Atalay Goshu Muluneh,1 Mehari Woldemariam Merid,1 Kassahun Alemu Gelaye,1 Sewbesew Yitayih Tilahun,2 Nahom Worku Teshager,3 Aklilu Yiheyis Abereha,4 Kalkidan Samuel Sugamo,5 Mulugeta Ayalew Yimer,3 Getahun Molla Kassa1
1Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, Institute of Public Health, College of Medicine and Health Sciences, University of Gondar, Gondar, Ethiopia; 2Department of Psychiatry, School of Medicine, College of Medicine and Health Sciences, University of Gondar, Gondar, Ethiopia; 3Department of Pediatrics and Child health, School of Medicine, College of Medicine and Health Sciences, University of Gondar, Gondar, Ethiopia; 4Department of Surgery, School of Medicine, College of Medicine and Health Sciences, University of Gondar, Gondar, Ethiopia; 5Department of Internal medicine, School of Medicine, College of Medicine and Health Sciences, University of Gondar, Gondar, Ethiopia
Background: Ethiopia was using the ChAdOx1 COV-19 vaccine, and health professionals were targets of the first phase of the vaccination strategy. Evidence on the adverse events following immunization (AEFI) was barely available. The study aimed to assess the magnitude and associated factors of adverse events following ChAdOx1 COV-19 immunization among health professionals of the University of Gondar Specialized and Comprehensive Hospital, 2021.Methods: An institution-based cross-sectional study was conducted among health professionals of the University of Gondar Comprehensive and specialized referral hospital. All health professionals who took the ChAdOx1 COV-19 vaccine in the 1st phase were surveyed. A total of 314 health professionals who took the ChAdOx1 COV-19 vaccine were included. The EpiData version 4.6.0.0 and Stata 16 were used for data entry and analysis, respectively. A binary logistic regression was used to identify statistically significant factors associated with AEFI. Chi-square and multicollinearity assumptions were tested. A p-value Results: Among 314 study participants, 263 of them had at least one mild to severe AEFI of ChAdOx1 COV-19 with a prevalence of AEFI of 83.76% (95% CI: 79.23, 87.46). The commonest AEFI observed were injection site tenderness (n=198/263), fatigue (114/263), headache (n=107/263), and muscle pain (n=85/263). Females (AOR=2.75, 95% CI: 1.15, 6.58), and participants who felt the vaccine was unsafe (AOR=2.84, 95% CI: 1.03, 7.85) were having nearly three times more odds of AEFI immunization as compared to males and those who felt the vaccine was safe, respectively.Conclusion: Adverse event following immunization has been a public health problem in Northwest Ethiopia. Being female and having a feeling that the vaccine is unsafe were statistically significantly associated with AEFI.
COVID-19 pandemic remains a global public health threat claiming more than two hundred million cases and 4.7 million deaths until September 19, 2021.1,2 Ethiopia has reported more than three hundred thousand cases, and five thousand deaths.1 The World Health Organization and other local health authorities have design different mitigation strategies such as vaccines, and other non-medical interventions to combat spread of the disease. Still, risk perception and behavioral responses are different among different regions.316 Different types of vaccines have been distributed to different continents including Africa, but the utilization rate has remained low as compared to different targets set by the World Health Organization and regional health institutes.1720 Countries in Africa including Ethiopia have the lowest vaccinated population in the world.20 Concerns related to vaccine safety and efficacy, the difficulty of accessing the vulnerable populations,21 wars, and conflicts, the use of different vaccines, and other access-related constraints are the major concerns of very low vaccine rollout in Africa.20 Other articles also claimed that vaccine hesitancy, distributed misinformation, religious fanaticism, attitude and uptake of vaccine among health care workers, social influences, and environments wherein people looking for trusted icons response and involvement are major obstacles of COVID-19 vaccine roll out to achieve the target.22 According to the vaccines safety profile within the product information, the most common side effects include mild-to-moderate symptoms of one or more of the following: headache (52.6%), fatigue (53.1%), muscle or joint pain (44%), fever (33.6%), chills (31.9%), and nausea (21.9%).23,24 Additionally, symptoms of an allergic reaction including hives, a rash, swelling, and respiratory issues may occur.25
Recent evidence noted that people who have not received a COVID-19 vaccine were faced 10, and 11 times higher risk of hospitalization and death due to COVID-19 than those who have undergone vaccination, respectively.23 Getting vaccinated protects against severe illness and mortality from COVID-19, including the Delta variant. Monitoring COVID-19 incidence by vaccination status might provide early signals of changes in vaccine-related protection that can be confirmed through a well-controlled vaccine effectiveness (VE) study.24 Some of the side effects associated with the use of the COVID-19 vaccine are reported in different countries as mentioned above. However, there is still controversy and evidence gap regarding the magnitude and extent of the adverse events associated with the COVID-19 vaccine. As a result, countries are facing challenges in expanding the uptake of the vaccine among citizens. Therefore, this study aimed to assess the common post-COVID-19 vaccine (AstraZeneca) immunization adverse events among the health care workers at the university of Gondar Comprehensive Specialized Hospital.
