Coronavirus updates April 2024

[missy]

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Study Shows Nirmatrelvir–Ritonavir No More Effective Than Placebo for COVID-19 Symptom Relief​

Publish date: April 5, 2024
By Lauren Arcuri

Paxlovid does not significantly alleviate symptoms of COVID-19 compared with placebo among nonhospitalized adults, a new study published April 3 in The New England Journal of Medicine found.

The results suggest that the drug, a combination of nirmatrelvir and ritonavir, may not be particularly helpful for patients who are not at high risk for severe COVID-19. However, although the rate of hospitalization and death from any cause was low overall, the group that received Paxlovid had a reduced rate compared with people in the placebo group, according to the researchers.

“Clearly, the benefit observed among unvaccinated high-risk persons does not extend to those at lower risk for severe COVID-19,” Rajesh T. Gandhi, MD, and Martin Hirsch, MD, of Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston, wrote in an editorial accompanying the journal article. “This result supports guidelines that recommend nirmatrelvir–ritonavir only for persons who are at high risk for disease progression.”


The time from onset to relief of COVID-19 symptoms — including cough, shortness of breath, body aches, and chills — did not differ significantly between the two study groups, the researchers reported. The median time to sustained alleviation of symptoms was 12 days for the Paxlovid group compared with 13 days in the placebo group (P = .60).

However, the phase 2/3 trial found a 57.6% relative reduction in the risk for hospitalizations or death among people who took Paxlovid and were vaccinated but were at high risk for poor outcomes, according to Jennifer Hammond, PhD, head of antiviral development for Pfizer, which makes the drug, and the corresponding author on the study.

Paxlovid has “an increasing body of evidence supporting the strong clinical value of the treatment in preventing hospitalization and death among eligible patients across age groups, vaccination status, and predominant variants,” Dr. Hammond said.

She and her colleagues analyzed data from 1250 adults with symptomatic COVID-19. Participants were fully vaccinated and had a high risk for progression to severe disease or were never vaccinated or had not been in the previous year and had no risk factors for progression to severe disease.

More than half of participants were women, 78.5% were White and 41.4% identified as Hispanic or Latinx. Almost three quarters underwent randomization within 3 days of the start of symptoms, and a little over half had previously received a COVID-19 vaccination. Almost half had one risk factor for severe illness, the most common of these being hypertension (12.3%).

In a subgroup analysis of high-risk participants, hospitalization or death occurred in 0.9% of patients in the Paxlovid group and 2.2% in the placebo group (95% CI, -3.3 to 0.7).

The study’s limitations include that the statistical analysis of COVID-19–related hospitalizations or death from any cause was only descriptive, “because the results for the primary efficacy end point were not significant,” the authors wrote.

Participants who were vaccinated and at high risk were also enrolled regardless of when they had last had a vaccine dose. Furthermore, Paxlovid has a telltale taste, which may have affected the blinding. Finally, the trial was started when the B.1.617.2 (Delta) variant was predominant.

Dr. Gandhi and Dr. Hirsch pointed out that only 5% of participants in the trial were older than 65 years and that other than risk factors such as obesity and smoking, just 2% of people had heart or lung disease.

“As with many medical interventions, there is likely to be a gradient of benefit for nirmatrelvir–ritonavir, with the patients at highest risk for progression most likely to derive the greatest benefit,” Dr. Gandhi and Dr. Hirsch wrote in the editorial. “Thus, it appears reasonable to recommend nirmatrelvir–ritonavir primarily for the treatment of COVID-19 in older patients (particularly those ≥ 65 years of age), those who are immunocompromised, and those who have conditions that substantially increase the risk of severe COVID-19, regardless of previous vaccination or infection status.”

The study was supported by Pfizer.




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[missy]

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For Some MDs, Long COVID Burnout Is a New Reality
Solarina Ho
April 05, 2024

Dhaval Desai, MD, was teaching his 4-year-old to ride a bike after another exhausting shift at the hospital during the summer after the first COVID-19 surge. He was putting on a happy face and forcing out a "Yay!" he did not feel. The pandemic had taken its toll, and he just wanted to lie down and be alone. Realizing that he was "scraping to find joy" was when he knew something was wrong.

"I was giving, giving, giving at work a lot, and I had little left to give at home," said Desai, director of hospital medicine at Emory Saint Joseph's Hospital and an assistant professor of medicine at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia.

