Category: Corona Virus Vaccine

This national investigation has identified adults who remained at increased risk of COVID-19 death after receiving a second dose booster vaccination in England in Autumn 2022. Our results indicate that having learning disabilities or Downs syndrome, pulmonary hypertension or fibrosis, motor neuron disease, multiple sclerosis, myasthenia or Huntingtons disease, cancer of blood and bone marrow, Parkinsons disease, lung or oral cancer, dementia or liver cirrhosis were independently associated with a higher risk of COVID-19 related death. For cancer of blood or bone marrow, CKD, cystic fibrosis, pulmonary hypotension or fibrosis or rheumatoid arthritis or SLE the increase in the relative risk was greater for COVID-19 death than non-COVID-19 death. Our findings suggest individuals in those groups were particularly vulnerable to COVID-19 death relative to other causes of death. For instance, for people with rheumatoid arthritis or SLE, the risk of dying from non-COVID-19 causes was not significantly different from people without these diagnoses; however, the risk was higher for COVID-19 death. Importantly, this group was not identified as one of the listed health comorbidities with the highest overall risk of COVID-19 death, but our analysis highlights the importance of relative risk with individuals being more likely to die from COVID-19 in this group relative to other causes.

For many health conditions the increase in risk of COVID-19 death was similar to, or lower than, the increase in risk of non-COVID-19 deaths, suggesting that the increase in the risk of COVID-19 death was not different to the increase in the risk of death from other causes. Whilst we find that patients with asthma were at elevated risk of COVID-19 death after accounting for age, sex, ethnic group and region, we found that having asthma was not associated with the risk of COVID-19 death after adjusting for other comorbidities, suggesting that asthma was not directly increasing the risk of COVID-19 death.

Our findings support previous research which has assessed mortality outcomes following first dose COVID-19 booster vaccinations8. Overall, in the UK first dose booster vaccinations have been found to reduce severe outcomes (hospitalisation and death), with particular groups remaining at elevated risk2. Older adults (over 80 years of age), those with health comorbidities and specific conditions such as CKD were found to be at elevated risk. A study conducted in the United States reported that in patients who were immunocomproised, diabetic, had CKD or chronic lung disease there was a graded increase in risk of breakthrough COVID-19 infections positively associated with the number of comorbidities following two primary doses9. It is important to consider the results presented in our study may not reflect the differences in risk of COVID-19 death following infection. Our study looks at the risk of death since the time of having received a second booster dose, not since infection. It is possible that the risk of infection also differs by clinical risk factors, as patients who are the most vulnerable may maintain social isolation to protect themselves. It is also possible that some vulnerable patients may be at greater risk of infection because they live in communal establishments or have frequent contacts with carers or medical staff.

Critically, our work assesses the impact of the autumn 2022 booster vaccination on COVID-19, but additionally non-COVID-19 outcomes in adults in England. Our results provide strong evidence to inform JCVI about which groups should be prioritised for subsequent boosters and possibly subsequent boosters. It is critical to highlight the fact that some groups who do not have the overall highest risk of COVID-19 death, have an increased risk relative to non-COVID-19 causes and thus should remain a key priority.

Our study has several strengths. Firstly, we used population level data for England based on a unique linkage of the 2021 Census to electronic health records. Sociodemographic characteristics, including ethnic group, were derived from the 2021 Census, and were accurate and had low missingness, unlike in some electronic health records, where ethnic group is often missing and not always self-reported10. Second, we identified the clinical risk factors using primary care data. Third, we used information on the cause of death to define COVID-19 death and were also able to examine non-COVID-19 death as a comparator and identify which conditions were associated with a relative increased risk of larger for COVID-19 death than for non-COVID-19 death.

An important limitation of our study is the use of 2021 Census for our population means that people who did not respond to the Census were excluded. In addition, it also excluded Census respondents who could not be linked to the Personal Demographics Service (PDS). However, the data we used covered 96.0% of those who received a booster dose in England the autumn of 2022. One of the limitations of our work was the lack of data on COVID-19 hospital admissions11. In order to effectively manage resource and understand which groups are at the highest risk of hospitalisation, subsequent work with access to timely data should account for hospital admittance. Additionally, we are unable to account for behaviours which would be classified as health protective such as minimising social contact in the present study. Therefore, it is important to consider for some patients whose risk of hospitalisation or death was most pertinent following SARS-CoV-2 infection, they may be maintaining social isolation to protect themselves. Hence for groups of individuals where the risk was not higher for COVID-19 outcomes, but overall was greater for all-cause death we must maintain prioritisation of vaccination to these individuals. Subsequent research should explore common conditions (e.g., asthma) to understand if the interaction between having a common diagnosis in addition to another specific condition results in a particular susceptibility to adverse COVID-19 outcomes.