An institution-based cross-sectional study was conducted from June 1, 2021, to August 21, 2021.
This study was undertaken at the University of Gondar Comprehensive Specialized Hospital which is found in the Central Gondar Zone of the Amhara region, Ethiopia. It serves more than 7 million people and is one of the COVID-19 diagnosis and treatment centers in the country. It is also one of the major sites of COVID-19 vaccine delivery for the targeted population, ie health professionals and medical intern doctors.
The study population included all health professionals (medical doctors, medical intern doctors, nurses, pharmacists, psychiatrists, midwives, and others) who took at least 1st dose of the ChAdOx1COV-19 vaccine.
We surveyed all health professionals who took the ChAdOx1COV-19 vaccine in the first round.
All health professionals who took at least the first dose of ChAdox1 COV-19 were included while those health professionals on monthly leave were excluded.
Data was collected using a semi-structured self-administered questionnaire (Supplementary Table 4). Data completeness and consistency were checked daily by one general practitioner and three specialist medical doctors. The data was entered using EpiData 4.6.0.0 software and exported to Stata 16 for further cleaning and analysis.
The dependent variable was adverse event following immunization as subjectively reported by the health professionals, ie, if they report at least one of these symptoms following immunization: injection site tenderness, redness or swelling, systemic reaction, seizure, abscess, high-grade fever, anaphylaxis, bleeding, thrombocytopenia, fatigue, chills, joint pain, muscle pain, headache, malaise, flu-like symptom, vomiting, and/or nausea. Independent variables were age, educational status, religion, gender, specialty, comorbidity, number of doses of the vaccine, previous history of COVID-19 infection, and feeling about the vaccine.
Data was analyzed using Stata 16 software. Descriptive findings were reported using proportions, frequencies, and medians. Binary logistic regression was fitted to identify statistically significant factors. Chi-square and multicollinearity assumptions were tested. A P-values less than 0.2 and 0.05 were used as a cut-off value for statistical significance for bi and multivariable logistic regression, respectively. Finally, the Adjusted Odds Ratio (AOR) with 95% CI was reported in the final model.
Of the total 335 self-administered questionnaires, we excluded 21 questionnaires (four were incomplete, and 17 respondents vaccination status was missed). All the data obtained from the 314 participants were included in the final analysis. Of which 71.34% were males and the median age was 25 (inter-quartile range [IQR]: 23, 28) years. About 76.75% were Orthodox Christians and, 56.05% were interning medical doctors while others were health professionals. More than half of the participants reported that they felt the vaccine is safe (54.48%) (Supplementary Table 1).
The overall prevalence of AEFI was 83.76% (95% CI: 79.23, 87.46 (n=263/314)). The commonest AEFI observed were injection site tenderness (n=198/263), fatigue (n=114/263), headache (n=107/263), and muscle pain (n=85/263). There were no seizures, injection site abscesses, shock, or bleeding disorders following the immunization (Figure 1).
Figure 1 Type and frequency of adverse events developed following ChAdOx1 COVID-19 immunization among medical and health care professionals in University of Gondar (n=263).
The majority of the AEFI was developed in the first (n=191/232, 82.33%) and second (n=31/232, 13.36%) days of immunization. The minimum and maximum days of symptom resolution were 1 and 22 days after the onset. Nearly ninety percent of the AEFI resolved within three days (Figure 2A and B).
Figure 2 (A) Number of days the study participants developed AEFI and (B) number of days the AEFI symptom takes to resolve.
