Covid ICYMI

Case: A 3-year-old girl presented to the emergency department after a brief seizure at home. She looked well on physical exam except for a fever of 103° F and thick rhinorrhea.

The intern on duty methodically worked through the standard list of questions. “Immunizations up to date?” she asked.

“Absolutely,” the child’s mom responded. “She’s had everything that’s recommended.”

“Including COVID-19 vaccine?” the intern prompted.

“No.” The mom responded with a shake of her head. “We don’t do that vaccine.”

That mom is not alone. 

COVID-19 vaccines for children as young as 6 months were given emergency-use authorization by the Food and Drug Administration in June 2022 and in February 2023, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices included COVID-19 vaccine on the routine childhood immunization schedule.

COVID-19 vaccines are safe in young children, and they prevent the most severe outcomes associated with infection, including hospitalization. Newly released data confirm that the COVID-19 vaccines produced by Moderna and Pfizer also provide protection against symptomatic infection for at least 4 months after completion of the monovalent primary series. 

In a Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report released on Feb. 17, 2023, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported the results of a test-negative design case-control study that enrolled symptomatic children tested for SARS-CoV-2 infection through Feb. 5, 2023, as part of the Increasing Community Access to Testing (ICATT) program.¹ ICATT provides SARS-CoV-2 testing to persons aged at least 3 years at pharmacy and community-based testing sites nationwide.

Two doses of monovalent Moderna vaccine (complete primary series) was 60% effective against symptomatic infection (95% confidence interval, 49%-68%) 2 weeks to 2 months after receipt of the second dose. Vaccine effectiveness dropped to 36% (95% CI, 15%-52%) 3-4 months after the second dose. Three doses of monovalent Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine (complete primary series) was 31% effective (95% CI, 7%-49%) at preventing symptomatic infection 2 weeks to 4 months after receipt of the third dose. A bivalent vaccine dose for eligible children is expected to provide more protection against currently circulating SARS-CoV-2 variants. 

Despite evidence of vaccine efficacy, very few parents are opting to protect their young children with the COVID-19 vaccine. The CDC reports that, as of March 1, 2023, only 8% of children under 2 years and 10.5% of children aged 2-4 years have initiated a COVID vaccine series. The American Academy of Pediatrics has emphasized that 15.0 million children between the ages of 6 months and 4 years have not yet received their first COVID-19 vaccine dose.

While the reasons underlying low COVID-19 vaccination rates in young children are complex, themes emerge. Socioeconomic disparities contributing to low vaccination rates in young children were highlighted in another recent MMWR article.² Through Dec. 1, 2022, vaccination coverage was lower in rural counties (3.4%) than in urban counties (10.5%). Rates were lower in Black and Hispanic children than in White and Asian children. 

According to the CDC, high rates of poverty in Black and Hispanic communities may affect vaccination coverage by affecting caregivers’ access to vaccination sites or ability to leave work to take their child to be vaccinated. Pediatric care providers have repeatedly been identified by parents as a source of trusted vaccine information and a strong provider recommendation is associated with vaccination, but not all families are receiving vaccine advice. In a 2022 Kaiser Family Foundation survey, parents of young children with annual household incomes above $90,000 were more likely to talk to their pediatrician about a COVID-19 vaccine than families with lower incomes.³Vaccine hesitancy, fueled by general confusion and skepticism, is another factor contributing to low vaccination rates. Admittedly, the recommendations are complex and on March 14, 2023, the FDA again revised the emergency-use authorization for young children. Some caregivers continue to express concerns about vaccine side effects as well as the belief that the vaccine won’t prevent their child from getting sick. 

Kendall Purcell, MD, a pediatrician with Norton Children’s Medical Group in Louisville, Ky., recommends COVID-19 vaccination for her patients because it reduces the risk of severe disease. That factored into her own decision to vaccinate her 4-year-old son and 1-year-old daughter, but she hasn’t been able to convince the parents of all her patients. “Some feel that COVID-19 is not as severe for children, so the risks don’t outweigh the benefits when it comes to vaccinating their children.” Back to our case: In the ED the intern reviewed the laboratory testing she had ordered. She then sat down with the mother of the 3-year-old girl to discuss the diagnosis: febrile seizure associated with COVID-19 infection. Febrile seizures are a well-recognized but uncommon complication of COVID-19 in children. In a retrospective cohort study using electronic health record data, febrile seizures occurred in 0.5% of 8,854 children aged 0-5 years with COVID-19 infection.⁴ About 9% of these children required critical care services. In another cohort of hospitalized children, neurologic complications occurred in 7% of children hospitalized with COVID-19.⁵ Febrile and nonfebrile seizures were most commonly observed.

“I really thought COVID-19 was no big deal in young kids,” the mom said. “Parents need the facts.”

The facts are these: Through Dec. 2, 2022, more than 3 million cases of COVID-19 have been reported in children aged younger than 5 years. While COVID is generally less severe in young children than older adults, it is difficult to predict which children will become seriously ill. When children are hospitalized, one in four requires intensive care. COVID-19 is now a vaccine-preventable disease, but too many children remain unprotected.

Dr. Bryant is a pediatrician specializing in infectious diseases at the University of Louisville (Ky.) and Norton Children’s Hospital, also in Louisville. She is a member of the AAP’s Committee on Infectious Diseases and one of the lead authors of the AAP’s Recommendations for Prevention and Control of Influenza in Children, 2022-2023. The opinions expressed in this article are her own. Dr. Bryant discloses that she has served as an investigator on clinical trials funded by Pfizer, Enanta, and Gilead. Email her at pdnews@mdedge.com. Ms. Ezell is a recent graduate from Indiana University Southeast with a Bachelor of Arts in English. They have no conflicts of interest.

References

1. Fleming-Dutra KE et al. Morb Mortal Wkly Rep. 2023;72:177-182.

2. Murthy BP et al. Morb Mortal Wkly Rep. 2023;72:183-9.

3. Lopes L et al. KFF COVID-19 vaccine monitor: July 2022. San Francisco: Kaiser Family Foundation, 2022.

4. Cadet K et al. J Child Neurol. 2022 Apr;37(5):410-5.

5. Antoon JW et al. Pediatrics. 2022 Nov 1;150(5):e2022058167.

Case: A 3-year-old girl presented to the emergency department after a brief seizure at home. She looked well on physical exam except for a fever of 103° F and thick rhinorrhea.

The intern on duty methodically worked through the standard list of questions. “Immunizations up to date?” she asked.

“Absolutely,” the child’s mom responded. “She’s had everything that’s recommended.”

“Including COVID-19 vaccine?” the intern prompted.

“No.” The mom responded with a shake of her head. “We don’t do that vaccine.”

That mom is not alone. 

COVID-19 vaccines for children as young as 6 months were given emergency-use authorization by the Food and Drug Administration in June 2022 and in February 2023, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices included COVID-19 vaccine on the routine childhood immunization schedule.

COVID-19 vaccines are safe in young children, and they prevent the most severe outcomes associated with infection, including hospitalization. Newly released data confirm that the COVID-19 vaccines produced by Moderna and Pfizer also provide protection against symptomatic infection for at least 4 months after completion of the monovalent primary series. 

In a Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report released on Feb. 17, 2023, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported the results of a test-negative design case-control study that enrolled symptomatic children tested for SARS-CoV-2 infection through Feb. 5, 2023, as part of the Increasing Community Access to Testing (ICATT) program.¹ ICATT provides SARS-CoV-2 testing to persons aged at least 3 years at pharmacy and community-based testing sites nationwide.

Two doses of monovalent Moderna vaccine (complete primary series) was 60% effective against symptomatic infection (95% confidence interval, 49%-68%) 2 weeks to 2 months after receipt of the second dose. Vaccine effectiveness dropped to 36% (95% CI, 15%-52%) 3-4 months after the second dose. Three doses of monovalent Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine (complete primary series) was 31% effective (95% CI, 7%-49%) at preventing symptomatic infection 2 weeks to 4 months after receipt of the third dose. A bivalent vaccine dose for eligible children is expected to provide more protection against currently circulating SARS-CoV-2 variants. 

Despite evidence of vaccine efficacy, very few parents are opting to protect their young children with the COVID-19 vaccine. The CDC reports that, as of March 1, 2023, only 8% of children under 2 years and 10.5% of children aged 2-4 years have initiated a COVID vaccine series. The American Academy of Pediatrics has emphasized that 15.0 million children between the ages of 6 months and 4 years have not yet received their first COVID-19 vaccine dose.

While the reasons underlying low COVID-19 vaccination rates in young children are complex, themes emerge. Socioeconomic disparities contributing to low vaccination rates in young children were highlighted in another recent MMWR article.² Through Dec. 1, 2022, vaccination coverage was lower in rural counties (3.4%) than in urban counties (10.5%). Rates were lower in Black and Hispanic children than in White and Asian children. 

According to the CDC, high rates of poverty in Black and Hispanic communities may affect vaccination coverage by affecting caregivers’ access to vaccination sites or ability to leave work to take their child to be vaccinated. Pediatric care providers have repeatedly been identified by parents as a source of trusted vaccine information and a strong provider recommendation is associated with vaccination, but not all families are receiving vaccine advice. In a 2022 Kaiser Family Foundation survey, parents of young children with annual household incomes above $90,000 were more likely to talk to their pediatrician about a COVID-19 vaccine than families with lower incomes.³Vaccine hesitancy, fueled by general confusion and skepticism, is another factor contributing to low vaccination rates. Admittedly, the recommendations are complex and on March 14, 2023, the FDA again revised the emergency-use authorization for young children. Some caregivers continue to express concerns about vaccine side effects as well as the belief that the vaccine won’t prevent their child from getting sick. 

Kendall Purcell, MD, a pediatrician with Norton Children’s Medical Group in Louisville, Ky., recommends COVID-19 vaccination for her patients because it reduces the risk of severe disease. That factored into her own decision to vaccinate her 4-year-old son and 1-year-old daughter, but she hasn’t been able to convince the parents of all her patients. “Some feel that COVID-19 is not as severe for children, so the risks don’t outweigh the benefits when it comes to vaccinating their children.” Back to our case: In the ED the intern reviewed the laboratory testing she had ordered. She then sat down with the mother of the 3-year-old girl to discuss the diagnosis: febrile seizure associated with COVID-19 infection. Febrile seizures are a well-recognized but uncommon complication of COVID-19 in children. In a retrospective cohort study using electronic health record data, febrile seizures occurred in 0.5% of 8,854 children aged 0-5 years with COVID-19 infection.⁴ About 9% of these children required critical care services. In another cohort of hospitalized children, neurologic complications occurred in 7% of children hospitalized with COVID-19.⁵ Febrile and nonfebrile seizures were most commonly observed.

“I really thought COVID-19 was no big deal in young kids,” the mom said. “Parents need the facts.”

The facts are these: Through Dec. 2, 2022, more than 3 million cases of COVID-19 have been reported in children aged younger than 5 years. While COVID is generally less severe in young children than older adults, it is difficult to predict which children will become seriously ill. When children are hospitalized, one in four requires intensive care. COVID-19 is now a vaccine-preventable disease, but too many children remain unprotected.

Dr. Bryant is a pediatrician specializing in infectious diseases at the University of Louisville (Ky.) and Norton Children’s Hospital, also in Louisville. She is a member of the AAP’s Committee on Infectious Diseases and one of the lead authors of the AAP’s Recommendations for Prevention and Control of Influenza in Children, 2022-2023. The opinions expressed in this article are her own. Dr. Bryant discloses that she has served as an investigator on clinical trials funded by Pfizer, Enanta, and Gilead. Email her at pdnews@mdedge.com. Ms. Ezell is a recent graduate from Indiana University Southeast with a Bachelor of Arts in English. They have no conflicts of interest.

References

1. Fleming-Dutra KE et al. Morb Mortal Wkly Rep. 2023;72:177-182.

2. Murthy BP et al. Morb Mortal Wkly Rep. 2023;72:183-9.

3. Lopes L et al. KFF COVID-19 vaccine monitor: July 2022. San Francisco: Kaiser Family Foundation, 2022.

4. Cadet K et al. J Child Neurol. 2022 Apr;37(5):410-5.

5. Antoon JW et al. Pediatrics. 2022 Nov 1;150(5):e2022058167.

Case: A 3-year-old girl presented to the emergency department after a brief seizure at home. She looked well on physical exam except for a fever of 103° F and thick rhinorrhea.

The intern on duty methodically worked through the standard list of questions. “Immunizations up to date?” she asked.

“Absolutely,” the child’s mom responded. “She’s had everything that’s recommended.”

“Including COVID-19 vaccine?” the intern prompted.

“No.” The mom responded with a shake of her head. “We don’t do that vaccine.”

That mom is not alone. 

COVID-19 vaccines for children as young as 6 months were given emergency-use authorization by the Food and Drug Administration in June 2022 and in February 2023, the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices included COVID-19 vaccine on the routine childhood immunization schedule.

COVID-19 vaccines are safe in young children, and they prevent the most severe outcomes associated with infection, including hospitalization. Newly released data confirm that the COVID-19 vaccines produced by Moderna and Pfizer also provide protection against symptomatic infection for at least 4 months after completion of the monovalent primary series. 

In a Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report released on Feb. 17, 2023, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported the results of a test-negative design case-control study that enrolled symptomatic children tested for SARS-CoV-2 infection through Feb. 5, 2023, as part of the Increasing Community Access to Testing (ICATT) program.¹ ICATT provides SARS-CoV-2 testing to persons aged at least 3 years at pharmacy and community-based testing sites nationwide.

Two doses of monovalent Moderna vaccine (complete primary series) was 60% effective against symptomatic infection (95% confidence interval, 49%-68%) 2 weeks to 2 months after receipt of the second dose. Vaccine effectiveness dropped to 36% (95% CI, 15%-52%) 3-4 months after the second dose. Three doses of monovalent Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine (complete primary series) was 31% effective (95% CI, 7%-49%) at preventing symptomatic infection 2 weeks to 4 months after receipt of the third dose. A bivalent vaccine dose for eligible children is expected to provide more protection against currently circulating SARS-CoV-2 variants. 

Despite evidence of vaccine efficacy, very few parents are opting to protect their young children with the COVID-19 vaccine. The CDC reports that, as of March 1, 2023, only 8% of children under 2 years and 10.5% of children aged 2-4 years have initiated a COVID vaccine series. The American Academy of Pediatrics has emphasized that 15.0 million children between the ages of 6 months and 4 years have not yet received their first COVID-19 vaccine dose.

While the reasons underlying low COVID-19 vaccination rates in young children are complex, themes emerge. Socioeconomic disparities contributing to low vaccination rates in young children were highlighted in another recent MMWR article.² Through Dec. 1, 2022, vaccination coverage was lower in rural counties (3.4%) than in urban counties (10.5%). Rates were lower in Black and Hispanic children than in White and Asian children. 

According to the CDC, high rates of poverty in Black and Hispanic communities may affect vaccination coverage by affecting caregivers’ access to vaccination sites or ability to leave work to take their child to be vaccinated. Pediatric care providers have repeatedly been identified by parents as a source of trusted vaccine information and a strong provider recommendation is associated with vaccination, but not all families are receiving vaccine advice. In a 2022 Kaiser Family Foundation survey, parents of young children with annual household incomes above $90,000 were more likely to talk to their pediatrician about a COVID-19 vaccine than families with lower incomes.³Vaccine hesitancy, fueled by general confusion and skepticism, is another factor contributing to low vaccination rates. Admittedly, the recommendations are complex and on March 14, 2023, the FDA again revised the emergency-use authorization for young children. Some caregivers continue to express concerns about vaccine side effects as well as the belief that the vaccine won’t prevent their child from getting sick. 

Kendall Purcell, MD, a pediatrician with Norton Children’s Medical Group in Louisville, Ky., recommends COVID-19 vaccination for her patients because it reduces the risk of severe disease. That factored into her own decision to vaccinate her 4-year-old son and 1-year-old daughter, but she hasn’t been able to convince the parents of all her patients. “Some feel that COVID-19 is not as severe for children, so the risks don’t outweigh the benefits when it comes to vaccinating their children.” Back to our case: In the ED the intern reviewed the laboratory testing she had ordered. She then sat down with the mother of the 3-year-old girl to discuss the diagnosis: febrile seizure associated with COVID-19 infection. Febrile seizures are a well-recognized but uncommon complication of COVID-19 in children. In a retrospective cohort study using electronic health record data, febrile seizures occurred in 0.5% of 8,854 children aged 0-5 years with COVID-19 infection.⁴ About 9% of these children required critical care services. In another cohort of hospitalized children, neurologic complications occurred in 7% of children hospitalized with COVID-19.⁵ Febrile and nonfebrile seizures were most commonly observed.

“I really thought COVID-19 was no big deal in young kids,” the mom said. “Parents need the facts.”

The facts are these: Through Dec. 2, 2022, more than 3 million cases of COVID-19 have been reported in children aged younger than 5 years. While COVID is generally less severe in young children than older adults, it is difficult to predict which children will become seriously ill. When children are hospitalized, one in four requires intensive care. COVID-19 is now a vaccine-preventable disease, but too many children remain unprotected.

Dr. Bryant is a pediatrician specializing in infectious diseases at the University of Louisville (Ky.) and Norton Children’s Hospital, also in Louisville. She is a member of the AAP’s Committee on Infectious Diseases and one of the lead authors of the AAP’s Recommendations for Prevention and Control of Influenza in Children, 2022-2023. The opinions expressed in this article are her own. Dr. Bryant discloses that she has served as an investigator on clinical trials funded by Pfizer, Enanta, and Gilead. Email her at pdnews@mdedge.com. Ms. Ezell is a recent graduate from Indiana University Southeast with a Bachelor of Arts in English. They have no conflicts of interest.