At work, he worried about his wife managing two kids — including a newborn — during the pandemic. At home, he stressed about work and the crush of patients with COVID the hospital was grappling to handle. He was exhausted, resentful, and angry, and it was jeopardizing what mattered most to him: His home life.


"It was all colliding…I realized, OK, I'm struggling," he said.

Desai is one of thousands of physicians across the United States who have experienced burnout and depression, exacerbated by the pandemic. After 4 years, the impact is still being felt. Medscape's 2024 annual report on this issue found that burnout and depression among doctors — while encouragingly better than the prior year — remain higher than before COVID. For doctors caring for long COVID patients, those suffering from the debilitating aftereffects of an infection, the sense of helplessness when recovery is elusive can also weigh heavily.

Overall, more female physicians reported feeling burned out and depressed. Experts attributed this gap to issues including fewer women in supportive leadership and mentoring roles, compensation disparities, fewer career advancement opportunities, and more responsibilities caring for children and elders.


Multiple international studies and reports have highlighted the surge in burnout experienced by physicians and healthcare workers globally during the pandemic. Even before COVID, studies found the suicide rate among male and female US physicians was higher than the general population and higher than any other profession, including the military. The risk among female physicians, in particular, was 250%-400% higher.

"That's really, on average, one a day, and that's really unacceptable. No one should die by suicide, but a physician who knows the risks and knows that, should never do that," said Desai about suicides overall among doctors.

The story of Lorna Breen had rattled Desai. Breen was a Manhattan physician who died by suicide in April 2020 after grappling with the city's devastating first wave and then contracting COVID-19 herself. While Desai did not have thoughts of suicide, he was facing his own battles. Those experiences and the stigma around mental health prompted him to write his book, Burning Out on the Covid Front Lines: A Doctor's Memoir of Fatherhood, Race and Perseverance in the Pandemic, with the hope that it can help others like him.


Mental Health Stigma
But despite the body of research and growing awareness toward addressing mental health among physicians, almost four in 10 doctors are wary of revealing their personal struggles.

More than half of those surveyed in the Medscape Medical News report said they had not consulted a mental health professional before and would not do so going forward either. The fear of tarnishing their reputation or even losing their license keeps doctors silent. Advocates and groups like the Dr. Lorna Breen Heroes' Foundation are pushing for hospitals and healthcare systems to remove and rephrase invasive and stigmatizing language around mental health in licensure, credentialing, or insurance applications.

Burnout Triggers: Systemic Problems, Social Tensions
WebMD describes burnout as making a person feel "depleted and used up" and is characterized by extreme tiredness, low energy, frustration about work, emotional distance or numbness, and difficulty with concentration, responsibilities, or creativity. It can make an individual feel helpless, alone, defeated, cynical, and without purpose and can also cause physical symptoms such as headaches, loss of appetite, insomnia, and body aches. Unaddressed, it can lead to depression, anxiety, and a variety of physical health issues.

"We can still be highly functional and not okay," said Desai.

For doctors, burnout often builds over time from large and small systemic problems and inefficiencies, multiplied by a dozen or more patients each day: Not enough time for documentation, complicated paperwork, navigating byzantine health and insurance systems, and hitting roadblocks. The administrative work, combined with an enormous patient load, and staffing and resource shortages create barriers to care and cuts into the amount of time they can spend providing actual care.

These existing problems worsened as patients with COVID overwhelmed hospitals and clinics. At the same time, healthcare workers worried about caring for the sick, getting infected themselves, or having multiple staff falling ill at once. As each surge came and went, backlash, hostility, abuse, and even violence toward healthcare workers also increased. The discrimination some medical staff were subjected to compounded the burnout.

"When we're not getting the support we need as physicians and healthcare workers, that adds to burnout, and I saw that in my colleagues," said Desai.

Impact of Burnout
At the Mount Sinai Center for Post-COVID Care in New York City, doctors grapple with feelings of helplessness in caring for long COVID patients who show little sign of recovery. That emotional toll can also be difficult, said director Zijian Chen, MD, who helped launch the clinic in May 2020.

"Sometimes you're faced with patients who you're trying to do everything for, but they're not just not getting better," said Chen. "It's really frustrating because we want everybody to get better. So, there's that lack of fulfillment there that can cause a sense of burnout."


While the worst outcomes and death rates initially brought on by acute infections have lessened, long COVID clinics exemplify some of the ongoing challenges within healthcare. Many operate with insufficient financial and staffing resources despite wait-lists and a steady flow of new and returning patients. Even with the demand, a number of these clinics have shuttered, leaving patients without access to much-needed medical help.