Our work investigates the risk of cause-specific COVID-19 death, as well as non-COVID-19 death in a cohort of adults who received a booster dose in the autumn of 2022. In order to effectively manage the COVID-19 risk, it is imperative that the most vulnerable groups of individuals are prioritised for COVID-19 booster vaccinations. We highlight that the risk of COVID-19 death, compared to all other cause death, remains particularly high in adults with learning disabilities or Down syndrome, pulmonary hypertension or fibrosis, motor neuron disease, multiple sclerosis, myasthenia or Huntingtons disease, cancer of blood and bone marrow, Parkinsons disease, lung or oral cancer, dementia, or liver cirrhosis. These groups of patients should be a key priority for subsequent vaccinations, therapeutics, and novel treatment. In addition, we highlight the risk associated with a range of health conditions and sociodemographic characteristics which should inform policy makers and researchers with key demographics of interest for subsequent research and vaccination.

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Risk of COVID-19 death in adults who received booster COVID-19 vaccinations in England - Nature.com

But the virus is still infecting people.

With changes in the nature of the pandemic and the response, KFF Health News spoke with doctors and researchers about how to best handle COVID, influenza, and other respiratory ailments spreading this season.

A holiday wave of sickness has ensued as expected. COVID infections have escalated nationwide in the past few weeks, with analyses of virus traces in wastewater suggesting infection rates as high as last years. More than 73,000 people died of COVID in the U.S. in 2023, meaning the virus remains deadlier than car accidents and influenza. Still, compared with last years seasonal surge, this winters wave of COVID hospitalizations has been lower and death rates less than half.

Were seeing outbreaks in homeless shelters and in nursing homes, but hospitals arent overwhelmed like they have been in the past, said Salvador Sandoval, a doctor and health officer at the Merced County public health department in California. He attributes that welcome fact to vaccination, COVID treatments like Paxlovid, and a degree of immunity from prior infections.

While a new coronavirus variant, JN.1, has spread around the world, the current vaccines and COVID tests remain effective.

Other seasonal illnesses are surging, too, but rates are consistent with those of previous years. Between 9,400 and 28,000 people died from influenza from Oct. 1 to Jan. 6, estimates the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and millions felt so ill from the flu that they sought medical care.

Cases of pneumonia a serious condition marked by inflamed lungs that can be triggered by the flu, COVID, or other infections also predictably rose as winter set in. Researchers are now less concerned about flare-ups of pneumonia in China, Denmark, and France in November and December, because they fit cyclical patterns of the pneumonia-causing bacteria Mycoplasma pneumoniae rather than outbreaks of a dangerous new bug.

Public health researchers recommend following the CDC guidance on getting the latest COVID and influenza vaccines to ward off hospitalization and death from the diseases and reduce chances of getting sick. A recent review of studies that included 614,000 people found that those who received two COVID vaccines were also less likely to develop long COVID; often involving fatigue, cognitive dysfunction, and joint pain, the condition is marked by the development or continuation of symptoms a few months after an infection and has been debilitating for millions of people. Another analysis found that people who had three doses of COVID vaccines were much less likely to have long COVID than those who were unvaccinated.

Its not too late for an influenza vaccine, either, said Helen Chu, a doctor and epidemiologist at the University of Washington in Seattle. Influenza continues to rise into the new year, especially in Southern states and California. Last seasons shot appeared to reduce adults risk of visits to the emergency room and urgent care by almost half and hospitalization by more than a third. Meanwhile, another seasonal illness with a fresh set of vaccines released last year, respiratory syncytial virus, appears to be waning this month.

Another powerful way to prevent COVID, influenza, common colds, and other airborne infections is by wearing an N95 mask. Many researchers say theyve returned to socializing without one but opt for the masks in crowded, indoor places when wearing one would not be particularly burdensome. Karan, for example, wears his favorite N95 masks on airplanes. And dont forget good, old-fashioned hand-washing, which helps prevent infections as well.

If you do all that and still feel sick? Researchers say they reach for rapid COVID tests. While theyve never been perfect, theyre often quite helpful in guiding a persons next steps.

When President Joe Biden declared the end of the public health emergency last year, many federally funded testing sites that sent samples to laboratories shut their doors. As a result, people now mainly turn to home COVID tests that signal an infection within 15 minutes and cost around $6 to $8 each at many pharmacies. The trick is to use these tests correctly by taking more than one when theres reason for concern. They miss early infections more often than tests processed in a lab, because higher levels of the coronavirus are required for detection and the virus takes time to multiply in the body. For this reason, Karan considers other information. If I ran into someone who turned out to be sick, and then I get symptoms a few days later, he said, the chance is high that I have whatever they had, even if a test is negative.