References

1. Fleming-Dutra KE et al. Morb Mortal Wkly Rep. 2023;72:177-182.

2. Murthy BP et al. Morb Mortal Wkly Rep. 2023;72:183-9.

3. Lopes L et al. KFF COVID-19 vaccine monitor: July 2022. San Francisco: Kaiser Family Foundation, 2022.

4. Cadet K et al. J Child Neurol. 2022 Apr;37(5):410-5.

5. Antoon JW et al. Pediatrics. 2022 Nov 1;150(5):e2022058167.

As a field service representative for a slot machine company, Ryan Alexander, 37, of Louisville, Ky., spends his working hours in casinos, covering a large territory including Norfolk, Va., Indianapolis, and Charlotte. Social distancing in the casinos is not the norm. Despite all this up-close contact with people, he said he is still COVID-free, 3 years into the pandemic.

There was one nervous night when his temperature rose to 101° F, and he figured the virus had caught up with him. “I took a test and was fine,” he said, relieved that the result was negative. The fever disappeared, and he was back to normal soon. “Maybe it was just an exhausting day.”

Mr. Alexander is one of those people who have managed – or at least think they have managed – to avoid getting COVID-19.

He is, some say, a NOVID. While some scientists cringe at the term, it’s caught on to describe these virus super-dodgers. Online entrepreneurs offer NOVID-19 T-shirts, masks, and stickers, in case these super-healthy or super-lucky folks want to publicize their good luck. On Twitter, NOVIDs share stories of how they’ve done it.
 

How many NOVIDs?

As of March 16, according to the CDC, almost 104 million cases of COVID – about one-third of the U.S. population – have been reported, but many cases are known to go unreported. About half of American adults surveyed said they have had COVID, according to a December report by the COVID States Project, a multiuniversity effort to supply pandemic data.

As the numbers settle over time, though, it becomes clearer that some in the U.S. have apparently managed to avoid the virus.

While the exact number of people who have remained uninfected isn’t known with certainty, a review of comprehensive serologic data shows about 15% of Americans may not have gotten infected with COVID, Eric Topol, MD, editor-in-chief of Medscape (WebMD’s sister site for medical professionals) wrote in his substack Ground Truths.

But some scientists bristle at the term NOVIDs. They prefer the term “resisters,” according to Elena Hsieh, MD, associate professor of pediatrics and immunology at the University of Colorado at Denver, Aurora. Currently, she said, there is much more information on who is more susceptible to contracting severe COVID than who is resistant.

Dr. Hsieh is one of the regional coordinators for the COVID Human Genetic Effort, an international consortium of more than 250 researchers and doctors dedicated to discovering the genetic and immunological bases of the forms of SARS-CoV-2 infection. These researchers and others are looking for explanations for why some people get severe COVID while others seem resistant despite repeated exposure.
 

Resistance research

In determining explanations for resistance to infection, “the needle in the haystack that we are looking for is a change in the genetic code that would allow for you to avoid entry of the virus into the cell,” Dr. Hsieh said. “That is what being resistant to infection is.”

Part of the reason it’s so difficult to study resistance is defining a resister, she said. While many people consider themselves among that group because they’re been exposed multiple times – even with close family members infected and sick, yet they still felt fine – that doesn’t necessarily make them a resister, she said.

Those people could have been infected but remained without symptoms. “Resistance means the virus was inside you, it was near your cell and it did not infect your cell,” Dr. Hsieh said.

“I don’t think we know a lot so far,” Dr. Hsieh said about resisters. “I do believe that, just like there are genetic defects that make someone more susceptible, there are likely to be genetic defects that make somebody less susceptible.’’

“To identify genetic variants that are protective is a really challenging thing to do,” agreed Peter K. Gregersen, MD, professor of genetics at the Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research at Northwell Health in Manhasset, N.Y. Dr. Gregersen is also a regional coordinator for the COVID Human Genetic Effort.

He suspects the number found to be truly resistant to COVID – versus dodging it so far – is going to be very small or not found at all.

“It may exist for COVID or it may not,” he said. Some people may simply have what he calls a robust immune response in the upper part of the throat, perhaps killing off the virus quickly as soon as it enters, so they don’t get a positive test.

Genetic resistance has been found for other diseases, such as HIV.

“For HIV, scientists have been able to identify a specific gene that codes for a protein that can prevent individuals from getting infected,” said Sabrina Assoumou, MD, MPH, professor of medicine at Boston University, who researches HIV.

However, she said, “we haven’t yet found a similar gene or protein that can prevent people from getting infected with SARS-CoV-2.”

What has been found “is that some people might have a mutation in a gene that encodes for what’s called human leukocyte antigen (HLA),” Dr. Assoumou said. HLA, a molecule found on the surface of most cells, has a crucial role in the immune response to foreign substances. “A mutation in HLA can make people less likely to have symptoms if they get infected. Individuals still get infected, but they are less likely to have symptoms.”

Other research has found that those with food allergies are also less likely to be infected. The researchers have speculated that the inflammation characteristic of allergic conditions may reduce levels of a protein called the ACE2 receptor on the surface of airway cells. The SARS-CoV-2 virus uses the receptor to enter the cells, so if levels are low, that could reduce the ability of the virus to infect people.

The COVID Human Genetic Effort continues to search for participants, both those who were admitted to a hospital or repeatedly seen at a hospital because of COVID, as well as those who did not get infected, even after “intense and repeated” exposure.

The number of people likely to be resistant is much smaller, Dr. Hsieh said, than the number of people susceptible to severe disease.
 

The testing ... or lack thereof factor

The timing of testing and a person’s “infection profile” may be factors in people incorrectly declaring themselves NOVIDs, said Anne Wyllie, PhD, a research scientist in epidemiology at the Yale School of Public Health in New Haven, Conn., and a codeveloper of a saliva PCR test for COVID.

“Infection profiles can vary between individuals,” she said. For some, the infection may start in the lower respiratory tract, others in the higher respiratory tract. “Depending on where the virus takes up residence, that can affect test results.”

Then there’s the following-instructions factor. “It’s very likely that due to tests not being done at the right time, with the right sample, or not repeated if there is ongoing evidence of symptoms, that there are individuals out there who believe they are NOVIDs but just missed catching their infection at the window of opportunity.” Dr. Wyllie said.
 

Susceptibility research

“The part we have proven is the genetic defect that would make you more susceptible to having severe disease,” Dr. Hsieh said.

Many published papers report that inherited and/or autoimmune deficiencies of type I interferon immunity, important for combating viral infections and modulating the immune response, can be a significant cause of life-threatening COVID pneumonia.

More recently, researchers, including Jean-Laurent Casanova, MD, PhD, professor at Rockefeller University, New York, and cofounder of the COVID Human Genome Effort, reported that deficiencies in a gene that plays a role in built-in immunity (the early response), and a gene involved in signaling within the immune cells, impair interferon production and may be the basis of severe COVID pneumonia.
 

NOVIDs’ habits run the gamut

As scientists continue their research, the NOVIDs have their own ideas about why they’ve dodged the pandemic bullet, and they have a variety of approaches to handling the pandemic now.

Ryan Alexander, the field rep who travels to casinos, is up to date on his vaccinations and has gotten all the recommended COVID shots. “I was wearing a mask when told to wear masks,” he said.

He still observes the social distance habit but lives life. “I’ve been to three or four concerts in the past couple of years.”

And does he worry his number will eventually be up? “Not at this point, no,” he said.

Joe Asher, 46, said he has not gotten COVID despite being in contact with about 100 people a day, on average. He works as a bartender at an Evansville, Ind., brewery.

“On a Friday night, we can get 500 people,” he said. “I feel like almost everyone at the brewery got it. There’s no way I wasn’t exposed to it all the time.”

However, he said, his coworkers who did get sick were very cautious about not infecting others, partly to help protect a coworker’s family with newborn twins, so that may have helped him stay uninfected, too.

Mr. Asher said he’s in good physical shape, and he’s worked around the public for a long time, so figures maybe that has strengthened his immune system. He’s always been careful about handwashing and said he’s perhaps a bit more conscious of germs than others might be.

Roselyn Mena, 68, a retired teacher in Richmond, Calif., about 16 miles northeast of San Francisco, said she’s managed to avoid the virus even though her husband, Jesus Mena, got infected, as did her two adult children. Now, she remains vigilant about wearing a mask. She tries not to eat inside at restaurants. “I’m super careful,” she said.

Besides her teacher training, Ms. Mena had training as a medical assistant and learned a lot about sanitizing methods. She gets an annual flu shot, washes her hands often, and uses hand sanitizer.

When she shops, she will ask salespeople not wearing masks to please mask. “Only one refused, and she got someone else [to wait on her].”

One reason she is always careful about hygiene, Ms. Mena said, is that “when I get a cold, I get really sick. It last and lasts.” Now, she does worry she might still get it, she said, with the prospect of getting long COVID driving that worry.

In the beginning of the pandemic, Rhonda Fleming, 68, of Los Angeles, lived in a “COVID bubble,” interacting with just a few close family members. As cases went down, she enlarged the bubble. Her two grown daughters got infected, but her granddaughter did not.

She has been vigilant about masking, she said, “and I do still mask in public places.” She has a mask wardrobe, including basic black as well as glittery masks for dressier occasions. “I always carry a mask because inevitably, a cougher surrounds me.”

Now, she will bypass restaurants if she doesn’t feel comfortable with the environment, choosing ones with good air flow. When she flew to Mexico recently, she masked on the plane.

At this point, she said she doesn’t worry about getting infected but remains careful.

Recently, two friends, who have been as diligent as she has about precautions, got infected, “and they don’t know how they got it.”
 

Bragging rights?

Until researchers separate out the true resisters from those who claim to be, some NOVIDs are simply quietly grateful for their luck, while others mention their COVID-free status to anyone who asks or who will listen, and are proud of it. 

And what about those who wear a “NOVID” T-shirt?

“I would think they have a need to convey to the world they are different, perhaps special, because they beat COVID,” said Richard B. Joelson, a New York–based doctor of social work, a psychotherapist, and the author of Help Me! A Psychotherapist’s Tried-and-True Techniques for a Happier Relationship with Yourself and the People You Love. “They didn’t beat COVID, they just didn’t get it.”

Or they may be relieved they didn’t get sick, he said, because they feel defeated when they do. So “it’s a source of pride.” It might be the same people who tell anyone who will listen they never need a doctor or take no medicines, he said.

Even though science may prove many NOVIDs are inaccurate when they call themselves resisters, Dr. Hsieh understands the temptation to talk about it. “It’s kind of cool to think you are supernatural,” she said. “It’s much more attractive than being susceptible. It’s a lot sexier.” ■

A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.

As a field service representative for a slot machine company, Ryan Alexander, 37, of Louisville, Ky., spends his working hours in casinos, covering a large territory including Norfolk, Va., Indianapolis, and Charlotte. Social distancing in the casinos is not the norm. Despite all this up-close contact with people, he said he is still COVID-free, 3 years into the pandemic.

There was one nervous night when his temperature rose to 101° F, and he figured the virus had caught up with him. “I took a test and was fine,” he said, relieved that the result was negative. The fever disappeared, and he was back to normal soon. “Maybe it was just an exhausting day.”

Mr. Alexander is one of those people who have managed – or at least think they have managed – to avoid getting COVID-19.

He is, some say, a NOVID. While some scientists cringe at the term, it’s caught on to describe these virus super-dodgers. Online entrepreneurs offer NOVID-19 T-shirts, masks, and stickers, in case these super-healthy or super-lucky folks want to publicize their good luck. On Twitter, NOVIDs share stories of how they’ve done it.
 

How many NOVIDs?

As of March 16, according to the CDC, almost 104 million cases of COVID – about one-third of the U.S. population – have been reported, but many cases are known to go unreported. About half of American adults surveyed said they have had COVID, according to a December report by the COVID States Project, a multiuniversity effort to supply pandemic data.

As the numbers settle over time, though, it becomes clearer that some in the U.S. have apparently managed to avoid the virus.

While the exact number of people who have remained uninfected isn’t known with certainty, a review of comprehensive serologic data shows about 15% of Americans may not have gotten infected with COVID, Eric Topol, MD, editor-in-chief of Medscape (WebMD’s sister site for medical professionals) wrote in his substack Ground Truths.

But some scientists bristle at the term NOVIDs. They prefer the term “resisters,” according to Elena Hsieh, MD, associate professor of pediatrics and immunology at the University of Colorado at Denver, Aurora. Currently, she said, there is much more information on who is more susceptible to contracting severe COVID than who is resistant.

Dr. Hsieh is one of the regional coordinators for the COVID Human Genetic Effort, an international consortium of more than 250 researchers and doctors dedicated to discovering the genetic and immunological bases of the forms of SARS-CoV-2 infection. These researchers and others are looking for explanations for why some people get severe COVID while others seem resistant despite repeated exposure.
 

Resistance research

In determining explanations for resistance to infection, “the needle in the haystack that we are looking for is a change in the genetic code that would allow for you to avoid entry of the virus into the cell,” Dr. Hsieh said. “That is what being resistant to infection is.”

Part of the reason it’s so difficult to study resistance is defining a resister, she said. While many people consider themselves among that group because they’re been exposed multiple times – even with close family members infected and sick, yet they still felt fine – that doesn’t necessarily make them a resister, she said.

Those people could have been infected but remained without symptoms. “Resistance means the virus was inside you, it was near your cell and it did not infect your cell,” Dr. Hsieh said.

“I don’t think we know a lot so far,” Dr. Hsieh said about resisters. “I do believe that, just like there are genetic defects that make someone more susceptible, there are likely to be genetic defects that make somebody less susceptible.’’

“To identify genetic variants that are protective is a really challenging thing to do,” agreed Peter K. Gregersen, MD, professor of genetics at the Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research at Northwell Health in Manhasset, N.Y. Dr. Gregersen is also a regional coordinator for the COVID Human Genetic Effort.

He suspects the number found to be truly resistant to COVID – versus dodging it so far – is going to be very small or not found at all.

“It may exist for COVID or it may not,” he said. Some people may simply have what he calls a robust immune response in the upper part of the throat, perhaps killing off the virus quickly as soon as it enters, so they don’t get a positive test.

Genetic resistance has been found for other diseases, such as HIV.

“For HIV, scientists have been able to identify a specific gene that codes for a protein that can prevent individuals from getting infected,” said Sabrina Assoumou, MD, MPH, professor of medicine at Boston University, who researches HIV.

However, she said, “we haven’t yet found a similar gene or protein that can prevent people from getting infected with SARS-CoV-2.”

What has been found “is that some people might have a mutation in a gene that encodes for what’s called human leukocyte antigen (HLA),” Dr. Assoumou said. HLA, a molecule found on the surface of most cells, has a crucial role in the immune response to foreign substances. “A mutation in HLA can make people less likely to have symptoms if they get infected. Individuals still get infected, but they are less likely to have symptoms.”

Other research has found that those with food allergies are also less likely to be infected. The researchers have speculated that the inflammation characteristic of allergic conditions may reduce levels of a protein called the ACE2 receptor on the surface of airway cells. The SARS-CoV-2 virus uses the receptor to enter the cells, so if levels are low, that could reduce the ability of the virus to infect people.

The COVID Human Genetic Effort continues to search for participants, both those who were admitted to a hospital or repeatedly seen at a hospital because of COVID, as well as those who did not get infected, even after “intense and repeated” exposure.

The number of people likely to be resistant is much smaller, Dr. Hsieh said, than the number of people susceptible to severe disease.
 

The testing ... or lack thereof factor

The timing of testing and a person’s “infection profile” may be factors in people incorrectly declaring themselves NOVIDs, said Anne Wyllie, PhD, a research scientist in epidemiology at the Yale School of Public Health in New Haven, Conn., and a codeveloper of a saliva PCR test for COVID.

“Infection profiles can vary between individuals,” she said. For some, the infection may start in the lower respiratory tract, others in the higher respiratory tract. “Depending on where the virus takes up residence, that can affect test results.”

Then there’s the following-instructions factor. “It’s very likely that due to tests not being done at the right time, with the right sample, or not repeated if there is ongoing evidence of symptoms, that there are individuals out there who believe they are NOVIDs but just missed catching their infection at the window of opportunity.” Dr. Wyllie said.
 

Susceptibility research

“The part we have proven is the genetic defect that would make you more susceptible to having severe disease,” Dr. Hsieh said.

Many published papers report that inherited and/or autoimmune deficiencies of type I interferon immunity, important for combating viral infections and modulating the immune response, can be a significant cause of life-threatening COVID pneumonia.

More recently, researchers, including Jean-Laurent Casanova, MD, PhD, professor at Rockefeller University, New York, and cofounder of the COVID Human Genome Effort, reported that deficiencies in a gene that plays a role in built-in immunity (the early response), and a gene involved in signaling within the immune cells, impair interferon production and may be the basis of severe COVID pneumonia.
 

NOVIDs’ habits run the gamut

As scientists continue their research, the NOVIDs have their own ideas about why they’ve dodged the pandemic bullet, and they have a variety of approaches to handling the pandemic now.

Ryan Alexander, the field rep who travels to casinos, is up to date on his vaccinations and has gotten all the recommended COVID shots. “I was wearing a mask when told to wear masks,” he said.

He still observes the social distance habit but lives life. “I’ve been to three or four concerts in the past couple of years.”

And does he worry his number will eventually be up? “Not at this point, no,” he said.

Joe Asher, 46, said he has not gotten COVID despite being in contact with about 100 people a day, on average. He works as a bartender at an Evansville, Ind., brewery.

“On a Friday night, we can get 500 people,” he said. “I feel like almost everyone at the brewery got it. There’s no way I wasn’t exposed to it all the time.”

However, he said, his coworkers who did get sick were very cautious about not infecting others, partly to help protect a coworker’s family with newborn twins, so that may have helped him stay uninfected, too.

Mr. Asher said he’s in good physical shape, and he’s worked around the public for a long time, so figures maybe that has strengthened his immune system. He’s always been careful about handwashing and said he’s perhaps a bit more conscious of germs than others might be.

