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Humidity from masks may lessen severity of COVID-19 — NIH study
Masks help protect the people wearing them from getting or spreading SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, but now researchers from the National Institutes...
Israeli data shows Pfizer vaccine 94% effective against COVID-19
Israel’s largest healthcare provider has reported a 94% drop in symptomatic COVID-19 infections among 600,000 people who received two doses of the Pfizer’s vaccine...
UK Office of National Statistics validates QCovid risk prediction tool
Research led by Professor Julia Hippisley-Cox in the University of Oxford’s Nuffield department of primary care health sciences, with collaborators across the UK, found...
Asthma drug substantially reduces need for COVID-19 hospitalisation — STOIC trial
Early treatment with budesonide, a corticosteroid commonly used to treat asthma and and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), may reduce by 90% the need...
Preventive blood thinners link to reduced risk of death in COVID-19
Patients given prophylactic anticoagulants within 24 hours of admission to hospital with COVID-19 was associated with a decreased risk of 30 day mortality and...
Tocilizumab reduces deaths in hospitalised COVID-19 patients — RECOVERY trial
The an anti-inflammatory treatment, tocilizumab, reduces the risk of death when given to hospitalised patients with severe COVID-19, shows the RECOVERY trial, writes MedicalBrief....
CDC Guidelines: Maximising fit for cloth and medical procedure masks
On 10 February, the US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention released new mask guidelines based on a study of how mask fit affects...
Risk of death from COVID-19 3.5 times higher than from flu — Canadian study
A study has found that the risk of death from COVID-19 was 3.5 times higher than from influenza. "We can now say definitively that...
Covid risk factors for ICU admission or death — Argentinian national analysis
A nationwide analysis of data by Daniel Schönfeld of Centro Diagnóstico San Jorge in Puerto Madryn, Argentina, and colleagues from the first 6 months...
People with COVID-19 have higher risk of dying after cardiac arrest — Swedish study
COVID-19 patients who suffer a cardiac arrest either in or out of hospital are far more likely to die than patients who are not...
Pfizer vaccine delivers encouraging first results in Israel — Two studies
Early findings from Israel’s COVID-19 vaccination programme suggest that the rollout of the Pfizer BioNTech vaccine is leading to fewer new infections and is...
Colchicine improves outcomes in COVID-19 patients — Small Brazilian trial
Colchicine appeared to be safe and effective in treating moderate to severe COVID-19 infections in hospitalised patients, according to a randomised, double-blind clinical trial...
50+ long-term effects of COVID-19 – Systematic review and meta-analysis
More studies are emerging that are revealing increasingly disturbing information about the long-term consequences of even mild cases of COVID. A new meta-analysis found...
First evidence of UK coronavirus variant in California — Scripps Research
A research partnership between scientists at Scripps Research Institute and University of California San Diego has found the first evidence that the B.1.1.7 coronavirus...
SA changes course in vaccine rollout
Faced with its first-choice Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine showing showing low efficacy against the South African variant of the coronavirus, the Department of Health has responded...
AI model for severity prognosis in COVID-19 patients — COVID-AI Brasil
The first coronaviruses discovered in the world were responsible for respiratory and intestinal infections, of which the vast majority had a self-limited course and...
Russia's Sputnik V vaccine is 91.6% effective — Phase 3 results
The Russian Sputnik V vaccine is 91.6% effective at preventing symptomatic COVID-19, according to preliminary results from a phase 3 trial, placing it in...
Oxford vaccine shows sustained protection of 76% during 3-month interval to second dose
One dose of the Oxford/AstraZeneca vaccine provides sustained protection against COVID-19 for at least three months and cuts transmission of the virus by two-thirds....
Novavax highly protective against Kent variant but less against SA variant
The Novavax vaccine is highly protective of the Kent variant of COVID-19 but less so against the South African variant, writes MedicalBrief. “At the...
One in eight COVID-19 patients receive psychiatric diagnosis within 6 months — UK analysis
One in eight people who have had COVID-19 are diagnosed with their first psychiatric or neurological illness within six months of testing positive for...