A negative result with a rapid test might mean simply that an infection hasnt progressed enough to be detected, that the test had expired, or that it was conducted wrong. To be sure the culprit behind symptoms like a sore throat isnt COVID, researchers suggest testing again in a day or two. It often takes about three days after symptoms start for a test to register as positive, said Karan, adding that such time estimates are based on averages and that individuals may deviate from the norm.

If a person feels healthy and wants to know their status because they were around someone with COVID, Karan recommends testing two to four days after the exposure. To protect others during those uncertain days, the person can wear an N95 mask that blocks the spread of the virus. If tests remain negative five days after an exposure and the person still feels fine, Chu said, theyre unlikely to be infected and, if they are, viral levels would be so low that they would be unlikely to pass the disease to others.

Positive tests, on the other hand, reliably flag an infection. In this case, people can ask a doctor whether they qualify for the antiviral drug Paxlovid. The pills work best when taken immediately after symptoms begin so that they slash levels of the virus before it damages the body. Some studies suggest the medicine reduces a persons risk of long COVID, too, but the evidence is mixed. Another note on tests: Dont worry if they continue to turn out positive for longer than symptoms last; the virus may linger even if its no longer replicating. After roughly a week since a positive test or symptoms, studies suggest, a person is unlikely to pass the virus to others.

If COVID is ruled out, Karan recommends tests for influenza because they can guide doctors on whether to prescribe an antiviral to fight it or if instead its a bacterial infection, in which case antibiotics may be in order. One new home test diagnoses COVID and influenza at the same time.

Whereas antivirals and antibiotics target the source of the ailment, over-the-counter medications may soothe congestion, coughs, fevers, and other symptoms. That said, the FDA recently determined that a main ingredient in versions of Sudafed, NyQuil, and other decongestants, called phenylephrine, is ineffective.

Jobs complicate a personal approach to staying healthy. Emergency-era business closures have ended, and mandates on vaccination and wearing masks have receded across the country. Some managers take precautions to protect their staff. Chu, for example, keeps air-purifying devices around her lab, and she asks researchers to stay home when they feel sick and to test themselves for COVID before returning to work after a trip.

However, occupational safety experts note that many employees face risks they cannot control because decisions on if and how to protect against outbreaks, such as through ventilation, testing, and masking, are left to employers. Notably, people with low-wage and part-time jobs occupations disproportionately held by people of color are often least able to control their workplace environments.

Jessica Martinez, co-executive director of the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health, said the lack of national occupational standards around airborne disease protection represents a fatal flaw in the Biden administrations decision to relinquish its control of the pandemic.

Every workplace needs to have a plan for reducing the threat of infectious disease, she said. If you only focus on the individual, you fail workers.

KFF Health News is a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues and is one of the core operating programs at KFFan independent source of health policy research, polling, and journalism. Learn more about KFF.

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'Emergency' or not, COVID-19 is still killing people. Here's what doctors say - The Atlanta Journal Constitution

Energy and Commerce Republicans are exposing how the Chinese Communist Party withheld critical information from the world in the early days of the COVID-19 outbreak. The Committees investigation revealed that China had a SARS-CoV-2 sequence for weeks before sharing with the global community.

WASHINGTON Chinese researchers isolated and mapped the virus that causes Covid-19 in late December 2019, at least two weeks before Beijing revealed details of the deadly virus to the world, congressional investigators said, raising questions anew about what China knew in the pandemics crucial early days.

When Beijing shared the SARS-CoV-2 sequence with the World Health Organization on January 11, 2020, two full weeks had elapsed since the virus was sequenced by a researcher at the Institute of Pathogen Biology in Beijing, an arm of the state-affiliated Chinese Academy of Medical Sciences which has ties to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and Peoples Liberation Army.

The documents, obtained from the US Department of Health and Human Services by House Republicans and first reported by the Wall Street Journal, show virologist Dr. Lili Ren uploaded nearly the entire sequence of COVID-19s structure to a US government-run database on Dec. 28, 2019.

Her work was nearly identical to what Beijing eventually presented to the World Health Organization on January 11, 2020, when the virus had already spread across the world, according to the documents obtained by Republicans on the House Energy and Commerce Committee.

The committee noted that Ren is a subgrantee of the EcoHealth Alliance nonprofit, the organization that previously awarded NIH grants to the Wuhan Institute of Virology and came under scrutiny during the pandemic.

The earlier posting doesn't change the virus' origin story - whether it was sparked by a live animal market or leaked from a scientific laboratory.

But it does renew questions about how much China knew about the virus and when. It suggests that vaccine development could have started sooner. And it raises new questions about how much the U.S. government knew or should have known about the virus in those early days.

Public health experts who reviewed the documents said the episode illustrated a missed opportunity to learn more about the virus at the beginning of the global health emergency.

