Coronavirus Briefing Newsletter – Times of India

• India on Sunday reported 343 cases of Covid and 4 deaths. The cumulative number of cases is 44671562 (5263 active cases) and 530612 deaths
• All around the world: More than 641 million cases and more than 6.63 million deaths.
• vaccination in India: More than 2.19 billion doses. Global: More than 12.86 billion doses.

a concern

• According to a study, children have a higher risk of stroke after Covid-19 Published in the journal Pediatric Neurology. The researchers found the total number of strokes was significantly higher than previously seen at Intermenez Elementary Children’s Hospital.
• The study also showed that stroke risk did not depend on whether a patient had Multi-System Inflammatory Syndrome in Children (MIS-C), a known complication of Covid-19.
• Data shows that even children with Covid-19 who have no symptoms can develop a serious complication like stroke, said MaryGlen J Vielleux, a pediatric neurologist resident at the University of Utah Health and is the lead author of the study.

However…

• The findings of this study contrast with the findings of a 2021 international study of children in the early stages of the pandemic. That study found that Covid-19 did not increase the risk of stroke in children.

research

• It was a retrospective population-based cohort analysis, performed from March 1, 2020 to June 30, 2021 in a pediatric hospital. Pediatric patients diagnosed with ischemic stroke were defined using the ICD-10 to diagnose ischemic stroke, cerebrovascular accident, or ischemic stroke.
• Most of those strokes took place between February and May 2021, shortly after the rise in pediatric Covid-19 cases. Of those tested for Covid-19 antibodies, nearly half tested positive.

How do they know that?

• The study looked at medical charts and diagnostic codes to identify 16 hospitalized patients with ischemic stroke between March 2020 and June 2021.
• Sixteen patients, seven men and nine women, with ischemic stroke are in focus. The researchers said none of them had a severe infection with the virus, and some were asymptomatic. They said 5 patients had not been tested for Covid diseases before, which is a limitation of the study.
• “It’s possible that a super-immune response followed, causing the child to clot,” says Vielleux.
• In the first 6 months of 2021, the hospital cared for 13 children with unexplained strokes.

Yes, bad news

• A new study focusing on US veterans finds that those with post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or other mental illnesses face an increased risk of hospitalization or even death. due to Covid-19 is significantly higher than that of the general population.

research

• Researchers from UC San Francisco and the VA Healthcare System of San Francisco tracked data from more than a quarter of a million veterans who tested positive between February 2020 and August 2021. , with most cases occurring prior to vaccination.
• The average age of the people in the study was 60.6 years old – 89.5% were men and 72.1% had at least one other medical condition, such as obesity, diabetes and heart disease.

Findings

• Researchers found that veterans with PTSD have a 8% increased risk of death if they have Covid-19 and are 9% more likely to be hospitalized than patients with the virus and no psychiatric diagnosis, adjusted for age, sex, race, and co-morbid conditions to act.
• “Psychological stress due to the pandemic in general or the experience of SARS-CoV-2 infection itself can worsen psychiatric symptoms, possibly affecting affect the inflammatory response”.
• “Additionally, PTSD can accelerate cellular aging, shortening telomeres, thereby increasing the risk of age-related diseases.”
• Similarly, people with a mental disorder had a 58% increased risk of death and a 66% increased risk of hospitalization. published research In pure spirit.
• For people with bipolar disorder, the increased risk was 29% and 46%, respectively, and for major depression, the numbers were 13% and 21%, respectively.

And more

• The researchers also found that patients with a substance or alcohol use disorder were significantly more likely to be hospitalized for Covid: 62% and 45% respectively.
• Mortality rates among drug or alcohol users are close to those of those without a psychiatric diagnosis, suggesting that a lack of caregivers or social support and rising rates of homelessness may contribute to higher hospitalization rates.

Two recently published studies show that people giving up wearing masks, thinking that the Covid-19 pandemic is over, or not bringing their children to wear masks, claiming that Covid-19 is mild in children, may be completely wrong. . Studies show that wearing a mask helps prevent not only Covid-19 but also other respiratory diseases.

Children’s protective masks

• A study, published in New England Journal of Medicine, found that the mandatory wearing of masks was associated with a significant reduction in the number of Covid-19 cases in US schools. Researchers from the Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health studied the incidence of Covid-19 in schools that made face masks mandatory and compared it to those that had lifted restrictions for 15 weeks.
• The study provides new evidence that the removal of universal mask-wearing policies in Massachusetts schools is associated with increased rates of Covid-19 infection.
• The researchers concluded that removing the mask requirement led to an additional 44.9 increase in Covid-19 cases per 1,000 students and staff, corresponding to an estimated 11,901 cases over the time period. 15 weeks.
• Tori L Cowger, first author of the study, quoted by the New York Times as saying: “We see sustained and increasing rates of COVID-19 in schools that have lifted the requirement to wear masks.
• “This study shows that if people wear masks in groups, it reduces the likelihood of transmission to people in the community, while also reducing the number of breaks,” said Julia Raifman, co-author of the study. students and teachers are absent”.

Masks and Asthma

• Another study, published in Thorax magazinefound an increased risk of asthma attacks in adults after pandemic restrictions were lifted.
• It said when restrictions are lifted, fewer people wear face coverings and there is more social integration, leading to a higher risk of Covid-19 and other acute respiratory infections.
• Research also shows that Covid-19 is significantly less likely to trigger asthma attacks than other respiratory infections.
• In April 2021, as social distancing restrictions and the need for face coverings begin to be eased, 1.7% of participants said they had had a severe asthma attack in the previous month. But in January 2022, the rate more than doubled, to 3.7%.
• Martineau, the study’s lead author, said the findings raise the possibility that some elements of public health measures introduced during the pandemic – including the wearing of masks – could help reduce future respiratory diseases.