Category: Covid-19

Despite increase stressors during the COVID-19 pandemic, a new study did not find a higher incidence of postpartum depression among women who gave birth during the pandemic. There was an increased prevalence of mood disorders among individuals delivering infants during the pandemic, according to the study published in the peer-reviewed Journal of Women's Health.

Malika Waschmann, from the School of Medicine, Oregon Health & Science University, and coauthors, compared the incidence of postpartum depression in mothers giving birth during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic to those giving birth during the year preceding the pandemic.

Postpartum depression is a common complication of pregnancy affecting 10-15% of individuals.

The investigators found that pre-childbirth prevalence of anxiety and depression increased substantially during the pandemic. However, the results indicated that 'the incidence proportion of PPD symptomatology remained stable as we entered the COVID-19 pandemic despite an increase in underlying, pre-childbirth mood disorders."

In an accompanying editorial, Michael Silverman, PhD and Holly Loudon, MD, MPH, from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, The Mount Sinai Hospital, state the following: "Given that the COVID-19 pandemic represents a uniquely stressful time for most, and the overwhelming belief that the pandemic would significantly increase perinatal mood dysregulation and possibly disrupt infant bonding, these findings appear strikingly counterintuitive. Waschmann et al. hypothesize that despite the increased emotional disruption attributable to the COVID-19 pandemic globally, social restrictions may have improved certain aspects of adjustment associated with the early maternal period. Indeed, an increasing body of work is beginning to reveal that those who stood to benefit most from an improved work-family-childcare balance also reported improved postpartum mood during the height of the pandemic restrictions as well as other aspects of health and wellness."

Source:

Journal reference:

Waschmann, M., et al. (2022) Evaluating the Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Postpartum Depression. Journal of Women's Health. doi.org/10.1089/jwh.2021.0428.

More:

Study evaluates the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on postpartum depression - News-Medical.Net

Many of those infections came from individuals who were considered fully vaccinated, according to the VDH.

NORFOLK, Va. Data from the Virginia Department of Health shows how many times COVID-19 evaded our vaccines in 2022.

In late May, VDH closed its "Cases by Vaccination Status" and archived its dataset on the Virginia Open Data Portal. However, a public information officer with VDH said more than 100,000 COVID infections were considered a breakthrough between January 2022 and May when the dashboard was retired.

The following are the exact numbers:

"Vaccine breakthroughs are expected when vaccine-induced immunity levels, those antibody levels, decrease over time," Dr. Lisa Thanjan, a VDH epidemiologist, said.

While state-level tracking isn't monitored as closely anymore, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention tracks cases by vaccination status across many U.S. jurisdictions.

According to COVID-19 case rates tracked across 31 U.S. jurisdictions, the country saw its highest level of breakthrough infections in mid-January during the Omicron variant surge, with almost 1,500 cases per every 100,000 people who received at least a "primary series" of a vaccine.

As time goes on, and new variants continue to emerge, Dr. Thanjan said there runs an increased likelihood that new variants that have higher transmission rates-- combined with waning efficacy-- are more likely to bypass existing vaccine formulas.

She added that the Food and Drug Administration will meet at the end of June to figure out if our current COVID vaccines need to be altered to help fight new variants.

For more information on COVID-19 in Virginia, click here.

Read more:

Virginia health officials stress being fully vaccinated amid breakthrough COVID-19 cases - 13newsnow.com WVEC

The U.S. responded to the COVID-19 recession with massive and unprecedented support for businesses. The business sector overall fared much better than had been expected at the outset. Is this evidence that the business aid had strong economic benefits? Why should policymakers think twice before redeploying the same toolkit during future recessions? Ben Iverson, associate professor of finance at Brigham Young University, and Gabe Chodorow-Reich, associate professor of economics at Harvard University, join host David Wessel to discuss lessons learned about support for businesses.

Wednesday, April 27, 2022

Recession Remedies podcast is part of the Brookings Podcast Network. Subscribe and listen onApple,Spotify, Google, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Send feedback email to podcasts@brookings.edu, and follow and tweet at@policypodcasts on Twitter.

More here:

How effective was aid to business during COVID-19? - Brookings Institution

I am an epidemiologist who is home sick with COVID-19. Upon a positive self-test, I contacted my primary care physician to ask about treatment and report my case. As my symptoms worsened and more of my family members tested positive on a self-test, I turned to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) to find out how to report our cases. CDC guidance suggests that I tell my health care provider that I have tested positive, but the health care system has no means of reporting self-tests for COVID-19 surveillance. I cannot report the cases of COVID-19 in my family and we, like so many Americans suffering during this current wave, will go uncounted.