The failure to publish the genetic sequence submitted by Ren is "retroactively painful," said Jesse Bloom, a virologist at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center in Seattle. Bloom noted that researchers were depending on genetic sequences to begin developing medical interventions to combat the coronavirus and argued that earlier access to the information would have expedited new test and vaccines.

"That two weeks would have made a tangible difference in quite a few people's lives," Bloom said.

China has been widely criticized for its initial response to the emergence of COVID in Wuhan in late 2019. Western officials have also called on Beijing to be more cooperative in the search for the virus's origins.

It "underscores how cautious we have to be about the accuracy of the information that the Chinese government has released," Jesse Bloom, a virologist at Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center who has seen the documents and the gene sequence, told the WSJ. "It's important to keep in mind how little we know."

HHS withheld the sequencing information from the committee for seven months, only releasing the documents after threats of subpoena.

The Energy and Commerce Committee press release said that the process for "monitoring GenBank submissions is insufficient as the United States had an early SARS-CoV-2 sequence in our possession and apparently had no idea.

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"This significant discovery further underscores why we cannot trust any of the so-called facts or data provided by the CCP and calls into serious question the legitimacy of any scientific theories based on such information. The American people deserve to know the truth about the origins of SARS-CoV-2, and our investigation has uncovered numerous causes for concern, including how taxpayers dollars are spent, how our governments public health agencies operate, and the need for more oversight into research grants to foreign scientists. In addition to equipping us to better prepare for the next pandemic, this investigations findings will help us as policymakers as we work to strengthen Americas biosafety practices and bolster oversight of research grants, said Chairs Rodgers, Guthrie, and Griffith.

READ MORE: E&C Investigation Uncovers Earliest Known SARS-CoV-2 Sequence Released Outside of China

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E&C Investigation Reveals China's Lack of COVID-19 Transparency - Energy and Commerce Committee

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It's easy to be complacent about COVID-19. Most people experience only mild issues fever and coughing, maybe congestion and shortness of breath.

But the coronavirus is capable of causing much more than a simple respiratory illness, affecting organs throughout the body, experts say.

"We see people have symptoms from almost head to toe in terms of how they feel, how they function and what they can do," said Dr. Adrian Hernandez, a cardiologist who is director of the Duke Clinical Research Institute in Durham, North Carolina.

The new year started with an increase in COVID-19 hospitalizations in the U.S., prompting Hernandez and other experts to advise caution, especially for those at high risk.

While the short-term effects of COVID-19 can be flu-like, even mild cases can lead to long COVID a constellation of problems that can persist for weeks or months. More than 200 symptoms have been linked to long COVID, said Hernandez, who has overseen many COVID-19 studies.

Because COVID-19 typically affects breathing and can lead to problems such as pneumonia, many people may think it's primarily a lung disease. It's not that simple, said Dr. Nisha Viswanathan, director of the long COVID program at the David Geffen School of Medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles.

"I would argue that COVID-19 is not a disease of the lungs at all," she said. "It seems most likely that it is what we call a vascular and neurologic infection, affecting both nerve endings and our cardiovascular system."

It's no surprise that experts say SARS-CoV-2 the name of the virus that causes COVID-19 is complex, with many of its pathways just beginning to be understood. But some things are becoming clear. One of the best reviews of long COVID symptoms, Viswanathan said, appeared last January in Nature Reviews Microbiology. It detailed the disease's effects throughout the body, including the pancreas, blood vessels and reproductive system.

"SARS-CoV-2 is excellent at triggering your immune system to go from zero to 100," said Dr. Lindsay McAlpine, a neurologist who is director of the Yale NeuroCovid Clinic in New Haven, Connecticut. That revving of the immune response leads to both a "wide swath of inflammation" and excessive blood clotting, she said.

"Perhaps the viral replication is going on in the lungs and nasopharynx (the area at the top of the throat that connects the nose to the respiratory system). But the inflammation that the virus triggers is systemic," McAlpine said.

Here are some parts of the body significantly affected by COVID-19.

The brain and nervous system

"The virus and the immune response can have several different effects on the brain," said McAlpine, lead author of a 2021 study looking at strokes in people with COVID-19, published in the journal Stroke. She is researching issues related to COVID-19 and brain fog, which she called "a very common symptom."

The exact causes of brain-related issues are not clear, but she said it does not appear that the virus is directly attacking brain tissue. Rather, it seems that the ramped-up immune response leads to clots that could cause brain problems.

"A lot of patients have described it as feeling like they have a concussion," McAlpine said. "And it can persist for several months after COVID," even if the initial case was mild.

"In addition to the cognitive impairment, we see worsening or new-onset migraines," she said. "We see new neuropathy in the legs and the arms numbness, tingling, difficulty walking because of the neuropathy."