Cumulative smoking especially associated with more severe COVID-19
People who have smoked for more than 30 pack-years - a unit for cumulative smoking - are about twice as likely to be hospitalised...
Loss of taste and smell slightly less likely symptom on new UK variant — ONS data
Cough, fatigue, sore throat and muscle pain may be more common in people who test positive for the new UK variant of coronavirus, BBC...
Trajectory of SARS-CoV-2 outbreaks across sub-Saharan Africa vary
The trajectory of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) is uncertain. To date, reported case counts and mortality in SSA have lagged behind...
Sixteen new SARS-CoV-2 lineages spread through South Africa from March to August 2020
An analysis of more than 1,300 near-whole genome sequences of SARS-CoV-2 isolated in South Africa during the first 6 months of the pandemic revealed...
Full-dose anticoagulants cut ICU-support and improved outcomes — 3 clinical trials
In large clinical trial conducted worldwide, full dose anti-coagulation treatments given to moderately ill patients hospitalised for COVID-19 reduced the requirement of vital organ...
Bamlanivimab significantly reduced risk of COVID-19 infection — BLAZE-2 trial
Eli Lilly has announced that its monoclonal antibody prevented COVID-19 infections in nursing home residents and staff in a clinical trial, the first time...
Donor plasma not successful in treating South Africa variant — SA NICD study
The new COVID-19 variant identified in South Africa can evade the antibodies that attack it in treatments using blood plasma from previously recovered patients.
Researchers...
Cancer an independent risk factor for poor COVID-19 outcomes — Penn study
Patients with inactive cancer and not currently undergoing treatments also face a significantly higher risk of severe illness from COVID-19, a study from Penn...
COLCORONA trial: Is gout-drug colchicine set to be the next Ivermectin?
An unpublished international clinical trial claims "clinically persuasive" evidence of the efficacy of the gout-drug colchicine to treat COVID-19, writes MedicalBrief. Compared to placebo,...
Face masks plus distancing increases COVID transmission control — Modelling study
Policies that increase prevalence of mask-wearing by 10% in a community would more than triple its likelihood of hitting a key COVID-19 control target,...
Smell test for COVID transmission 'high impact and cost effective’ — University of Colorado
In a perfect world, the entrance to every office, restaurant and school would offer a coronavirus test – one with absolute accuracy, and able...
CDC guidance on mixing Pfizer and Moderna vaccines in 'exceptional situations'
The US Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has updated its guidance on the coronavirus vaccines in circulation, green-lighting doctors to mix shots...
Lowering COVID-19 death risk with antibody-rich convalescent plasma — Mayo study
Administration of antibody-rich convalescent plasma to adult patients hospitalised with COVID-19 who did not require mechanical ventilation was linked to a lower risk of...
Fact File: Making sense of the Ivermectin controversy
Fanned by despair and social media, there has been a massive movement, both locally and internationally, for the immediate repurposing of anti-parasitic drug Ivermectin...
Metformin may reduce mortality risk 3x in patients with COVID-19 and diabetes
Use of the diabetes drug metformin – before a diagnosis of COVID-19 – is associated with a threefold decrease in mortality in COVID-19 patients...
72% in BAME communities 'unlikely' to vaccinate — UK Household Longitudinal Study
Advisers from the UK’s Scientific Advisory Group for Emergencies (Sage) have raised fresh concerns over COVID vaccine uptake among black, Asian and minority ethnic...
Suicide rates rise sharply in COVID-19's second wave — Japan Health ministry data
Suicide rates in Japan have risen sharply in the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, particularly among women and children, even though they fell...
Why COVID-19 pneumonia lasts longer, causes more damage than typical pneumonia
Bacteria or viruses like influenza that cause pneumonia can spread across large regions of the lung over the course of hours. In the modern...
New York Times: Double-layered cloth and the latest CDC Brief on masking
Laying out the science behind mask-wearing Linsey Marr, an expert in virus transmission at Virginia Tech says in a report in The New York...
Catching up to ‘Long COVID’ — Diagnostic and treatment information, at last
‘Long COVID’ – a version of COVID-19 that results in continued illness of a significant number of people for many months after the initial...