"There are clinicians who are burning out. That is definitely something that I've seen," said Monica Verduzco-Gutierrez, MD, a professor and chair of the Department of Rehabilitation Medicine at the University of Texas Health Science Center in San Antonio, Texas.

"[It] takes a lot of resources for a successful long COVID clinic. A lot of special funding may be drying up and couple that with clinicians burning out, then they're going to shut their doors."


And it's not just long COVID clinics. Data have shown an overall exodus in healthcare, especially during the pandemic. One study found burnout was one of the "most impactful" predictors of a physician's intention to leave the profession during the pandemic. The loss of talent and skills during a major health crisis can put the entire system under stress, with patients ultimately suffering from poorer care.

"Healthcare system fragility and the chaos is far worse than it was before. We are continuing to be forced to do more with less," said Desai.

Alleviating Burnout
While it is difficult to assess whether burnout from the pandemic is transient, experts say this is an opportunity for health institutions to learn from these experiences and implement policies and actions that can help reduce the mental health strain on staff. One study found that changes made by organizations had a bigger positive impact on reducing burnout than individual changes.


Advocates say more support staff, more work flexibility, and higher compensation would significantly ease the burden that drives burnout and depression.

In addition, half the physicians surveyed in the Medscape Medical News report felt their employers were not acknowledging how pervasive burnout is at their workplace. Having a trusted peer or leader set an example by sharing his or her own challenging experiences and saying it's time to address these struggles can be an enormously validating step forward, said Desai. Acknowledging his own difficulties was not only a huge weight off his shoulders but also helped surpris colleagues who sought him out for counsel.

"I'm not suggesting everybody get on medication," he said. "But talking to a therapist, acknowledging there's issues, restructuring your life to realize something's off, and just knowing that you're not alone? That's huge."

Desai said he still faces personal challenges but is in a much better place, doing well at work and at home. He talks to a therapist, is taking medication, and has developed better coping mechanisms. He is spending more time with his family, detaching for a few hours from work-related emails, learning to draw boundaries and say no, and trying to be more present and "intentional" in connecting with colleagues and patients.

"It's okay to not be okay," said Desai. "It's okay to be vulnerable and acknowledge when we can't do more."

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[missy]

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CDC: COVID Vax Not Linked to Sudden Deaths in Young Adults​

— Mortality from vaccine-related myocarditis not supported by Oregon death records​

by Nicole Lou, Senior Staff Writer, MedPage Today April 11, 2024

The hunt for a signal of excess sudden cardiac deaths among young people after COVID-19 vaccination left Oregon health officials empty-handed, they reported.
Investigators searched death certificates for Oregon residents 16-30 years old who died from cardiac or undetermined causes of death from June 2021 to December 2022 and tried to match these deaths with mandatory statewide records of mRNA COVID vaccination, according to Juventila Liko, MD, and Paul Cieslak, MD, both of the Oregon Health Authority's Public Health Division in Portland, in the CDC's Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Reportopens in a new tab or window.

Among the 24 male decedents with an mRNA COVID-19 vaccination record, two died within 100 days of having received the vaccine: one recorded as dying of congestive heart failure attributed to hypertension, and the other had an undetermined cause of death.
As for the 16 female decedents logged as having received at least one mRNA COVID-19 vaccine dose, just one died within 100 days of vaccination. The immediate cause was recorded as undetermined, albeit related to chronic respiratory failure with hypoxia attributed to mitral stenosis.
Meanwhile, out of the 1,292 identified deaths of young people in the state, COVID-19 was cited as the cause for 30.
"These data do not support an association between receipt of mRNA COVID-19 vaccine and sudden cardiac death among previously healthy young persons. COVID-19 vaccination is recommended for all persons aged ≥6 months to prevent COVID-19 and complications, including death," study authors concluded.
Oregon residents over 16 years of age became eligible for COVID-19 vaccination on April 19, 2021. That month, reports of myocarditis after COVID-19 vaccination, particularly among young male vaccine recipients, began to appear in the voluntary Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERSopens in a new tab or window).

