Category: Corona Virus

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COVID-19 still spreads in summer. Refresh your knowledge - Courier Post

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Is COVID still around in Central Texas? Austin area seeing spike in cases this summer. - Austin American-Statesman

A new study led by researchers from the Wayne State University of School of Medicine has revealed a trending seasonality to yearly COVID-19 surges, specifically two smaller peaks in the spring and summer, and the largest peak in the winter.

Our study also revealed that climatic factors, such as temperature and rainfall, do not play a driving role in the seasonality of COVID-19 outbreaks. The timing of COVID-19 incidence outbreaks was not affected by vaccination campaigns, and did not directly correlate with public holidays or environmental factors, said study co-author Kezhong Zhang, Ph.D., a professor of Biochemistry, Microbiology and Immunology and of Molecular Medicine and Genetics.

The study has immediate implications for both public health professionals and the public at large in understanding and preparing for future COVID-19 surges.

In Seasonality of COVID-19 incidence in the United States, published in the journal Front Public Health, they outline a predictable seasonality of COVID-19 outbreaks in the U.S. The seasonality is characterized by the waves of COVID-19 incidence occurring three times a year.

The team collected daily county-level COVID-19 incidence data across the contiguous U.S. for three full seasonal years, from March 2020 to March 2023. The data was sourced from reliable databases such as 1Point3Acres and The New York Times, which are known for accurate, real-time updates of COVID-19 cases and deaths. The core methodology the authors employed in the study was spectral analysis using Fast Fourier Transform algorithms.

Our findings of tri-annual peaks in COVID-19 outbreaks could be very useful in public health preparedness. For instance, authorities can allocate resources more effectively and implement targeted public health interventions to counter anticipated surge periods, Dr. Zhang said.

However, it is important to recognize that though the public health/social/environmental factors did not affect the timing of the outbreaks, they likely have a significant impact in the amplitude of each outbreak. For example, vaccination and social distancing/mask-wearing efforts are the likely reason for significantly lower amplitudes of each outbreak in the second year of the pandemic (2021-2022) compared to the first year (2020-2021).

Class of 2023 graduate El Hussain Shamsa, M.D., an Internal Medicine resident at Case West Western/University Hospitals in Cleveland, contributed to study, including while working Dr. Zhangs lab as a medical student at WSU.

The study first acknowledges a debate over whether COVID-19 disease incidence follows a seasonal pattern like many other respiratory viral infections, such as influenza. The identification of seasonality of COVID-19 is crucial for infection control as it can guide public health prevention measures.

The publication and the related results were featured by Medicine Innovates as a research breakthrough, and the article Seasonal Patterns and Periodicity of COVID-19 Outbreaks in the United States: Discoveries from a Spectral Analysis Study.

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WSU-led analysis uses three years of daily COVID-19 data to reveal yearly surge trends - Wayne State University

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COVID transmission has climbed steadily since the spring, according to data from hospital patients COVID tests. New York states wastewater concentrations have held steady so far, but city wastewater data shows that some parts of the city are in the 80th percentile or above compared to past COVID levels.

New York Citys hospitalization rate is elevated compared to last summers figures, but it hasnt quite caught up to the most recent December-January peak. NYC Health and Hospitals, the citys public hospital system, reinstated its mask mandate as of last December, the New York Daily News reported. And in July, the city health department re-upped its recommendation that New Yorkers wear masks indoors.

In recent weeks, the viral landscape has been dominated by the FLiRT variants, a collective name for a family of substrains whose technical names start with JN and KP. The capital letters in FLiRT are shorthand for the mutations that help these substrains cling to our cells and fend off antibodies, according to the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University.

Theres not much available research yet on the most recent COVID vaccines effectiveness against the new variants. But the shots can still protect against severe disease, hospitalization and death, according to the CDC.

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FLiRT summer: See maps and charts of the latest COVID wave - Gothamist

Once upon a time, COVID-19 was two weeks of coughing and an inability to smell your new candle. Then we discovered the existence of Long COVID a vague conglomeration of more than 200 symptoms that can be debilitating months or even years after the original disease seems to have cleared up.

Now, four years into the pandemic, were still not totally sure whats behind the extended condition but a new study that followed 24 Covid patients over a period of up to 900 days has revealed a potential factor that has previously gone unnoticed: your T cells.

Its not the first study to link COVID-19 with these particular immune cells only last month, a study from Imperial College London hinted at the potential for targeted T cell therapies to fight the condition. But it is one of the longest-running: it was set up in 2020, long before the idea that COVID-19 might hang around in the body was widely accepted.

Thats not all that sets it apart, however. The team behind the study was inspired by their experience researching HIV a disease practically defined by its ability to kill T cells. Unable to monitor antibodies so early into the pandemic, they instead used PET scans to study the behavior of T cells inside the body after infection.