Ninety percent (90%, n=235/261), 4.98% (n=13/261), and 4.98% (n=13/261) of all the AEFIs were reported after the first, second, and both doses of the vaccine, respectively. Out of 263 respondents who experienced AEFI 257 scaled the severity of symptoms as follows: mild (n=162/257, 63.04%), moderate (n=73/257, 28.40%), severe (20/257, 7.78%), and difficult to scale (n=2/257, 0.78%). Most of the respondents with AEFI (51.70%) took paracetamol for symptom relief. Other drugs taken were diclofenac (12.50%) and Ibuprofen (5.68%). Above a quarter (28.98%) of those respondents with AEFI reported that they have taken an unspecified drug to relieve the symptoms. Two-thirds of those respondents with AEFI (66.40%) recovered without intervention and one-third (31.60%) recovered with minor intervention. There were four admissions following adverse events, of which three recovered without sequelae, and one developed sequelae.
All participants who were tested positive for COVID-19 had AEFI symptoms. Of those with current AEFI, 3.10% (8/258) had a history of past vaccine-related AEFI for meningitis A, hepatitis B, swine-flu vaccine, and tetanus vaccines). Of those 259 respondents who had had previous COVID-19 test results, 21 (8.11%) had a history of positive results (Supplementary Table 2).
From the descriptive statistics participants sex, religion, highest educational status, number of vaccine doses taken, and feeling towards the vaccine safety satisfied the chi-squared assumption. Bivariable and multivariable binary logistic regression models were fitted in the multivariable regression we found participants sex and feelings towards the safety of the vaccine positively associated with the development of AEFI at a p. value of less than 0.05. Females had three times higher odds of AEFI than males had (AOR: 2.75, 95% CI: 1.15, 6.58), and those participants who felt the vaccine is not safe had approximately three times (AOR: 2.84, 95% CI: 1.03, 7.85) higher odds of AEFI when compared to those who felt the vaccine is safe (Supplementary Table 3).
This study aimed to measure the magnitude and associated factors of adverse events following ChAdOx1 immunization among health professionals working at the University of Gondar. We found that more than three-fourths of the study participants had mild to severe adverse events following immunization. This finding is comparable with other studies conducted in Nepal, and Korea26 where 79.8%, and 81% of health professionals had an adverse event following immunizations, respectively, but higher than studies on Indian health professionals where 57% of the health professionals had adverse events.27,28 It is also higher than findings reported from Saudi Arabia where two-thirds of the study participants reported at least one AEFI.29 Similarly, it was higher than the findings of the studies conducted in the United Kingdom where 58.7% of the study population who took the 1st dose of the ChAdOx1 vaccine developed local symptoms,30 and the one conducted in Togo.31 This might be justified by the variations in study population, for the Saudi Arabia, and United Kingdom studies were on the general public that may not report mild symptoms while ours was on health professionals that can report every simple adverse event. While the communities/general public may not report mild symptoms.
On the other side, the magnitude of AEFI was lower than web-based study findings from Korea where more than 90% of the health professionals reported at least one AEFI.32 This might be due to variations of outcome ascertainment techniques. Accordingly, the Korean study was a mobile-based daily report from the participants while we collected the data from the respondents a week after they took the vaccine, which may lead to missing mild symptoms. This might have caused underestimation of the AEFI in our study compared to daily reports of the symptoms in the Saudi Arabian study. It was also lower than the other studys findings in Saudi Arabia, where more than 95% of the participants had at least one AEFI symptom.33
The majority of the adverse events were reported within the first 48 hours. This is comparable with reports findings of a study on Indian health professionals where more than three-fourths of the adverse events were reported within the first 48 hrs.27
The commonly reported adverse events were injection site tenderness, and fatigue as compared to others. This is supported by another study conducted in Korea where the pain, injection site tenderness, and fatigue were the top adverse events of health professionals experienced.32 It is also supported by findings of other studies on health professionals from Togo,31 and Nepal.34 Compared to other brands of COVID-19 vaccines, ChAdOx1 had a lower AEFI than Moderna (94%) but higher AEFI than Pfizer vaccine (53%). Nevertheless, higher number of patients who took ChAdOx1 developed series AEFI compared to patients who took Moderna and Pfizer vaccine.35 Another study finding indicate that among all immunized individuals more than half (58.1%) of the AEFI, and nearly half (49.5%) of severe adverse events were reported following ChAdOx1 vaccination compared to Moderna and Pfizer vaccines.36
Those who felt the vaccine was unsafe had nearly three times higher odds of AEFI as compared to those who felt the vaccine is safe. Unfortunately, we failed to find comparable pieces of evidence that incorporate the participants feelings about vaccine safety. Still, one study reported the association between vaccine perception and adverse events by stating those participants who think the vaccines are useless and with side effects have more chances of developing adverse events.37 Another study reported that students who had fear of side effects reported seven times higher AEFI as compared to those who did not fear the vaccine.38 This might be justified by those individuals who feel the vaccine is unsafe might be very suspicious and report and remember every mild symptom after vaccination.
