Poo is having a watershed moment, according to a BMJ feature. “The US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that 752 children died from COVID-19 from January 1, 2020, to December 31, 2021, implying that our estimated increase in child gun-related deaths was comparable with COVID-19-related deaths in children,” the authors write. Fully 8,477 children died of gunshot wounds between March 2020 and January 2022, a figure representing an estimated increase of 733, or an additional 1.12 deaths per day, compared with a prior 6-year period. The number of children who died from gunshots in the United States increased during the pandemic, which might reflect the “increased psychological strain in families in combination with school closures, which lead to greater time spent by children at home, where guns are often kept,” researchers write in JAMA. The results should be interpreted with caution due to study limitations, but “contrary to what is often reported, patients should be reassured that recovery from smell or taste impairment may continue for many months after the onset,” the authors say. A research letter in JAMA Otolaryngology – Head & Neck Surgery offers some hope, however: “In this cohort study, 88.2% of patients reporting a COVID-19-related smell or taste dysfunction completely recovered within 2 years a late recovery was observed in 10.9% of patients. Prior to Omicron, loss of smell and taste were two of the most commonly reported symptoms of long COVID. “These core symptoms have major implications for future research, as these symptoms have the highest discriminative ability to distinguish between post-COVID-19 condition and non-COVID-19-related symptoms,” they write. One in eight people who recover from COVID-19 have persistent somatic symptoms out to 150 days, including “chest pain, difficulties with breathing, pain when breathing, painful muscles, ageusia or anosmia, tingling extremities, lump in throat, feeling hot and cold alternately, heavy arms or legs, and general tiredness”-symptoms not seen in a control group without prior COVID-19, Dutch researchers report in the Lancet. “Our data suggest that the increased proportion of resistant strains during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic should be taken into consideration regarding the use of antibiotics as a routine strategy to prevent bacterial co-infections, as such use could exacerbate the problem of antibiotic resistance,” investigators write in the Lancet Microbe. But resistant strains have emerged during the last 5 years, particularly during 2020. Investigators reviewed studies of pneumococcal conjugate vaccines and antibiotic resistance, finding that vaccines in use since 2001 have helped reduced the risk of invasive pneumococcal disease. “These findings about hybrid immunity resulting in superior immune kinetics, breadth, and durable high affinity antibodies support the need for booster vaccinations to provide effective protection from emerging SARS-CoV-2 variants like the rapidly spreading Omicron subvariants.”Īmid all of the other havoc SARS-CoV-2 has caused, the virus is now being investigated for increasing antibiotic resistance, a study from Spain suggests. But even in naïve patients, neutralization activity and antibody affinity against the Omicron subvariants is maintained out to 4 months, authors say. Immunity against a range of Omicron subvariants seems to be higher among people with “hybrid” immunity-conferred by prior infection on top of three mRNA vaccine doses-as compared with people who’ve had three doses but have never had COVID-19, an analysis of virus neutralization titers in Nature suggests. Just 7,300 doses have been administered across the country, which is leading the world in COVID-19 deaths fully 26 million Americans remain unvaccinated. Rollout of Novavax’s COVID-19 vaccine in the United States has been decidedly “sluggish,” ABC News reports. Ĭommunity cases of COVID-19, as well as death rates, dipped last week in the United States, according to nationwide numbers released by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Our in-depth coverage of COVID-19 and the heart can be found on our COVID-19 Hub. Since March 2020, TCTMD reporters and editors have been keeping tabs on breaking research and policy news-our COVID-19 Dispatch is now updated every Monday.
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