Latest healthcare news
Should We Still Be Wearing Facemasks?
An interesting preprint in medRxiv published by Melo and others posted on June 27th 2021 shows the effectiveness of facemasks in blocking the transmission of SARS-CoV-2. In 2019, SARS-CoV-2 transmitted via the airborne route caused the COVID-19 pandemic. ...
COVID-19 Infection Cause a Cognitive Deficit
An interesting article published by Hampshire and others in the EClinical Medicine on July 22nd 2021 explores this issue. There is growing concern about possible cognitive consequences of COVID-19, with reports of long COVID symptoms persisting into the chronic phase...
Why do Variants like the SARS-CoV-2 Delta Variant Become Dominant?
An interesting article by Sarah Reardon in the Scientific American answers this question. If researchers were predicting which coronavirus variant would take over the world, the Delta variant would not have been their first guess. However, since its first...
Is the Cure Worse than the disease? Have the Health Impacts of Lockdown during the COVID-19 Pandemic been Worse than the Actual Effects of COVID-19?
An interesting commentary in the BMJ global health by Meyerowitz-Katz and others looks at this issue. During the pandemic, there has been ongoing and contentious debate around the impact of restrictive government measures to contain SARS-CoV-2 outbreaks,...
Long COVID; Does it Occur in Children and adolescents?
An interesting research letter in the Journal of the American Medical Association by Radtke and others on July 15th 2021 explored this issue. Children can experience SARS-CoV-2 post-viral syndromes, but it is unclear to what extent these individuals are...
How Many Orphans Have Resulted From the COVID-19 Pandemic?
An interesting article published in The Lancet July 20th 2021 by Susan Hillis and others summarises this. The COVID-19 pandemic priorities have focused on prevention, detection and response. Beyond morbidity and mortality, pandemics carry secondary...
Do Breakthrough Infections Occur Following COVID-19 Vaccination?
The CDC in America May 25th 2021 reports on this issue looks at breakthrough infections between January 1st and April 30th 2021. COVID-19 vaccines are a critical tool for controlling the ongoing global pandemic. The Food and Drug Administration...
What are the complications associated with COVID-19? A comment published in The Lancet by Gu and Cao July 17 2021 looks at this issue.
As the COVID-19 pandemic persists globally, an emerging challenge in the shift from acute infection to the burden of long-term consequences resulted from the disease. Although a consensus terminology has not yet been reached, the post-acute stage of...
How accurate are lateral flow tests in comparison to PCR swabbing for detecting SARS-CoV-2 in primary care?
An interesting research paper published by Leber and others July 13th 2021 discusses this issue. Testing for COVID-19 with PCR is considered gold standard. Again this may result in delayed detection of disease. Antigen detection via lateral flow testing is much...
The government’s testing programme for international arrivals. What information does it provide us with and how does it help?
Mandatory Day 2 and Day 8 PCR testing and variant sequencing of international arrivals has been recently introduced by the UK Government to mitigate against cross-border transmission of high-risk SARS-CoV-2 variants. SARS-CoV-2 testing and sequencing combines PCR with...