[It] is a novel approach [] that allows them to map activated T cells in the body, explained Danny Altmann, Professor of Immunology at Imperial College London, co-author of the Penguin Handbook of Long Covid and lead investigator of the NIHR WILCO LONG COVID Study, who was not involved in the study.

They find patterns of long-term T cell activation that may help to explain patterns of Long Covid symptoms, he said. For example, people with respiratory symptoms showed long-term homing of activated T cells to the lung.

Other scans showed activated T cells swarming to the gut wall, prompting the team to analyze gut biopsies. Again, they found the presence of COVID-19 RNA a long-term virus reservoir, Altmann explained.

The finding was even more stark when compared to six control samples scans from before the pandemic, before anybody on the planet couldve possibly had this virus, Michael Peluso, assistant professor of medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, and lead author of the paper, told Stat. While T cells were activated in these scans, they were concentrated where youd expect the liver, kidneys, and other places known to help clear inflammation. In the Long Covid patients, they were everywhere.

Its really striking, Peluso said. Oh, my goodness, this is happening in someones spinal cord, or their GI tract, or their heart wall, or their lungs.

While the study isnt a slam-dunk its not actually certain what the T cells are reacting to, and the researchers arent sure whether the scans are showing remnants of old infections, or active virus particles its nevertheless alluring. There has been a large amount of inferential data supporting a view that a key factor underpinning Long Covid may be that some people do not properly clear the virus and harbor reservoirs of SARS-CoV-2 in their tissues, Altmann noted but its been hard to prove.

In that respect, this study should be seen as a significant step in advancing our understanding of this disease process, he said, and thus shifting nearer to treatments that could offer hope to the tens of millions of patients.

At a time when theres desperate need for new clinical trials, studies like this help to point the way.

The study is published in the journal Science Translational Medicine.

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Signs Of COVID Virus In The Body Years After Original Infection - IFLScience

Nearly 1 in 10 people infected with the coronavirus during pregnancy developed long covid, according to a study published Thursday in the journal Obstetrics and Gynecology.

Thursdays study, which highlights the consequences of the virus during pregnancy, suggests long covid is more prevalent among people infected while pregnant than in the population overall. As many as 7 percent of Americans report having symptoms associated with long covid, according to a 2022 report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Some surveys suggest a far higher incidence of long covid in the general population.

Long covid has been a confounding subject for researchers since the coronavirus began spreading more than fours year ago. The syndrome is blamed for a range of persistent symptoms that sometimes vary among patient groups, and the virus can present a particular threat to pregnant people, who are already a vulnerable population.

Still, medical experts say this study is a stark reminder of pregnancys effect on the immune system and the impact it has on the body, highlighting that more research needs to be conducted. The study was funded as part of the National Institutes of Health Researching COVID to Enhance Recovery Initiative, widely known as RECOVER.

I was initially surprised at the prevalence of long covid in this population, said Torri Metz, one of the studys lead authors and a maternal-fetal medicine specialist at University of Utah Health. It really drew my attention to the fact I need to have this on my radar when I am seeing patients.

As part of the 1,500-person study, researchers analyzed individuals infected with the coronavirus during pregnancy; half of the participants, who were mainly in their 30s, were fully vaccinated when they were enrolled. They evaluated the study participants for long covid symptoms 10 months after the initial infection.

The most common symptoms reported included malaise, fatigue and gastrointestinal issues, some of which can also be hallmark signs of pregnancy.

The researchers wanted to make certain the symptoms being reported were associated with covid rather than being attributable to pregnancy or the postpartum period. They found that the effects persisted and were still evident when evaluated 10 months after the initial infection. That indicated to the researchers that the study participants symptoms, such as fatigue and aches, did not stem from pregnancy but were instead the hallmark of long covid.

This is another opportunity to really draw attention to the fact that its important for patients after pregnancy to continue to have ongoing care [if they have] chronic conditions that require specialty care and require handoffs to people who can really manage them, Metz said.

Cynthia Abraham, an associate professor at Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York who was not involved in the study, said the research highlights the threat posed by respiratory illness during pregnancy, with the potential for worse outcomes.

A lot of the data we have is from nonpregnant populations so this paper hones in on a significant population thats been understudied, said Abraham, who is also a fellow with the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.

This year, more federal dollars were allotted to studying the impact of long covid. The Biden administration announced it would invest an additional $515 million during the next four years to research the condition. It remains unclear how much will be spent researching pregnancy and covid. So far, RECOVER has recruited more than 30,000 people, including children and those who are pregnant.