U.S. policy dictates that COVID-19 surveillance is solely reliant on laboratory testing. This surveillance system is no longer functioning as a tool to mitigate the spread of SARS-CoV2 with the ubiquitous availability and use of self-testing. With the availability of tests in pharmacies and every household able to obtain eight free tests, the surveillance system must adapt to the way most people are finding out whether or not they have contracted SARS-CoV2. The current surveillance system was designed for earlier waves of the pandemic when most cases were being detected by PCR in a clinical setting or a mass testing site. Monitoring laboratory tests alone does not give us an accurate and early detection of when cases are rising. Monitoring hospitalized cases will not allow us to plan for current wave leaving health care systems vulnerable to staff shortages.

The more than 100, cases reported in the New York Times this week, vastly undercount the number of Americans who are sick with COVID-19, including me. If we, as a country, can develop the first and most effective vaccines to prevent COVID-19-related hospitalizations and death, why is there no political will to develop a surveillance system that can quickly and accurately record new cases of COVID-19? We are in the midst of another wave without an accurate count of how many people currently have COVID-19 and where cases are increasing.

An ideal surveillance tool would contain both active components, like universal testing the national wastewater surveillance system for SARS-CoV-2, and passive reporting of cases from self-testing, in addition to reporting through laboratory testing. Those who test positive on a self-test should be able to easily and conveniently report their positive test, recording data that is comparable to the data that is reported with a positive laboratory test. All results could be integrated into a single national surveillance system to allow for a clear and current snapshot of the burden of COVID-19 by geographic region. Data on the frequency of cases by date and geographic location from this surveillance system should be readily accessible to the public as well as policy makers and added to our public health armament.

Relying on surveillance tools that were developed during outdated testing paradigms will not be sufficient for individuals to weigh the risks and benefits given the current burden of SARS-CoV-2 in their community or for health care systems to prepare for future waves. Our surveillance systems can and must adapt to the current realities of the COVID-19 pandemic. I am an epidemiologist with COVID-19 and want to be counted.

Dr. Mara McAdams-DeMarco is an epidemiologist with 20 years of experience in public health and is studying how COVID-19 mitigation strategies have impacted vulnerable populations. She is an associate professor of surgery and population health and the associate vice chair of research in the Department of Surgery at New York University Grossman School of Medicine. Follow her on Twitter: @McAdamsDeMarco

Link:

