students should remain homeuntil symptoms stop, according to American Academy of Pediatrics guidelines. Older children may be able to managemild diarrheaat school.
Unless your student has a fever or threw up in the last 24 hours, you are coming to school. Thats what we want, said Abigail Arii, director of student support services in Oakland, California.
Guidance from the Los Angeles Unified School District says students can attend school with mild symptoms such as a runny nose or cold, but should stay home if they have vomiting, diarrhea, severe pain or a fever of 100 degrees Fahrenheit (37 degrees Celsius) or higher.
School districts across the U.S. have similar guidance, including inTexas,IllinoisandNew York.
The CDC says people shouldtake additional precautionsfor five days after returning to school or other normal activities.
Masks and social distancing are no longer mandated but are encouraged to prevent disease spread. Experts also recommend plenty of handwashing and taking steps for cleaner air, such as opening a window or running an air purifier.
School districts say parents should keep up-to-date on all health examinations and immunizations for students so they dont miss additional days of school.
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PermiaCare talked about the effects of COVID-19 trauma they've noticed in children who lived through the pandemic.
Author: newswest9.com
Published: 10:08 PM CDT August 21, 2024
Updated: 10:08 PM CDT August 21, 2024
A newstudy of 73 adults recovering from COVID-19 finds that those who lost their sense of smell showed behavioral, functional, and structural brain changes.
Researchers in Chile conducted cognitive screening, performance on a decision-making task, functional testing, and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) results with 73 patients after mild to moderate COVID-19 infection and 27 COVID-nave patients with infections from other pathogens.Two follow-up sessions were conducted 15 days apart.
The patients were recruited from public and private hospitals in Santiago an average of 9 months after diagnosis from February 2020 to May 2023. The average age was 40.1 years. The team used loss of smell and need for hospitalization as proxies for potential markers of neurologic involvement and disease severity, respectively.
The results were published late last week in Scientific Reports.
"Given the significant global incidence of COVID-19, identifying factors that can distinguish individuals at risk of developing brain alterations is crucial for prioritizing follow-up care," the study authors wrote.
Twenty-two of 73 COVID-19 patients (30.1%) reported having differing degrees of attention and memory problems. Seven patients said they had headaches, six reported fatigue, and four had a persistently impaired sense of smell lasting, on average, 1.3 months. Of these patients, 68% experienced a total loss of smell, while the rest had an altered sense of smell.
Given the significant global incidence of COVID-19, identifying factors that can distinguish individuals at risk of developing brain alterations is crucial for prioritizing follow-up care.
In addition to self-reported changes in smell, 6 of 43 patients who lost their sense of smell during the acute infection could identify at most four of six odors on olfactory testing, suggesting persistent dysfunction.
The COVID and non-COVID groups were similar in age and cognitive performance, but patients with a loss of smell showed more impulsivity and were more likely to make different a choice given a negative result when performing a behavioral task (game), while those who were hospitalized displayed less strategic thinking and made the same wrong choice repeatedly.
On MRI conducted during the game, loss of smell was associated with decreased functional activity during decision-making, loss of white-matter integrity, and thinning of the outer layer of the cerebrum in the parietal regions (responsible for processing sensory input, understanding spatial relationships, and how to navigate).
"Only six patients present indicators of persistent olfactory deficit; thus, our results are not due to actual deficit," the study authors wrote. "Hence, anosmia could serve as both a potential marker of virus-induced damage to neuronal tissues and a marker for individuals susceptible to brain damage."
Research is needed into the extent that loss of smell reflects COVID-related brain damage, whether it is a marker of patient susceptibility to different neuropathologic mechanisms, the mechanism of the link between loss of smell and brain changes, and treatment targets, the researchers concluded.
Most people associate symptoms such as shaking or trembling movements with neuromuscular diseases, such as Parkinsons diseasebut now, some Long COVID patients have reported experiencing internal tremors and vibrations. These are described as movements or sensations inside the body, with or without visible external muscle movementa symptom previously undiscovered in the complex pathology of the illness and quite rare in and of itself.
In a new study published in The American Journal of Medicine, led by Yale School of Medicines Harlan Krumholz, MD, Harold H. Hines Jr. Professor of Medicine (Cardiology), and Akiko Iwasaki, PhD, Sterling Professor of Immunobiology, the researchers sought to learn more by comparing Long COVID patients who have internal tremors and vibrations to Long COVID patients without these symptoms.