Female health professionals had more than double the odds of AEFI as compared to male health professionals. This is in line with study findings reported from India where females had two times more odds of AEFI as compared with males.28 Similarly, our finding was comparable with findings from the Vietnamese study where female participants reported more AEFI.39 Another studys finding from Israel also supported this evidence by stating that females had nearly double risks of developing adverse events following 1st and 2nd dose of Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine as compared to males.40 This may give clues for health professionals to give more attention to female vaccinees, and researchers to conduct further investigation on gender differences in terms of adverse events.
We are confident that our study was strong enough to conclude but subjective measurements based on participants reports were used for outcome ascertainment that may bias some specific adverse events.
More than three-fourths of the health professionals taking the ChAdOx1 COVID-19 vaccine developed minor to severe adverse events following immunization. Of these, nearly one-third of symptomatic participants recovered intervention such as antipain but nearly a tenth of them had severe symptoms. Being female and having a feeling that the vaccine is unsafe were statistically significantly associated with AEFI.
AEFI, adverse event following immunization; AOR, adjusted odds ratio.
The data used for the preparation of this manuscript can be available from the corresponding author with formal request.
Ethical clearance was obtained from the Ethical Review Committee of the University of Gondar. A permission letter was sought from the University of Gondar Hospitals chief executive director. The purpose, the risks and benefits of the study were explained, and written informed consent was taken from all study participants. Anonymity was maintained throughout the whole process. All activities were conducted based on the declaration of Helsinki ethical guidelines.
The authors acknowledge the Institute of Public Health and the School of Medicine, College of Medicine and Health Sciences, University of Gondar. Our thanks also extend to study participants and data collectors.
There is no funding to report.
The authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest for this work.
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Some schools reported increases in Covid-19 cases in April. Not everyone is worried about it vtdigger.org
Lots of countries loosening COVID-19 restrictions as May begins
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Ozzy Osbourne arrives at the 62nd annual Grammy Awards on Jan. 26, 2020, in Los Angeles. Jordan Strauss/Invision/AP hide caption
Ozzy Osbourne arrives at the 62nd annual Grammy Awards on Jan. 26, 2020, in Los Angeles.
Ozzy Osbourne has been diagnosed with COVID-19, his wife Sharon Osbourne said on The Talk UK.
"I am very worried about Ozzy right now," Sharon Osbourne said tearfully on the talk show she began hosting just three days before sharing the news of her husband's diagnosis. "We've gone two years without him catching COVID and it's just Ozzy's luck he would get it now."
She said she is taking off time from the show to care for her 73-year-old husband, an original member of Black Sabbath and star of The Osbournes, a reality show with his family.
"It will take me a week to get my old man back on his feet again and I will be back in a week," Sharon Osbourne said.
In January 2020, Ozzy Osbourne, revealed that he has Parkinson's disease, which has no cure. Sharon Osbourne told Good Morning America that it wasn't "a death sentence by any stretch of the imagination."
When she gets back to see her husband, she said she wants to "hold him and kiss him with about three masks on."
HOLYOKE Riders are back on the saddle at the Therapeutic Equestrian Center after a 19-month layoff because of COVID-19 restrictions. The center serves adults and children with physical, emotional and developmental needs.
The center offers a seven-week therapeutic riding and five-week ground courses. For participants unable to mount a horse, the ground school teaches grooming, walking and handling skills. However, riding remains the centers primary focus.
