Focus: Coronavirus Channel Featured Story 2

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New research from Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and the Veterans Affairs St. Louis Health Care System comparing the viruses that cause the flu and COVID-19 shows that people hospitalized with seasonal influenza also can suffer long-term, negative health effects, especially involving their lungs and airways. The study also found that in the 18 months after infection, patients hospitalized for either COVID-19 or seasonal influenza faced an increased risk of death, hospital readmission, and other health problems.

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Smoking tobacco and vaping electronic cigarettes may increase healthy young people’s risk for developing severe COVID illness.

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Researchers at the Miller School are looking for solutions to the continued effects of alcohol use, its harmful impact, and treatment. Understanding the mechanisms of alcohol abuse has gained importance, especially after the COVID-19 pandemic. Higher alcohol consumption led to an increased burden of pancreatic diseases in society.

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FAU researchers and collaborators provide the most updated guidance to health care providers and urge how widespread vaccination with these boosters can now avoid the specter of future and more lethal variants becoming a reality.

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A COVID-19 booster shot will provide strong and broad antibody protection against the range of omicron sublineage variants of the SARS-CoV-2 virus in circulation, two new studies using serum from human blood samples suggest.

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Clinical scientists used machine learning models to explore de-identified electronic health record data in the National COVID Cohort Collaborative (N3C) to help discern characteristics of people with long COVID and factors that may help identify such patients using data from medical records.

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Researchers at Johns Hopkins Children’s Center report evidence from lab experiments that a chemical derived from a compound found abundantly in broccoli and other cruciferous plants may offer a potentially new and potent weapon against the viruses that cause COVID-19 and the common cold.

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Around 70% of long COVID patients in a new study experienced difficulty concentrating and memory problems several months after infection with the virus SARS-CoV-2.

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The antiviral therapies remdesivir, molnupiravir, and the active ingredient in Pfizer’s Paxlovid pill (nirmatrelvir), remain effective in laboratory tests against the BA.2 variant of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. The BA.2 variant also remains susceptible to at least some of the monoclonal antibodies used to treat COVID-19, such as Evusheld by AstraZeneca.

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Many people impacted by COVID-19 experienced changes in their sense of smell, taste, hearing, balance and in some cases, tinnitus, “ringing” in the ears. Among the various causes of tinnitus is stress. What’s unclear, however, is whether the psychological impacts of the pandemic such as stress actually worsened tinnitus. Results of a new study do not support the idea that the pandemic led to a worsening of tinnitus.

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Johns Hopkins Medicine researchers report that a prospective study of 14 infants and children demonstrated that convalescent plasma — a blood product collected from patients recovered from infections with the coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) that causes COVID-19— was safe in high risk children infected with or exposed to the virus.

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An analysis of federal health data indicates that people who have had COVID-19 are at increased risk of developing cardiovascular complications within the first month to a year after infection, according to researchers at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and the Veterans Affairs St. Louis Health Care System.

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Aleina and Kelly Milligan are more than sisters - they are truly best friends. For Kelly, her older sister has been a lifeline during the past two years. As Kelly settled in with her sister in Columbia, Kentucky, Aleina became concerned when she noticed a change in Kelly’s seizure patterns. The sisters then made the trip to Lexington for an appointment with UK HealthCare’s Sally Mathias, M.D., assistant professor of Neurology, who specializes in epilepsy.

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Michael Lin, MD, MPH, an infectious disease specialist, explains how risky some activities are now as the highly transmissible omicron variant surges through Chicago and the rest of the country.

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If you got the COVID-19 shots back in early spring, your antibodies are likely waning. But it’s not something you need to be worried about, according to a new study from the University of Georgia.

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Université de Montréal chemists looked at lab samples of patients who recovered from a mild case of COVID-19 and found that those over 50 produced more antibodies against the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

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In what is believed to be one of the largest studies of its kind, Johns Hopkins Medicine researchers have shown that antibody levels against SARS-CoV-2 (the COVID-19 virus) stay more durable — that is, remain higher over an extended period of time — in people who were infected by the virus and then received protection from two doses of messenger RNA (mRNA) vaccine compared with those who only got immunized.