Monica Longo, an OB/GYN researcher on NIHs RECOVER team and a maternal-fetal medicine expert, emphasized the importance of understanding how the disease affects pregnancy and its potential impacts on a fetus.

Those nine months are crucial for the developing fetus, and any changes in their environment can significantly alter their development, Longo said. So it is essential to examine the effects of covid exposure on the fetus.

Longo suggested that future studies could explore the consequences of the virus on the fetus and explore the implications after birth for the baby, especially regarding developmental outcomes.

Originally posted here:

1 in 10 people infected during pregnancy develop long covid, study finds - The Washington Post

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COVID-19 cases are rising in Arizona. Here's what you should know - The Arizona Republic

CLEVELAND, Ohio The number of new COVID-19 cases in Ohio jumped up by more than 1,000 cases, moving from 2,049 last week to 3,153 this week, the state reported Thursday.

It was the sixth consecutive weekly increase since early June, when the weekly case number climbed over the 1,000-case mark for the first time since early May.

Due to the July Fourth holiday, the Ohio Department of Health COVID-19 dashboards were updated on Wednesday, instead of the usual Thursday schedule. The weekly trends data on the July 3 update were calculated based on six days instead of the usual seven days

The state resumed its regular Thursday updates, and retroactively recalculatedthe previous weeks data based on seven days.

At least 1,377,594 Ohioans have received the updated one-dose COVID-19 vaccine, an increase of 1,172 people from the prior week, the state reported. This represents 11.7% of the states population.

The total COVID-19 case count since early 2020 in Ohio has reached 3,760,282.

There were 108 Ohioans newly hospitalized in the last week, raising the total since the beginning of the pandemic in 2020 to 152,004. Three people were admitted into the ICU, raising the total since 2020 to 15,824.

The state health department reported an additional two deaths from COVID-19, raising the total to 44,020. Death reporting sometimes lags by weeks.

July 11 recap

July 3 recap

Julie Washington covers healthcare for cleveland.com. Read previous stories at this link.

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COVID-19 cases spike by 1,000 in a week: Coronavirus update for Thursday, July 11, 2024 - cleveland.com

Actor Akshay Kumar wont be attending Anant Ambani and Radhika Merchants wedding in Mumbai on Friday, as he has tested positive for the coronavirus. Akshay previously tested positive in the early days of the pandemic, and then again in 2022. The actor will skip not only the Ambani wedding, but also the final leg of promotions for his latest release, Sarfira, a source confirmed to indianexpress.com.

Akshay attended the Ambanis pre-wedding celebrations in Jamnagar earlier this year, where he delivered a power-packed dance performance. Akshay felt unwell after some crew members of his promotions team contracted the virus. He tested positive on Friday morning. Anant Ambani had personally invited him to his wedding, which Akshay wont be able to attend as he has isolated himself. In an interview with HT after the Jamnagar event, Akshay had said, It happened around 3 in the morning. It was grand of course, but besides that the Ambani family was so loving and caring, they left no stone unturned to make everyone feel included. Anant and Radhika were very gracious hosts, may Mahakaal bless the happy couple.

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Also read Anant Ambani-Radhika Merchant wedding LIVE UPDATES: John Cena reaches India, Ambani wedding to start at 5 pm

Akshay first tested positive for the coronavirus in 2021. I wish to inform everyone that, earlier this morning, I have tested positive for Covid-19. Following all the protocols I have immediately isolated myself. I am under home quarantine and have sought necessary medical care, hed written in a note shared on X (formerly Twitter). Akshay was filming Ram Setu at the time, and it was said that several crew members had tested positive as well. Akshay contracted the virus again in 2022, just before he was supposed to represent India at the Cannes Film Festival. Was really looking forward to rooting for our cinema at the India Pavilion at #Cannes2022, but have sadly tested positive for Covid. Will rest it out. Loads of best wishes to you and your entire team, @ianuragthakur. Will really miss being there, he wrote on social media.

In an interview with Connect FM Canada in 2023, the actor said that he suffered from heavy COVID, and that he was still struggling to regain lost stamina. Some years ago, I got Covid. It was heavy Covid, and because of that, I lost quite a lot of my strength and stamina, he said. The actor donated Rs 25 crore to the PM-Cares relief fund during the first wave of the pandemic in 2020, and participated in one of the earliest rounds of filming when lockdowns were lifted.

Click for more updates and latest Bollywood news along with Entertainment updates. Also get latest news and top headlines from India and around the world at The Indian Express.

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First uploaded on: 12-07-2024 at 14:38 IST

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Akshay Kumar tests positive for COVID-19, to skip Anant Ambani-Radhika Merchants wedding - The Indian Express

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COVID-19 summer surge has cases double in Erie. What to know - GoErie.com