Geraldine OConnor Page, the centers executive director, said the horses offer a calming effect for children with Attention Deficit or Hyperactivity Disorders. Theyre able to focus and engage more with a specific task theyre doing and accomplish something to feel good, she said.
While the child may struggle in the classroom, completing riding or ground tasks gives a sense of fulfillment. A lot of those kids having feelings they dont fit, and theyre failures. Were giving them an opportunity to fit in and be good at something that other kids are also participating in, OConnor Page added.
The center matches riders with specific horses based on the animals temperament, gait or strength. OConnor Page said the horses offer a variety of riding experiences, from a jaunty, bouncy gait to a smooth stride.
Theres a lot of specifics around just choosing the horse, and one of the big ones is their temperament and personality, she said.
The prolonged shutdown was hard for riders and staff. But, unlike reopening a store or school, the equestrian center caters to a vulnerable population. OConnor Page did not want to compromise the riders or volunteers health.
There were so many questions about what was happening with COVID. So we were really careful, she said. To see the place alive again was just incredible. This is my second home. OConnor Page founded the program with the late Father Robert F. Wagner.
The program also works with riders with a history of trauma, veterans and children with autism. We have a lot of people with emotional issues. So its a huge gamut the types of riders we have, she said.
The first step is downloading an application from the Therapeutic Equestrian Centers website. Next, the applicant or family member must secure a physician referral and undergo an applicant interview with OConnor Page.
I sit with my instructors, and we determine an appropriate lesson for them. One of the important pieces of therapeutic riding is the social-emotional piece that goes along with it, she added.
The equestrian center works with outside agencies and school districts, which may offer grants or scholarships to cover lesson fees. Donations are welcomed as costs have jumped since the pandemic, including the price of hay, shoeing and veterinary care.
We take top care of our horses. Our horses do not want for anything. They are the heroes, and they need to be taken very good care of, OConnor Page said. The fee is a small percentage of what it cost us.
For information, visit the Therapeutic Equestrian Centers website at www.tecriders.org.
People arrive at a COVID-19 testing station in Houston, Texas, on Jan. 7. Texans were rushing to get tested as the state experienced an unprecedented spike in infections from the omicron variant. Francois Picard/AFP via Getty Images hide caption
People arrive at a COVID-19 testing station in Houston, Texas, on Jan. 7. Texans were rushing to get tested as the state experienced an unprecedented spike in infections from the omicron variant.
Most people in the United States, including most children, have now been infected with the coronavirus, according to a new study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
At a briefing for reporters on Tuesday, the CDC's Dr. Kristie Clarke said so many people caught omicron over the winter that almost 60% of everyone in the U.S. now have antibodies to the virus in their blood.
That number is even higher for children almost 75% of children 11 and younger have antibodies to the virus.
Clarke said the finding means many people have at least some immunity to the virus. But CDC officials stressed that people should still get vaccinated, because vaccination provides the strongest, broadest protection against getting seriously ill. Immunity provided by previous infection may or may not be as protective against severe disease.
The CDC also said that cases of COVID-19 continue to rise, going up 23% last week to 44,416 a day. Deaths continue a months-long decline to 314 a day, or 13% less than the week before. Hospitalizations are on the uptick at 1,629 a day, up 7% over the previous week, according to CDC Director Rochelle Walensky.
About 1.5% of the U.S. population lives in communities where there is a high prevalence of COVID-19 at the present time, with 6.5% in medium-prevalence areas and the rest (92%) in communities with low levels of COVID-19.
Sen. Tim Kaine (D-Va.) on Sunday said he does not think COVID-19 funding and aid for Ukraine need to be combined in a single piece of legislation, as Congress considers both priorities for the Biden administration.
President Biden on Thursday asked Congress to authorize $33 billion in aid to support Ukraine, with some funds going towards security assistance, weapons, military aid, humanitarian assistance and food security funding. The ask also comes as the White House is pushing for additional COVID-19 response funding.
An administration official told reporters on Thursday that the administration thinks it certainly makes sense that the pandemic funding and Ukraine aid move together in legislation. On Friday, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) endorsed that strategy.
While assistance for Ukraine has bipartisan support in Congress, the path to passage for COVID-19 aid has been more convoluted in the past, raising some concerns that the support for Ukraine may be delayed if the two priorities are combined in a single package.