Roselyn Mena, 68, a retired teacher in Richmond, Calif., about 16 miles northeast of San Francisco, said she’s managed to avoid the virus even though her husband, Jesus Mena, got infected, as did her two adult children. Now, she remains vigilant about wearing a mask. She tries not to eat inside at restaurants. “I’m super careful,” she said.

Besides her teacher training, Ms. Mena had training as a medical assistant and learned a lot about sanitizing methods. She gets an annual flu shot, washes her hands often, and uses hand sanitizer.

When she shops, she will ask salespeople not wearing masks to please mask. “Only one refused, and she got someone else [to wait on her].”

One reason she is always careful about hygiene, Ms. Mena said, is that “when I get a cold, I get really sick. It last and lasts.” Now, she does worry she might still get it, she said, with the prospect of getting long COVID driving that worry.

In the beginning of the pandemic, Rhonda Fleming, 68, of Los Angeles, lived in a “COVID bubble,” interacting with just a few close family members. As cases went down, she enlarged the bubble. Her two grown daughters got infected, but her granddaughter did not.

She has been vigilant about masking, she said, “and I do still mask in public places.” She has a mask wardrobe, including basic black as well as glittery masks for dressier occasions. “I always carry a mask because inevitably, a cougher surrounds me.”

Now, she will bypass restaurants if she doesn’t feel comfortable with the environment, choosing ones with good air flow. When she flew to Mexico recently, she masked on the plane.

At this point, she said she doesn’t worry about getting infected but remains careful.

Recently, two friends, who have been as diligent as she has about precautions, got infected, “and they don’t know how they got it.”
 

Bragging rights?

Until researchers separate out the true resisters from those who claim to be, some NOVIDs are simply quietly grateful for their luck, while others mention their COVID-free status to anyone who asks or who will listen, and are proud of it. 

And what about those who wear a “NOVID” T-shirt?

“I would think they have a need to convey to the world they are different, perhaps special, because they beat COVID,” said Richard B. Joelson, a New York–based doctor of social work, a psychotherapist, and the author of Help Me! A Psychotherapist’s Tried-and-True Techniques for a Happier Relationship with Yourself and the People You Love. “They didn’t beat COVID, they just didn’t get it.”

Or they may be relieved they didn’t get sick, he said, because they feel defeated when they do. So “it’s a source of pride.” It might be the same people who tell anyone who will listen they never need a doctor or take no medicines, he said.

Even though science may prove many NOVIDs are inaccurate when they call themselves resisters, Dr. Hsieh understands the temptation to talk about it. “It’s kind of cool to think you are supernatural,” she said. “It’s much more attractive than being susceptible. It’s a lot sexier.” ■

A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.

As a field service representative for a slot machine company, Ryan Alexander, 37, of Louisville, Ky., spends his working hours in casinos, covering a large territory including Norfolk, Va., Indianapolis, and Charlotte. Social distancing in the casinos is not the norm. Despite all this up-close contact with people, he said he is still COVID-free, 3 years into the pandemic.

There was one nervous night when his temperature rose to 101° F, and he figured the virus had caught up with him. “I took a test and was fine,” he said, relieved that the result was negative. The fever disappeared, and he was back to normal soon. “Maybe it was just an exhausting day.”

Mr. Alexander is one of those people who have managed – or at least think they have managed – to avoid getting COVID-19.

He is, some say, a NOVID. While some scientists cringe at the term, it’s caught on to describe these virus super-dodgers. Online entrepreneurs offer NOVID-19 T-shirts, masks, and stickers, in case these super-healthy or super-lucky folks want to publicize their good luck. On Twitter, NOVIDs share stories of how they’ve done it.
 

How many NOVIDs?

As of March 16, according to the CDC, almost 104 million cases of COVID – about one-third of the U.S. population – have been reported, but many cases are known to go unreported. About half of American adults surveyed said they have had COVID, according to a December report by the COVID States Project, a multiuniversity effort to supply pandemic data.

As the numbers settle over time, though, it becomes clearer that some in the U.S. have apparently managed to avoid the virus.

While the exact number of people who have remained uninfected isn’t known with certainty, a review of comprehensive serologic data shows about 15% of Americans may not have gotten infected with COVID, Eric Topol, MD, editor-in-chief of Medscape (WebMD’s sister site for medical professionals) wrote in his substack Ground Truths.

But some scientists bristle at the term NOVIDs. They prefer the term “resisters,” according to Elena Hsieh, MD, associate professor of pediatrics and immunology at the University of Colorado at Denver, Aurora. Currently, she said, there is much more information on who is more susceptible to contracting severe COVID than who is resistant.

Dr. Hsieh is one of the regional coordinators for the COVID Human Genetic Effort, an international consortium of more than 250 researchers and doctors dedicated to discovering the genetic and immunological bases of the forms of SARS-CoV-2 infection. These researchers and others are looking for explanations for why some people get severe COVID while others seem resistant despite repeated exposure.
 

Resistance research

In determining explanations for resistance to infection, “the needle in the haystack that we are looking for is a change in the genetic code that would allow for you to avoid entry of the virus into the cell,” Dr. Hsieh said. “That is what being resistant to infection is.”

Part of the reason it’s so difficult to study resistance is defining a resister, she said. While many people consider themselves among that group because they’re been exposed multiple times – even with close family members infected and sick, yet they still felt fine – that doesn’t necessarily make them a resister, she said.

Those people could have been infected but remained without symptoms. “Resistance means the virus was inside you, it was near your cell and it did not infect your cell,” Dr. Hsieh said.

“I don’t think we know a lot so far,” Dr. Hsieh said about resisters. “I do believe that, just like there are genetic defects that make someone more susceptible, there are likely to be genetic defects that make somebody less susceptible.’’

“To identify genetic variants that are protective is a really challenging thing to do,” agreed Peter K. Gregersen, MD, professor of genetics at the Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research at Northwell Health in Manhasset, N.Y. Dr. Gregersen is also a regional coordinator for the COVID Human Genetic Effort.

He suspects the number found to be truly resistant to COVID – versus dodging it so far – is going to be very small or not found at all.

“It may exist for COVID or it may not,” he said. Some people may simply have what he calls a robust immune response in the upper part of the throat, perhaps killing off the virus quickly as soon as it enters, so they don’t get a positive test.

Genetic resistance has been found for other diseases, such as HIV.

“For HIV, scientists have been able to identify a specific gene that codes for a protein that can prevent individuals from getting infected,” said Sabrina Assoumou, MD, MPH, professor of medicine at Boston University, who researches HIV.

However, she said, “we haven’t yet found a similar gene or protein that can prevent people from getting infected with SARS-CoV-2.”

What has been found “is that some people might have a mutation in a gene that encodes for what’s called human leukocyte antigen (HLA),” Dr. Assoumou said. HLA, a molecule found on the surface of most cells, has a crucial role in the immune response to foreign substances. “A mutation in HLA can make people less likely to have symptoms if they get infected. Individuals still get infected, but they are less likely to have symptoms.”

Other research has found that those with food allergies are also less likely to be infected. The researchers have speculated that the inflammation characteristic of allergic conditions may reduce levels of a protein called the ACE2 receptor on the surface of airway cells. The SARS-CoV-2 virus uses the receptor to enter the cells, so if levels are low, that could reduce the ability of the virus to infect people.

The COVID Human Genetic Effort continues to search for participants, both those who were admitted to a hospital or repeatedly seen at a hospital because of COVID, as well as those who did not get infected, even after “intense and repeated” exposure.

The number of people likely to be resistant is much smaller, Dr. Hsieh said, than the number of people susceptible to severe disease.
 

The testing ... or lack thereof factor

The timing of testing and a person’s “infection profile” may be factors in people incorrectly declaring themselves NOVIDs, said Anne Wyllie, PhD, a research scientist in epidemiology at the Yale School of Public Health in New Haven, Conn., and a codeveloper of a saliva PCR test for COVID.

“Infection profiles can vary between individuals,” she said. For some, the infection may start in the lower respiratory tract, others in the higher respiratory tract. “Depending on where the virus takes up residence, that can affect test results.”

Then there’s the following-instructions factor. “It’s very likely that due to tests not being done at the right time, with the right sample, or not repeated if there is ongoing evidence of symptoms, that there are individuals out there who believe they are NOVIDs but just missed catching their infection at the window of opportunity.” Dr. Wyllie said.
 

Susceptibility research

“The part we have proven is the genetic defect that would make you more susceptible to having severe disease,” Dr. Hsieh said.

Many published papers report that inherited and/or autoimmune deficiencies of type I interferon immunity, important for combating viral infections and modulating the immune response, can be a significant cause of life-threatening COVID pneumonia.

More recently, researchers, including Jean-Laurent Casanova, MD, PhD, professor at Rockefeller University, New York, and cofounder of the COVID Human Genome Effort, reported that deficiencies in a gene that plays a role in built-in immunity (the early response), and a gene involved in signaling within the immune cells, impair interferon production and may be the basis of severe COVID pneumonia.
 

NOVIDs’ habits run the gamut

As scientists continue their research, the NOVIDs have their own ideas about why they’ve dodged the pandemic bullet, and they have a variety of approaches to handling the pandemic now.

Ryan Alexander, the field rep who travels to casinos, is up to date on his vaccinations and has gotten all the recommended COVID shots. “I was wearing a mask when told to wear masks,” he said.

He still observes the social distance habit but lives life. “I’ve been to three or four concerts in the past couple of years.”

And does he worry his number will eventually be up? “Not at this point, no,” he said.

Joe Asher, 46, said he has not gotten COVID despite being in contact with about 100 people a day, on average. He works as a bartender at an Evansville, Ind., brewery.

“On a Friday night, we can get 500 people,” he said. “I feel like almost everyone at the brewery got it. There’s no way I wasn’t exposed to it all the time.”

However, he said, his coworkers who did get sick were very cautious about not infecting others, partly to help protect a coworker’s family with newborn twins, so that may have helped him stay uninfected, too.

Mr. Asher said he’s in good physical shape, and he’s worked around the public for a long time, so figures maybe that has strengthened his immune system. He’s always been careful about handwashing and said he’s perhaps a bit more conscious of germs than others might be.

Roselyn Mena, 68, a retired teacher in Richmond, Calif., about 16 miles northeast of San Francisco, said she’s managed to avoid the virus even though her husband, Jesus Mena, got infected, as did her two adult children. Now, she remains vigilant about wearing a mask. She tries not to eat inside at restaurants. “I’m super careful,” she said.

Besides her teacher training, Ms. Mena had training as a medical assistant and learned a lot about sanitizing methods. She gets an annual flu shot, washes her hands often, and uses hand sanitizer.

When she shops, she will ask salespeople not wearing masks to please mask. “Only one refused, and she got someone else [to wait on her].”

One reason she is always careful about hygiene, Ms. Mena said, is that “when I get a cold, I get really sick. It last and lasts.” Now, she does worry she might still get it, she said, with the prospect of getting long COVID driving that worry.

In the beginning of the pandemic, Rhonda Fleming, 68, of Los Angeles, lived in a “COVID bubble,” interacting with just a few close family members. As cases went down, she enlarged the bubble. Her two grown daughters got infected, but her granddaughter did not.

She has been vigilant about masking, she said, “and I do still mask in public places.” She has a mask wardrobe, including basic black as well as glittery masks for dressier occasions. “I always carry a mask because inevitably, a cougher surrounds me.”

Now, she will bypass restaurants if she doesn’t feel comfortable with the environment, choosing ones with good air flow. When she flew to Mexico recently, she masked on the plane.

At this point, she said she doesn’t worry about getting infected but remains careful.

Recently, two friends, who have been as diligent as she has about precautions, got infected, “and they don’t know how they got it.”
 

Bragging rights?

Until researchers separate out the true resisters from those who claim to be, some NOVIDs are simply quietly grateful for their luck, while others mention their COVID-free status to anyone who asks or who will listen, and are proud of it. 

And what about those who wear a “NOVID” T-shirt?

“I would think they have a need to convey to the world they are different, perhaps special, because they beat COVID,” said Richard B. Joelson, a New York–based doctor of social work, a psychotherapist, and the author of Help Me! A Psychotherapist’s Tried-and-True Techniques for a Happier Relationship with Yourself and the People You Love. “They didn’t beat COVID, they just didn’t get it.”

Or they may be relieved they didn’t get sick, he said, because they feel defeated when they do. So “it’s a source of pride.” It might be the same people who tell anyone who will listen they never need a doctor or take no medicines, he said.

Even though science may prove many NOVIDs are inaccurate when they call themselves resisters, Dr. Hsieh understands the temptation to talk about it. “It’s kind of cool to think you are supernatural,” she said. “It’s much more attractive than being susceptible. It’s a lot sexier.” ■

A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.

Black children had almost three times as many COVID-related deaths as White children and about twice as many hospitalizations, according to a new study.

The study said that 1,556 children have died from the start of the pandemic until Nov. 30, 2022, with 593 of those children being 4 and under. Black children died of COVID-related causes 2.7 times more often than White children and were hospitalized 2.2 times more often than White children, the study said.

Lower vaccination rates for Black people may be a factor. The study said 43.6% of White children have received two or more vaccinations, compared with 40.2% of Black children.

“First and foremost, this study repudiates the misunderstanding that COVID-19 has not been of consequence to children who have had more than 15.5 million reported cases, representing 18 percent of all cases in the United States,” Reed Tuckson, MD, a member of the Black Coalition Against COVID board of directors and former District of Columbia public health commissioner, said in a news release.

“And second, our research shows that like their adult counterparts, Black and other children of color have shouldered more of the burden of COVID-19 than the White population.”

The study was commissioned by BCAC and conducted by the Satcher Health Leadership Institute of the Morehouse School of Medicine, Atlanta. It’s based on studies conducted by other agencies over 2 years.

Black and Hispanic children also had more severe COVID cases, the study said. Among 281 pediatric patients in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut, 23.3% of severe cases were Black and 51% of severe cases were Hispanic. 

The study says 1 in 310 Black children lost a parent or caregiver to COVID between April 2020 and June 2012, compared with 1 in 738 White children.

Economic and health-related hardships were experienced by 31% of Black households, 29% of Latino households, and 16% of White households, the study said.

“Children with COVID-19 in communities of color were sicker, [were] hospitalized and died at higher rates than White children,” Sandra Harris-Hooker, the interim executive director at the Satcher Health Leadership Institute of Morehouse School, said in the release. “We can now fully understand the devastating impact the virus had on communities of color across generations.”

The study recommends several changes, such as modifying eligibility requirements for the Children’s Health Insurance Program to help more children who fall into coverage gaps and expanding the Child Tax Credit.

A version of this article first appeared on WebMD.com.

Black children had almost three times as many COVID-related deaths as White children and about twice as many hospitalizations, according to a new study.

The study said that 1,556 children have died from the start of the pandemic until Nov. 30, 2022, with 593 of those children being 4 and under. Black children died of COVID-related causes 2.7 times more often than White children and were hospitalized 2.2 times more often than White children, the study said.

Lower vaccination rates for Black people may be a factor. The study said 43.6% of White children have received two or more vaccinations, compared with 40.2% of Black children.

“First and foremost, this study repudiates the misunderstanding that COVID-19 has not been of consequence to children who have had more than 15.5 million reported cases, representing 18 percent of all cases in the United States,” Reed Tuckson, MD, a member of the Black Coalition Against COVID board of directors and former District of Columbia public health commissioner, said in a news release.

“And second, our research shows that like their adult counterparts, Black and other children of color have shouldered more of the burden of COVID-19 than the White population.”

The study was commissioned by BCAC and conducted by the Satcher Health Leadership Institute of the Morehouse School of Medicine, Atlanta. It’s based on studies conducted by other agencies over 2 years.

Black and Hispanic children also had more severe COVID cases, the study said. Among 281 pediatric patients in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut, 23.3% of severe cases were Black and 51% of severe cases were Hispanic. 

The study says 1 in 310 Black children lost a parent or caregiver to COVID between April 2020 and June 2012, compared with 1 in 738 White children.

Economic and health-related hardships were experienced by 31% of Black households, 29% of Latino households, and 16% of White households, the study said.

“Children with COVID-19 in communities of color were sicker, [were] hospitalized and died at higher rates than White children,” Sandra Harris-Hooker, the interim executive director at the Satcher Health Leadership Institute of Morehouse School, said in the release. “We can now fully understand the devastating impact the virus had on communities of color across generations.”

The study recommends several changes, such as modifying eligibility requirements for the Children’s Health Insurance Program to help more children who fall into coverage gaps and expanding the Child Tax Credit.

A version of this article first appeared on WebMD.com.

Black children had almost three times as many COVID-related deaths as White children and about twice as many hospitalizations, according to a new study.

The study said that 1,556 children have died from the start of the pandemic until Nov. 30, 2022, with 593 of those children being 4 and under. Black children died of COVID-related causes 2.7 times more often than White children and were hospitalized 2.2 times more often than White children, the study said.

Lower vaccination rates for Black people may be a factor. The study said 43.6% of White children have received two or more vaccinations, compared with 40.2% of Black children.

“First and foremost, this study repudiates the misunderstanding that COVID-19 has not been of consequence to children who have had more than 15.5 million reported cases, representing 18 percent of all cases in the United States,” Reed Tuckson, MD, a member of the Black Coalition Against COVID board of directors and former District of Columbia public health commissioner, said in a news release.

“And second, our research shows that like their adult counterparts, Black and other children of color have shouldered more of the burden of COVID-19 than the White population.”

The study was commissioned by BCAC and conducted by the Satcher Health Leadership Institute of the Morehouse School of Medicine, Atlanta. It’s based on studies conducted by other agencies over 2 years.

Black and Hispanic children also had more severe COVID cases, the study said. Among 281 pediatric patients in New York, New Jersey, and Connecticut, 23.3% of severe cases were Black and 51% of severe cases were Hispanic. 

