Neurodevelopmental consequences for the Covid generation, Higher depression, Insomnia, Worse than the flu, and more

Bonus College students mostly bounced back

Feb 27, 2026

shallow focus photography of bookshelfs — Photo by Priscilla Du Preez 🇨🇦 on Unsplash

Welcome to the latest issue of the Covid-Is-Not-Over newsletter!

By this point, my fondness for gallows humour is probably well established. I appreciate McSweeney’s latest a with Our Mission at the Environmental Protection Agency Is Simple: Destroy the Environment, which nicely encapsulates the current state of the union.

The WTFkery of the Week Award goes to Vox’s The ICE pandemic.

Some good reading and listening on AI eating the world with Computerworld’s Is AI killing technology?

And OMG, somehow Cory Doctorow got himself invited onto a podcast with an AI stooge and I couldn’t stop laughing. Every bit of it is pure gold. The host, Mitch Joel, isn’t the worst AI stooge out there, and he’s actually good for a few smart questions and thoughtful observations. But there’s also quite a few LOL moments. Enjoy!

And don’t forget!

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The COVID generation: the neurodevelopmental consequences of in-utero COVID-19 exposure by Susan Weiner, Yao Wu, et al. / Brain, Behavior, and Immunity

This study reports that in utero SARS-CoV-2 viral exposure was associated with decreased cognitive skills in toddlers at age 2, and this association was mediated by cortical gray matter volumes in the newborn brain. In addition, toddler cognitive scores further mediated an increase in toddler internalizing behaviors. These findings highlight the need for ongoing assessments for children born during the COVID-era.

Long COVID linked to higher risk of depression, anxiety up to 3 years after infection by Laine Bergeson / CIDRAP

Adults with long COVID face an increased risk of developing depressive and anxiety symptoms up to three years after their initial infection, according to a large population-based study published today in BMC Public Health. …
The researchers assessed symptoms 1.5 and three years after infection. By the three-year follow-up, 8.8% of respondents reported depressive symptoms, and 10.4% reported anxiety symptoms.

Breaking Down Silos: A Multidisciplinary Approach to Mitigate Indoor Airborne Pathogen Transmission by Alex Zhu, William P. Bahnfleth, et al. / Health Security

Addressing IAQ is essential for reducing respiratory infectious disease risks.1 Even with the difficulties in assessing the impact of interventions to infectious disease transmission risk, and the financial and technical challenges in designing studies to measure effectiveness, it is imperative to keep researching the best ways to improve IAQ—there are enormous benefits to health in indoor environments of many types, including schools, offices, hospitals, long-term care facilities, and in military housing. To date, however, these complex problems have been addressed in a siloed approach.
While studies limited to a single discipline, such as engineering or epidemiology, are important, additional benefits can be gained by conducting scientific studies that engage interdisciplinary teams of experts who work very closely to design and implement pragmatic studies in field settings, followed by an extensive and collaborative analysis phase to understand what has been learned. To improve communication, it is important for scientific disciplines to agree on a common vocabulary to describe infectious disease particle fate, transport, and mitigation. Funding bodies should encourage these bridge-building and interdisciplinary studies.

Six years in, mental health care providers are still uninformed on Long COVID. And it’s making the crisis worse by Elizabeth Yuko / The Sick Times

Unlike for Long COVID itself, there are a range of treatments for anxiety and depression that should be made available and could potentially provide relief. Unfortunately, they’re not always accessible to people living with Long COVID.
So what’s causing this disconnect? What barrier prevents people living with Long COVID from getting the mental health care they need? At this point, it still comes down to unempathetic, uninformed mental health providers and a lack of guidance from major mental health organizations — including the American Psychological Association (APA). To better understand this problem, The Sick Times spoke with psychologists and people living with Long COVID about these challenges, and where we go from here.

‘We want to rebuild trust’: fired CDC workers form group to combat Trump’s war on science by Rachel Garbus / The Guardian

While they battled to get their jobs back, Tighe and several other fired CDC employees banded together to create an improvised mutual aid network they called Fired But Fighting. But as the months dragged on, Fired But Fighting’s members watched as the administration, under the direction of Robert F Kennedy, the US health secretary, transformed the agency into something scarcely recognizable. Rather than focus on fighting for jobs that may no longer exist, they decided to grow into something new – to advocate for public health the way the CDC had always done it.
“We saw there was a need for an organization that stands in the gap,” says Aryn Backus, a former CDC health communication specialist who was fired on the same day as Tighe.