Asked by moderator Margaret Brennan on CBSs Face the Nation on Sunday if the two priorities have to be paired, Kaine said, I dont think it does.
The Virginia Democrat, however, did not endorse passing the funding together or separately.
The procedure where you put bills together or separate them is quirky and sometimes unpredictable. We need COVID aid, we need Ukraine aid, we should do them together or separately, but we shouldnt wait around, he said.
He said the month of May for Congress needs to be about passing the two funding priorities, in addition to the COMPETES Act, which seeks to make the U.S. more competitive with China.
Pressed on why Congress does not prioritize a standalone measure focused on defense support for Ukraine, Kaine said we can break it into smaller pieces or larger pieces, emphasizing we do need to do this quickly.
We still have some time to pass this next package. But I think my colleagues in Congress on both sides, with very few exceptions, they understand how significant this is. Theres quite a bit of bipartisan resolve on the Ukraine aid package, he added.
Former Illinois Department of Public Health director Dr. Ngozi Ezike took the podium at Dominican University in River Forest to deliver a congratulatory speech to students in the annual Black Achievements Ceremony on April 25.
Ezike who stepped down from her role with IDPH in March focused her speech on the students abilities to succeed, resilience gained from difficult recent history and on making sure to remember those instrumental to their success. Many of those present were students in the graduating Class of 2022.
I am so proud of you, as I am of all the graduates, Ezike said. You literally are your ancestors wildest dreams. When you think back, it was only in the 19th century that it was illegal to teach Black people to read. You guys have gone well past that and are getting degrees. Maybe this is just one degree out of other degrees you are going to get. I just encourage you to continue being that example of Black excellence, breaking down doors and shattering glass ceilings, and also making room for people behind you to follow suit.
Ezike became the first Black woman to assume the role of IDPH director in the organizations 143-year history. A pediatrician and internist, Ezike spent more than 15 years with Cook County Health and also served as the Cook County Juvenile Temporary Detention Centers medical director.
Ezikes COVID-19 briefings were a staple source of news for some Illinoisans throughout the pandemic, and she would often switch seamlessly from English to Spanish to make her addresses more accessible. She is also fluent in Swahili and French.
She recalled bringing her children to Dominican for Igbo lessons over the years, an experience she enjoyed thoroughly.
Routinely, religiously, we came here and they shared not just the language, but the culture of the Igbo people to make sure we could know the culture, pass it on to our children and make sure it persisted, Ezike said. Im so grateful for this university and this commitment to learning about the different histories of Black people and supporting the students who make this university their home.
Dominican listed 195 Black/African-American students in its fall 2021 enrollment statistics, making up 6.4% of the overall enrollment, and with 104 undergraduates making up 5% of the undergraduate population.
Ezike acknowledged that being a minority student in college can be difficult, saying it can be isolating.
On top of the global pandemic, which has been a mass casualty, traumatic event for everyone, whether youve lost loved ones or youve had livelihoods disrupted or the mental health challenges from the isolation or separation, Ezike said. Weve all endured so much. On top of that, weve gone through the pains of racial injustice. And I know you were active here in the protests in honor of Mr. George Floyd. So all of these things have formed your college career, and youve had to be super resilient.
On June 13, Ezike will take over in her new role as the president and chief executive officer of Sinai Chicago. She is also the first Black woman to be named to that position.
Recalling a conversation with a student from before the ceremony, Ezike encouraged students to maintain and continue to invest in the friendships they have formed while in school.
Treasure and nurture these tender relationships as well, Ezike said. These people... will hold you accountable to the principles that they know you hold dear.
She added that in the 30 years since she began college, many of her former roommates and housemates are still among her closest friends.
She noted that students should draw on the wisdom of their parents and grandparents, and always remember to make time for them, as they are the ones who will always have their best interest at heart.
Racial disparities in Connecticuts COVID-19 deaths gaping in the early days of the pandemic narrowed over time as the crisis spread outward from urban to rural areas, a new Yale School of Public Health study has found.
Though Black and Hispanic people in Connecticut have remained more likely to die from COVID-19 than white residents, the narrowing of those disparities may suggest the success of campaigns to boost testing and vaccination among those communities, researcher Margaret Lind said.