The study says 1 in 310 Black children lost a parent or caregiver to COVID between April 2020 and June 2012, compared with 1 in 738 White children.

Economic and health-related hardships were experienced by 31% of Black households, 29% of Latino households, and 16% of White households, the study said.

“Children with COVID-19 in communities of color were sicker, [were] hospitalized and died at higher rates than White children,” Sandra Harris-Hooker, the interim executive director at the Satcher Health Leadership Institute of Morehouse School, said in the release. “We can now fully understand the devastating impact the virus had on communities of color across generations.”

The study recommends several changes, such as modifying eligibility requirements for the Children’s Health Insurance Program to help more children who fall into coverage gaps and expanding the Child Tax Credit.

A version of this article first appeared on WebMD.com.

With 3 years of the COVID-19 experience now past, it’s safe to say that SARS-CoV-2 changed American society in ways that could not have been predicted when the first U.S. cases were reported in January of 2020.

Who would have guessed back then that not one but two vaccines would be developed, approved, and widely distributed before the end of the year? Or that those vaccines would be rejected by large segments of the population on ideological grounds? Could anyone have predicted in early 2020 that schools in 21 states would be forbidden by law to require COVID-19 vaccination in students?

Vaccination is generally considered to be an activity of childhood, but that practice has been turned upside down with COVID-19. Among Americans aged 65 years and older, 95% have received at least one dose of vaccine, versus 27.9% of children younger than 12 years old, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The vaccine situation for children mirrors that of the population as a whole. The oldest children have the highest vaccination rates, and the rates decline along with age: 72.0% of those aged 12-17 years have received at least one dose, compared with 39.8% of 5- to 11-year-olds, 10.5% of 2- to 4-year-olds, and 8.0% of children under age 2, the CDC said on its COVID Data Tracker.

The youngest children were, of course, the last ones to be eligible for the vaccine, but their uptake has been much slower since emergency use was authorized in June of 2022. In the nearly 9 months since then, 9.5% of children aged 4 and under have received at least one dose, versus 66% of children aged 12-15 years in the first 9 months (May 2021 to March 2022).

Altogether, a total of 31.7 million, or 43%, of all children under age 18 had received at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine as of March 8, 2023, according to the most recent CDC data.
 

Incidence: Counting COVID

Vaccination and other prevention efforts have tried to stem the tide, but what has COVID actually done to children since the Trump administration declared a nationwide emergency on March 13, 2020?

• 16.6 million cases.
• 186,035 new hospital admissions.
• 2,122 deaths.

Severe illness has been less of an issue in children, who represent 3.1% of all new hospitalizations with diagnosed COVID and just 0.2% of all deaths, despite being 22.3% of the overall U.S. population. Even the proportion of total COVID cases in children, 17.2%, is less than might be expected, given their relatively undervaccinated status.

Seroprevalence estimates seem to support the undercounting of pediatric cases. A survey of commercial laboratories working with the CDC put the seroprevalance of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies in children at 96.3% as of late 2022, based on tests of almost 27,000 specimens performed over an 8-week period from mid-October to mid-December. That would put the number of infected children at 65.7 million children.
 

Since Omicron

There has not been another major COVID-19 surge since the winter of 2021-2022, when the weekly rate of new cases reached 1,900 per 100,000 population in children aged 16-17 years in early January 2022 – the highest seen among children of any of the CDC’s age groups (0-4, 5-11, 12-15, 16-17) during the entire pandemic. Since the Omicron surge, the highest weekly rate was 221 per 100,000 during the week of May 15-21, again in 16- to 17-year-olds, the CDC reports.

The widely anticipated surge of COVID in the fall and winter of 2022 and 2023 – the so-called “tripledemic” involving influenza and respiratory syncytial virus – did not occur, possibly because so many Americans were vaccinated or previously infected, experts suggested. New-case rates, emergency room visits, and hospitalizations in children have continued to drop as winter comes to a close, CDC data show.

With 3 years of the COVID-19 experience now past, it’s safe to say that SARS-CoV-2 changed American society in ways that could not have been predicted when the first U.S. cases were reported in January of 2020.

Who would have guessed back then that not one but two vaccines would be developed, approved, and widely distributed before the end of the year? Or that those vaccines would be rejected by large segments of the population on ideological grounds? Could anyone have predicted in early 2020 that schools in 21 states would be forbidden by law to require COVID-19 vaccination in students?

Vaccination is generally considered to be an activity of childhood, but that practice has been turned upside down with COVID-19. Among Americans aged 65 years and older, 95% have received at least one dose of vaccine, versus 27.9% of children younger than 12 years old, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The vaccine situation for children mirrors that of the population as a whole. The oldest children have the highest vaccination rates, and the rates decline along with age: 72.0% of those aged 12-17 years have received at least one dose, compared with 39.8% of 5- to 11-year-olds, 10.5% of 2- to 4-year-olds, and 8.0% of children under age 2, the CDC said on its COVID Data Tracker.

The youngest children were, of course, the last ones to be eligible for the vaccine, but their uptake has been much slower since emergency use was authorized in June of 2022. In the nearly 9 months since then, 9.5% of children aged 4 and under have received at least one dose, versus 66% of children aged 12-15 years in the first 9 months (May 2021 to March 2022).

Altogether, a total of 31.7 million, or 43%, of all children under age 18 had received at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine as of March 8, 2023, according to the most recent CDC data.
 

Incidence: Counting COVID

Vaccination and other prevention efforts have tried to stem the tide, but what has COVID actually done to children since the Trump administration declared a nationwide emergency on March 13, 2020?

• 16.6 million cases.
• 186,035 new hospital admissions.
• 2,122 deaths.

Severe illness has been less of an issue in children, who represent 3.1% of all new hospitalizations with diagnosed COVID and just 0.2% of all deaths, despite being 22.3% of the overall U.S. population. Even the proportion of total COVID cases in children, 17.2%, is less than might be expected, given their relatively undervaccinated status.

Seroprevalence estimates seem to support the undercounting of pediatric cases. A survey of commercial laboratories working with the CDC put the seroprevalance of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies in children at 96.3% as of late 2022, based on tests of almost 27,000 specimens performed over an 8-week period from mid-October to mid-December. That would put the number of infected children at 65.7 million children.
 

Since Omicron

There has not been another major COVID-19 surge since the winter of 2021-2022, when the weekly rate of new cases reached 1,900 per 100,000 population in children aged 16-17 years in early January 2022 – the highest seen among children of any of the CDC’s age groups (0-4, 5-11, 12-15, 16-17) during the entire pandemic. Since the Omicron surge, the highest weekly rate was 221 per 100,000 during the week of May 15-21, again in 16- to 17-year-olds, the CDC reports.

The widely anticipated surge of COVID in the fall and winter of 2022 and 2023 – the so-called “tripledemic” involving influenza and respiratory syncytial virus – did not occur, possibly because so many Americans were vaccinated or previously infected, experts suggested. New-case rates, emergency room visits, and hospitalizations in children have continued to drop as winter comes to a close, CDC data show.

With 3 years of the COVID-19 experience now past, it’s safe to say that SARS-CoV-2 changed American society in ways that could not have been predicted when the first U.S. cases were reported in January of 2020.

Who would have guessed back then that not one but two vaccines would be developed, approved, and widely distributed before the end of the year? Or that those vaccines would be rejected by large segments of the population on ideological grounds? Could anyone have predicted in early 2020 that schools in 21 states would be forbidden by law to require COVID-19 vaccination in students?

Vaccination is generally considered to be an activity of childhood, but that practice has been turned upside down with COVID-19. Among Americans aged 65 years and older, 95% have received at least one dose of vaccine, versus 27.9% of children younger than 12 years old, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The vaccine situation for children mirrors that of the population as a whole. The oldest children have the highest vaccination rates, and the rates decline along with age: 72.0% of those aged 12-17 years have received at least one dose, compared with 39.8% of 5- to 11-year-olds, 10.5% of 2- to 4-year-olds, and 8.0% of children under age 2, the CDC said on its COVID Data Tracker.

The youngest children were, of course, the last ones to be eligible for the vaccine, but their uptake has been much slower since emergency use was authorized in June of 2022. In the nearly 9 months since then, 9.5% of children aged 4 and under have received at least one dose, versus 66% of children aged 12-15 years in the first 9 months (May 2021 to March 2022).

Altogether, a total of 31.7 million, or 43%, of all children under age 18 had received at least one dose of COVID-19 vaccine as of March 8, 2023, according to the most recent CDC data.
 

Incidence: Counting COVID

Vaccination and other prevention efforts have tried to stem the tide, but what has COVID actually done to children since the Trump administration declared a nationwide emergency on March 13, 2020?

• 16.6 million cases.
• 186,035 new hospital admissions.
• 2,122 deaths.

Severe illness has been less of an issue in children, who represent 3.1% of all new hospitalizations with diagnosed COVID and just 0.2% of all deaths, despite being 22.3% of the overall U.S. population. Even the proportion of total COVID cases in children, 17.2%, is less than might be expected, given their relatively undervaccinated status.

Seroprevalence estimates seem to support the undercounting of pediatric cases. A survey of commercial laboratories working with the CDC put the seroprevalance of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies in children at 96.3% as of late 2022, based on tests of almost 27,000 specimens performed over an 8-week period from mid-October to mid-December. That would put the number of infected children at 65.7 million children.
 

Since Omicron

There has not been another major COVID-19 surge since the winter of 2021-2022, when the weekly rate of new cases reached 1,900 per 100,000 population in children aged 16-17 years in early January 2022 – the highest seen among children of any of the CDC’s age groups (0-4, 5-11, 12-15, 16-17) during the entire pandemic. Since the Omicron surge, the highest weekly rate was 221 per 100,000 during the week of May 15-21, again in 16- to 17-year-olds, the CDC reports.

The widely anticipated surge of COVID in the fall and winter of 2022 and 2023 – the so-called “tripledemic” involving influenza and respiratory syncytial virus – did not occur, possibly because so many Americans were vaccinated or previously infected, experts suggested. New-case rates, emergency room visits, and hospitalizations in children have continued to drop as winter comes to a close, CDC data show.

People who have had COVID-19 have a 36% overall higher risk of developing gastrointestinal problems in the year after infection than people who have not had the illness, a large new study indicates.

The researchers estimate that, so far, SARS-CoV-2 infections have contributed to more than 6 million new cases of GI disorders in the United States and 42 million new cases worldwide.

The diagnoses more common among patients who’ve had COVID ranged from stomach upset to acute pancreatitis, say the researchers, led by Evan Xu, a data analyst at the Clinical Epidemiology Center, Research and Development Service, VA St. Louis Health Care System.

Signs and symptoms of GI problems, such as constipation and diarrhea, also were more common among patients who had had the virus, the study found.

“Altogether, our results show that people with SARS-CoV-2 infection are at increased risk of gastrointestinal disorders in the post-acute phase of COVID-19,” the researchers write. “Post-COVID care should involve attention to gastrointestinal health and disease.”

The results were published online in Nature Communications.
 

Disease risks jump

The researchers used data from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs national health care databases to identify 154,068 people with confirmed COVID-19 from March 1, 2020, through Jan. 15, 2021. They used statistical modeling to compare those patients with 5.6 million patients with similar characteristics who had not been infected during the same period and an historical control group of 5.9 million patients from March 1, 2018, to Dec. 31, 2019, before the virus began to spread across the globe.

The study included hospitalized and nonhospitalized COVID patients. The majority of the study population was male, but the study included almost 1.2 million female patients.

Compared with control persons, post-COVID patients’ increased risk of a GI diagnosis and the excess disease burden at 1 year, respectively, were as follows.

• 102% for cholangitis; 0.22 per 1,000 persons
• 62% for peptic ulcer disease; 1.57 per 1,000 persons
• 54% for irritable bowel syndrome; 0.44 per 1,000 persons
• 47% for acute gastritis; 0.47 per 1,000 persons
• 46% for acute pancreatitis; 0.6 per 1,000 persons
• 36% for functional dyspepsia; 0.63 per 1,000 persons
• 35% for gastroesophageal reflux disease; 15.5 per 1,000 persons

Patients who’d had the virus were also at higher risk for GI symptoms than their COVID-free peers. Their risk was 60% higher for constipation, 58% for diarrhea, 52% for vomiting, 46% for bloating, and 44% for abdominal pain, the investigators found.

The risk of developing GI symptoms increased with COVID-19 severity and was highest for those who received intensive care because of the virus, the researchers note.

Subgroup analyses found that the risks of composite gastrointestinal outcome were evident in all subgroups based on age, race, sex, obesity, smoking, cardiovascular disease, chronic kidney disease, diabetes, hyperlipidemia, and hypertension, the authors write.
 

Disease burden rises

The increased numbers of GI patients with prior SARS-CoV-2 infection are altering the burden on the health care system, senior author Ziyad Al-Aly, MD, a clinical epidemiologist at Washington University, St. Louis, said in an interview.

The shift may be pronounced in primary care, where GI concerns should be seen as a trigger for questions about prior SARS-CoV-2 infection, Dr. Al-Aly said.

Patients may encounter longer wait times at GI clinics or may give up on trying to schedule appointments if waits become too long, he said. They may also present to emergency departments if they can’t get an outpatient appointment, he added.

Simon C. Mathews, MD, assistant professor of medicine, division of gastroenterology, Johns Hopkins Medicine, Baltimore, told this news organization that he’s seeing increased wait times since COVID emerged.

“We know that the pandemic impacted patients’ ability and willingness to seek GI care. There continues to be a long backlog for patients who are only now getting reconnected to care. As a result, our clinics are busier than ever, and our wait times for appointments are unfortunately longer than we would like,” said Dr. Mathews, who was not involved in the research.

Abdominal pain, bloating, diarrhea, and constipation continue to be among the most common symptoms Dr. Mathews sees in clinic, he said.

Kyle Staller, MD, a Massachusetts General Brigham gastroenterologist, said in an interview that it’s important to distinguish symptoms from eventual diagnoses, which lag behind.

“Are patients attributing their symptoms to COVID, or is COVID itself creating a background of inflammation or changes in the nerves that are making these symptoms more common? My suspicion is a little bit of both,” said Dr. Staller, who is director of the Gastrointestinal Motility Laboratory at Mass General, Boston.

Although his clinic is seeing patients with the GI signs and symptoms listed in the article, “we’re not seeing as much of some of the diagnoses, like peptic ulcer disease and pancreatitis,” he said. “I wonder if those may be related to some of the consequences of being critically ill in general, rather than COVID specifically. Those diagnoses I would be more skeptical about.”
 

Duration of symptoms unclear

It’s hard to tell patients how long their GI symptoms might last after COVID, given the relatively short time researchers have had to study the virus, said Dr. Staller, who was not involved in the research.

The symptoms he’s seeing in patients after COVID mimic those of postinfectious IBS, which literature says could last for months or years, Dr. Staller said. “But they should improve over time,” he added.

Senior author Dr. Al-Aly agreed that the duration of post-COVID GI symptoms is unclear.

“What I can tell you is that even people who got SARS-CoV-2 infection from March 2020 are still coming back for GI problems,” he said.

Unlike other symptoms of long COVID, such as brain fog, gastroenterologists fortunately know how to treat the GI disorders that evolve from SARS-CoV-2 infection, said Dr. Al-Aly, who has studied the long-term effects of the virus on the brain, kidneys, heart, and other organs.

All health care providers “need to be thinking about COVID as a risk factor for all these diseases” and should ask patients about SARS-CoV-2 infection when they take their histories, he said.

The authors, Dr. Staller, and Dr. Mathews report no relevant financial relationships.

A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.

People who have had COVID-19 have a 36% overall higher risk of developing gastrointestinal problems in the year after infection than people who have not had the illness, a large new study indicates.

The researchers estimate that, so far, SARS-CoV-2 infections have contributed to more than 6 million new cases of GI disorders in the United States and 42 million new cases worldwide.

The diagnoses more common among patients who’ve had COVID ranged from stomach upset to acute pancreatitis, say the researchers, led by Evan Xu, a data analyst at the Clinical Epidemiology Center, Research and Development Service, VA St. Louis Health Care System.

Signs and symptoms of GI problems, such as constipation and diarrhea, also were more common among patients who had had the virus, the study found.

“Altogether, our results show that people with SARS-CoV-2 infection are at increased risk of gastrointestinal disorders in the post-acute phase of COVID-19,” the researchers write. “Post-COVID care should involve attention to gastrointestinal health and disease.”

The results were published online in Nature Communications.
 

Disease risks jump

The researchers used data from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs national health care databases to identify 154,068 people with confirmed COVID-19 from March 1, 2020, through Jan. 15, 2021. They used statistical modeling to compare those patients with 5.6 million patients with similar characteristics who had not been infected during the same period and an historical control group of 5.9 million patients from March 1, 2018, to Dec. 31, 2019, before the virus began to spread across the globe.

The study included hospitalized and nonhospitalized COVID patients. The majority of the study population was male, but the study included almost 1.2 million female patients.

Compared with control persons, post-COVID patients’ increased risk of a GI diagnosis and the excess disease burden at 1 year, respectively, were as follows.

• 102% for cholangitis; 0.22 per 1,000 persons
• 62% for peptic ulcer disease; 1.57 per 1,000 persons
• 54% for irritable bowel syndrome; 0.44 per 1,000 persons
• 47% for acute gastritis; 0.47 per 1,000 persons
• 46% for acute pancreatitis; 0.6 per 1,000 persons
• 36% for functional dyspepsia; 0.63 per 1,000 persons
• 35% for gastroesophageal reflux disease; 15.5 per 1,000 persons

Patients who’d had the virus were also at higher risk for GI symptoms than their COVID-free peers. Their risk was 60% higher for constipation, 58% for diarrhea, 52% for vomiting, 46% for bloating, and 44% for abdominal pain, the investigators found.

The risk of developing GI symptoms increased with COVID-19 severity and was highest for those who received intensive care because of the virus, the researchers note.