This rare complication had not been reported in clinical trials leading to the authorization of the Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna mRNA vaccines (Comirnaty and Spikevax, respectively).
Multiple studies subsequently described myocarditis associated with COVID vaccines as mostly mildopens in a new tab or window. Detailed recordsopens in a new tab or window showed that affected vaccine recipients tended to be men and boysopens in a new tab or window who were typically able to recover after a few days in the hospital.
Nevertheless, skeptics remained concerned about possible vaccine-related cardiac fatalities in teenagers and young adults. These fears were flamed by reports of sudden deaths among professional athletesopens in a new tab or window and cardiovascular events in this age groupopens in a new tab or window in 2022.
The present study from Oregon did not show evidence of these risks.
Liko and Cieslak acknowledged that their analysis did not account for any potential vaccine-associated cardiac deaths occurring more than 100 days after COVID vaccination. Additionally, Oregon's population may be too small to detect rare events such as sudden cardiac death among young people.
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[Daisys and Diamonds]

What you need to know about the Government’s new child sickness guidelines​

(well only if you have kids at school in NZ)

Stuff

www.stuff.co.nz

the video is in the link above

Full video: Government unveils plan to crack down on truancy
PM Christopher Luxon and Associate Education Minister David Seymour have announced an attendance action plan to combat student truancy rates.


PM Christopher Luxon and Associate Education Minister David Seymour have announced an attendance action plan to combat student truancy rates. VIDEO CREDIT: Robert Kitchin

On Wednesday associate education minister David Seymour announced new guidelines to help parents decide whether their child is well enough to go to school.

Improving school attendance is a big priority for the coalition Government, and Seymour said the new guidelines were part of the action plan.

“School attendance is a shared responsibility, and for too long attendance has not been good enough,” he said on announcing the guidelines.

“Sometimes you’ve got to make a call between health and education, and we’re bringing back some balance in that regard.”

So now there are rules about how sick my kid has to be to stay home?​

No. These are guidelines, not enforceable rules. Truancy officers will not be coming round to take your child’s temperature and drag them too school if it’s not high enough.

Instead, these are intended to be a reference tool for parents who are unsure whether they should be keeping their child home or not.

How do I know if my kid is sick enough for a day off?​

The guidelines, which you can read in their entirety here, say “you should keep your child at home from school if they are too sick to learn and need time to rest and recover”,
or if they have tested positive for Covid-19; display a “symptom of concern” including a fever, vomiting or diarrhoea; have difficulty breathing; have nits; or if they have been diagnosed with an infectious disease.

Ok, then when should I make them go to school?​

The guidelines reckon children are fine to go to school if they have mild respiratory symptoms such as a mild cough, headache or runny nose, but not Covid-19; hayfever or allergy symptoms; or non-infectious skin problems.
They state children should go to school if “they appear well — they are happy, eating and drinking normally, and can easily focus on learning”.

How much does all this have to do with Covid?​

Quite a lot, according to Seymour.

“Covid-19 had a big impact on attendance rates, attendance culture and what is being considered acceptable,” he said in the guidelines announcement. “It’s time to take a more rational approach and get kids back to school.”

Luke Bradford, a GP at 5th Avenue Family Practice and medical director of the Royal New Zealand College of General Practitioners, thought Kiwi parents had largely “reverted back to pre-Covid conditioning where we knew in winter kids get snotty, and if they’re not sick and they’re running around playing they can be at school.”

Could this mean more illnesses spreading in schools, meaning more students and teachers get sick?​

The Post Primary Teachers' Association's (PPTA) Te Wehengarua thinks so.

“Schools are communities and illness is readily spread within them,” said president Chris Abercrombie. “Many school buildings are still not set up with ventilation systems that would minimise airborne illnesses, for example.

“Research already shows that teachers have the highest risk of Covid and long Covid alongside health workers. We support teachers and students being at school when they are well. If you are sick, you should stay at home.“

Bradford felt there was “a balance there”.

“Respiratory illness is not entirely avoidable without entire lockdowns,” he said. “Mild, non-Covid, non-influenza colds are going to spread and it’s probably a thing where if they do spread, and you get a winter cold, then that is a level of tolerable risk for people.”

He added that children should be taught good hygiene, like hand-washing, and that parents should ensure a child with a runny nose had tissues with them.

Are there really loads of kids staying home when they’re well enough to go to school?​

Attendance is an issue, although a study released last week showed rates were on the rise.

There are not numbers on “parents keeping sick children home when they are well enough to go to school”, however.

“We don’t believe it is” a big reason for absence, said Abercrombie.

“Since the Covid lockdowns there is a very small number of parents and caregivers who are fearful about sending their children to school,” he said. “Schools will know who they are and can work with them individually, particularly through their school attendance officers... These are a small minority and we think there are more effective ways of working with them, than issuing a blanket set of guidelines.”

Bradford thought “most parents, especially parents who work away from home, would already have been following these guidelines.

