Covid-19 Archives - Page 13 of 22 - Dr Amin Azhari

Prioritizing oldest for COVID-19 vaccines saves more lives, years of life

Challenging the idea that older people with shorter life expectancies should rank lower in coronavirus immunization efforts, new UC Berkeley research shows that giving vaccine priority to those most at risk of dying from COVID-19 will save the maximum number of lives, and their potential or future years of life. Since older age is accompanied by falling life expectancy, it is widely assumed that means we’re saving fewer years of life.

The findings, published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Release date: 25 February 2021
Source: University of California – Berkeley

Pregnant Women Pass Along Protective COVID Antibodies to their Babies

Antibodies that guard against COVID-19 can transfer from mothers to babies while in the womb, according to a new study from Weill Cornell Medicine and NewYork-Presbyterian researchers published in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology. Pregnant women who generate protective antibodies after contracting the coronavirus often convey some of that natural immunity to their fetuses. The findings also lend support to the idea that vaccinating mothers-to-be may also have benefits for their newborns.

Release date: 22 February 2021
Source: Weill Cornell Medicine

COVID-19 Isolation Linked to Increased Domestic Violence

While COVID-19-related lockdowns may have decreased the spread of a deadly virus, they appear to have created an ideal environment for increased domestic violence. Extra stress in the COVID-19 pandemic caused by income loss, and lack of ability to pay for housing and food has exacerbated the often silent epidemic of intimate partner violence, suggests a new University of California, Davis, study.

Data collected in surveys of nearly 400 adults for 10 weeks beginning in April 2020 suggest that more services and communication are needed so that even front-line health and food bank workers, for example — rather than only social workers, doctors and therapists — can spot the signs and ask clients questions about potential intimate partner violence. They could then help lead victims to resources, said Clare Cannon, assistant professor of social and environmental justice in the Department of Human Ecology and the lead author of the study.

Research participants in the study completed an online survey asking about previous disaster experience, perceived stress, their current situation as it relates to COVID-19, if they experienced intimate partner violence, and what their personal and household demographics were. In all, 374 people completed the survey. Respondents, whose average age was 47, were asked about how COVID-19 had affected them financially and otherwise.

Of the respondents, 39 reported having experienced violence in their relationship, and 74 percent of those people were women.

The paper, “COVID-19, intimate partner violence, and communication ecologies,” was published in American Behavioral Scientist.

Release date: 24 February 2021
Source: University of California – Davis

Most people are naturally armed against SARS-CoV-2

The majority of the population can produce neutralizing antibodies against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) in severe cases of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), according to a study published February 11 in the open-access journal PLOS Pathogens by Michael Mor of Tel Aviv University, and colleagues. Moreover, the results support the use of combination antibody therapy to prevent and treat COVID-19.

The COVID-19 pandemic, caused by SARS-CoV-2, has had a profound impact on global public health. Neutralizing antibodies that specifically target the receptor-binding domain (RBD) of the SARS-CoV-2 spike protein are thought to be essential for controlling the virus. RBD-specific neutralizing antibodies have been detected in convalescent patients – those who have recovered from COVID-19. Some of the recoverees tend to have robust and long-lasting immunity, while others display a waning of their neutralizing antibodies. The factors associated with an effective, durable antibody response are still unclear.

Release date: 11 February 2021
Source: Eurokalert

Covid-19, Covid-19, Covid-19, Covid-19, Covid-19, Covid-19, Covid-19, Covid-19, Covid-19, Covid-19

Researchers propose that humidity from masks may lessen severity of COVID-19

Masks help protect the people wearing them from getting or spreading SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, but now researchers from the National Institutes of Health have added evidence for yet another potential benefit for wearers: The humidity created inside the mask may help combat respiratory diseases such as COVID-19.

The study, led by researchers in the NIH’s National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK), found that face masks substantially increase the humidity in the air that the mask-wearer breathes in. This higher level of humidity in inhaled air, the researchers suggest, could help explain why wearing masks has been linked to lower disease severity in people infected with SARS-CoV-2, because hydration of the respiratory tract is known to benefit the immune system. The study published in the Biophysical Journal.

Release date: 12 February 2021
Source: NIH/National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases

Adherence to health precautions, not climate, the biggest factor driving wintertime COVID-19 outbreaks

The researchers — working in summer 2020 — ran simulations of a wintertime coronavirus outbreak in New York City to identify key factors that would allow the virus to proliferate. They found that relaxing control measures in the summer months led to an outbreak in the winter regardless of climate factors. “Our results implied that lax control measures — and likely fatigue with complying with control measures — would fuel wintertime outbreaks. Although we have witnessed a substantial number of COVID-19 cases, population-level immunity remains low in many locations.”

