September and October are very busy months in the academic librarian world. As such, these next few issues will probably be a bit more spread out and bare bones than usual.
But fear, not. I’m still watching out for the best information and readings about Covid!
As most have probably noticed, there is no paid subscription option for this newsletter. However, Substack does have an option where subscribers can pledge to subscribe “just in case” and a few kind subscribers have made that pledge. I very much appreciated the vote of confidence in what I’m doing here.
What I’ve decided to do on a trial basis is to set up a “tip jar” on the Ko-fi platform. This will allow people to leave me a small gratuity. The tips start at $3.
I’m not anticipating a huge surge of income from using Ko-fi but whatever revenue I do end up with, I plan to spend on popular science books for this ongoing project and to support artists on Bandcamp.
Drop a little something in the tip jar!
Covid-19: A New Disease Paradigm / John Snow Project
COVID-19 is a disease that has an acute and chronic phase. Both phases can be asymptomatic or symptomatic, and the severity and nature of symptoms in either phase depends on the host immune response, viral inoculum and location of infection. In the chronic phase, commonly known as Long COVID, many more people than those who exhibit symptoms of Long COVID, or perhaps everyone who has been infected by COVID-19, is on the same spectrum of T cell activation and may share as yet undiscovered characteristics of viral persistence or immune dysfunction, regardless of whether they experience Long COVID symptoms or not, and the experience of those symptoms, which may be associated with further immune perturbation on reinfection, may be related to the location and/or quantity of viral RNA/protein/replicating virus in persistent reservoirs.
This paradigm makes COVID-19 in both its acute and chronic phase a global concern and a problem that needs to be solved urgently. It means the ‘othering’ of Long COVID is not an acceptable government or public health response, and recognizes that anyone and everyone might suffer from the condition on first exposure. And the probability to move to symptomatic Long COVID may be enhanced with multiple infections where viral persistence might be exacerbated. The work cited here suggests many more people, and perhaps everyone, who has been infected with SARS‑CoV‑2 may already be experiencing the same heightened T cell activation as those suffering Long COVID with the only difference being symptom expression.
Excess deaths due to the COVID-19 pandemic reach 26 million by Evan Blake / World Socialist Web Site
On Sunday, the Economist’s tracker of excess deaths attributable to the COVID-19 pandemic reached a staggering 26 million globally, nearly four times the official COVID death toll of 6.9 million. According to this tracker, an average of 7,000 people continue to die each day above the pre-pandemic baseline, with the overwhelming majority either directly from COVID-19 or due to the myriad negative long-term health impacts caused by the virus.
The 26 million excess death milestone was reached exactly one year after US President Joe Biden falsely declared that “the pandemic is over” during an interview with CNN at the Detroit auto show on September 18, 2022.
COVID-19’s toll on children and young people by Jennifer Doggett / Croakey Health Media
Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, Australians have been told by governments and experts that COVID-19 does not pose a significant threat to most children and young people.
This view is reflected in the most recent advice from the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation (ATAGI) that an additional 2023 vaccination is not recommended for anyone aged under 18.
However, this view is being challenged by some public health experts and advocacy groups who say that hospitalisation and mortality data shows how COVID-19 has taken a significant toll on Australian children and young people over the past two years.
This includes data showing that:
Around 50,000 children aged 0-14 were hospitalised with COVID between 2021-2022.
On average one child was admitted to ICU every day in 2022, totalling 362 admissions among 0-14-year-olds.
Hospitalisation and mortality rates for COVID far exceed those for other respiratory diseases such as influenza and RSV.
The shocking truth about kids, Covid, and school closures by Mehdi Hasan / MSNBC
As our kids return to school this year, it’s worth asking: What was the real impact of school closures during the height of the pandemic? Mehdi Hasan takes a deep dive to bust some disturbingly widespread myths about the real harms Covid brought to American children and schools.
Comparative study showed that children faced a 78% higher risk of new‐onset conditions after they had COVID‐19 by Costanza Di Chiara, Elisa Barbieri, Yu Xi Chen et al / Acta Paediatrica
Key Notes
We compared new-onset conditions in children aged 0–14 years after they had tested positive for the virus that causes COVID-19 and in a non-affected control group.
An Italian paediatric database was used to evaluate 1656 exposed and 1656 unexposed children from 1 February 2020 to 30 November 2021.
Overall, children were 78% more likely to develop conditions of interest after COVID-19, including mental health issues and neurological problems.
Study: Black cancer patients have much higher rates of COVID hospital stays by Stephanie Soucheray / CIDRAP
Race, COVID-19 infections, and chronic disease contributed to higher COVID-related hospitalization rates for Black patients compared to white patients, according to new research from scientists at Louisiana State University (LSU) Health, New Orleans, School of Public Health published in the Journal of the National Cancer Institute.
