Patients diagnosed with cancer more than a year before contracting COVID-19 and those not receiving active treatment may be no more vulnerable to worse COVID outcomes than those without cancer, according to a new study. Additionally, researchers warned that passengers are still at risk of coronavirus infection while traveling on airplanes and also in airports.
The Omicron variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus is intrinsically as severe as previous variants, unlike assumptions made in previous studies that it was more transmissible but less severe, a large study in the United States found.
Life expectancy in the United States fell by nearly two years in 2020 to about 77 years amid the COVID-19 pandemic, the sharpest drop compared to 21 other high-income countries, according to a global study.
A fourth dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine lowered rates of COVID-19 among the elderly but the protection against infection appeared short-lived, a large study in Israel found.
Senior citizens who received a second booster of the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccination had a 78 percent lower mortality rate from the disease than those who got one only, a study from Israel showed on March 27.
Aside from vaccines, the advent of several effective COVID-19 antiviral therapies, including Pfizer’s Paxlovid, provides hope for ending the pandemic. Details about the U.S. government’s contract with Pfizer for 10 million doses of Paxlovid are emerging, with some unusual elements.
In the face of Delta, the actual efficacy of Covid-19 vaccines in a real-world setting has come into question even if they still appear to be very close to 100 percent at preventing death or severe disease, which is the primary goal of a vaccine. Studies suggest that Moderna’s Covid-19 vaccine appears better than the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccination in terms of antibody count and prevention of hospitalizations, and both were significantly more effective than Johnson & Johnson’s shot.
Gilead Sciences Inc. said an analysis showed the company’s antiviral remdesivir reduced mortality rates in hospitalized patients with Covid-19 and increased the likelihood of being discharged by day 28 after a five-day course of the treatment.
Metabolic comorbidities, including obesity and type 2 diabetes increase the risk of morbidity and mortality in patients who contract coronavirus disease 2019 (Covid-19). But findings published in the journal Nature show that not only are patients with diabetes more at risk of more severe outcomes, patients without diabetes who develop Covid-19 may also be at a higher risk of actually developing diabetes following recovery.
Covid-19 was the primary or contributing cause of 377,883 deaths in the United States during 2021, with a particularly high toll among the elderly, according to a government report released on March 31.