COVID-19 might also be unmasking other neurodegenerative conditions, such as Parkinson's disease, she said. McAlpine has diagnosed new cases of Alzheimer's disease in people who, before COVID-19, were functioning fine, then developed symptoms. "We don't know why," she said.

The heart and blood vessels

Research shows COVID-19 infection can increase the risk for heart-related problems such as myocarditis, a rare inflammation of the heart, and an irregular heartbeat known as atrial fibrillation.

The risk of dangerous clotting including deep vein thrombosis (clots in large veins) and pulmonary embolisms (clots in the lungs) is small but stays elevated for up to a year after the infection, according to research done before vaccines were available.

Many factors might be playing into COVID-related heart problems, Viswanathan said, including microclots tiny blood clots or an autoimmune response targeting heart muscle cells. A recent study in Nature Cardiovascular Research shows the virus may infect coronary arteries, causing plaque buildup to become inflamed and break off, which can lead to a heart attack.

Gastrointestinal system

"Interestingly, the GI system's mechanism may be a little different than what impacts the heart," Viswanathan said. One theory suggests that the virus finds a hiding place while the rest of the body fights it off. "And we have found now in multiple studies that COVID can remain in our GI tract for weeks and months after it has resolved in the rest of the body."

The exact place where the virus might hide is up for debate, Viswanathan said. But Hernandez said gastrointestinal symptoms are clear: "People can have nausea, vomiting, diarrhea."

A large study of veterans published last year in Nature Communications found people with COVID-19 had a higher risk of gastroesophageal reflux disease, irritable bowel syndrome and other gastrointestinal problems more than 30 days after infection compared to people without COVID-19. The risk was elevated even among people who had mild cases of the disease.

Kidneys

Kidney problems were common in a 2023 study published in The Lancet Respiratory Medicine that looked at organ damage after COVID-19 infection.

Researchers don't necessarily know whether kidney problems stem from people getting sick with high fevers and taking in less fluid or because "with a virus that can go anywhere and cause inflammation anywhere, you can have all sorts of problems," Hernandez said.

What to do

Not everyone who gets COVID-19 will have these problems, Viswanathan said. But people experiencing symptoms can reach out to their primary care physician or a long COVID clinic.

What everyone can do, she said, is take steps to protect themselves and those around them.

The first step is to be cautious if COVID-19 is surging in your area. Consider wearing a mask in crowded public places. "A lot of people have COVID now, and it may take a while for them to test positive," Viswanathan said.

"The second thing is get vaccinated," she said. "It really does seem to be highly protective." The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recommends everyone ages 5 and older get the updated COVID-19 vaccine to avoid getting seriously ill from the virus.

"The third thing is controlling your cardiovascular risk factors," she said. That means getting high blood pressure, diabetes or other chronic medical conditions under control. "It will all decrease your risk."

McAlpine added that if you have COVID-19 symptoms, stay away from other people to avoid putting them at risk.

Hernandez emphasized the importance of vaccinations in general for people with heart or lung disease, cancer or suppressed immune systems. "For people who have other health conditions, you don't need another one," he said. "And if you could avoid an illness like COVID or the flu why wouldn't you?"

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Beyond breathing: How COVID-19 affects your heart, brain and other organs - American Heart Association News

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COVID-19, flu: Vaccines work, and here's why most should get them - MetroWest Daily News

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Cardiovascular effects of the post-COVID-19 condition - Nature.com

Work pressure and other factors related to the COVID-19 pandemic were associated with an increase in problematic substance use among first responders, new research published in the International Journal of Drug Policy found.1f

First responders, such as law enforcement personnel, emergency medical service providers, and firefighters, were on the frontlines of the COVID-19 pandemic response. This put them at a high risk of developing stress at work, which may lead to the development of problematic substance use. However, there has so far been a lack of research on this subject.

Whilestudies highlight a potential risk for first responder substance use, they do not identify the role that work pressure, burnout, general workplace support strategies, and COVID-19-related support strategies play in progressing or mitigating problematic substance use, the authors wrote. These are important aspects to understand as they can help develop appropriate interventions within work settings.

Investigators from Florida Atlantic University conducted a study to understand the relationship between work pressures, workplace support strategies, and problematic substance use during the early stages of the COVID-19 pandemic. Data was gathered from a nationwide online survey of first responders.

The study cohort included 2801 participants who worked in police departments, fire stations, and emergency medical service agencies. The survey asked questions on problematic substance use, work pressure, general workplace support strategies, COVID-19 support strategies, and burnout.

Investigators found that around 61% of respondents reported no concerns with substance use, even though nearly 40% said they used substances to relieve emotional discomfort. Of those who used substances, 22% said they used more than they meant to and 21% said they could not cut down on their use. Only 7.2% of respondents said their substance use resulted in neglecting work responsibilities.

