Coronamonomania Lives Forever, Part 175

Back at it after a disappointing election, particularly for Minnesota.

The response to the epidemic explicitly and implicitly caused a reduction in the receipt of health care, including for both acute issues and for ongoing care of chronic conditions.  Another very large study finds that during the CV-19 case surges, hospitalizations and ER visits for other care declined, in many cases dramatically and that subsequently the seriousness of the average case increased.  The authors express an appropriate concern that delays in care led to worsening outcomes.  (Premier Article)

Most people have had CV-19 and been vaxed.  The anti-vaxers like to claim that all kinds of medical problems including heart ones, are caused by the vax, and ignore what happens after infection.  The research shows otherwise.  This study was conducted among persons in Germany who had a mild CV-19 infection and no previous history of heart problems.  They were assessed once at least four weeks after the infection and again at least four months after the infection.  A large percent has some ongoing cardiac symptoms and tests revealed that many had cardiac inflammation.   (Nat. Med. Paper)

This paper has a finding you would expect–the likelihood of reactions to the vax is associated with the strength of the antibody response, and it also indicates that persons who were infected before vax were also more likely to have a reaction.  (JAMA Article)

Vaccine adverse events among the elderly were explored in this paper, which used the very large Medicare database to identify potential safety signals. While not necessarily indicating causation, such work can find association, and finds evidence of association of receipt of a vax with adverse events of concern.  After adjustment, the only association was of the Pfizer vaccine with pulmonary embolism.  Moderna and J & J vaccines had no associations.  (Medrxiv Paper)

This meta-review confirms what I regard as the obvious in regard to vaccine effectiveness studies–the role of prior infection has to be taken into account and the studies must use groups that segregate those with and without prior infection.  Failure to do that leads to erroneous vax effectiveness estimates.  But it also suggests that people with a prior infection don’t need the vax.  (Medrxiv Paper)

A large study from Hong Kong found that about half of residents were infected from Omicron strains, and vaccine effectiveness against such infection was modest, and declined rapidly.  (Medrxiv Paper)

I am not feeling particularly humorous today, but hard not to take note of this study on whether alcohol consumption increased during the epidemic.  Minnesotans, as do residents of any state, like to point fun at their neighbors, especially Wisconsinites, who have a fondness for cheese but an even greater love for alcohol.  So I note without comment that this study was done in Wisconsin, where many of us would have thought it was not possible to have a greater level of drinking.  (Medrxiv Paper)