“My suspicion is that there are other reasons for the lack of school
attendance but there will be some parents who remain very alarmed by the prospect of their kids being exposed to bugs who can probably take some comfort in this advice.”

He also said the guidelines were probably helpful for parents who had never had children at school pre-2020.

- Stuff


i see so many kids coughing and not being in the least hygenic about it

 

[missy]

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Only One Harm From mRNA COVID Vaccines, Report Determines​

— Independent reviewers reject causal links to infertility, myocardial infarction, stroke​

by Nicole Lou, Senior Staff Writer, MedPage Today April 16, 2024

Independent reviewers confirmed a causal relationship between the first mRNA COVID-19 vaccines and myocarditis, and also determined that, more broadly, intramuscular shots can cause a series of shoulder injuries.
At the same time, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NASEM) committee rejected a causal relationship between the Pfizer-BioNTech BNT162b2 and Moderna mRNA-1273 (Comirnaty and Spikevax, respectively) mRNA COVID vaccines and female infertility, Guillain-Barré syndrome, Bell's palsy, thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome (TTS), and myocardial infarction.

The evidence was also deemed enough to reject a causal link between the Pfizer vaccine and ischemic stroke. There was insufficient data to say the same for the Moderna one, however, according to a reportopens in a new tab or window commissioned by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), a subagency of the HHS.
"Despite a large body of evidence from extraordinary efforts by investigators around the world, our committee found that in many cases, if not most, evidence was insufficient to accept or reject causality for a particular potential harm from a specific COVID-19 vaccine," said committee vice chair Anne Bass, MD, of Weill Cornell Medicine, Hospital for Special Surgery, and New York-Presbyterian Hospital, New York City, in a press releaseopens in a new tab or window.
"In other cases, we did find sufficient evidence to favor rejection, favor acceptance, or establish causality. It is important to note, however, that identifying a harm does not mean that it occurs frequently," she cautioned. "Harms associated with vaccines are rare."

HRSA had requested this review from NASEM, an independent nonprofit, in order to address claims for compensation under its Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program. This federal program provides compensation related to injuries from pandemic, epidemic, or security countermeasures.
The link between the mRNA vaccines and myocarditis has been probed in many studies since initial reports were logged into the voluntary Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System (VAERSopens in a new tab or window) in April 2021. Reports consistently described myocarditis associated with COVID vaccines as mostly mildopens in a new tab or window. Detailed recordsopens in a new tab or window showed that affected vaccine recipients tended to be men and adolescent boysopens in a new tab or window who were typically able to recover after a few days in the hospital.
The feared spike in sudden cardiac deaths among affected individuals with myocarditis has not been realized. For example, a recent study from Oregonopens in a new tab or window reported no excess sudden cardiac deaths among young people soon after COVID-19 mRNA vaccination.
"Given that the studies we reviewed were performed shortly after vaccines were available, the information in this report is a snapshot in time, and new vaccines will be developed and more research conducted," said committee chair George Isham, MD, of HealthPartners Institute in Minnesota.

"For example, the evidence does not address the real-world use of the COVID-19 vaccines in which many individuals received a 'mix and match'opens in a new tab or window sequence of them. Many people vaccinated for COVID-19 also received other vaccines, such as influenza, simultaneously," Isham added in a statement.
In 2022, Pfizer and Moderna had their first-generation mRNA COVID vaccines replaced by bivalent versions blending protection against the ancestral COVID strain and the Omicron BA.4/5 subvariants circulating at the time. They were not as widely adopted as the original vaccines, and initially suspected of a potential stroke risk until suspicion turned to high-dose or adjuvanted flu shots insteadopens in a new tab or window.
The bivalent vaccines remained available until the arrival of monovalent vaccines targeting the XBB.1.5 Omicron subvariantopens in a new tab or window for the 2023-2024 respiratory virus season.
For its present report, NASEM also reviewed the evidence for two other COVID-19 vaccines, the Johnson & Johnson (J&J) adenovirus vector vaccine (Ad26.COV2.S) and the Novavax protein-based vaccine (NVX-CoV2373).