Problematic substance use was highest among firefighters at 12.7%, followed by emergency medical technicians at 11.4%, and police officers at 8.1%. Additionally, general workplace strategies were not associated with problematic substance use. However, COVID-19-related strategies, such as providing compensation during quarantine, were positively associated with problematic substance use.

Although intended to reduce stress associated with the job, organizations should be mindful that not all support strategies will have their intended impact, and some may even unintentionally increase stress, burnout, and problematic substance use, Kaila Witkowski, senior author on the study, said in a release.2 While we are not contending that compensation during quarantine is a negative workplace strategy, our study highlights the nuances of the COVID-19 quarantine measure, suggesting that additional stressors may have been placed on first responders throughout this process or that other beneficial workplace strategies were not easily accessible or used during this time.

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Work Pressure During COVID-19 Pandemic Increased Problematic Substance Use Among First Responders - Drug Topics

A highly mutated version of the COVID-19 virus called JN.1 is currently driving a surge of infections in the United States. The extremely transmissible variant now accounts for about 86 percent of COVID cases a major jump from Thanksgiving, when fewer than 8 percent of infections were caused by JN.1.

While the variant is spreading fast, there is no evidence that JN.1 a subvariant of the omicron strain that first appeared in late 2021 is causing symptoms that are any different from or more severe than other circulating strains, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC).

JN.1 is fairly similar to the other omicron variants, causing run-of-the mill symptoms like sore throat, congestion and runny nose, fevers, chills, cough, and fatigue, says Minji Kang, MD, an assistant professor and infectious-disease specialist in the department of internal medicine at UT Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas.

Pavitra Roychoudhury, PhD, an associate in the vaccine and infectious disease division of the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center and a research assistant at the University of Washington in Seattle, adds that some changes to COVID-19 symptoms may be expected over time as the virus continues to mutate and evolve.

The symptoms can really vary person-to-person, she says, but I am not aware of any major changes in symptoms in JN.1 just yet.

In updated information from the end of December, the CDC lists the following symptoms of COVID-19:

While some people hit by JN.1 have said on social mediaand elsewhere that the variant triggers more digestive turmoil, such as diarrhea, than previous variants, there is no data yet to confirm it.

There have been speculations that JN.1 can cause more GI [gastrointestinal] troubles, including diarrhea, but there really haven't been any definitive studies demonstrating that, says Dr. Kang.

Certainly its possible that a new COVID-19 variant could bring with it a change in symptoms.For instance, before omicron, loss of smell and taste was thought to be a reliable way to identify a coronavirus infection. That symptom now appears to be declining.

Findings published last year in the journal OtolaryngologyHead and Neck Surgery indicated that loss of smell and taste from omicron variants was only 6 to 7 percent of what it was during the early stages of the outbreak.

Initially, at the beginning of the pandemic, loss of taste and smell were pretty common, says Kang. Now these symptoms are much less common, especially since the omicron variants [such as JN.1] have taken over.

What is certain about JN.1 is its ability to easily spread. JN.1 is a descendant of variant BA.2.86 (also called Pirola). These two members of the omicron family are closely related and highly mutated. JN.1, however, has evolved to have an additional mutation (L455S) in its so-called spike proteins the parts of the virus that attach to human cells which may make it much more transmissible, according to public health officials.

JN.1 is rising in frequency really quickly, and that usually suggests that its either really good at evading peoples preexisting immunity, or it has some sort of infectiousness advantage as a result of the mutations that it carries, says Dr. Roychoudhury.

The latest data from the CDC show that COVID activity remains high or very high throughout most of the country, with weekly hospital admissions up 3.2 percent and deaths climbing by over 14 percent.

COVID-19 surveillance data, hospital admission forecasts, and growth estimates indicate that COVID-19 activity has increased and is likely to continue increasing into January, says Jasmine Reed, a CDC spokesperson.

In most cases, COVID-19 causes mild illness that you can treat at home, but the virus still remains the primary cause of respiratory-virus-associated hospitalizations nationally, per the CDC.

Most of these hospitalizations are among the most vulnerable populations. Older adults have the highest odds of getting very sick from COVID-19. More than 81 percent of COVID-19 deaths occur in people over age 65.

COVID-19 targets the lungs, and those with chronic underlying health conditions such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), heart disease, diabetes, and obesity are more likely to develop serious illness.

Infants and pregnant people are also among those who are most vulnerable.

Infectious-disease specialists suggest that everyone, but especially those at high risk for severe illness, may want to take extra precautions at this time of year to prevent the spread of JN.1. These measures include wearing masks, washing hands frequently, avoiding crowded indoor spaces, and getting the most recent updated COVID vaccine.