In general we saw that, over the course of the pandemic in Connecticut, there has been a decline in the disparity of COVID-19 related mortality, said Lind, who led the study. We are moving in the right direction, and [equity] is something that could be achieved if we keep moving forward.
According to the study, Black and Hispanic people in Connecticut were more than four times as likely as non-Hispanic white people to die from COVID-19 between March 1 and Aug. 25, 2020, when the disease hit poor, under-resourced, urban communities hardest.
But over time, the study found, the COVID-19 mortality rate decreased only slightly among white Connecticut residents while falling much more sharply among Black and Hispanic residents. From July 13 to Dec. 13, 2021, the most recent period the study analyzed, Hispanic people were still about twice as likely to die of COVID-19 as white people, but the gap between Black and white residents had nearly disappeared.
This trend appears to mirror a national pattern in which the burden of COVID-19 gradually shifted over time from urban centers to whiter, more rural areas, which often had lower rates of vaccination and fewer control measures.
Racial disparities in Connecticut's COVID-19 deaths have diminished over the course of the pandemic, a new Yale study has found.
Despite the narrowing of disparities in Connecticut, the pandemic has remained, on balance, more significant for some groups than for others. Dating back to March 2020, state data shows, Black and Hispanic people have been substantially more likely to catch COVID-19 and about twice as likely to die from the disease, after adjusting for age.
We did see this attenuation overall, but there is still room to get better, Lind said. We can reduce these inequities, but we are not there yet.
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Disparities in COVID-19s impact in Connecticut were apparent from the earliest days of the pandemic, as state data almost immediately showed Black and Latino people catching and dying from the disease at higher rates than white people.
Experts say some groups were hit harder than others for several reasons. For one thing, Black and Latino people in Connecticut are more likely to live in densely populated areas and work front-line jobs that put them in direct contact with coworkers and customers. For another, decades of discrimination mean they are more likely to have underlying conditions like asthma and diabetes, which exacerbate the effects of COVID-19.
Though Linds team did not specifically study why these disparities shrunk over time, she guesses it was a result of state and federal programs aimed at distributing resources more evenly, combined with evolving attitudes toward COVID-19 among different groups. Throughout much of the pandemic, survey data has shown that people of color in Connecticut were more likely than white people to, for example, wear masks in public.
Whereas Black and Latino people in Connecticut were initially far less likely than white people to receive a COVID-19 vaccine, those gaps have narrowed over time, state numbers show, which each racial and ethnic group now showing relatively high levels of vaccination.
Lind says her findings underscore the importance of measures aimed at reducing health inequities a lesson she says could be useful ahead of the next health crisis.
These measures such as trying to get testing equitably distributed, trying to get prevention measures ... widely utilized [helped], she said. The utility of education around that is something we should really think about and continue to move forward with, recognizing that this will not be our last global pandemic.
Some social media accounts have been blaming Covid-19 vaccines for the outbreak of acute hepatitis ... [+] across 12 countries. (Photo: Getty)
A mysterious hepatitis outbreak has already affected at least 169 children across 12 countries, as I covered for Forbes on April 26. Its mysterious because its cause has yet to be clearly established. But take a wild guess as to what some on social media have been trying to blame for the outbreak. Heres a hint: its something that does not turn you into a gigantic magnet and does not make keys stick to your forehead. Yes, anonymous social media accounts have been trying to link the hepatitis outbreak that has left at least one child dead and 17 requiring liver transplants to, drum roll please, Covid-19 vaccines. And some of these accounts along with a website called The Expos have been citing two studies, claiming that they serve as evidence.
For example, heres a tweet from an account that calls itself the Donald J. Trump Tracker:
From Twitter
Now its not clear who the Deputy of Minister is and whether its similar to the Vice of President of an organization or the Assistant of Secretary of a government body. But when you claim that someone said something at least provide the persons real name or a link to the source. You may be tracking Trump but others need to track from where you are getting your information.
Plus, theres one itty bitty problem with blaming Covid-19 vaccines for the hepatitis outbreak. A World Health Organization (WHO) report from April 23 clearly stated that Hypotheses related to side effects from the Covid-19 vaccines are currently not supported as the vast majority of affected children did not receive Covid-19 vaccination. So how exactly can a child get hepatitis from a Covid-19 vaccine when that child hasnt even gotten a Covid-19 vaccine? That would be like blaming Madonna for making you late to work when you havent even met Madonna.
