Clinical

Most public health efforts to contain spread of COVID-19 have been just that—public. It’s not without good reason, given how easily the virus can pass from one person to another and the great number of people most of us are exposed to every day. However, new data just published by JAMA Network Open should serve as a reminder that what we’re exposed to when we’re out of the house becomes what we expose our family …

Among the myriad reasons people are declining to receive the COVID-19 vaccine is concern that getting vaccinated would increase their risk for blood clots. Like many rationalizations of the vaccine-hesitant, it’s based on misinterpretation of a nugget of truth. Relaying the findings of an article just published in the British Medical Journal might be useful in helping you set the record straight. The fact is that vaccination with either the AstraZeneca/Oxford or the Pfizer BioNTech …

The currently available vaccines against COVID-19 have been performing admirably against the virus in general—but there’s a precipitous drop-off in effectiveness when it comes to the Delta variant, according to new data published in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report. Overall effectiveness among the three vaccines had been 91% previously, while it’s only 66% since the Delta variant became the dominant strain in the United States. On the flip side, it’s important to underscore to patients …

As the Delta variant continues to undo much of the progress the U.S. has made in coming back from the COVID-19 pandemic, researchers are still uncovering things we never understood about the virus to begin with. The latest revelation, according to research released by the Journal of Gerontology, is that adults 75 years of age and older may present with a constellation of symptoms that look very different from those younger patients display. Perhaps most …

One of the oft-heard objections to receiving the COVID-19 vaccine has been that “they’re not really approved” by virtue of their being OK’d for use under the Food and Drug Administration’s Emergency Use Authorization. Now that the Pfizer vaccine has complete approval from the FDA (with Moderna expected to follow shortly), it’s time to find out which vaccine-hesitant patients were really waiting for this moment and which were just offering up a convenient excuse but …

News concerning the advisability and availability of booster doses of the COVID-19 vaccines has been evolving almost as quickly as data regarding new cases of the virus itself lately. Most striking was an announcement from Rochelle Walensky, MD, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that her agency now recommends a third dose of some vaccines for certain patients—though that will likely expand in due time. The decision is in line with a …

It continues to be a difficult proposition to get a handle on a “standard” constellation of symptoms among patients with COVID-19. It’s been made even more difficult by the ongoing rise of the Delta variant. A leading public health official in Louisiana, where the pandemic is taking as great a toll as anywhere in the world at the moment, told New Orleans radio station WWL that symptoms associated with Delta are distinct from those associated …

When the gravity of the COVID-19 pandemic first became evident, the term “twindemic” (simultaneous high rates of both SARS-CoV-2 and seasonal influenza) was everywhere. Not only did it never emerge, but new data published in Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report show that incidence of flu, respiratory syncytial virus, common human coronaviruses, parainfluenza viruses, human metapneumovirus, respiratory adenovirus, and rhinovirus and enterovirus were all actually lower than previous years. The authors speculate that the lower-than-average activity …

Most women who are pregnant are rightly cautious about what they put into their bodies. Given the newness of the COVID-19 vaccines, not to mention the misinformation abounding on social and mainstream media, it’s natural that they might be hesitant to get vaccinated. After numerous studies, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has finally issued an unequivocal statement recommending that pregnant women should, indeed, get vaccinated while assuring the public that none of the …

It wasn’t that long ago that many Americans rejoiced at the news that several vaccines against the SARS-CoV-2 virus had been developed and approved for use on an emergency basis. And while there are data showing that the vaccines do, in fact, do a good (if imperfect) job at protecting the inoculated, it now appears that at least one of them wanes 6 months after administration. A preprint report of a study published online by …