Besides protecting against hospitalization and severe illness, the vaccine has been shown to reduce the duration of illness in some, and in some people, it can also reduce the risk of getting long COVID, says Roychoudhury.

Unfortunately, vaccination rates are abysmally low. As of January 5, 2024, the portion of the U.S. population reporting theyd received the updated COVID-19 vaccine was 8 percent for children and just over 19 percent for adults.

The CDC also recommends antiviral treatments, such as Paxlovid (nirmatrelvir and ritonavir), for some individuals who are at high risk of becoming very sick and needing to be hospitalized. A 2023 National Institutes of Health study involving more than one million COVID-19 patients found that Paxlovid treatment within five days of a positive COVID-19 test reduced 28-day hospitalization by 26 percent and death by 73 percent compared with no Paxlovid treatment.

But based on the study, only about 15 percent of high-risk patients eligible for the drug are taking it.

Roychoudhury says it's an open question whether a more contagious variant that causes more serious symptoms could still be coming.

Were interested to see how this JN.1 lineage may diversify, and whether it will lead to a more infectious variant that causes more severe disease, she says. We can also not rule out the possibility that there's a completely novel variant out there, so its important that we continue to monitor to see how the virus evolves.

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Understanding the JN.1 COVID Variant: Symptoms, Spread, and Prevention - Everyday Health

Without COVID-19 vaccines, the cumulative death toll in Europe would have been around 4 million, according to the World Health Organization (WHO).

At least 1.4 million lives were saved in Europe due to safe and effective COVID-19 vaccines, the World Health Organization (WHO)s European regional office said on Tuesday.

This was according to a new WHO study released on a preprint server analysing the influence of COVID-19 vaccines in 34 countries - all but one - in Europe.

COVID-19 vaccines reduced deaths by 57 per cent between December 2020 when the vaccine rollouts began and March 2023, the study found.

The cumulative death toll in the European region, which currently sits at 2.5 million lives, could have reached nearly 4 million people without vaccines, the WHO said.

Just think about it today and the 1.4 million people in our region, most of them elderly, who are around to enjoy life with their loved ones because they took the vital decision to be vaccinated against COVID-19, said Dr Hans Kluge, WHOs European regional director.

This is the power of vaccines. The evidence is irrefutable, he added.

He recommended once again that people who are at risk for severe COVID-19, such as those who are older or immunocompromised, get a booster vaccination six to 12 months after their most recent dose.

The study estimated, in particular, that 96 per cent of those whose lives were saved due to vaccination were over the age of 60.

The estimations about the number of lives saved by the vaccines were done by back-calculating based on the number of deaths reported, estimations about the vaccines effectiveness, and what would have happened if people in certain age groups had not been vaccinated.

There were discrepancies between the countries: those with higher vaccine uptake reduced deaths by a higher percentage than those with lower vaccine uptake.

The countries that reduced deaths by the highest percentage were Israel, Malta, Iceland, Denmark, Finland, and the UK, while those that reduced deaths by the smallest percentage were Romania and Ukraine.

Countries that vaccinated early and vaccinated at high levels were likely to see much higher deaths averted than countries who were vaccinating a bit later, said Dr Marc-Alain Widdowson, WHO Europes lead on infectious hazard management.

The WHO warned meanwhile that Europe faces high levels of influenza infections.

In the last two weeks, there has been a 58 per cent increase in reported hospitalisations and 21 per cent increase in ICU admissions compared to the previous two weeks, according to Kluge, with flu infections increasing fourfold between November and December.

In response to a question from Euronews Next about rising influenza levels, Widdowson said that with all viruses, we should expect the unexpected.

But he added that after the COVID-19 pandemic, many people havent been exposed to influenza, which could be contributing to rising cases as some people may still be susceptible.

WHO Europe also warned that the COVID-19 situation, with cases currently decreasing, could change in the region, as a new variant called JN.1 is rising in prevalence among cases.

Kluge warned that he was deeply concerned that health is slipping from the political agenda and that we are failing to address that ticking time bomb facing our health and care workforce.

Some 13 countries in the region, for instance, did not report their respiratory illness surveillance data despite it being a first line of defence to monitor pathogens.

WHO Europes Dr Natacha Azzopardi-Muscat, who is in charge of country health policies, also warned that addressing the strain on health systems is not about adding hospital beds, but rather addressing the main bottleneck of a health workforce shortage.

In many countries, our health workforce is ageing and needs to be replenished. Having said that, unfortunately some health systems are struggling even to retain the current health workforce because of the pressures that they are under, she said, adding that remuneration, demographics, and working conditions can also have an influence.

Multiple European countries, including Germany, France, Portugal, and the UK, have seen health workers go on strike over concerns about pay and worker shortages.