HIV infection linked to increased risk of long COVID by Laine Bergeson / CIDRAP

People with HIV (PWH) had a significantly higher risk of developing long COVID across multiple organ systems than people without HIV (PWoH), according to a large cohort study published in the Journal of Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome. …
Overall, 16.3% of PWH received a long-COVID diagnosis, compared with 10.6% of PWoH, for a 29% higher risk of developing any long-COVID condition.

Over 43% of health care professionals suffered insomnia during and after COVID-19, study reveals by University of Alicante / Medical Xpress

An analysis co-led by Josefa A. Antón Ruiz, a researcher from the Department of Health Psychology at the University of Alicante (UA), reveals that 43.5% of health care professionals experienced clinically significant symptoms of insomnia during and after the COVID-19 pandemic. The article, published in the journal Current Psychology, is based on a joint analysis of 34 studies conducted in 14 countries, with a sample of 32,930 health care professionals.

College students bounced back after pandemic, long-term study suggests | CIDRAP by Liz Szabo / CIDRAP

A long-term study from Michigan State University (MSU) finds that most college students bounced back emotionally after the COVID-19 pandemic, with improved psychological functioning, less loneliness, and more satisfaction with their lives.
Authors of the study, published online in January in Personality and Individual Differences, tracked the same 248 college students from 2020 to 2021 while they were in school through 2025, after they had graduated. The study is one of the few longitudinal studies of college students during the pandemic.
By the time students graduated, they were seeing friends more in person and interacting less online, researchers found.

Moderna’s 2-in-1 flu and COVID vaccine shows encouraging results in small trial | CIDRAP by Stephanie Soucheray / CIDRAP

Moderna announced late last week that its mRNA combined seasonal flu and COVID-19 vaccine proved robust and produced a durable immune response in a small, mid-stage trial. There were also no serious safety concerns.
According to Reuters, the study involved 550 healthy US adults ages 18 to 75 who received either the experimental combo vaccine (mRNA-1073) and a placebo, or two separate shots of Moderna’s commercially available mRNA flu and COVID vaccines.

Long Covid ruled as occupational disease in nurses / SWI swissinfo.ch

Baloise Insurance must recognise the Long Covid disease of a Geneva nurse as an occupational disease and continue to pay him a pension. The Federal Court rejected an appeal by the insurance company.
The hospital employee from Geneva contracted Covid-19 in April 2020. He had cared for infected people and had to look after people who died from the disease. The nurse was insured with Baloise Insurance for accidents and occupational illnesses.
The insurance company withdrew its original recognition of an occupational disease and the pension benefit in 2024. The competent Geneva court ruled in favour of the nurse’s appeal. The Federal Court has now dismissed an appeal by the insurance company.

Long-term brain effects of COVID-19 vs. flu: Study reveals key differences by Tulane University / Medical Xpress

Even a mild case of COVID-19 or the flu can impact the body long after the fever and cough fade, according to new Tulane University research that may help explain why some people struggle to feel fully recovered weeks or months later. Tulane researchers found that while both viruses can leave lasting lung damage, only SARS-CoV-2 infection caused persistent brain inflammation and small blood vessel injury, even after the virus was no longer detectable. …
The most striking differences appeared in the brain.
Although neither virus was found in brain tissue, mice that had COVID-19 showed signs of persistent brain inflammation weeks later, along with tiny areas of bleeding.
Gene expression analysis revealed ongoing inflammatory signaling and disruption of pathways involved in serotonin and dopamine regulation, systems closely tied to mood, cognition and energy levels. These persistent changes were largely absent in influenza-infected animals.
“In both infections, we observed lasting lung injury,” Qin said. “But long-term effects on the brain were unique to SARS-CoV-2. That distinction is critical to understanding long COVID.”

Lots of Extra Readings for a Busy Week

Philip Sayce. Chevrolet.

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