Cancer patients saw higher mortality from COVID-19 by Stephanie Soucheray / CIDRAP
Today two studies on COVID-19 mortality in US and Canadian cancer patients were published in JAMA Oncology and JAMA Network Open.
In JAMA Oncology, research shows US cancer patients suffered higher rates of COVID-19 mortality during the Omicron wave, while a study of 11.7 million Canadians in JAMA Network Open shows higher COVID-19 hospitalization and death rates in cancer patients in Ontario.
Covid may have permanently damaged people's immunity by Ruth Hill / 1News
Covid infections are putting people at higher risk of diabetes, strokes, heart disease and other long-term illnesses - but experts warn it may be decades before the full impact is known.
Meanwhile, could Covid-19 also be blamed for the increased frequency and severity of colds and flu? Has it damaged our ability to fight off infections?
Northland emergency doctor Gary Payinda said some viruses, which used to cause barely a sniffle in healthy adults, were now putting people in hospital.
"We're now seeing your typical regular healthy middle-aged person presenting to ED with bad cases of RSV. And that's pretty novel for us," Payinda said.
He suspected Covid may have damaged people's immunity in subtle ways that fell below the threshold to qualify as long Covid.
Determinants of the onset and prognosis of the post-COVID-19 condition: a 2-year prospective observational cohort study by Lourdes Mateu, Cristian Tebe, et al. / The Lancet Regional Health
Preexisting medical and socioeconomic factors, as well as acute COVID-19 symptoms, are associated with the development of and recovery from the PCC. Recovery is extremely rare during the first 2 years, posing a major challenge to healthcare systems.
COVID-19 exacerbated life expectancy trends in the US by Stephanie Soucheray / CIDRAP
Researchers have published new data in the American Journal of Epidemiology showing that COVID-19 led to shortened life expectancies across the United States and exacerbated existing racial disparities compared to 20 high-income peer countries, a phenomenon the authors called a "disadvantage in longevity.”
Long covid: the doctors’ lives destroyed by an illness they caught while doing their jobs by Adele Waters / The BMJ
There is no official number of cases in the UK but the most recent estimate (March 2023) from the Office for National Statistics points to 1.9 million people currently living with the condition—some 2.9% of the population.3 Globally the estimate is 10%.
Likewise, there are no precise figures for how many doctors—or even healthcare workers—currently have long covid. The ONS data estimates that up to 4.41% of healthcare workers have acquired long covid.
Number of long-term sick hits record high of 2.6 million by Daniel Binns / Sky News
The level of illness among the UK population is costing lives and harming the economy, a report has warned - after the number of people off work due to long-term sickness hit another record high.
More than 2.6 million people now do not have jobs because of their health, according to latest employment data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS).
The all-time high comes after an additional 491,433 adults were added to the official total in the three months from May to July, figures released on Tuesday revealed.
COVID-19 boosts risks of health problems 2 years later, giant study of veterans says by Catherine Offord / Science
This time, the team looked at 80 health problems—from fatigue and other symptoms commonly associated with Long Covid to neurodegenerative disease—and general risk of death or hospitalization up to 2 years postinfection. They included data from about 140,000 people who tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 in 2020 and 6 million people with no record of infection that year.
In the 3 months postinfection, people who’d had COVID-19 had higher rates of death and many health conditions including heart failure, diabetes, Alzheimer’s disease, and depression. The differences between groups declined over time. Yet even among people who weren’t hospitalized, the risks for about one-third of the health problems studied remained elevated 2 years later, the researchers report today in Nature Medicine. These people had about a 13% increased risk of diabetes compared with the no-infection group, for example.
There’s still some bonus music! and What Are We Even Doing?! Enjoy Martha Wainwright’s take on the Offenbach classic, Ayoye!
What Are We Even Doing?
Listening to CBC’s Ottawa film critic sniffle and croak his way through his segment… from TIFF…. where he is attending parties and screenings… while sick…? When will we learn? / Tim Abray (@timabray) / X
New COVID variant no cause for parental panic, says doctor, but kids need flu shot
Smile! Long-term care staff, visitors can now go without masks - North Bay News
Smilezone brings joy to Joseph Brant Hospital - Burlington News
President Biden flaunts not wearing mask after COVID-19 exposure
Montgomery County elementary school boosts security after criticism of mask requirement
Actor Will Keenan assaulted for wearing an N95 mask in public
Good letter John. If you read my newsletter from yesterday, you will read that I had to develop major model algorithms to keep up with its evolution. Never had to do that before.