FROM THE CHIEF LONG COVID OFFICER ON THE 1,735TH DAY OF THE PANDEMIC
We may not yet have a diagnostic test for Long Covid nor a Long Covid-speciific medication, but researchers are documenting what one Center for Long Covid client called her most distressing Long Covid symptom: “financial ruin.”
Just like everyone else, my get-up-and-go got up and left in early 2021. Had it not been for the generous unemployment benefits and other coronavirus pandemic monies that flowed in my direction, I would have been in dire straits.
In a new study published last week in Health Services Research and entitled “Long Covid and financial hardship: A disaggregated analysis at income and education levels,” researchers from the University of Georgia reported what we already know, namely that having the condition makes it harder for us to pay our bills, purchase groceries, and pay for utilities.
/s/ Jonathan Spira
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In news we cover today, we look at the toll that Long Covid takes on patients’ finances, a study posits that bivalent coronavirus vaccines resulted in fewer cases of Long Covid, and having Long Covid apparently makes one extra thirsty.
LONG COVID NEWS
Researchers from the University of Georgia issued a report examining the financial consequences of having Long Covid.
The report, entitled Long Covid and financial hardship: A disaggregated analysis at income and education levels and published in Health Servics Research, was based on findings from 271,076 adults who participated in the 2022 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System. In total, there were 9,998 participants who said they had Long Covid.
The research team measured financial hardship caused by Long Covid through three lenses, namely food insecurity, inability to pay bills, and/or the threat of losing utility services. Participants rated each indicator using a binary scale.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, food insecurity was the first indicator on the list and also the first in all income and education groups, with the exception of the top income group.
In Singapore, researchers found the bivalent coronavirus booster is associated with a 38% lower risk of Long Covid over and above that provided by the original two-dose monovalent ancestral vaccine plus monovalent ancestral booster
The study, entitled “Bivalent boosters and risk of post-acute sequelae following vaccine-breakthrough SARS-CoV-2 Omicron infection: a cohort study,” and published in Clinical Infectious Diseases, examined the associaton of bivalentcoronavirus vaccine boosters and Long Covid following the omicron wave.
Notably, this appears to be one of the first studies to look at the potential associations between bivalent boosters and Long Covid following the Omicron-variant infection.
In a perspective article published in the latest Medical Journal of Australia, Brendan Crab, director of the Burnet Institute in the country, argues that much, if not all, of Long Covid appears to be driven by the virus itself persisting in the body.
The cumulative evidence of the role of live virus in Long Covid is now sufficiently compelling enough to warrant certain actions including the fast-tracking of trials for antivirals for the prevention and cure of Long Covid. Crab emphasizes that it would be important to include metformin because its antiviral properties have demonstrated surprising efficacy against the condition and it is a potential therapeutic with which to treat impairments related to fatigue.
@BRIEFLY NOTED
A UCL STUDY found that 70% of young people with Long Covid recovered within 24 months. The researchers further discoveredd that recovery was less likely among older teenagers, females, and those from deprived backgrounds.
LONG COVID MAKES PATIENTS EXTRA THIRSTY A study not yet covered in the Long Covid Monitor that was published in JAMA Monitor in 2023 and entitled “Development of a Definition of Postacute Sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 Infection” found that excessive thirst was one of 12 symptoms most commonly seen in patients with the condition.
PANDEMIC STATISTICS
GLOBAL FIGURES AT A GLANCE
The total number of coronavirus cases across the globe as of November 17, 2024 since the start of the pandemic stands at 776,897,200, an increase of 41,711 people in the preceding seven days, according to data compiled by KFF, a non-partisan health research organization.
The cumulative death toll stands at 7,076,329, an increase of 558 deaths in the same period.
CURRENT U.S. COVID STATISTICS AT A GLANCE
In the United States, in the week ending November 30, 2024, the test positivity rate was, based on data released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 4.0%, an decrease of 0.5 percentage points in the most recent week. Meanwhile, as of the same date, the percentage of emergency room visits that were diagnosed as SARS-CoV-2 was 0.6%, a figure that is up 0.1 percentage point from the previous week.
As of November 16, 2024, the number of people admitted to hospital in the United States due to SARS-CoV-2 is now 1.5 per 100,000 members of the population, a figure that is down 0.1 percentage points from the prior week.
Meanwhile, as of November 30, the percentage of deaths due to SARS-CoV-2 was 0.9%, a figure that is up 0.1 percentage points since the prior week.
VACCINATION SPOTLIGHT
Some 70.6% of the world population has received at least one dose of coronavirus vaccine at present time, according to Our World in Data, an online scientific publication that tracks such information. So far, 13.58 billion doses of the vaccine have been administered on a global basis and the seven-day average of the number of daily doses of vaccine administrated was less than 0.01 doses per million members of the population as of August 12, 2024. Please note that the data provided by Our World in Data has not been updated since that date.
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Anna Breuer contributed reporting to this issue.
The Long Covid Monitor is a publication of the Center for Long Covid Research. www.longcov.org
If you have Long Covid and need to talk to someone, call the Long Covid Patient Peer Counseling Phone Line, or HOPELINE. The HOPELINE is our free, confidential support and information service.
☏ 844 LONGCOV (844 566-4268)
(Photo: Accura Media Group)