So then what about the two so-called studies that some have been throwing around? For example, take a look at the following tweet that used a fire emoji and offered a post on the The Expos:
From Twitter
Well, the so-called Pizer study references in this tweet is actually something published in Current Issues in Molecular Biology on February 25, 2022, well before the WHO had announced the hepatitis outbreak. All this study showed is that when human liver cells in a test tube is exposed to the components of the Pfizer Covid-19 mRNA vaccine, the liver cells do take up the vaccine components fairly rapidly. Of course, unless you happen to be a giant test tube, this doesnt necessarily mean that when you get the Pfizer Covid-19 vaccine, all of the vaccine components will immediately go to your liver. And just because the vaccine components can enter liver cells doesnt suggest Covid-19 vaccines have been to blame for the hepatitis outbreak. For example, you can show that having 50 marmots in you bed can keep you up all night, especially if you have to play parcheesi with them. However, this doesnt necessarily mean that marmots are to blame for the lack of sleep that Americans have been getting in general.
Then there was this other new study offered by a tweet from yet another anonymous social media account and another post on The Expos:
From Twitter
This so-called study is actually not a formal study but instead a case report published in the Journal of Hepatology on April 21, 2022. The case report described what happened to a 52-year-old male in Germany who developed acute hepatitis two to three weeks after he had gotten the Pfizer Covid-19 mRNA vaccine. Samples of his liver did show evidence of inflammation as well as presence of T cells. T cells, otherwise known as T lymphocyte, are white blood cells that serve various immune protection functions for your body. The presence of T cells did strongly suggest that the mans liver inflammation may have been due to his immune systems response to vaccination against Covid-19. Doctors felt that these findings were compatible with a probable autoimmune hepatitis and treated him with oral budesonide and eventually steroids combined with ursodeoxycholic acid. Eventually, within eight weeks, the mans liver enzyme levels returned to normal.
So, yes, this case was evidence that acute hepatitis could potentially be a side effect of the Pfizer Covid-19 mRNA vaccine. Again, though, a key distinction is that this was a case report and not a study. It showed what happened to a single man (in this case, single as in number and not marital status) after getting vaccinated. A case report cant tell you how common or how likely an event may be. For example, last month I covered for Forbes a case report of a woman who ended up having a glass tumbler lodged in her bladder for four years. Such a rare event doesnt necessarily mean that you should never ever use a glass tumbler again or that you should run screaming anytime anyone tries to pour you a drink. Similarly, a case report or even several reports of acute hepatitis after Covid-19 vaccination shouldnt be reason alone to avoid Covid-19 vaccines. So far, theres no evidence that acute hepatitis is anything more than a potential very rare side effect.
Moreover, all cases of acute hepatitis are not the same. Acute hepatitis is a very broad term for sudden onset inflammation of the liver. The man in the case report survived his bout with acute hepatitis apparently without any permanent damage. This was nowhere near the damage seen among some of the kids being afflicted by the ongoing hepatitis outbreak.
At this point the leading culprit behind the hepatitis outbreak is the type 41 adenovirus, possibly in combination with the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2), as I described for Forbes previously. Now there are many different types of adenoviruses. While some types are more likely to cause common cold symptoms or respiratory issues, adenovirus type 41 typically spreads via the fecal-oral route (which is a nice way of saying poop-to-mouth). It commonly affects your gut, resulting in gastroenteritis.
The Covid-19 vaccines use different types of adenoviruses with the Astra-Zeneca one using a chimpanzee adenovirus and the Johnson & Johnson vaccine using a Type 26 adenovirus. In both cases, the adenovirus is inactivated so that it cant cause disease. Nevertheless, some anonymous social media accounts have seized upon the whole adenovirus thing, claiming that it is evidence that the adenovirus-based AstraZeneca and Johnson & Johnson Covid-19 vaccines are linked to the hepatitis outbreak:
From Twitter
Again, such claims overlook the itty bitty problem that most of the children being affected by the hepatitis outbreak did not get the Covid-19 vaccines, whether the vaccines are adenovirus-based or not. This fact would make it difficult for any claims about the Covid-19 vaccines being involved to stick like keys on a forehead.