Subgroup analyses found that the risks of composite gastrointestinal outcome were evident in all subgroups based on age, race, sex, obesity, smoking, cardiovascular disease, chronic kidney disease, diabetes, hyperlipidemia, and hypertension, the authors write.
 

Disease burden rises

The increased numbers of GI patients with prior SARS-CoV-2 infection are altering the burden on the health care system, senior author Ziyad Al-Aly, MD, a clinical epidemiologist at Washington University, St. Louis, said in an interview.

The shift may be pronounced in primary care, where GI concerns should be seen as a trigger for questions about prior SARS-CoV-2 infection, Dr. Al-Aly said.

Patients may encounter longer wait times at GI clinics or may give up on trying to schedule appointments if waits become too long, he said. They may also present to emergency departments if they can’t get an outpatient appointment, he added.

Simon C. Mathews, MD, assistant professor of medicine, division of gastroenterology, Johns Hopkins Medicine, Baltimore, told this news organization that he’s seeing increased wait times since COVID emerged.

“We know that the pandemic impacted patients’ ability and willingness to seek GI care. There continues to be a long backlog for patients who are only now getting reconnected to care. As a result, our clinics are busier than ever, and our wait times for appointments are unfortunately longer than we would like,” said Dr. Mathews, who was not involved in the research.

Abdominal pain, bloating, diarrhea, and constipation continue to be among the most common symptoms Dr. Mathews sees in clinic, he said.

Kyle Staller, MD, a Massachusetts General Brigham gastroenterologist, said in an interview that it’s important to distinguish symptoms from eventual diagnoses, which lag behind.

“Are patients attributing their symptoms to COVID, or is COVID itself creating a background of inflammation or changes in the nerves that are making these symptoms more common? My suspicion is a little bit of both,” said Dr. Staller, who is director of the Gastrointestinal Motility Laboratory at Mass General, Boston.

Although his clinic is seeing patients with the GI signs and symptoms listed in the article, “we’re not seeing as much of some of the diagnoses, like peptic ulcer disease and pancreatitis,” he said. “I wonder if those may be related to some of the consequences of being critically ill in general, rather than COVID specifically. Those diagnoses I would be more skeptical about.”
 

Duration of symptoms unclear

It’s hard to tell patients how long their GI symptoms might last after COVID, given the relatively short time researchers have had to study the virus, said Dr. Staller, who was not involved in the research.

The symptoms he’s seeing in patients after COVID mimic those of postinfectious IBS, which literature says could last for months or years, Dr. Staller said. “But they should improve over time,” he added.

Senior author Dr. Al-Aly agreed that the duration of post-COVID GI symptoms is unclear.

“What I can tell you is that even people who got SARS-CoV-2 infection from March 2020 are still coming back for GI problems,” he said.

Unlike other symptoms of long COVID, such as brain fog, gastroenterologists fortunately know how to treat the GI disorders that evolve from SARS-CoV-2 infection, said Dr. Al-Aly, who has studied the long-term effects of the virus on the brain, kidneys, heart, and other organs.

All health care providers “need to be thinking about COVID as a risk factor for all these diseases” and should ask patients about SARS-CoV-2 infection when they take their histories, he said.

The authors, Dr. Staller, and Dr. Mathews report no relevant financial relationships.

A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.

People who have had COVID-19 have a 36% overall higher risk of developing gastrointestinal problems in the year after infection than people who have not had the illness, a large new study indicates.

The researchers estimate that, so far, SARS-CoV-2 infections have contributed to more than 6 million new cases of GI disorders in the United States and 42 million new cases worldwide.

The diagnoses more common among patients who’ve had COVID ranged from stomach upset to acute pancreatitis, say the researchers, led by Evan Xu, a data analyst at the Clinical Epidemiology Center, Research and Development Service, VA St. Louis Health Care System.

Signs and symptoms of GI problems, such as constipation and diarrhea, also were more common among patients who had had the virus, the study found.

“Altogether, our results show that people with SARS-CoV-2 infection are at increased risk of gastrointestinal disorders in the post-acute phase of COVID-19,” the researchers write. “Post-COVID care should involve attention to gastrointestinal health and disease.”

The results were published online in Nature Communications.
 

Disease risks jump

The researchers used data from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs national health care databases to identify 154,068 people with confirmed COVID-19 from March 1, 2020, through Jan. 15, 2021. They used statistical modeling to compare those patients with 5.6 million patients with similar characteristics who had not been infected during the same period and an historical control group of 5.9 million patients from March 1, 2018, to Dec. 31, 2019, before the virus began to spread across the globe.

The study included hospitalized and nonhospitalized COVID patients. The majority of the study population was male, but the study included almost 1.2 million female patients.

Compared with control persons, post-COVID patients’ increased risk of a GI diagnosis and the excess disease burden at 1 year, respectively, were as follows.

• 102% for cholangitis; 0.22 per 1,000 persons
• 62% for peptic ulcer disease; 1.57 per 1,000 persons
• 54% for irritable bowel syndrome; 0.44 per 1,000 persons
• 47% for acute gastritis; 0.47 per 1,000 persons
• 46% for acute pancreatitis; 0.6 per 1,000 persons
• 36% for functional dyspepsia; 0.63 per 1,000 persons
• 35% for gastroesophageal reflux disease; 15.5 per 1,000 persons

Patients who’d had the virus were also at higher risk for GI symptoms than their COVID-free peers. Their risk was 60% higher for constipation, 58% for diarrhea, 52% for vomiting, 46% for bloating, and 44% for abdominal pain, the investigators found.

The risk of developing GI symptoms increased with COVID-19 severity and was highest for those who received intensive care because of the virus, the researchers note.

Subgroup analyses found that the risks of composite gastrointestinal outcome were evident in all subgroups based on age, race, sex, obesity, smoking, cardiovascular disease, chronic kidney disease, diabetes, hyperlipidemia, and hypertension, the authors write.
 

Disease burden rises

The increased numbers of GI patients with prior SARS-CoV-2 infection are altering the burden on the health care system, senior author Ziyad Al-Aly, MD, a clinical epidemiologist at Washington University, St. Louis, said in an interview.

The shift may be pronounced in primary care, where GI concerns should be seen as a trigger for questions about prior SARS-CoV-2 infection, Dr. Al-Aly said.

Patients may encounter longer wait times at GI clinics or may give up on trying to schedule appointments if waits become too long, he said. They may also present to emergency departments if they can’t get an outpatient appointment, he added.

Simon C. Mathews, MD, assistant professor of medicine, division of gastroenterology, Johns Hopkins Medicine, Baltimore, told this news organization that he’s seeing increased wait times since COVID emerged.

“We know that the pandemic impacted patients’ ability and willingness to seek GI care. There continues to be a long backlog for patients who are only now getting reconnected to care. As a result, our clinics are busier than ever, and our wait times for appointments are unfortunately longer than we would like,” said Dr. Mathews, who was not involved in the research.

Abdominal pain, bloating, diarrhea, and constipation continue to be among the most common symptoms Dr. Mathews sees in clinic, he said.

Kyle Staller, MD, a Massachusetts General Brigham gastroenterologist, said in an interview that it’s important to distinguish symptoms from eventual diagnoses, which lag behind.

“Are patients attributing their symptoms to COVID, or is COVID itself creating a background of inflammation or changes in the nerves that are making these symptoms more common? My suspicion is a little bit of both,” said Dr. Staller, who is director of the Gastrointestinal Motility Laboratory at Mass General, Boston.

Although his clinic is seeing patients with the GI signs and symptoms listed in the article, “we’re not seeing as much of some of the diagnoses, like peptic ulcer disease and pancreatitis,” he said. “I wonder if those may be related to some of the consequences of being critically ill in general, rather than COVID specifically. Those diagnoses I would be more skeptical about.”
 

Duration of symptoms unclear

It’s hard to tell patients how long their GI symptoms might last after COVID, given the relatively short time researchers have had to study the virus, said Dr. Staller, who was not involved in the research.

The symptoms he’s seeing in patients after COVID mimic those of postinfectious IBS, which literature says could last for months or years, Dr. Staller said. “But they should improve over time,” he added.

Senior author Dr. Al-Aly agreed that the duration of post-COVID GI symptoms is unclear.

“What I can tell you is that even people who got SARS-CoV-2 infection from March 2020 are still coming back for GI problems,” he said.

Unlike other symptoms of long COVID, such as brain fog, gastroenterologists fortunately know how to treat the GI disorders that evolve from SARS-CoV-2 infection, said Dr. Al-Aly, who has studied the long-term effects of the virus on the brain, kidneys, heart, and other organs.

All health care providers “need to be thinking about COVID as a risk factor for all these diseases” and should ask patients about SARS-CoV-2 infection when they take their histories, he said.

The authors, Dr. Staller, and Dr. Mathews report no relevant financial relationships.

A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.

Overall risk for venous thromboembolism (VTE) in nonhospitalized COVID-19 patients is low, but some of those patients may have factors that increase the risk and warrant more surveillance, according to a new retrospective cohort study.

Though VTE risk is well studied and significant in those hospitalized with COVID, little is known about the risk in the outpatient setting, said the authors of the new research published online in JAMA Network Open.

The study was conducted at two integrated health care delivery systems in northern and southern California. Data were gathered from the Kaiser Permanente Virtual Data Warehouse and electronic health records.
 

Nearly 400,000 patients studied

Researchers, led by Margaret Fang, MD, with the division of hospital medicine, University of California, San Francisco, identified 398,530 outpatients with COVID-19 from Jan. 1, 2020, through Jan. 31, 2021.

VTE risk was low overall for ambulatory COVID patients.

“It is a reassuring study,” Dr. Fang said in an interview.

The researchers found that the risk is highest in the first 30 days after COVID-19 diagnosis (unadjusted rate, 0.58; 95% confidence interval, 0.51-0.67 per 100 person-years vs. 0.09; 95% CI, 0.08-0.11 per 100 person-years after 30 days).
 

Factors linked with high VTE risk

They also found that several factors were linked with a higher risk of blood clots in the study population, including being at least 55 years old; being male; having a history of blood clots or thrombophilia; and a body mass index (BMI) of at least 30 kg/m².

The authors write, “These findings may help identify subsets of patients with COVID-19 who could benefit from VTE preventive strategies and more intensive short-term surveillance.”
 

Are routine anticoagulants justified?

Previously, randomized clinical trials have found that hospitalized patients with moderate COVID-19 may benefit from therapeutically dosed heparin anticoagulants but that therapeutic anticoagulation had no net benefit – and perhaps could even harm – patients who were critically ill with COVID.

“[M]uch less is known about the optimal thromboprophylaxis strategy for people with milder presentations of COVID-19 who do not require hospitalization,” they write.
 

Mild COVID VTE risk similar to general population

The authors note that rates of blood clots linked with COVID-19 are not much higher than the average blood clot rate in the general population, which is about 0.1-0.2 per 100 person-years.

Therefore, the results don’t justify routine administration of anticoagulation given the costs, inconvenience, and bleeding risks, they acknowledge.

Dr. Fang told this publication that it’s hard to know what to tell patients, given the overall low VTE risk. She said their study wasn’t designed to advise when to give prophylaxis.
 

Physicians should inform patients of their higher risk

“We should tell our patients who fall into these risk categories that blood clot is a concern after the development of COVID, especially in those first 30 days. And some people might benefit from increased surveillance,” Dr. Fang said.

”I think this study would support ongoing studies that look at whether selected patients benefit from VTE prophylaxis, for example low-dose anticoagulants,” she said.

Dr. Fang said the subgroup factors they found increased risk of blood clots for all patients, not just COVID-19 patients. It’s not clear why factors such as being male may increase blood clot risk, though that is consistent with previous literature, but higher risk with higher BMI might be related to a combination of inflammation or decreased mobility, she said.
 

Unanswered questions

Robert H. Hopkins Jr., MD, says the study helps answer a couple of important questions – that the VTE risk in nonhospitalized COVID-19 patients is low and when and for which patients risk may be highest.

However, there are several unanswered questions that argue against routine initiation of anticoagulants, notes the professor of internal medicine and pediatrics chief, division of general internal medicine, at University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, Little Rock.

One is the change in the COVID variant landscape.

“We do not know whether rates of VTE are same or lower or higher with current circulating variants,” Dr. Hopkins said.

The authors acknowledge this as a limitation. Study data predate Omicron and subvariants, which appear to lower clinical severity, so it’s unclear whether VTE risk is different in this Omicron era.

Dr. Hopkins added another unknown: “We do not know whether vaccination affects rates of VTE in ambulatory breakthrough infection.”

Dr. Hopkins and the authors also note the lack of a control group in the study, to better compare risk.

Coauthor Dr. Prasad reports consultant fees from EpiExcellence LLC outside the submitted work. Coauthor Dr. Go reports grants paid to the division of research, Kaiser Permanente Northern California, from CSL Behring, Novartis, Bristol Meyers Squibb/Pfizer Alliance, and Janssen outside the submitted work.

The research was funded through Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute.

Dr. Hopkins reports no relevant financial relationships.

Overall risk for venous thromboembolism (VTE) in nonhospitalized COVID-19 patients is low, but some of those patients may have factors that increase the risk and warrant more surveillance, according to a new retrospective cohort study.

Though VTE risk is well studied and significant in those hospitalized with COVID, little is known about the risk in the outpatient setting, said the authors of the new research published online in JAMA Network Open.

The study was conducted at two integrated health care delivery systems in northern and southern California. Data were gathered from the Kaiser Permanente Virtual Data Warehouse and electronic health records.
 

Nearly 400,000 patients studied

Researchers, led by Margaret Fang, MD, with the division of hospital medicine, University of California, San Francisco, identified 398,530 outpatients with COVID-19 from Jan. 1, 2020, through Jan. 31, 2021.

VTE risk was low overall for ambulatory COVID patients.

“It is a reassuring study,” Dr. Fang said in an interview.

The researchers found that the risk is highest in the first 30 days after COVID-19 diagnosis (unadjusted rate, 0.58; 95% confidence interval, 0.51-0.67 per 100 person-years vs. 0.09; 95% CI, 0.08-0.11 per 100 person-years after 30 days).
 

Factors linked with high VTE risk

They also found that several factors were linked with a higher risk of blood clots in the study population, including being at least 55 years old; being male; having a history of blood clots or thrombophilia; and a body mass index (BMI) of at least 30 kg/m².

The authors write, “These findings may help identify subsets of patients with COVID-19 who could benefit from VTE preventive strategies and more intensive short-term surveillance.”
 

Are routine anticoagulants justified?

Previously, randomized clinical trials have found that hospitalized patients with moderate COVID-19 may benefit from therapeutically dosed heparin anticoagulants but that therapeutic anticoagulation had no net benefit – and perhaps could even harm – patients who were critically ill with COVID.

“[M]uch less is known about the optimal thromboprophylaxis strategy for people with milder presentations of COVID-19 who do not require hospitalization,” they write.
 

Mild COVID VTE risk similar to general population

The authors note that rates of blood clots linked with COVID-19 are not much higher than the average blood clot rate in the general population, which is about 0.1-0.2 per 100 person-years.

Therefore, the results don’t justify routine administration of anticoagulation given the costs, inconvenience, and bleeding risks, they acknowledge.

Dr. Fang told this publication that it’s hard to know what to tell patients, given the overall low VTE risk. She said their study wasn’t designed to advise when to give prophylaxis.
 

Physicians should inform patients of their higher risk

“We should tell our patients who fall into these risk categories that blood clot is a concern after the development of COVID, especially in those first 30 days. And some people might benefit from increased surveillance,” Dr. Fang said.

”I think this study would support ongoing studies that look at whether selected patients benefit from VTE prophylaxis, for example low-dose anticoagulants,” she said.

Dr. Fang said the subgroup factors they found increased risk of blood clots for all patients, not just COVID-19 patients. It’s not clear why factors such as being male may increase blood clot risk, though that is consistent with previous literature, but higher risk with higher BMI might be related to a combination of inflammation or decreased mobility, she said.
 

Unanswered questions

Robert H. Hopkins Jr., MD, says the study helps answer a couple of important questions – that the VTE risk in nonhospitalized COVID-19 patients is low and when and for which patients risk may be highest.

However, there are several unanswered questions that argue against routine initiation of anticoagulants, notes the professor of internal medicine and pediatrics chief, division of general internal medicine, at University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, Little Rock.

One is the change in the COVID variant landscape.

“We do not know whether rates of VTE are same or lower or higher with current circulating variants,” Dr. Hopkins said.

The authors acknowledge this as a limitation. Study data predate Omicron and subvariants, which appear to lower clinical severity, so it’s unclear whether VTE risk is different in this Omicron era.

Dr. Hopkins added another unknown: “We do not know whether vaccination affects rates of VTE in ambulatory breakthrough infection.”

Dr. Hopkins and the authors also note the lack of a control group in the study, to better compare risk.

Coauthor Dr. Prasad reports consultant fees from EpiExcellence LLC outside the submitted work. Coauthor Dr. Go reports grants paid to the division of research, Kaiser Permanente Northern California, from CSL Behring, Novartis, Bristol Meyers Squibb/Pfizer Alliance, and Janssen outside the submitted work.

The research was funded through Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute.

Dr. Hopkins reports no relevant financial relationships.

Overall risk for venous thromboembolism (VTE) in nonhospitalized COVID-19 patients is low, but some of those patients may have factors that increase the risk and warrant more surveillance, according to a new retrospective cohort study.

Though VTE risk is well studied and significant in those hospitalized with COVID, little is known about the risk in the outpatient setting, said the authors of the new research published online in JAMA Network Open.

The study was conducted at two integrated health care delivery systems in northern and southern California. Data were gathered from the Kaiser Permanente Virtual Data Warehouse and electronic health records.
 