The researchers found that even maintaining rigid control measures through the summer can lead to a wintertime outbreak if climate factors provided enough of a boost to viral transmission. If summertime controls are holding the transmissibility of coronavirus at a level that only just mitigates an outbreak, then winter climate conditions can push you over the edge. Nonetheless, having effective control measures in place last summer could have limited the winter outbreaks we’re now experiencing.

Release date: 09 February 2021
Source: Princeton University

School Closures May Not Reduce Coronavirus Deaths as Much as Expected

School closures, the loss of public spaces, and having to work remotely due to the coronavirus pandemic have caused major disruptions in people’s social lives all over the world.

Researchers suggest a reduction in fatal coronavirus cases can be achieved without the need for so much social disruption. They discuss the impacts of the school closures of various types of facilities in the journal Chaos, from AIP Publishing. After running thousands of simulations of the coronavirus pandemic response in New York City with variations in social distancing behavior at home, in schools, at public facilities, and in the workplace while considering differences in interactions between different age groups, the results were stunning. The researchers found school closures are not largely beneficial in preventing serious cases of COVID-19. Less surprisingly, social distancing in public places, particularly among elderly populations, is the most important.

“School only represents a small proportion of social contact. … It is more likely that people get exposure to viruses in public facilities, like restaurants and shopping malls,” said Qingpeng Zhang, one of the authors. “Since we focus here on the severe infections and deceased cases, closing schools contributes little if the elderly citizens are not protected in public facilities and other places.”

Release date: 09 February 2021
Source: American Institute of Physics

NSAIDs Might Exacerbate or Suppress COVID-19 Depending on Timing

New research shows that non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs – NSAIDs reduced both antibody and inflammatory responses to COVID-19 infection in mice. The study appears this week in the Journal of Virology, a publication of the American Society for Microbiology.

The research is important because “NSAIDs are arguably the most commonly used anti-inflammatory medications,” said principal investigator Craig B. Wilen, Assistant Professor of Laboratory Medicine and Immunology, Yale University School of Medicine.

In addition to taking NSAIDs for chronic conditions such as arthritis, people take them “for shorter periods of time during infections, and [during] acute inflammation as experienced with COVID-19, and for side effects from vaccination, such as soreness, fever, and malaise,” said Dr. Wilen. “Our work suggests that the NSAID meloxicam dampens the immune response to COVID-19 infection.” The research also suggests that the consequences of NSAID use during natural infection and vaccination should be evaluated in humans, said Dr. Wilen. “This data likely exists, particularly in the clinical trials for the vaccines, so it should be mined to see if it produces antibody responses in people.”

Release date: 22 January 2021
Source: American Society for Microbiology

People more likely to follow Covid-19 rules when friends and family do

New research has shown that people are more likely to follow Covid-19 rules based on what their friends and family do, rather than their own principles.

Research led by the University of Nottingham carried out in partnership with experts in collective behaviour from British, French, German and American universities shows how social influence affects people’s adherance to government restrictions. The researchers found that the best predictor of people’s compliance to the rules was how much their close circle complied with the rules, which had an even stronger effect than people’s own approval of the rules.

The research published in British Journal of Psychology highlights a blindspot in policy responses to the pandemic. It also suggests that including experts in human and social behaviour is crucial when planning the next stages of the pandemic response, such as how to ensure that people comply with extended lockdowns or vaccination recommendations.

Release date: 21 January 2021
Source: University of Nottingham

Public Health

Metformin use reduces risk of death for patients with COVID-19 and diabetes

Use of the diabetes drug metformin — before a diagnosis of COVID-19 — is associated with a threefold decrease in mortality in COVID-19 patients with Type 2 diabetes, according to a racially diverse study at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. Diabetes is a significant comorbidity for COVID-19.

“This beneficial effect remained, even after correcting for age, sex, race, obesity, and hypertension or chronic kidney disease and heart failure,” said Anath Shalev, M.D., director of UAB’s Comprehensive Diabetes Center and leader of the study.

The study — first made available in MedRxiv and now published in the peer-reviewed journal Frontiers in Endocrinology — included 25,326 patients tested for COVID-19 at the tertiary care UAB Hospital between Feb. 25 and June 22 of last year. Of the 604 patients found to be COVID-19-positive, 311 were African Americans.

Release date: 14 January 2021
Source: University of Alabama at Birmingham