In response to Euronews Next, Kluge warned that health, which was at the top of many political agendas during the COVID-19 pandemic, has been replaced by other pressing issues such as inflation, energy, and war.

But while health may not be everything, without health there is nothing, he warned.

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At least 1.4 million lives saved in Europe due to COVID vaccines - Euronews

Its been nearly five years since the COVID-19 pandemic began and, at this point, you probably have a good sense of the major signs of an infection. But the coronavirus and how people respond to it has changed over time. The COVID-19 symptoms in 2024 do not look the same as they used to for many people.

The rise of the JN.1 variant has also changed things. This COVID variant, which now makes up nearly 62% of COVID-19 cases in the U.S., tends to cause milder illness. However, the virus is still serious and deadly for some: Both hospital admissions and deaths from COVID-19 are on the rise in the U.S. right now.

So, what are the most current COVID-19 symptoms in 2024? And what should you look out for? Doctors break it all down.

Meet the experts: Thomas Russo, M.D., is a professor and chief of infectious diseases at the University at Buffalo in New York; Amesh Adalja, M.D., is an infectious disease expert and senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security; William Schaffner, M.D., is a professor at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine

Yes, there is a COVID surge happening right now. Data from the Centers for Disease Control and Preventions (CDC) wastewater surveillance suggests that were now in the second-largest COVID-19 surge since the pandemic began.

Currently, hospital admissions are up more than 3% and deaths from the virus are up 14%, per CDC data. In general, the vast majority of infections are mildthey do not require hospitalization, says William Schaffner, M.D., a professor at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine. It can be very difficult to distinguish that from a common cold or even influenza. So while some may experience a mild infection, others may not.

The JN.1 variant is the dominant strain of COVID-19 in the U.S. right now. It started as a blip on the CDCs radar in mid-November and quickly spread.

JN.1 descended from BA.2.86 and is a variant of Omicron, explains Thomas Russo, M.D., professor and chief of infectious diseases at the University at Buffalo in New York. JN.1 has more mutations on its spike protein from its parent strain, Dr. Russo says. (The spike protein of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, is what the virus uses to grab onto your cells and make you sick.)

Its important to point this out: The CDC has not updated its official list of COVID-19 symptoms since October 2022. Those symptoms include:

COVID-19s symptoms are generally of the same spectrum that they have always been, with the exception of less frequently reported loss of taste and smell, says Amesh Adalja, M.D., an infectious disease expert and senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security.

Overall, COVID-19 tends to look more like a cold, with a sore throat, runny nose, and maybe a fever and aches, Dr. Russo says. Thats because people have built up immunity to the virus, whether from having a previous infection, getting vaccinated, or both, he says.

Some people are still getting seriously ill with COVID-19 and dying from the virus, though, Dr. Russo points out. Those include at-risk patients, including those who are very young or very old, people who are immunocompromised, pregnant people, and those with underlying lung conditions, he says. Those people can develop shortness of breath and chest pain, in addition to the other symptoms, he says.

The CDC recommends that everyone aged five and up get the updated COVID-19 vaccine. But the uptake of the updated COVID-19 vaccine hasnt been highonly an estimated 14% of Americans have gotten it. However, doctors say its still a good idea to get the vaccine if youre able. Its not too late, Dr. Russo says.

COVID guidelines havent changed much in the past year. If you develop symptoms of the virus, doctors say its important to test yourselfespecially if youre at high risk for developing severe disease from COVID-19. There is no way to tell whether someone has COVID-19 or any other respiratory viral infections except by testing, Dr. Adalja says.

If you test positive for COVID-19, contact your doctor. We have medicines that can help prevent milder illness from getting worse, Dr. Schaffner says. (If you test negative, but feel lousy, he also recommends contacting your doctorthey can test you for the flu, which also has medicine to treat it.)

If youre positive for COVID-19, the CDC currently recommends that you stay home for at least five days and isolate from other people in your home. Youll also want to wear a high-quality (KN95 or N95) Face Mask around others through day 10 of your illness.

This article is accurate as of press time. However, as the COVID-19 pandemic rapidly evolves and the scientific communitys understanding of the coronavirus develops, some of the information may have changed since it was last updated. While we aim to keep all of our stories up to date, please visit online resources provided by the CDC, WHO, and your local public health department to stay informed on the latest news. Always talk to your doctor for professional medical advice.

Korin Miller is a freelance writer specializing in general wellness, sexual health and relationships, and lifestyle trends, with work appearing in Mens Health, Womens Health, Self, Glamour, and more. She has a masters degree from American University, lives by the beach, and hopes to own a teacup pig and taco truck one day.

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The Most Current COVID Symptoms of 2024, According to Doctors - Prevention Magazine