Nearly 400,000 patients studied

Researchers, led by Margaret Fang, MD, with the division of hospital medicine, University of California, San Francisco, identified 398,530 outpatients with COVID-19 from Jan. 1, 2020, through Jan. 31, 2021.

VTE risk was low overall for ambulatory COVID patients.

“It is a reassuring study,” Dr. Fang said in an interview.

The researchers found that the risk is highest in the first 30 days after COVID-19 diagnosis (unadjusted rate, 0.58; 95% confidence interval, 0.51-0.67 per 100 person-years vs. 0.09; 95% CI, 0.08-0.11 per 100 person-years after 30 days).
 

Factors linked with high VTE risk

They also found that several factors were linked with a higher risk of blood clots in the study population, including being at least 55 years old; being male; having a history of blood clots or thrombophilia; and a body mass index (BMI) of at least 30 kg/m².

The authors write, “These findings may help identify subsets of patients with COVID-19 who could benefit from VTE preventive strategies and more intensive short-term surveillance.”
 

Are routine anticoagulants justified?

Previously, randomized clinical trials have found that hospitalized patients with moderate COVID-19 may benefit from therapeutically dosed heparin anticoagulants but that therapeutic anticoagulation had no net benefit – and perhaps could even harm – patients who were critically ill with COVID.

“[M]uch less is known about the optimal thromboprophylaxis strategy for people with milder presentations of COVID-19 who do not require hospitalization,” they write.
 

Mild COVID VTE risk similar to general population

The authors note that rates of blood clots linked with COVID-19 are not much higher than the average blood clot rate in the general population, which is about 0.1-0.2 per 100 person-years.

Therefore, the results don’t justify routine administration of anticoagulation given the costs, inconvenience, and bleeding risks, they acknowledge.

Dr. Fang told this publication that it’s hard to know what to tell patients, given the overall low VTE risk. She said their study wasn’t designed to advise when to give prophylaxis.
 

Physicians should inform patients of their higher risk

“We should tell our patients who fall into these risk categories that blood clot is a concern after the development of COVID, especially in those first 30 days. And some people might benefit from increased surveillance,” Dr. Fang said.

”I think this study would support ongoing studies that look at whether selected patients benefit from VTE prophylaxis, for example low-dose anticoagulants,” she said.

Dr. Fang said the subgroup factors they found increased risk of blood clots for all patients, not just COVID-19 patients. It’s not clear why factors such as being male may increase blood clot risk, though that is consistent with previous literature, but higher risk with higher BMI might be related to a combination of inflammation or decreased mobility, she said.
 

Unanswered questions

Robert H. Hopkins Jr., MD, says the study helps answer a couple of important questions – that the VTE risk in nonhospitalized COVID-19 patients is low and when and for which patients risk may be highest.

However, there are several unanswered questions that argue against routine initiation of anticoagulants, notes the professor of internal medicine and pediatrics chief, division of general internal medicine, at University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, Little Rock.

One is the change in the COVID variant landscape.

“We do not know whether rates of VTE are same or lower or higher with current circulating variants,” Dr. Hopkins said.

The authors acknowledge this as a limitation. Study data predate Omicron and subvariants, which appear to lower clinical severity, so it’s unclear whether VTE risk is different in this Omicron era.

Dr. Hopkins added another unknown: “We do not know whether vaccination affects rates of VTE in ambulatory breakthrough infection.”

Dr. Hopkins and the authors also note the lack of a control group in the study, to better compare risk.

Coauthor Dr. Prasad reports consultant fees from EpiExcellence LLC outside the submitted work. Coauthor Dr. Go reports grants paid to the division of research, Kaiser Permanente Northern California, from CSL Behring, Novartis, Bristol Meyers Squibb/Pfizer Alliance, and Janssen outside the submitted work.

The research was funded through Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute.

Dr. Hopkins reports no relevant financial relationships.

NEW ORLEANS – In the international FREEDOM COVID trial that randomized non–critically ill hospitalized patients, a therapeutic dose of anticoagulation relative to a prophylactic dose significantly reduced death from COVID-19 at 30 days, even as a larger composite primary endpoint was missed.

The mortality reduction suggests therapeutic-dose anticoagulation “may improve outcomes in non–critically ill patients hospitalized with COVID-19 who are at increased risk for adverse events but do not yet require ICU-level of care,” reported Valentin Fuster, MD, PhD, at the joint scientific sessions of the American College of Cardiology and the World Heart Federation.

Ted Bosworth/MDedge News

These data provide a suggestion rather than a demonstration of benefit because the primary composite endpoint of all-cause mortality, intubation requiring mechanical ventilation, systemic thromboembolism or ischemic stroke at 30 days was not met. Although this 30-day outcome was lower on the therapeutic dose (11.3% vs. 13.2%), the difference was only a trend (hazard ratio, 0.85; P = .11), said Dr. Fuster, physician-in-chief, Mount Sinai Hospital, New York.
 

Missed primary endpoint blamed on low events

The declining severity of more recent COVID-19 variants (the trial was conducted from August 2022 to September 2022) might be one explanation that the primary endpoint was not met, but the more likely explanation is the relatively good health status – and therefore a low risk of events – among patients randomized in India, 1 of 10 participating countries.

India accounted for roughly 40% of the total number of 3,398 patients in the intention-to-treat population. In India, the rates of events were 0.7 and 1.3 in the prophylactic and therapeutic anticoagulation arms, respectively. In contrast, they were 17.5 and 9.5, respectively in the United States. In combined data from the other eight countries, the rates were 22.78 and 20.4, respectively.

“These results emphasize that varying country-specific thresholds for hospitalization may affect patient prognosis and the potential utility of advanced therapies” Dr. Fuster said.

In fact, the therapeutic anticoagulation was linked to a nonsignificant twofold increase in the risk of the primary outcome in India (HR, 2.01; 95% confidence interval, 0.57-7.13) when outcomes were stratified by country. In the United States, where there was a much higher incidence of events, therapeutic anticoagulation was associated with a nearly 50% reduction (HR, 0.53; 95% CI, 0.31-0.91).

In the remaining countries, which included those in Latin America and Europe as well as the city of Hong Kong, the primary outcome was reduced numerically but not statistically by therapeutic relative to prophylactic anticoagulation (HR, 0.89; 95% CI, 0.71-1.11).
 

Enoxaparin and apixaban are studied

In FREEDOM COVID, patients were randomized to a therapeutic dose of the low-molecular-weight heparin (LMWH) enoxaparin (1 mg/kg every 12 hours), a prophylactic dose of enoxaparin (40 mg once daily), or a therapeutic dose of the direct factor Xa inhibitor apixaban (5 mg every 12 hours). Lower doses of enoxaparin and apixaban were used for those with renal impairment, and lower doses of apixaban were employed for elderly patients (≥ 80 years) and those with low body weight (≤ 60 kg).

The major inclusion criteria were confirmed COVID-19 infection with symptomatic systemic involvement. The major exclusion criteria were need for ICU level of care or active bleeding.

The therapeutic anticoagulation arms performed similarly and were combined for comparison to the prophylactic arm. Despite the failure to show a difference in the primary outcome, the rate of 30-day mortality was substantially lower in the therapeutic arm (4.9% vs. 7.0%), translating into a 30% risk reduction (HR, 0.70; P = .01).

Therapeutic anticoagulation was also associated with a lower rate of intubation/mechanical ventilation (6.4% vs. 8.4%) that reached statistical significance (HR, 0.75; P = .03). The risk reduction was also significant for a combination of these endpoints (HR, 0.77; P = .03).

The lower proportion of patients who eventually required ICU-level of care (9.9% vs. 11.7%) showed a trend in favor of therapeutic anticoagulation (HR, 0.84; P = .11).
 

Bleeding rates did not differ between arms

Bleeding Academic Research Consortium major bleeding types 3 and 5 were slightly numerically higher in the group randomized to therapeutic enoxaparin (0.5%) than prophylactic enoxaparin (0.1%) and therapeutic apixaban (0.3%), but the differences between any groups were not significant.

Numerous anticoagulation trials in patients with COVID-19 have been published previously. One 2021 trial published in the New England Journal of Medicine also suggested benefit from a therapeutic relative to prophylactic anticoagulation. In that trial, which compared heparin to usual-care thromboprophylaxis, benefits were derived from a Bayesian analysis. Significant differences were not shown for death or other major outcome assessed individually.

Even though this more recent trial missed its primary endpoint, Gregg Stone, MD, a coauthor of this study and a colleague of Dr. Fuster at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, reiterated that these results support routine anticoagulation in hospitalized COVID-19 patients.

“These are robust reductions in mortality and intubation rates, which are the most serious outcomes,” said Dr. Stone, who is first author of the paper, which was published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology immediately after Dr. Fuster’s presentation.

COVID-19 has proven to be a very thrombogenic virus, but the literature has not been wholly consistent on which anticoagulation treatment provides the best balance of benefits and risks, according to Julia Grapsa, MD, PhD, attending cardiologist, Guys and St. Thomas Hospital, London. She said that this randomized trial, despite its failure to meet the primary endpoint, is useful.

“This demonstrates that a therapeutic dose of enoxaparin is likely to improve outcomes over a prophylactic dose with a low risk of bleeding,” Dr. Grapsa said. On the basis of the randomized study, “I feel more confident with this approach.”

Dr. Fuster reported no potential conflicts of interest. Dr. Stone has financial relationships with more than 30 companies that make pharmaceuticals and medical devices. Dr. Grapsa reported no potential conflicts of interest.

NEW ORLEANS – In the international FREEDOM COVID trial that randomized non–critically ill hospitalized patients, a therapeutic dose of anticoagulation relative to a prophylactic dose significantly reduced death from COVID-19 at 30 days, even as a larger composite primary endpoint was missed.

The mortality reduction suggests therapeutic-dose anticoagulation “may improve outcomes in non–critically ill patients hospitalized with COVID-19 who are at increased risk for adverse events but do not yet require ICU-level of care,” reported Valentin Fuster, MD, PhD, at the joint scientific sessions of the American College of Cardiology and the World Heart Federation.

Ted Bosworth/MDedge News

These data provide a suggestion rather than a demonstration of benefit because the primary composite endpoint of all-cause mortality, intubation requiring mechanical ventilation, systemic thromboembolism or ischemic stroke at 30 days was not met. Although this 30-day outcome was lower on the therapeutic dose (11.3% vs. 13.2%), the difference was only a trend (hazard ratio, 0.85; P = .11), said Dr. Fuster, physician-in-chief, Mount Sinai Hospital, New York.
 

Missed primary endpoint blamed on low events

The declining severity of more recent COVID-19 variants (the trial was conducted from August 2022 to September 2022) might be one explanation that the primary endpoint was not met, but the more likely explanation is the relatively good health status – and therefore a low risk of events – among patients randomized in India, 1 of 10 participating countries.

India accounted for roughly 40% of the total number of 3,398 patients in the intention-to-treat population. In India, the rates of events were 0.7 and 1.3 in the prophylactic and therapeutic anticoagulation arms, respectively. In contrast, they were 17.5 and 9.5, respectively in the United States. In combined data from the other eight countries, the rates were 22.78 and 20.4, respectively.

“These results emphasize that varying country-specific thresholds for hospitalization may affect patient prognosis and the potential utility of advanced therapies” Dr. Fuster said.

In fact, the therapeutic anticoagulation was linked to a nonsignificant twofold increase in the risk of the primary outcome in India (HR, 2.01; 95% confidence interval, 0.57-7.13) when outcomes were stratified by country. In the United States, where there was a much higher incidence of events, therapeutic anticoagulation was associated with a nearly 50% reduction (HR, 0.53; 95% CI, 0.31-0.91).

In the remaining countries, which included those in Latin America and Europe as well as the city of Hong Kong, the primary outcome was reduced numerically but not statistically by therapeutic relative to prophylactic anticoagulation (HR, 0.89; 95% CI, 0.71-1.11).
 

Enoxaparin and apixaban are studied

In FREEDOM COVID, patients were randomized to a therapeutic dose of the low-molecular-weight heparin (LMWH) enoxaparin (1 mg/kg every 12 hours), a prophylactic dose of enoxaparin (40 mg once daily), or a therapeutic dose of the direct factor Xa inhibitor apixaban (5 mg every 12 hours). Lower doses of enoxaparin and apixaban were used for those with renal impairment, and lower doses of apixaban were employed for elderly patients (≥ 80 years) and those with low body weight (≤ 60 kg).

The major inclusion criteria were confirmed COVID-19 infection with symptomatic systemic involvement. The major exclusion criteria were need for ICU level of care or active bleeding.

The therapeutic anticoagulation arms performed similarly and were combined for comparison to the prophylactic arm. Despite the failure to show a difference in the primary outcome, the rate of 30-day mortality was substantially lower in the therapeutic arm (4.9% vs. 7.0%), translating into a 30% risk reduction (HR, 0.70; P = .01).

Therapeutic anticoagulation was also associated with a lower rate of intubation/mechanical ventilation (6.4% vs. 8.4%) that reached statistical significance (HR, 0.75; P = .03). The risk reduction was also significant for a combination of these endpoints (HR, 0.77; P = .03).

The lower proportion of patients who eventually required ICU-level of care (9.9% vs. 11.7%) showed a trend in favor of therapeutic anticoagulation (HR, 0.84; P = .11).
 

Bleeding rates did not differ between arms

Bleeding Academic Research Consortium major bleeding types 3 and 5 were slightly numerically higher in the group randomized to therapeutic enoxaparin (0.5%) than prophylactic enoxaparin (0.1%) and therapeutic apixaban (0.3%), but the differences between any groups were not significant.

Numerous anticoagulation trials in patients with COVID-19 have been published previously. One 2021 trial published in the New England Journal of Medicine also suggested benefit from a therapeutic relative to prophylactic anticoagulation. In that trial, which compared heparin to usual-care thromboprophylaxis, benefits were derived from a Bayesian analysis. Significant differences were not shown for death or other major outcome assessed individually.

Even though this more recent trial missed its primary endpoint, Gregg Stone, MD, a coauthor of this study and a colleague of Dr. Fuster at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, reiterated that these results support routine anticoagulation in hospitalized COVID-19 patients.

“These are robust reductions in mortality and intubation rates, which are the most serious outcomes,” said Dr. Stone, who is first author of the paper, which was published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology immediately after Dr. Fuster’s presentation.

COVID-19 has proven to be a very thrombogenic virus, but the literature has not been wholly consistent on which anticoagulation treatment provides the best balance of benefits and risks, according to Julia Grapsa, MD, PhD, attending cardiologist, Guys and St. Thomas Hospital, London. She said that this randomized trial, despite its failure to meet the primary endpoint, is useful.

“This demonstrates that a therapeutic dose of enoxaparin is likely to improve outcomes over a prophylactic dose with a low risk of bleeding,” Dr. Grapsa said. On the basis of the randomized study, “I feel more confident with this approach.”

Dr. Fuster reported no potential conflicts of interest. Dr. Stone has financial relationships with more than 30 companies that make pharmaceuticals and medical devices. Dr. Grapsa reported no potential conflicts of interest.

NEW ORLEANS – In the international FREEDOM COVID trial that randomized non–critically ill hospitalized patients, a therapeutic dose of anticoagulation relative to a prophylactic dose significantly reduced death from COVID-19 at 30 days, even as a larger composite primary endpoint was missed.

The mortality reduction suggests therapeutic-dose anticoagulation “may improve outcomes in non–critically ill patients hospitalized with COVID-19 who are at increased risk for adverse events but do not yet require ICU-level of care,” reported Valentin Fuster, MD, PhD, at the joint scientific sessions of the American College of Cardiology and the World Heart Federation.

Ted Bosworth/MDedge News

These data provide a suggestion rather than a demonstration of benefit because the primary composite endpoint of all-cause mortality, intubation requiring mechanical ventilation, systemic thromboembolism or ischemic stroke at 30 days was not met. Although this 30-day outcome was lower on the therapeutic dose (11.3% vs. 13.2%), the difference was only a trend (hazard ratio, 0.85; P = .11), said Dr. Fuster, physician-in-chief, Mount Sinai Hospital, New York.
 

Missed primary endpoint blamed on low events

The declining severity of more recent COVID-19 variants (the trial was conducted from August 2022 to September 2022) might be one explanation that the primary endpoint was not met, but the more likely explanation is the relatively good health status – and therefore a low risk of events – among patients randomized in India, 1 of 10 participating countries.

India accounted for roughly 40% of the total number of 3,398 patients in the intention-to-treat population. In India, the rates of events were 0.7 and 1.3 in the prophylactic and therapeutic anticoagulation arms, respectively. In contrast, they were 17.5 and 9.5, respectively in the United States. In combined data from the other eight countries, the rates were 22.78 and 20.4, respectively.

“These results emphasize that varying country-specific thresholds for hospitalization may affect patient prognosis and the potential utility of advanced therapies” Dr. Fuster said.

In fact, the therapeutic anticoagulation was linked to a nonsignificant twofold increase in the risk of the primary outcome in India (HR, 2.01; 95% confidence interval, 0.57-7.13) when outcomes were stratified by country. In the United States, where there was a much higher incidence of events, therapeutic anticoagulation was associated with a nearly 50% reduction (HR, 0.53; 95% CI, 0.31-0.91).

In the remaining countries, which included those in Latin America and Europe as well as the city of Hong Kong, the primary outcome was reduced numerically but not statistically by therapeutic relative to prophylactic anticoagulation (HR, 0.89; 95% CI, 0.71-1.11).
 

Enoxaparin and apixaban are studied

In FREEDOM COVID, patients were randomized to a therapeutic dose of the low-molecular-weight heparin (LMWH) enoxaparin (1 mg/kg every 12 hours), a prophylactic dose of enoxaparin (40 mg once daily), or a therapeutic dose of the direct factor Xa inhibitor apixaban (5 mg every 12 hours). Lower doses of enoxaparin and apixaban were used for those with renal impairment, and lower doses of apixaban were employed for elderly patients (≥ 80 years) and those with low body weight (≤ 60 kg).