I am an epidemiologist with COVID-19 and I want to be counted - The Hill

Country

United States of AmericaUS Virgin IslandsUnited States Minor Outlying IslandsCanadaMexico, United Mexican StatesBahamas, Commonwealth of theCuba, Republic ofDominican RepublicHaiti, Republic ofJamaicaAfghanistanAlbania, People's Socialist Republic ofAlgeria, People's Democratic Republic ofAmerican SamoaAndorra, Principality ofAngola, Republic ofAnguillaAntarctica (the territory South of 60 deg S)Antigua and BarbudaArgentina, Argentine RepublicArmeniaArubaAustralia, Commonwealth ofAustria, Republic ofAzerbaijan, Republic ofBahrain, Kingdom ofBangladesh, People's Republic ofBarbadosBelarusBelgium, Kingdom ofBelizeBenin, People's Republic ofBermudaBhutan, Kingdom ofBolivia, Republic ofBosnia and HerzegovinaBotswana, Republic ofBouvet Island (Bouvetoya)Brazil, Federative Republic ofBritish Indian Ocean Territory (Chagos Archipelago)British Virgin IslandsBrunei DarussalamBulgaria, People's Republic ofBurkina FasoBurundi, Republic ofCambodia, Kingdom ofCameroon, United Republic ofCape Verde, Republic ofCayman IslandsCentral African RepublicChad, Republic ofChile, Republic ofChina, People's Republic ofChristmas IslandCocos (Keeling) IslandsColombia, Republic ofComoros, Union of theCongo, Democratic Republic ofCongo, People's Republic ofCook IslandsCosta Rica, Republic ofCote D'Ivoire, Ivory Coast, Republic of theCyprus, Republic ofCzech RepublicDenmark, Kingdom ofDjibouti, Republic ofDominica, Commonwealth ofEcuador, Republic ofEgypt, Arab Republic ofEl Salvador, Republic ofEquatorial Guinea, Republic ofEritreaEstoniaEthiopiaFaeroe IslandsFalkland Islands (Malvinas)Fiji, Republic of the Fiji IslandsFinland, Republic ofFrance, French RepublicFrench GuianaFrench PolynesiaFrench Southern TerritoriesGabon, Gabonese RepublicGambia, Republic of theGeorgiaGermanyGhana, Republic ofGibraltarGreece, Hellenic RepublicGreenlandGrenadaGuadaloupeGuamGuatemala, Republic ofGuinea, RevolutionaryPeople's Rep'c ofGuinea-Bissau, Republic ofGuyana, Republic ofHeard and McDonald IslandsHoly See (Vatican City State)Honduras, Republic ofHong Kong, Special Administrative Region of ChinaHrvatska (Croatia)Hungary, Hungarian People's RepublicIceland, Republic ofIndia, Republic ofIndonesia, Republic ofIran, Islamic Republic ofIraq, Republic ofIrelandIsrael, State ofItaly, Italian RepublicJapanJordan, Hashemite Kingdom ofKazakhstan, Republic ofKenya, Republic ofKiribati, Republic ofKorea, Democratic People's Republic ofKorea, Republic ofKuwait, State ofKyrgyz RepublicLao People's Democratic RepublicLatviaLebanon, Lebanese RepublicLesotho, Kingdom ofLiberia, Republic ofLibyan Arab JamahiriyaLiechtenstein, Principality ofLithuaniaLuxembourg, Grand Duchy ofMacao, Special Administrative Region of ChinaMacedonia, the former Yugoslav Republic ofMadagascar, Republic ofMalawi, Republic ofMalaysiaMaldives, Republic ofMali, Republic ofMalta, Republic ofMarshall IslandsMartiniqueMauritania, Islamic Republic ofMauritiusMayotteMicronesia, Federated States ofMoldova, Republic ofMonaco, Principality ofMongolia, Mongolian People's RepublicMontserratMorocco, Kingdom ofMozambique, People's Republic ofMyanmarNamibiaNauru, Republic ofNepal, Kingdom ofNetherlands AntillesNetherlands, Kingdom of theNew CaledoniaNew ZealandNicaragua, Republic ofNiger, Republic of theNigeria, Federal Republic ofNiue, Republic ofNorfolk IslandNorthern Mariana IslandsNorway, Kingdom ofOman, Sultanate ofPakistan, Islamic Republic ofPalauPalestinian Territory, OccupiedPanama, Republic ofPapua New GuineaParaguay, Republic ofPeru, Republic ofPhilippines, Republic of thePitcairn IslandPoland, Polish People's RepublicPortugal, Portuguese RepublicPuerto RicoQatar, State ofReunionRomania, Socialist Republic ofRussian FederationRwanda, Rwandese RepublicSamoa, Independent State ofSan Marino, Republic ofSao Tome and Principe, Democratic Republic ofSaudi Arabia, Kingdom ofSenegal, Republic ofSerbia and MontenegroSeychelles, Republic ofSierra Leone, Republic ofSingapore, Republic ofSlovakia (Slovak Republic)SloveniaSolomon IslandsSomalia, Somali RepublicSouth Africa, Republic ofSouth Georgia and the South Sandwich IslandsSpain, Spanish StateSri Lanka, Democratic Socialist Republic ofSt. HelenaSt. Kitts and NevisSt. LuciaSt. Pierre and MiquelonSt. Vincent and the GrenadinesSudan, Democratic Republic of theSuriname, Republic ofSvalbard & Jan Mayen IslandsSwaziland, Kingdom ofSweden, Kingdom ofSwitzerland, Swiss ConfederationSyrian Arab RepublicTaiwan, Province of ChinaTajikistanTanzania, United Republic ofThailand, Kingdom ofTimor-Leste, Democratic Republic ofTogo, Togolese RepublicTokelau (Tokelau Islands)Tonga, Kingdom ofTrinidad and Tobago, Republic ofTunisia, Republic ofTurkey, Republic ofTurkmenistanTurks and Caicos IslandsTuvaluUganda, Republic ofUkraineUnited Arab EmiratesUnited Kingdom of Great Britain & N. IrelandUruguay, Eastern Republic ofUzbekistanVanuatuVenezuela, Bolivarian Republic ofViet Nam, Socialist Republic ofWallis and Futuna IslandsWestern SaharaYemenZambia, Republic ofZimbabwe

Read the original here:

Bottleneck in patient care worsens as COVID-19 outbreaks and staffing shortages continue - KITV Honolulu

In recent weeks, a new version of the Covid-19 virusnamed BA.2.12.1became the dominant variety in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The variants rapid spread, coupled with growing case counts, raised concern among health officials, who last month strengthened their recommendations for Covid-19 boosters.

