Sara Y Tartof u. a.: Effectiveness of mRNA BNT162b2 COVID-19 vaccine up to 6 months in a large integrated health system in the USA: a retrospective cohort study, in: The Lancet 398, Issue 10309 (16.10.2021), pp. 1407-1416, online in: https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(21)02183-8. Abstract: Background Vaccine effectiveness studies have not differentiated the effect of the delta (B.1.617.2) variant and potential waning immunity in observed reductions in effectiveness against SARS-CoV-2 infections. The authors aimed to evaluate overall and variant-specific effectiveness of BNT162b2 (tozinameran, Pfizer–BioNTech) against SARS-CoV-2 infections and COVID-19-related hospital admissions by time since vaccination among members of a large US health-care system. Methods […]
Materials
Yan Xie, Ziyad Al-Aly: Risks and burdens of incident diabetes in long COVID: a cohort study, in: The Lancet Diabetes and Endocrinology Vol. 10, Issue 5 (May 2022), pp. 311-321, online in: https://doi.org/10.1016/S2213-8587(22)00044-4. Summary Background There is growing evidence suggesting that beyond the acute phase of SARS-CoV-2 infection, people with COVID-19 could experience a wide range of post-acute sequelae, including diabetes. However, the risks and burdens of diabetes in the post-acute phase of the disease have not yet been comprehensively characterised. To address this knowledge gap, the authors aimed to examine the post-acute risk and burden of incident diabetes in […]
Christina Menni, Ana M. Valdez, Tim D. Spector u. a.: Symptom prevalence, duration, and risk of hospital admission in individuals infected with SARS-CoV-2 during periods of omicron and delta variant dominance: a prospective observational study from the ZOE COVID Study, in: The Lancet Vol. 399, Issue 10335 (April 23, 2022), pp. 1618-1624. Summary Background The SARS-CoV-2 variant of concern, omicron, appears to be less severe than delta. The authors aim to quantify the differences in symptom prevalence, risk of hospital admission, and symptom duration among the vaccinated population. Methods In this prospective longitudinal observational study, the authors collected data from […]
Vivek Naranbhai et al.: T cell reactivity to the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant is preserved in most but not all prior infected and vaccinated individuals, in: medRxiv, online in: https://doi.org/10.1101/2022.01.04.21268586. Abstract The SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant (B.1.1.529) contains mutations that mediate escape from infection- and vaccine-induced antibody responses, although the extent to which these substitutions in spike and non-spike proteins affect T cell recognition is unknown. In their article the authors show that T cell responses in individuals with prior infection, vaccination, both prior infection and vaccination, and boosted vaccination are largely preserved to Omicron spike and non-spike proteins. However, the authors […]
Yan Xie, Evan Xu, Benjamin Bowe, Ziyad Al-Aly: Long-term cardiovascular outcomes of COVID-19, in: Nature Medicine (Februrary 7, 2022), online in: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41591-022-01689-3. Abstract “The cardiovascular complications of acute coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) are well described, but the post-acute cardiovascular manifestations of COVID-19 have not yet been comprehensively characterized. In their study the authors used national healthcare databases from the US Department of Veterans Affairs to build a cohort of 153,760 individuals with COVID-19, as well as two sets of control cohorts with 5,637,647 (contemporary controls) and 5,859,411 (historical controls) individuals, to estimate risks and 1-year burdens of a set of […]
Lavienraj Premraj, Nivedha V. Kannapadi, Jack Briggs, Stella M. Seal, Denise Battaglini, Jonathon Fanning, Jacky Suen, Chiara Robba, John Fraser, Sung-Min Cho: Mid and long-term neurological and neuropsychiatric manifestations of post-COVID-19 syndrome: A meta-analysis, in: Journal of the Neurological Sciences 434 (2022) 120162, 7 pages. Key points Question: How commonly are neurological and neuropsychiatric symptoms reported three months or more after acute COVID-19 onset in adults? Findings: In a meta-analysis of 19 studies encompassing 11,324 patients (hospitalised and non-hospitalised), overall prevalence for neurological symptoms three months after COVID-19 onset was: fatigue (37%), brain fog (32%), memory issues (27%), attention […]
Arch G. Mainous III, Benjamin J. Rooks, Velyn Wu, Frank A. Orlando: COVID-19 Post-acute Sequelae Among Adults: 12 Month Mortality Risk, in: Frontiers in Medicine (December 12, 2021), online in: https://doi.org/10.3389/fmed.2021.778434. Background: There are concerns regarding post-acute sequelae of COVID-19, but it is unclear whether COVID-19 poses a significant downstream mortality risk. The objective was to determine the relationship between COVID-19 infection and 12-month mortality after recovery from the initial episode of COVID-19 in adult patients.
Michael Worobey: Dissecting the early COVID-19 cases in Wuhan, in: Science volume 372 (December 3, 2021) issue 6572, p. 1202-1204. In his article, author Michael Worobey traces the origins of coronapandmia.
Ilya R. Fischhoff, Adrian A. Castellanos, João P.G.L.M. Rodrigues, Arvind Varsani, Barbara A. Han: Predicting the zoonotic capacity of mammals to transmit SARS-CoV-2, in: bioRxiv (June 29, 2021), online in: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.02.18.431844. Back and forth transmission of SARS-CoV-2 between humans and animals may lead to wild reservoirs of virus that can endanger efforts toward long-term control of COVID-19 in people, and protecting vulnerable animal populations that are particularly susceptible to lethal disease. Predicting high risk host species is key to targeting field surveillance and lab experiments that validate host zoonotic potential.
Quentin De Larochelambert, Andy Marc, Juliana Antero, Eric Le Bourg, Jean-François Toussaint: Covid-19 Mortality: A Matter of Vulnerability Among Nations Facing Limited Margins of Adaptation, in: Frontiers in Public Health, Vol. 8, Artikel 604339, November 2020.
Andrew Joseph: Actual Covid-19 case count could be 6 to 24 times higher than official estimates, CDC study shows, in: STAT, 21 July 2020.
A. Danielle Iuliano u.a.: Estimates of global seasonal influenza-associated respiratory mortality: a modelling study, in: The Lancet, Issue. 10127 (2018) Vol. 391, pp. 1285-1300.
John Paget and others: Global mortality associated with seasonal influenza epidemics: New burden estimates and predictors from the GLaMOR Project, in: Journal of Global Health, No. 2 (December 2019) Vol. 9.
Final report of the “Heinsberg Study” Hendrik Streeck and others: Infection fatality rate of SARS-CoV-2 infection in a German community with a super-spreading event, 4 May 2020
World Health Organisation (WHO): Report of the WHO-China Joint Mission on Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19), 16-24 February 2020.
Office of National Statistics (London): Deaths registered weekly in England and Wales, provisional: week ending 10 April 2020 (21 April 2020).
Links to the website of the Santé publique France, where data and studies on the COVID-19 epidemic are continuously published (French).
Interim report by the Centro Nacional de Epidemiología (ISCIII) on mortality in Spain due to the Covid-19 pandemic, 4 April 2020 (Spanish).
Third Bulletin of the Italian Ministry of Health, 16 April 2020 (Italian).
Interim report by the University Hospital Bonn, 9 April 2020 (German). Prof. Dr Hendrik Streeck, Prof. Dr Gunther Hartmann, Prof. Dr Martin Exner, Prof. Dr Matthias Schmid