The major inclusion criteria were confirmed COVID-19 infection with symptomatic systemic involvement. The major exclusion criteria were need for ICU level of care or active bleeding.

The therapeutic anticoagulation arms performed similarly and were combined for comparison to the prophylactic arm. Despite the failure to show a difference in the primary outcome, the rate of 30-day mortality was substantially lower in the therapeutic arm (4.9% vs. 7.0%), translating into a 30% risk reduction (HR, 0.70; P = .01).

Therapeutic anticoagulation was also associated with a lower rate of intubation/mechanical ventilation (6.4% vs. 8.4%) that reached statistical significance (HR, 0.75; P = .03). The risk reduction was also significant for a combination of these endpoints (HR, 0.77; P = .03).

The lower proportion of patients who eventually required ICU-level of care (9.9% vs. 11.7%) showed a trend in favor of therapeutic anticoagulation (HR, 0.84; P = .11).
 

Bleeding rates did not differ between arms

Bleeding Academic Research Consortium major bleeding types 3 and 5 were slightly numerically higher in the group randomized to therapeutic enoxaparin (0.5%) than prophylactic enoxaparin (0.1%) and therapeutic apixaban (0.3%), but the differences between any groups were not significant.

Numerous anticoagulation trials in patients with COVID-19 have been published previously. One 2021 trial published in the New England Journal of Medicine also suggested benefit from a therapeutic relative to prophylactic anticoagulation. In that trial, which compared heparin to usual-care thromboprophylaxis, benefits were derived from a Bayesian analysis. Significant differences were not shown for death or other major outcome assessed individually.

Even though this more recent trial missed its primary endpoint, Gregg Stone, MD, a coauthor of this study and a colleague of Dr. Fuster at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine, New York, reiterated that these results support routine anticoagulation in hospitalized COVID-19 patients.

“These are robust reductions in mortality and intubation rates, which are the most serious outcomes,” said Dr. Stone, who is first author of the paper, which was published in the Journal of the American College of Cardiology immediately after Dr. Fuster’s presentation.

COVID-19 has proven to be a very thrombogenic virus, but the literature has not been wholly consistent on which anticoagulation treatment provides the best balance of benefits and risks, according to Julia Grapsa, MD, PhD, attending cardiologist, Guys and St. Thomas Hospital, London. She said that this randomized trial, despite its failure to meet the primary endpoint, is useful.

“This demonstrates that a therapeutic dose of enoxaparin is likely to improve outcomes over a prophylactic dose with a low risk of bleeding,” Dr. Grapsa said. On the basis of the randomized study, “I feel more confident with this approach.”

Dr. Fuster reported no potential conflicts of interest. Dr. Stone has financial relationships with more than 30 companies that make pharmaceuticals and medical devices. Dr. Grapsa reported no potential conflicts of interest.

Metformin appears to play a role in preventing long COVID when taken early during a COVID-19 infection, according to preprints with The Lancet on SSRN. The preprint hasn’t yet been peer-reviewed or published in a journal.

In particular, metformin led to a 42% drop in long COVID among people who had a mild to moderate COVID-19 infection. 

“Long COVID affects millions of people, and preventing long COVID through a treatment like metformin could prevent significant disruptions in people’s lives,” said lead author Carolyn Bramante, MD, assistant professor of internal medicine and pediatrics at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis.

Between January 2021 and February 2022, Dr. Bramante and colleagues tested three oral medications – metformin (typically used to treat type 2 diabetes), ivermectin (an antiparasitic), and fluvoxamine (an antidepressant) – in a clinical trial across the United States called COVID-OUT. The people being studied, investigators, care providers, and others involved in the study were blinded to the randomized treatments. The trial was decentralized, with no in-person contact with participants.

The researchers included patients who were aged 30-85 with overweight or obesity, had documentation of a confirmed COVID-19 infection, had fewer than 7 days of symptoms, had no known prior infection, and joined the study within 3 days of their positive test. The study included monthly follow-up for 300 days, and participants indicated whether they received a long COVID diagnosis from a medical doctor, which the researchers confirmed in medical records after participants gave consent.

The medications were prepackaged into pill boxes for fast delivery to participants and to ensure they took the correct number of each type of pill. The packages were sent via same-day courier or overnight shipping.

The metformin doses were doled out over 14 days, with 500 milligrams on the first day, 500 milligrams twice a day for the next 4 days, and then 500 milligrams in the morning and 1,000 milligrams in the evening for the remaining 9 days.

Among the 1,323 people studied, 1,125 agreed to do long-term follow-up for long COVID: 564 in the metformin group and 561 in the blinded placebo group. The average age was 45, and 56% were women, including 7% who were pregnant. 

The average time from the start of symptoms to starting medication was 5 days, and 47% began taking the drug within 4 days or less. About 55% had received the primary COVID-19 vaccination series, including 5.1% who received an initial booster, before enrolling in the study.

Overall, 8.4% of participants reported that a medical provider diagnosed them with long COVID. Of those who took metformin, 6.3% developed long COVID, compared to 10.6% among those who took the identical-matched placebo.

The risk reduction for metformin was 42% versus the placebo, which was consistent across subgroups, including vaccination status and different COVID-19 variants.

When metformin was started less than 4 days after COVID-19 symptoms started, the effect was potentially even greater, with a 64% reduction, as compared with a 36% reduction among those who started metformin after 4 or more days after symptoms.

Neither ivermectin nor fluvoxamine showed any benefits for preventing long COVID.

At the same time, the study authors caution that more research is needed. 

“The COVID-OUT trial does not indicate whether or not metformin would be effective at preventing long COVID if started at the time of emergency department visit or hospitalization for COVID-19, nor whether metformin would be effective as treatment in persons who already have long COVID,” they wrote. “With the burden of long COVID on society, confirmation is urgently needed in a trial that addresses our study’s limitations in order to translate these results into practice and policy.”

Several risk factors for long COVID emerged in the analysis. About 11.1% of the women had a long COVID diagnosis, compared with 4.9% of the men. Also, those who had received at least the primary vaccine series had a lower risk of developing long COVID, at 6.6%, as compared with 10.5% among the unvaccinated. Only 1 of the 57 people who received a booster shot developed long COVID.

Notably, pregnant and lactating people were included in this study, which is important given that pregnant people face higher risks for poor COVID-19 outcomes and are excluded from most nonobstetric clinical trials, the study authors wrote. In this study, they were randomized to metformin or placebo but not ivermectin or fluvoxamine due to limited research about the safety of those drugs during pregnancy and lactation.

The results are now under journal review but show findings consistent with those from other recent studies. Also, in August 2022, the authors published results from COVID-OUT that showed metformin led to a 42% reduction in hospital visits, emergency department visits, and deaths related to severe COVID-19.

“Given the lack of side effects and cost for a 2-week course, I think these data support use of metformin now,” said Eric Topol, MD, founder and director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute and editor-in-chief of Medscape, WebMD’s sister site for health care professionals. 

Dr. Topol, who wasn’t involved with this study, has been a leading voice on COVID-19 research throughout the pandemic. He noted the need for more studies, including a factorial design trial to test metformin and Paxlovid, which has shown promise in preventing long COVID. Dr. Topol also wrote about the preprint in Ground Truths, his online newsletter.

“As I’ve written in the past, I don’t use the term ‘breakthrough’ lightly,” he wrote. “But to see such a pronounced benefit in the current randomized trial of metformin, in the context of its being so safe and low cost, I’d give it a breakthrough categorization.”

Another way to put it, Dr. Topol wrote, is that based on this study, he would take metformin if he became infected with COVID-19. 

Jeremy Faust, MD, an emergency medicine doctor at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, also wrote about the study in his newsletter, Inside Medicine. He noted that the 42% reduction in long COVID means that 23 COVID-19 patients need to be treated with metformin to prevent one long COVID diagnosis, which is an “important reduction.”

“Bottom line: If a person who meets criteria for obesity or overweight status were to ask me if they should take metformin (for 2 weeks) starting as soon as they learn they have COVID-19, I would say yes in many if not most cases, based on this new data,” he wrote. “This is starting to look like a real win.”

A version of this article first appeared on WebMD.com.

Metformin appears to play a role in preventing long COVID when taken early during a COVID-19 infection, according to preprints with The Lancet on SSRN. The preprint hasn’t yet been peer-reviewed or published in a journal.

In particular, metformin led to a 42% drop in long COVID among people who had a mild to moderate COVID-19 infection. 

“Long COVID affects millions of people, and preventing long COVID through a treatment like metformin could prevent significant disruptions in people’s lives,” said lead author Carolyn Bramante, MD, assistant professor of internal medicine and pediatrics at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis.

Between January 2021 and February 2022, Dr. Bramante and colleagues tested three oral medications – metformin (typically used to treat type 2 diabetes), ivermectin (an antiparasitic), and fluvoxamine (an antidepressant) – in a clinical trial across the United States called COVID-OUT. The people being studied, investigators, care providers, and others involved in the study were blinded to the randomized treatments. The trial was decentralized, with no in-person contact with participants.

The researchers included patients who were aged 30-85 with overweight or obesity, had documentation of a confirmed COVID-19 infection, had fewer than 7 days of symptoms, had no known prior infection, and joined the study within 3 days of their positive test. The study included monthly follow-up for 300 days, and participants indicated whether they received a long COVID diagnosis from a medical doctor, which the researchers confirmed in medical records after participants gave consent.

The medications were prepackaged into pill boxes for fast delivery to participants and to ensure they took the correct number of each type of pill. The packages were sent via same-day courier or overnight shipping.

The metformin doses were doled out over 14 days, with 500 milligrams on the first day, 500 milligrams twice a day for the next 4 days, and then 500 milligrams in the morning and 1,000 milligrams in the evening for the remaining 9 days.

Among the 1,323 people studied, 1,125 agreed to do long-term follow-up for long COVID: 564 in the metformin group and 561 in the blinded placebo group. The average age was 45, and 56% were women, including 7% who were pregnant. 

The average time from the start of symptoms to starting medication was 5 days, and 47% began taking the drug within 4 days or less. About 55% had received the primary COVID-19 vaccination series, including 5.1% who received an initial booster, before enrolling in the study.

Overall, 8.4% of participants reported that a medical provider diagnosed them with long COVID. Of those who took metformin, 6.3% developed long COVID, compared to 10.6% among those who took the identical-matched placebo.

The risk reduction for metformin was 42% versus the placebo, which was consistent across subgroups, including vaccination status and different COVID-19 variants.

When metformin was started less than 4 days after COVID-19 symptoms started, the effect was potentially even greater, with a 64% reduction, as compared with a 36% reduction among those who started metformin after 4 or more days after symptoms.

Neither ivermectin nor fluvoxamine showed any benefits for preventing long COVID.

At the same time, the study authors caution that more research is needed. 

“The COVID-OUT trial does not indicate whether or not metformin would be effective at preventing long COVID if started at the time of emergency department visit or hospitalization for COVID-19, nor whether metformin would be effective as treatment in persons who already have long COVID,” they wrote. “With the burden of long COVID on society, confirmation is urgently needed in a trial that addresses our study’s limitations in order to translate these results into practice and policy.”

Several risk factors for long COVID emerged in the analysis. About 11.1% of the women had a long COVID diagnosis, compared with 4.9% of the men. Also, those who had received at least the primary vaccine series had a lower risk of developing long COVID, at 6.6%, as compared with 10.5% among the unvaccinated. Only 1 of the 57 people who received a booster shot developed long COVID.

Notably, pregnant and lactating people were included in this study, which is important given that pregnant people face higher risks for poor COVID-19 outcomes and are excluded from most nonobstetric clinical trials, the study authors wrote. In this study, they were randomized to metformin or placebo but not ivermectin or fluvoxamine due to limited research about the safety of those drugs during pregnancy and lactation.

The results are now under journal review but show findings consistent with those from other recent studies. Also, in August 2022, the authors published results from COVID-OUT that showed metformin led to a 42% reduction in hospital visits, emergency department visits, and deaths related to severe COVID-19.

“Given the lack of side effects and cost for a 2-week course, I think these data support use of metformin now,” said Eric Topol, MD, founder and director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute and editor-in-chief of Medscape, WebMD’s sister site for health care professionals. 

Dr. Topol, who wasn’t involved with this study, has been a leading voice on COVID-19 research throughout the pandemic. He noted the need for more studies, including a factorial design trial to test metformin and Paxlovid, which has shown promise in preventing long COVID. Dr. Topol also wrote about the preprint in Ground Truths, his online newsletter.

“As I’ve written in the past, I don’t use the term ‘breakthrough’ lightly,” he wrote. “But to see such a pronounced benefit in the current randomized trial of metformin, in the context of its being so safe and low cost, I’d give it a breakthrough categorization.”

Another way to put it, Dr. Topol wrote, is that based on this study, he would take metformin if he became infected with COVID-19. 

Jeremy Faust, MD, an emergency medicine doctor at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, also wrote about the study in his newsletter, Inside Medicine. He noted that the 42% reduction in long COVID means that 23 COVID-19 patients need to be treated with metformin to prevent one long COVID diagnosis, which is an “important reduction.”

“Bottom line: If a person who meets criteria for obesity or overweight status were to ask me if they should take metformin (for 2 weeks) starting as soon as they learn they have COVID-19, I would say yes in many if not most cases, based on this new data,” he wrote. “This is starting to look like a real win.”

A version of this article first appeared on WebMD.com.

Metformin appears to play a role in preventing long COVID when taken early during a COVID-19 infection, according to preprints with The Lancet on SSRN. The preprint hasn’t yet been peer-reviewed or published in a journal.

In particular, metformin led to a 42% drop in long COVID among people who had a mild to moderate COVID-19 infection. 

“Long COVID affects millions of people, and preventing long COVID through a treatment like metformin could prevent significant disruptions in people’s lives,” said lead author Carolyn Bramante, MD, assistant professor of internal medicine and pediatrics at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis.

Between January 2021 and February 2022, Dr. Bramante and colleagues tested three oral medications – metformin (typically used to treat type 2 diabetes), ivermectin (an antiparasitic), and fluvoxamine (an antidepressant) – in a clinical trial across the United States called COVID-OUT. The people being studied, investigators, care providers, and others involved in the study were blinded to the randomized treatments. The trial was decentralized, with no in-person contact with participants.

The researchers included patients who were aged 30-85 with overweight or obesity, had documentation of a confirmed COVID-19 infection, had fewer than 7 days of symptoms, had no known prior infection, and joined the study within 3 days of their positive test. The study included monthly follow-up for 300 days, and participants indicated whether they received a long COVID diagnosis from a medical doctor, which the researchers confirmed in medical records after participants gave consent.

The medications were prepackaged into pill boxes for fast delivery to participants and to ensure they took the correct number of each type of pill. The packages were sent via same-day courier or overnight shipping.

The metformin doses were doled out over 14 days, with 500 milligrams on the first day, 500 milligrams twice a day for the next 4 days, and then 500 milligrams in the morning and 1,000 milligrams in the evening for the remaining 9 days.

Among the 1,323 people studied, 1,125 agreed to do long-term follow-up for long COVID: 564 in the metformin group and 561 in the blinded placebo group. The average age was 45, and 56% were women, including 7% who were pregnant. 

The average time from the start of symptoms to starting medication was 5 days, and 47% began taking the drug within 4 days or less. About 55% had received the primary COVID-19 vaccination series, including 5.1% who received an initial booster, before enrolling in the study.

Overall, 8.4% of participants reported that a medical provider diagnosed them with long COVID. Of those who took metformin, 6.3% developed long COVID, compared to 10.6% among those who took the identical-matched placebo.

The risk reduction for metformin was 42% versus the placebo, which was consistent across subgroups, including vaccination status and different COVID-19 variants.

When metformin was started less than 4 days after COVID-19 symptoms started, the effect was potentially even greater, with a 64% reduction, as compared with a 36% reduction among those who started metformin after 4 or more days after symptoms.

Neither ivermectin nor fluvoxamine showed any benefits for preventing long COVID.

At the same time, the study authors caution that more research is needed. 

“The COVID-OUT trial does not indicate whether or not metformin would be effective at preventing long COVID if started at the time of emergency department visit or hospitalization for COVID-19, nor whether metformin would be effective as treatment in persons who already have long COVID,” they wrote. “With the burden of long COVID on society, confirmation is urgently needed in a trial that addresses our study’s limitations in order to translate these results into practice and policy.”

Several risk factors for long COVID emerged in the analysis. About 11.1% of the women had a long COVID diagnosis, compared with 4.9% of the men. Also, those who had received at least the primary vaccine series had a lower risk of developing long COVID, at 6.6%, as compared with 10.5% among the unvaccinated. Only 1 of the 57 people who received a booster shot developed long COVID.

Notably, pregnant and lactating people were included in this study, which is important given that pregnant people face higher risks for poor COVID-19 outcomes and are excluded from most nonobstetric clinical trials, the study authors wrote. In this study, they were randomized to metformin or placebo but not ivermectin or fluvoxamine due to limited research about the safety of those drugs during pregnancy and lactation.

The results are now under journal review but show findings consistent with those from other recent studies. Also, in August 2022, the authors published results from COVID-OUT that showed metformin led to a 42% reduction in hospital visits, emergency department visits, and deaths related to severe COVID-19.

“Given the lack of side effects and cost for a 2-week course, I think these data support use of metformin now,” said Eric Topol, MD, founder and director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute and editor-in-chief of Medscape, WebMD’s sister site for health care professionals. 

Dr. Topol, who wasn’t involved with this study, has been a leading voice on COVID-19 research throughout the pandemic. He noted the need for more studies, including a factorial design trial to test metformin and Paxlovid, which has shown promise in preventing long COVID. Dr. Topol also wrote about the preprint in Ground Truths, his online newsletter.