BA.2.12.1 is a version of the Omicron variant that was first detected in southern Africa last fall. Omicron quickly spread throughout the world, supplanting the once-dominant Delta and spawning a succession of increasingly infectious subvariants.

Read the original here:

Why Variants Keep Covid-19 Cases Simmering in the U.S. - The Wall Street Journal

School Reopening And COVID-19 In The Community: Evidence From A Natural Experiment In Ontario, Canada  healthaffairs.org

Originally posted here:

School Reopening And COVID-19 In The Community: Evidence From A Natural Experiment In Ontario, Canada - healthaffairs.org

People living with HIV are at increased risk for severe COVID-19 at hospital admission and in-hospital mortality compared to those without HIV, according to a paper published in The Lancet.

Investigators from Switzerland used World Health Organization data from January 2020-July 2021 to determine whether people living with HIV with COVID-19 had increased odds of severe symptoms and in-hospital mortality compared to HIV-negative patients. The study authors noted that HIV patients have underlying immune issues that put them at risk for severe disease.

The study authors identified 19,655 people living with HIV and 180,524 people that were HIV-negative who were submitted to the WHO Global COVID-19 Clinical Platform during their study period. The population included patients from 38 countries. A majority of the patients living with HIV were from Africa, about 2/3 were female, and the mean age was about 45 years. Nearly all of the patients living with HIV were on antiretroviral therapy (ART), the study authors also reported.

The investigators found that 93% of HIV-negative patients and 96% of HIV patients were admitted to hospitals with lab-confirmed COVID-19 cases. Patients with HIV were more likely to be female and younger than 45 years compared to those without HIV. The study authors also observed that at least 1 underlying condition was more frequent among those with HIV compared to those without. However, they wrote that conditions such as hypertension, neurological disorders, obesity, and diabetes were more frequent in patients that were HIV-negative.

For HIV patients, the most frequent COVID-19 symptoms were cough, fever, and shortness of breath, the study authors learned. They also observed more frequent use of corticosteroids and anticoagulants among HIV patients compared to those without HIV.

Nearly 40% of HIV patients were admitted to the hospital in severe or critical conditions, the study authors said; furthermore, 24% of those patients died. The severe or critical patients were more likely to be older than 45 years, male, and more likely to have diabetes, hypertension, malignancies, cardiac disease, and kidney disease.

The study authors said that having asthma, chronic cardiac, pulmonary and neurological conditions, and being a current smoker did not differ significantly between the groups, but individuals who died in the hospital had higher proportions of diabetes, hypertension, tuberculosis, chronic kidney disease, and malignancies. Those patients with HIV who died were more likely to be admitted with severe or critical disease than those with mild to moderate disease.

After considering age, sex, disease severity at admission, and underlying conditions, the study authors determined that patients with HIV were 38% more likely to die than those without HIV. Additionally, having HIV was associated with 15% increased odds of severe or critical presentation compared to HIV-negative individuals, the study authors said. Median time from hospitalization to death was shorter in those with HIV and severe presentation compared to those without HIV, they said. But for those with mild to moderate presentation, median time from hospitalization to mortality was longer in those with people with HIV compared to those without HIV.

We found that underlying conditions are common and more frequent among people living with HIV than the general population, the study authors concluded. Alongside the response to COVID-19, it is thus critical to maintain access to essential health services for this vulnerable group.

Visit link:

HIV Infection Increases Odds of Severe COVID-19 - Contagionlive.com

Anchorage Memorial Park Cemetery, September 2021. (Emily Mesner / ADN)

A new report from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention provides the most comprehensive look so far at the disproportionate toll COVID-19 is taking on Alaska Native and American Indian people living in Alaska.

Overall, Alaska Native and American Indian people have made up just about a fifth of the states population but nearly a third of all deaths, the report found.

Between the start of the pandemic in March 2020 and last December, Indigenous Alaskans were hospitalized with the virus and died from it at rates three times that of white residents, according to the report released Thursday.

The report is based on data shared with the CDC by the Alaska Department of Health and Social Services between March 2020 and December 2021.

Many Indigenous Alaskans face multiple barriers to health equity and access, including historical trauma and structural racism and remote or rural living that makes it harder and more expensive to access care.

The findings from the latest report showed that the viruss mortality rate was about three times as high for Alaska Native and American Indian people living in the state (297 deaths per 100,000) when compared to white Alaskans (104 per 100,000) once adjusted for age.