Back in 2021, a qualitative study by Dr. Krumholz collected emails and comments from patients with Long COVID experiencing internal tremors. "People around the world reached out to us and shared stories about their Long COVID symptoms, including internal tremors and vibrations, which they described as burdensome and, in some cases, quite debilitating, says Tianna Zhou, MD, the first author of the paper and a recent graduate of Yale Medical School. When we looked in the scientific literature, very few studies described internal tremors or vibrations in either Long COVID or other conditions. We wanted to shed light on a set of symptoms that are important to patients but understudied."
The severity of the tremors varies widely. In some patients, they affect the arms and legs, while others report feeling them throughout their body; the tremors can range from a slight vibration to a feeling of near paralysis and can occur at a frequency of every few hours all the way to a near constant basis. This study helped establish internal tremors as a prolonged and debilitating symptom in some Long COVID patients.
Many patients with these symptoms have been dismissed, as this aspect of the syndrome has not been well described, says Dr. Krumholz. Others feel alone and wonder if they are the only ones experiencing it. This research informs the medical professionand helps people with the condition know that they are not alone."
In the new study, Yale researchers compared demographic and socioeconomic characteristics of Long COVID patients with internal tremor symptoms, the effect of having other medical conditions prior to COVID-19, and the onset of new conditions. Of 423 Long COVID study participants, 37% described having internal tremors or vibrations.
Gender was the only statistically significant demographic factor that was identifiedof the study group, 81% of female participants reported internal tremors as a symptom compared to 70% of male participants. Importantly, participants with internal tremors reported significantly worse Long COVID symptom severity and had higher rates of experiencing such additional wide-ranging symptoms as visual flashes of light, hair loss, tingling or numbness, chest pain, and ringing in the ears.
Participants with internal tremors reported higher rates of new-onset mast cell disorders, a group of diseases in which mast cells are abnormally active and typically cause symptoms such as itching, nausea, and abdominal pain. Participants also reported higher rates of new-onset neurological disorders and conditions, including seizures and dementia, as well as stress and anxiety disorders compared to Long COVID participants without internal tremors.
Currently, low-dose naltrexone (LDN), a drug that has been used to treat chronic pain and discomfort in fibromyalgia and other rheumatological disorders, is sometimes used to relieve internal tremors and vibrations in Long COVID patients with varying levels of success. When administered in a daily dose of 1 to 5 mg, naltrexone is thought to reduce inflammation, release endorphins, and normalize cortisol levels to alleviate discomfort. At its usual dose50 mg or greaternaltrexone is used to treat addiction.
In one study, 52 participants with Long COVID were treated with a two-month course of LDN. The researchers conducted a survey and found that the participants reported an improvement in Long COVID recovery, daily activity limitation, energy levels, pain levels, concentration levels, and sleep disturbance. The study concluded that LDN was safe to use in Long COVID patients but required additional randomized control trials to validate its therapeutic use.
Just recognizing these symptoms is important to patients, but the real need is for targeted therapies," says Dr. Krumholz. By deepening our understanding of the mechanisms of Long COVID, we aim to identify potential treatments that can alleviate the burden of this condition. The Krumholz lab, in collaboration with Iwasaki and her lab, aims to continue advancing knowledge of Long COVID and hopes to develop targeted therapies for patients affected by Long COVID.
Kenny Cheng is an undergraduate majoring in molecular, cellular, and developmental biology at Yale University.
Internal tremor was one of the first unusual symptoms I heard about from my patients when I started the Long COVID Care Center at Yale in January of 2023. My patient, a young man from New York City, described a strange shaking or vibration in his internal organsthe way you might feel when standing next to a rapidly spinning motor or when attending a concert where the subwoofer is turned all the way up and the sound of the bass seems to travel through the body. He found low-dose naltrexone useful for this disquieting symptom. Since then, Ive seen many people who share this unusual symptom. Sometimes its reported as mild and annoyingas it was for that first patient I saw. For others, it can contribute to a cacophony of symptoms that make even getting out of bed daunting.
