Melissa's Musings(My opinionated view of life)

Opinion: With COVID, flu and RSV circulating, it's time to return to mask mandates

People with food allergies less likely to become infected with SARS-CoV-2, study finds

It ain’t over ’til it’s over : SARS-CoV-2 is rapidly mutating and recombining, and more variants and subvariants—potentially more pathogenic—are on the horizon. The world is still barely vaccinated, and even in wealthy countries like the United States, resources are inequitably distrib­uted. It absolutely ain’t over. And this is no time to drop the ball.

SARS-CoV-2 BA.2 poses greater risk to global health than BA.1 : In a recent study published in the journal Cell, researchers investigated distinguishing virological characteristics of Omicron sub-variant BA.2.

4 evolutionary scenarios for the coronavirus that causes Covid-19 - STAT

Expect more worrisome variants after omicron, scientists say | WGN-TV : Every infection provides a chance for the virus to mutate, and omicron has an edge over its predecessors: It spreads way faster despite emerging on a planet with a stronger patchwork of immunity from vaccines and prior illness.

SARS-CoV-2 can infect kidneys directly, researchers find

More Data Link Psychiatric Disorders to Higher COVID Mortality | MedPage Today : People with schizophrenia were nearly four times as likely to die of COVID-19

Delta-like SARS-CoV-2 variants with enhanced transmissibility may cause a more severe pandemic : A SARS-CoV-2 variant with traits similar to that of the Delta variant-;enhanced transmissibility and an ability to infect people who had previous infections/vaccination-;will cause a more severe pandemic with more infections and breakthrough infections/reinfections than variants with either trait alone, according to a mathematical model created by researchers at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health.

Chronic Olfactory Loss Plagues Many With COVID-19 | MedPage Today

You Can Get COVID and the Flu at the Same Time - The Atlantic : Looking for coinfections creates more work for doctors, and interpreting the results when they find multiple pathogens lurking inside someone’s organs makes for an even bigger clinical headache. But more and more studies are finding that coinfections are commonplace, so it’s important not to ignore them—particularly for patients who are very ill. Not everything in biology abides by Ockham’s razor, a principle attributed to the Franciscan friar and philosopher William of Ockham, which argues that, when given several possible solutions, the one with the least complexity is the most likely. “Ockham was not a physician,” Griffin said. “You can have more than one thing going on.” From the above linked article

The Future of SARS-CoV-2 Vaccination — Lessons from Influenza | NEJM

Study finds the SARS-CoV-2 virus can infect the inner ear

Top health expert calls for 'urgent' research on new UK variant that might be more contagious than delta | TheHill : “There’s no clear indication that it’s considerably more transmissible, but we should work to more quickly characterize these and other new variants. We have the tools.” I'm pretty sure it's already in the USA.  Too early to let your guards down, people.  We can expect to live with COVID-19 through the spring of 2022, if not later. We need federal max and vax mandates.  We need social distancing.  We need partial lockdowns.  Otherwise, this is going to be "lather, rinse, repeat." Practice more mitigations now, to have to do less later.

The Mysterious Case of the COVID-19 Lab-Leak Theory | The New Yorker : Did the virus spring from nature or from human error?

SARS-CoV-2 is evolving to get better at becoming airborne, new study shows : Results of a new study led by the University of Maryland School of Public Health show that people infected with the virus that causes COVID-19 exhale infectious virus in their breath—and those infected with the Alpha variant (the dominant strain circulating at the time this study was conducted) put 43 to 100 times more virus into the air than people infected with the original strains of the virus. The researchers also found that loose-fitting cloth and surgical masks reduced the amount of virus that gets into the air around infected people by about half. The study was published in Clinical Infectious Diseases.

Teens, young men have higher SARS-CoV-2 infection rates

New SARS-CoV-2 variants have changed the pandemic. What will the virus do next? | Science | AAAS : The pandemic is giving scientists a unique view of viral evolution in action

COVID-19 vaccines may trigger superimmunity in people who had SARS long ago | Science | AAAS : After vaccine boost, severe acute respiratory syndrome survivors have antibodies that neutralize broad array of coronaviruses

Study finds existing drugs that can kill SARS-CoV2 in cells