Last week, when I was working on this post, I accidentally edited the previous week’s post. I think that I have untangled the two posts properly, I do not guarantee that I got everything from this week properly moved from last week to this week.
Treatments
I have been wondering if Paxlovid is pronounced with the stress on the first or second syllable, PAKS-loh-vihd or paks-LOH-vihd. I found this video which has Pfizer’s presentation to the FDA about Paxlovid, and the Pfizer people all stress the second syllable, paks-LOH-vihd. Now we know. (Maybe I would have known if I had a TV and lived in the USA so saw commercials.)
Long COVID
This paper from USA (2024-01-23) found that people who were vaccinated were 70% less likely than unvaccinated to get Long COVID. This not exactly news, but it’s nice to get even more verification that vaccination reduces Long COVID.
This paper from New Zealand (2023-12-12) measured at 3131 different proteins in Long COVID patients’ and controls’ blood, and looked for differences. They found differences in 162 proteins, with 37 related to immune function and 21 related to mitochondria. They then compared those proteins to ones tagged by an earlier study on ME/CFS and found areas of commonality between the Long COVID patients’ and ME/CFS patients’ protein pattern. That gives more hope that a treatment for one would work on the other!
This paper from Brazil (2023-09-22) found COVID-19 in the tonsils of 27% of kids who had tonsilectomies and did not have a recent history of upper respiratory infections, making tonsils just one more place they have found COVID-19 hanging around long after the acute phase is over.
Vaccines
This paper from USA (2024-01-24) found that babies whose mothers had COVID-19 while they were pregnant were three times as likely to have later respiratory distress if their moms were vaccinated than those babies whose mothers were unvaccinated. Moms, get vaccinated!
This paper from USA (2024-01-22) found no difference in the neurological development of babies born to vaccinated or unvaccinated mothers.
This paper from USA (2024-01-19) found that cord blood from babies whose mothers had three doses of vaccine had about ten times as much anti-COVID-spike antibodies than those whose moms only had two doses. (NB: I don’t think they adjusted for recency; it might be that women with three doses had a dose more recently than those with two doses.) They did not find a significant difference in antibody levels between preemies and full-term babies.
Transmission
This paper from USA found that people who always wore eyeglasses were 15% less likely to catch COVID-19 than those who never wore glasses.
Pathology
Immunocompromised patients are not a monolith; there are different mechanics underlying being immunocompromised, and that matters. This paper from USA (2024-01-24) found that patients who were immunocompromised due to blood cancer or bone marrow transplants took a median of 72 days to test PCR-negative for COVID-19 compared to only 10 days for patients who were immunocompromised due to autoimmunity or B cell deficiency.
People who were severely immunocompromised had more mutations in their personal COVID-19 viruses (presumably due to the longer time the viruses hung out in their bodies) and were more likely to develop resistance to therapeutic monoclonal antibodies.