The recent observation by Zhou et al. (The American Journal of Medicine study mentioned above) that this tremor is often seen in those most dramatically and devastatingly affected by Long COVID has changed my approach to patients, and I now routinely ask about this specific symptom. I continue to try low-dose naltrexone but eagerly await studies to support the efficacy of this and other medications to treat these unusual tremors. As is said far too often with this disordermore research is desperately needed.
Read other installments of Long COVID Dispatches here.
If youd like to share your experience with Long COVID for possible use in this blog (under a pseudonym), write to us at: LongCovidDispatches@yale.edu. It may appear, space permitting, in a future post.
Information provided in Yale Medicine content is for general informational purposes only. It should never be used as a substitute for medical advice from your doctor or other qualified clinician. Always seek the individual advice of your health care provider for any questions you have regarding a medical condition.
Now scientists in the U.K. have uncovered a new piece of the puzzle: COVID vaccination may mitigate the viruss adverse effects on mental health. The team, including researchers from the universities of Bristol, Cambridge, Oxford, and Swansea, as well as University College London, showed higher rates of mental illnesses among unvaccinated people, up to a year after severe COVID infection. Their findings were published Wednesday in JAMA Psychiatry.
Our findings have important implications for public health and mental health service provision, as serious mental illnesses are associated with more intensive health care needs and longer-term health and other adverse effects, Venexia Walker, PhD, a senior research fellow in epidemiology at Bristol Medical School and one of the studys lead authors, said in a news release. Our results highlight the importance of COVID-19 vaccination in the general population and particularly among those with mental illnesses, who may be at higher risk of both SARS-CoV-2 infection and adverse outcomes following COVID-19.
The observational study assessed the medical records of more than 18.6 million adults ages 18 to 110 (50% female; median age 49) who were registered with a general practitioner in England. In this first cohort, which centered on the pandemics early days before a vaccine was available, about 5% of patients had been diagnosed with COVID. Two other cohorts represented the vaccination era from June through December 2021:
In each of the three cohorts, researchers compared incidence of the following mental illnesses before and after a confirmed COVID diagnosis:
Compared to before or without COVID, the prevalence of most of these conditions increased one to four weeks following COVID diagnosis. This trend primarily applied to severe infections that had required hospitalization and among unvaccinated people, incidence remained elevated for up to a year.
Mental illness incidence increased slightly in COVID patients who endured milder infection. Depression rates, for example, spiked 16-fold among hospitalized patients but did so by just 1.2 times among nonhospitalized patients. While no vaccine is 100% effective, COVID immunization is intended to prevent severe illness and death. Researchers noted that the vaccinated cohort showed little variation in depression prevalence before/without or after nonhospitalized infection.
The link between COVID and mental illness didnt change significantly between racial and ethnic groups. It did, however, vary by age and biological sex. For instance, this association was stronger among men and older age groups.
Despite boasting a large sample size, the study has its limitations. The millions of participants hailed from a single nation, and the vast majority were white. Researchers also stressed that they analyzed only confirmed infections recorded in electronic health records, meaning COVID-positive individuals who hadnt sought medical care werent included. In addition, researchers couldnt rule out that viruses besides SARS-CoV-2 hadnt contributed to the mental illnesses studied.
We have already identified associations of COVID-19 with cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and now mental illnesses, Jonathan Sterne, PhD, study coauthor and professor of medical statistics and epidemiology at Bristol Medical School, said in the news release. We are continuing to explore the consequences of COVID-19 with ongoing projects looking at associations of COVID-19 with renal, autoimmune, and neurodegenerative conditions.
Updated 20242025 COVID vaccines likely will be available in the early fall. Vaccines manufactured by Pfizer, Moderna, and Novavax will arrive later this year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) announced in June. Last years version launched in mid-September.
When the new vaccines are available, the CDC recommends everyone aged 6 months and older get a dose to shield themselves from the latest Omicron subvariants. People with compromised immune systems and those 65 and older may be eligible for additional doses.
Our top recommendation for protecting yourself and your loved ones from respiratory illness is to get vaccinated, CDC Director Dr. Mandy Cohen said in a June news release. Make a plan now for you and your family to get both updated flu and COVID vaccines this fall, ahead of the respiratory virus season.
If you need immediate mental health support, contact the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline.
For more on COVID-19 and mental health:
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