The adjusted hospitalization rate was similarly high: 742 hospitalizations per 100,000 Indigenous Alaskans compared with 273 hospitalizations per 100,000 white Alaskans representing a nearly three-fold risk for Alaska Native people.

The findings echo previous Alaska studies including those conducted by the state health department and tribal health organizations which found clear, race-based disparities affecting who gets COVID-19, who is hospitalized for it and who dies.

Nationwide, COVID-19 has affected Black, Indigenous, Hispanic and other people of color the most, data has shown.

On its website, the CDC cites long-standing systemic health and social inequities as a major contributing factor to why people from racial and ethnic minority groups are at an increased risk overall of getting sick and dying from COVID-19.

Discrimination, lack of health care access and poverty are all inequities in social determinants of health that put racial and ethnic minority groups at increased risk, according to the CDC.

But despite these inequities, predominantly Alaska Native communities have long had some of the highest COVID-19 vaccination rates in Alaska and in the U.S., to the credit of tribal health organizations and health aides who have deep roots in the communities they serve.

The recent CDC report recommends that public health professionals continue to work with tribal health organizations in Alaska to provide culturally competent and regionally required health interventions, and that existing health care initiatives should respect the knowledge and wisdom of these communities as experts on their own needs.

See original here:

Indigenous Alaskans died from COVID-19 at nearly three times the rate of white Alaskans, CDC report says - Anchorage Daily News

The authors of a controversial meeting abstract linking ivermectin to lower mortality from Covid-19 have retracted the study, saying that the work has been widely misinterpreted and might be leading to patient harm.

The abstract, Treatment with Ivermectin Is Associated with Decreased Mortality in COVID-19 Patients: Analysis of a National Federated Database, was presented at the 2021 International Meeting on Emerging Diseases and Surveillance.

According to the researchers, from the University of Miami, Covid-19 patients who took ivermectin were about 70% less likely to die of the disease than those who took remdesivir.

Ivermectin use was associated with decreased mortality in patients with COVID-19 compared to remdesivir. To our knowledge, this is the largest association study of patients with COVID-19, mortality and ivermectin. Further double-blinded placebo-controlled RCTs with large samples are required for definite conclusion. In the future, if more publications are published with the similar result to the current analyses, the certainty of evidence will increase.

Not surprisingly, the poster received a significant amount of attention on social media both from ivermectin partisans and skeptics. At the time, the researchers tried to distance themselves from any firm conclusions about the work, stressing that they were reporting an association and not necessarily a causal effect.

Evidently, they felt those protestations were insufficient and indeed, the authors decided not to pursue publication of their work on the ground that the findings were too shaky. As the lead author, Ivakov Efimenko, tweeted:

Heres the notice:

This article has been retracted at the request of the authors. The abstract was presented as a poster in the IMED last year. Our study was about the association of Ivermectin with reduction in mortality in COVID, a retrospective study with many limitations (which is innate in these types of studies). As in any retrospective study, we could not control for all the confounding variables, mainly severity of disease in patients treated with either ivermectin or remdesivir. Another important caveat is that it was conducted in July 2021, eight months ago, when we did not have all the clinical evidence we have right now about ivermectin in COVID-19. We were very clear in the abstract conclusions that our results are only showing an association, they are not definitive, and further randomized clinical trials must be done to prove the efficacy of Ivermectin. However, the study has been misinterpreted by a significant number of people in the scientific community and the general population, stating that based on our study, ivermectin is effective to reduce COVID-19 mortality. We are really concerned about this problem because the patients may start taking or demanding this medication from their physicians, which can potentially be harmful. We know that a retrospective study like ours cannot be used to change or guide clinical practice. Retrospective studies are only helpful to formulate hypothesis that can be utilized to design clinical trials. This misrepresentation of the study may lead to a huge public health problem, since Ivermectin is a medication that is not FDA approved for COVID treatment, and currently has proven to be ineffective in clinical trials, which are truly the gold standard to evaluate the efficacy of a medication.

Because of Elseviers frequent practice of overwriting original abstract pages with retractions without adding new dates, it is unclear when the paper was retracted, although it appears to have happened sometime this week.

By our count, researchers have retracted at least a dozen studies (including the latest one) on the use of ivermectin to treat Covid-19.

Like Retraction Watch? You can make atax-deductible contribution to support our work, follow uson Twitter, like uson Facebook, add us to yourRSS reader, or subscribe to ourdaily digest. If you find a retraction thatsnot in our database, you canlet us know here. For comments or feedback, email us at team@retractionwatch.com.

Related

Read more here:

Widely touted abstract on ivermectin and COVID-19 retracted - Retraction Watch