The verdict: the J&J vaccine may cause TTSopens in a new tab or window and Guillain-Barré syndromeopens in a new tab or window (this vaccine was withdrawn from the market in 2023) while evidence for the Novavax shot was insufficient to accept or reject a causal relationship with any of the 19 side effects of interest.
Beyond those already noted, the side effects investigated included chronic inflammatory demyelinating polyneuropathy; transverse myelitis; chronic headache; postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome; sensorineural hearing loss; tinnitus; immune thrombocytopenic purpura; capillary leak syndrome; hemorrhagic stroke; deep vein thrombosis, pulmonary embolism, or venous thromboembolism; pericarditis without myocarditis; and sudden death.
A more general investigation also established a general causal relationship between intramuscular administration of routinely administered vaccines and various shoulder injuries:

• Subacromial/subdeltoid bursitis caused by direct injection into the bursa
• Acute rotator cuff or acute biceps tendinopathy caused by direct injection into or adjacent to a tendon
• Bone injury caused by direct injection into or adjacent to the bone
• Axillary or radial nerve injury caused by direct injection into or adjacent to the nerve

The NASEM reviewers acknowledged that there was not enough evidence for conclusions to be made about potential harms to children, especially children under age 11.
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[missy]

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Long COVID patients show immunological improvement two years after infection | MDLinx

www.mdlinx.com

Long COVID patients show immunological improvement two years after infection​

​

Published April 19, 2024 | Originally published on MedicalXpress Breaking News-and-Events

Biomarkers for long COVID that were present in patients at eight months have largely resolved by 24 months among a cohort of people who contracted COVID-19 during Australia's first wave.
Jointly led by the Kirby Institute at UNSW Sydney and St Vincent's Hospital Sydney and [COLOR=rgb(0 126 115/var(--tw-text-opacity))]publishedhttps://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-47720-8 in Nature Communications, the research provides optimistic insights to suggest that long COVID abnormalities can resolve over time.
[COLOR=rgb(32 37 41/var(--tw-text-opacity))]CME Activity: [COLOR=rgb(0 126 115/var(--tw-text-opacity))]Oncology Innovations: Liquid Biopsy in Lung Cancer Management[/COLOR][COLOR=rgba(32, 37, 41, 0.4)] RealCME[/COLOR]
The [COLOR=rgb(0 126 115/var(--tw-text-opacity))]ADAPT study[/COLOR] followed people who contracted COVID-19 during Australia's first wave, as well as a matched [COLOR=rgb(0 126 115/var(--tw-text-opacity))]control group[/COLOR], for up to two years. It combines systematic self-reported health information collected from patients with detailed analysis of bloods specimens in the laboratory.
In January 2022, the Kirby Institute research team were the first globally to show that long COVID clinical symptoms were consistent with biomarkers showing a sustained inflammatory response at eight months following infection, providing a clear biological basis for the syndrome of long COVID.
"Almost one and a half years later, we are pleased to see that among this same group, significant improvements were found in blood markers. For the majority of samples we analyzed in the laboratory, the biomarkers previously indicating abnormal immune function have resolved," says Dr. Chansavath Phetsouphanh, first author on the paper and Senior Lecturer at the Kirby Institute.
While the exact scale of the immunological improvements is difficult to quantify as immune function varies significantly from person to person, by 24 months there were no observable differences between the group with long COVID and the control group—whereas at eight months the two groups had marked differences.
Importantly, this trend in the laboratory data was also visible in the patients' self-reported data, with 62% reporting improvements in health-related quality of life.
"While this is very encouraging and a reason for optimism, there are still around one third of patients who identify some ongoing impact on their quality of life," says Professor Gail Matthews from the Kirby Institute, lead investigator of ADAPT and Head of Infectious Diseases at St Vincent's Hospital.
"This is likely explained by the reality that patients may have a range of underlying causes for their long COVID symptoms, not all of which are driven by immunological abnormalities and some of which are likely to persist even when the immunological environment has largely returned to normal."
The ADAPT study is globally important as it is one of only a handful of studies that measure [COLOR=rgb(0 126 115/var(--tw-text-opacity))]clinical data[/COLOR], patient self-reported information and intense biological sampling consistently within the same cohort of people, over a prolonged period of time.
Professor Anthony Kelleher, Director of the Kirby Institute says that while the finding is encouraging, it is important to remember that this is just one cohort who experienced an early strain of COVID-19, and it is a group in which the initial COVID-19 infection was generally considered mild or moderate.
"Immunology is a complex science, and it is impossible to say for certain that outcomes in our unvaccinated clinical cohort will be true for vaccinated people or for people who may have been infected with a different strain of COVID-19.
"What we do know is that for most people with long COVID, both their symptoms and their biomarkers improve significantly over time, and this is a cause for optimism.
"Importantly, we will continue to undertake research to understand more about why some people don't improve, and what can be done for those people."[/COLOR][/COLOR]

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