“As I’ve written in the past, I don’t use the term ‘breakthrough’ lightly,” he wrote. “But to see such a pronounced benefit in the current randomized trial of metformin, in the context of its being so safe and low cost, I’d give it a breakthrough categorization.”

Another way to put it, Dr. Topol wrote, is that based on this study, he would take metformin if he became infected with COVID-19. 

Jeremy Faust, MD, an emergency medicine doctor at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, also wrote about the study in his newsletter, Inside Medicine. He noted that the 42% reduction in long COVID means that 23 COVID-19 patients need to be treated with metformin to prevent one long COVID diagnosis, which is an “important reduction.”

“Bottom line: If a person who meets criteria for obesity or overweight status were to ask me if they should take metformin (for 2 weeks) starting as soon as they learn they have COVID-19, I would say yes in many if not most cases, based on this new data,” he wrote. “This is starting to look like a real win.”

A version of this article first appeared on WebMD.com.

Introduction

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the healthcare system in a multitude of ways, affecting healthcare capacity, treatment of other illnesses, and wellness as well as professional retention of healthcare workers.^1-3 During the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, healthcare capacity was tested and resources were used up quickly.¹ As the pandemic has progressed, healthcare systems have had to decide how to proceed with lessons learned, reassessing the environment of care delivery, healthcare supply chains, workforce structures, communication systems, and scientific collaboration as well as policy frameworks in healthcare.⁴ 

There have been both immediate effects and long-term consequences of the delay in care for other conditions.^2,5 One stark example of this is in cancer care, where screening and procedures were postponed or canceled due to the pandemic with a resulting predicted 2% increase in cancer mortality in the next 10 years.² The care of heart disease, chronic illnesses, and other viruses has also been similarly negatively impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic due to similar delays in diagnosis and treatment.^5-7 

The impact on healthcare workers has also been profound.³ Occupational stress from the pandemic has correlated with increased depression and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) among other mental health diseases in healthcare workers.³ In a survey of neurosurgery residents, 26.1% of physicians reported feeling burnt out, and 65.8% were worried that they would not be able to reach surgical milestones.^8,9 Among respiratory therapists, a hard hit group during this time, 79% reported burnout.¹⁰ Additionally, more healthcare workers left the field during the pandemic, with 15 million lost jobs. Future recovery of jobs looks bleak in some settings, like long-term care and among assistants and aides.¹¹ Overall, the long-term outcomes of these resource, disease, and mental health disruptions need to be assessed and solutions created to maintain a quality and effective healthcare system, with ample resources and measures to account for disease increases and address the impact on providers. 

Healthcare Capacity and Resources 

With COVID-19 affecting over 100 million in the United States as of March 1, 2023, the impact on healthcare resources since the start of the pandemic has been immense.¹² With 5% to 38% of hospitalized patients being admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU) and 75% to 88% of those patients requiring mechanical ventilation, a huge strain was placed on resources during and after the pandemic.¹ 

The question of balancing resources for other hospital needs while tending to patients with COVID-19 has been an ongoing discussion at many levels.¹ One core resource concern is the lack of staff. In a survey of 77 different countries, including physicians (41%), nurses (40%), respiratory therapists (11%), and advanced practice providers (8%), 15% reported insufficient intensivists and 32% reported insufficient ICU nursing staff during March and April of 2020.¹ A lack of hospital and care space that led to reallocation of limited-care acute care space was a concern. Thirteen percent reported a shortage of hospital ICU beds, while others reported the conversion of postoperative recovery rooms (20%) and operating rooms (12%) for patients with COVID-19.¹ 

Along with staff and care space concerns, hospital survey respondents reported that healthcare equipment was also challenged. Access to COVID-19 testing was one concern, with only 35% of respondents reporting availability for all patients at the beginning of the pandemic, and 56% reporting availability for only select patients based on symptom severity.¹ Access to personal protective equipment (PPE) was also affected, with PPE always available according to 83% to 95% of respondents but just 35% having access to N95 masks.¹ Additionally, 26% reported that there were no respirators in their hospital, and 11% reported limited ventilators.¹ 

Although resource depletion is a problem, studies have looked at public health measures that helped to mitigate this issue. With proper public health planning and implementation, such as physical distancing, aggressive testing, contact tracing, and increased hospital capacity, by freeing up existing resources or adding additional support, public health modeling showed that resources may be able to withstand the increase.¹³ Development of reallocation models at local, state, national, and international levels is an important step to be able to deal with future public health crises.¹⁴

The long-term impact from the pandemic includes disruption in the physical environment of healthcare, production, supply chain, staff structure, and workforce alterations.⁴ For example, the physical shape of healthcare facilities is changing to accommodate increasing volumes and decrease the risk of spreading disease.⁴ To accommodate the burden on staffing structure and workforce alteration, telehealth gained a prominent role.⁴ All in all, the pandemic has changed the healthcare system; however, institutions, organizations, and policy makers need to evaluate which measures were impactful and should be considered for long-term inclusion in healthcare practice. 

Impact on Other Diseases: Cancer, Heart Disease, Chronic Illnesses, and Other Viruses 

The treatment of other new and existing conditions has also been affected by the pandemic. Cancer, especially, is a disease of concern. Elective surgeries and screening were halted or altered during the pandemic, which is modeled to lead to higher cancer mortality in years to come.² The most affected cancers were breast, lung, and colorectal cancer.² A study of colorectal cancer screening showed that colonoscopies were delayed due to COVID-19 and that gastroenterology visits declined by 49% to 61%.¹⁵ This will likely lead to delayed cancer diagnoses and possible increases in mortality.¹⁵ Breast cancer screening was also delayed and many patients continued to avoid it for various reasons such as fears of contracting COVID-19 infection in healthcare facilities, and the economic effects of the pandemic such as job loss and healthcare coverage loss.¹⁶ These delays will result in an estimated potential 0.52% overall increase in breast cancer deaths by 2030.¹⁷

A study of 368 patients from Spain showed a 56.5% decrease in hospital admissions, usually related to heart attacks, in March and April of 2020, compared to January and February 2020.^18,19 For other chronic illnesses, the pandemic resulted in decreased preventative care and management.²⁰ The care of other infections similarly suffered. The World Health Organization announced that the number of patients receiving treatment for tuberculosis (TB) dropped by 1 million, setting the disease mitigation back considerably.²⁰ An estimated 500,000 more people died in 2020 from TB.²¹ The drastic shift in focus to COVID-19 care during this period will continue to have a profound impact on other diseases like these for many years post-pandemic.

Provider Experience and Mental Health Outcomes 

The impact on provider experiences and mental health has been immense. One study of 510 healthcare providers (HCPs) and first responders found that occupational stress from the pandemic correlated with psychiatric symptoms, including depression, PTSD, insomnia, and generalized anxiety.³ Occupational stress also correlated with one’s likelihood to leave the medical field and trouble doing work they had once loved.³ Half of the healthcare workers surveyed indicated a decreased likelihood of staying in their current profession after the pandemic.³ 

Other studies have also looked at specific subspecialties and impact on trainees during the pandemic. In neurosurgery, for example, resident burnout is high, at 26.1%.⁹ Additionally, the lack of surgeries in the pandemic made 65.8% of neurosurgery residents anxious about meeting career milestones.⁹ Respiratory therapists, a highly impacted group, also experienced burnout, reporting higher levels in those who worked more in the ICU. Another study identified several themes in the concerns reported by healthcare workers during the pandemic era including “changes in personal life and enhanced negative affect,” “gaining experience, normalization, and adaptation to the pandemic,” and “mental health considerations.”²² 

Some studies have investigated ways to mitigate this dissatisfaction with the healthcare field post-pandemic. Intrapreneurship, reverse mentoring, and democratized learning all had a reported positive impact on employee experience and retention during this time.²³ Intrapreneurship describes entrepreneurship within an existing organization, while reverse mentoring and democratized learning refer to newer employees teaching older employees and communicative learning on a breadth of topics. Other studies have examined the necessity of having mental health resources available, and that these resources need to be multi-stage and individualistic as well as specific to certain stressors HCPs faced during the pandemic.²² 

Conclusion and Future Directions

The COVID-19 pandemic had stark effects on the healthcare system, impacting resources and capacity, care of other diseases, and provider mental health and experiences.^1-3 After the chaos of the pandemic, many questions remain. What needs to be done now by health systems and HCPs? How can we learn from the challenges and the effects on capacity to change the healthcare workflow in times of crisis and in the present? How do we mitigate the impact of the pandemic on diagnosis and management of diseases? And how do we continue to provide healthcare workers with proper mental health and professional resources now, not just in times of stress, and encourage the future generation to pursue careers in healthcare? 

These are all the questions the pandemic has left us with, and more studies and initiatives are needed to investigate solutions to these issues. The COVID-19 pandemic left behind valuable lessons and changed the healthcare system, disease management, and staffing for many. Now is the time to pick up the pieces and strategize on how to make our existing system more effective for workers and patients post pandemic. 

Introduction

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the healthcare system in a multitude of ways, affecting healthcare capacity, treatment of other illnesses, and wellness as well as professional retention of healthcare workers.^1-3 During the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, healthcare capacity was tested and resources were used up quickly.¹ As the pandemic has progressed, healthcare systems have had to decide how to proceed with lessons learned, reassessing the environment of care delivery, healthcare supply chains, workforce structures, communication systems, and scientific collaboration as well as policy frameworks in healthcare.⁴ 

There have been both immediate effects and long-term consequences of the delay in care for other conditions.^2,5 One stark example of this is in cancer care, where screening and procedures were postponed or canceled due to the pandemic with a resulting predicted 2% increase in cancer mortality in the next 10 years.² The care of heart disease, chronic illnesses, and other viruses has also been similarly negatively impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic due to similar delays in diagnosis and treatment.^5-7 

The impact on healthcare workers has also been profound.³ Occupational stress from the pandemic has correlated with increased depression and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) among other mental health diseases in healthcare workers.³ In a survey of neurosurgery residents, 26.1% of physicians reported feeling burnt out, and 65.8% were worried that they would not be able to reach surgical milestones.^8,9 Among respiratory therapists, a hard hit group during this time, 79% reported burnout.¹⁰ Additionally, more healthcare workers left the field during the pandemic, with 15 million lost jobs. Future recovery of jobs looks bleak in some settings, like long-term care and among assistants and aides.¹¹ Overall, the long-term outcomes of these resource, disease, and mental health disruptions need to be assessed and solutions created to maintain a quality and effective healthcare system, with ample resources and measures to account for disease increases and address the impact on providers. 

Healthcare Capacity and Resources 

With COVID-19 affecting over 100 million in the United States as of March 1, 2023, the impact on healthcare resources since the start of the pandemic has been immense.¹² With 5% to 38% of hospitalized patients being admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU) and 75% to 88% of those patients requiring mechanical ventilation, a huge strain was placed on resources during and after the pandemic.¹ 

The question of balancing resources for other hospital needs while tending to patients with COVID-19 has been an ongoing discussion at many levels.¹ One core resource concern is the lack of staff. In a survey of 77 different countries, including physicians (41%), nurses (40%), respiratory therapists (11%), and advanced practice providers (8%), 15% reported insufficient intensivists and 32% reported insufficient ICU nursing staff during March and April of 2020.¹ A lack of hospital and care space that led to reallocation of limited-care acute care space was a concern. Thirteen percent reported a shortage of hospital ICU beds, while others reported the conversion of postoperative recovery rooms (20%) and operating rooms (12%) for patients with COVID-19.¹ 

Along with staff and care space concerns, hospital survey respondents reported that healthcare equipment was also challenged. Access to COVID-19 testing was one concern, with only 35% of respondents reporting availability for all patients at the beginning of the pandemic, and 56% reporting availability for only select patients based on symptom severity.¹ Access to personal protective equipment (PPE) was also affected, with PPE always available according to 83% to 95% of respondents but just 35% having access to N95 masks.¹ Additionally, 26% reported that there were no respirators in their hospital, and 11% reported limited ventilators.¹ 

Although resource depletion is a problem, studies have looked at public health measures that helped to mitigate this issue. With proper public health planning and implementation, such as physical distancing, aggressive testing, contact tracing, and increased hospital capacity, by freeing up existing resources or adding additional support, public health modeling showed that resources may be able to withstand the increase.¹³ Development of reallocation models at local, state, national, and international levels is an important step to be able to deal with future public health crises.¹⁴

The long-term impact from the pandemic includes disruption in the physical environment of healthcare, production, supply chain, staff structure, and workforce alterations.⁴ For example, the physical shape of healthcare facilities is changing to accommodate increasing volumes and decrease the risk of spreading disease.⁴ To accommodate the burden on staffing structure and workforce alteration, telehealth gained a prominent role.⁴ All in all, the pandemic has changed the healthcare system; however, institutions, organizations, and policy makers need to evaluate which measures were impactful and should be considered for long-term inclusion in healthcare practice. 

Impact on Other Diseases: Cancer, Heart Disease, Chronic Illnesses, and Other Viruses 

The treatment of other new and existing conditions has also been affected by the pandemic. Cancer, especially, is a disease of concern. Elective surgeries and screening were halted or altered during the pandemic, which is modeled to lead to higher cancer mortality in years to come.² The most affected cancers were breast, lung, and colorectal cancer.² A study of colorectal cancer screening showed that colonoscopies were delayed due to COVID-19 and that gastroenterology visits declined by 49% to 61%.¹⁵ This will likely lead to delayed cancer diagnoses and possible increases in mortality.¹⁵ Breast cancer screening was also delayed and many patients continued to avoid it for various reasons such as fears of contracting COVID-19 infection in healthcare facilities, and the economic effects of the pandemic such as job loss and healthcare coverage loss.¹⁶ These delays will result in an estimated potential 0.52% overall increase in breast cancer deaths by 2030.¹⁷

A study of 368 patients from Spain showed a 56.5% decrease in hospital admissions, usually related to heart attacks, in March and April of 2020, compared to January and February 2020.^18,19 For other chronic illnesses, the pandemic resulted in decreased preventative care and management.²⁰ The care of other infections similarly suffered. The World Health Organization announced that the number of patients receiving treatment for tuberculosis (TB) dropped by 1 million, setting the disease mitigation back considerably.²⁰ An estimated 500,000 more people died in 2020 from TB.²¹ The drastic shift in focus to COVID-19 care during this period will continue to have a profound impact on other diseases like these for many years post-pandemic.

Provider Experience and Mental Health Outcomes 

The impact on provider experiences and mental health has been immense. One study of 510 healthcare providers (HCPs) and first responders found that occupational stress from the pandemic correlated with psychiatric symptoms, including depression, PTSD, insomnia, and generalized anxiety.³ Occupational stress also correlated with one’s likelihood to leave the medical field and trouble doing work they had once loved.³ Half of the healthcare workers surveyed indicated a decreased likelihood of staying in their current profession after the pandemic.³ 

Other studies have also looked at specific subspecialties and impact on trainees during the pandemic. In neurosurgery, for example, resident burnout is high, at 26.1%.⁹ Additionally, the lack of surgeries in the pandemic made 65.8% of neurosurgery residents anxious about meeting career milestones.⁹ Respiratory therapists, a highly impacted group, also experienced burnout, reporting higher levels in those who worked more in the ICU. Another study identified several themes in the concerns reported by healthcare workers during the pandemic era including “changes in personal life and enhanced negative affect,” “gaining experience, normalization, and adaptation to the pandemic,” and “mental health considerations.”²² 

Some studies have investigated ways to mitigate this dissatisfaction with the healthcare field post-pandemic. Intrapreneurship, reverse mentoring, and democratized learning all had a reported positive impact on employee experience and retention during this time.²³ Intrapreneurship describes entrepreneurship within an existing organization, while reverse mentoring and democratized learning refer to newer employees teaching older employees and communicative learning on a breadth of topics. Other studies have examined the necessity of having mental health resources available, and that these resources need to be multi-stage and individualistic as well as specific to certain stressors HCPs faced during the pandemic.²² 

Conclusion and Future Directions

The COVID-19 pandemic had stark effects on the healthcare system, impacting resources and capacity, care of other diseases, and provider mental health and experiences.^1-3 After the chaos of the pandemic, many questions remain. What needs to be done now by health systems and HCPs? How can we learn from the challenges and the effects on capacity to change the healthcare workflow in times of crisis and in the present? How do we mitigate the impact of the pandemic on diagnosis and management of diseases? And how do we continue to provide healthcare workers with proper mental health and professional resources now, not just in times of stress, and encourage the future generation to pursue careers in healthcare? 

These are all the questions the pandemic has left us with, and more studies and initiatives are needed to investigate solutions to these issues. The COVID-19 pandemic left behind valuable lessons and changed the healthcare system, disease management, and staffing for many. Now is the time to pick up the pieces and strategize on how to make our existing system more effective for workers and patients post pandemic. 

Introduction

The COVID-19 pandemic has changed the healthcare system in a multitude of ways, affecting healthcare capacity, treatment of other illnesses, and wellness as well as professional retention of healthcare workers.^1-3 During the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, healthcare capacity was tested and resources were used up quickly.¹ As the pandemic has progressed, healthcare systems have had to decide how to proceed with lessons learned, reassessing the environment of care delivery, healthcare supply chains, workforce structures, communication systems, and scientific collaboration as well as policy frameworks in healthcare.⁴ 

There have been both immediate effects and long-term consequences of the delay in care for other conditions.^2,5 One stark example of this is in cancer care, where screening and procedures were postponed or canceled due to the pandemic with a resulting predicted 2% increase in cancer mortality in the next 10 years.² The care of heart disease, chronic illnesses, and other viruses has also been similarly negatively impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic due to similar delays in diagnosis and treatment.^5-7 

The impact on healthcare workers has also been profound.³ Occupational stress from the pandemic has correlated with increased depression and posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) among other mental health diseases in healthcare workers.³ In a survey of neurosurgery residents, 26.1% of physicians reported feeling burnt out, and 65.8% were worried that they would not be able to reach surgical milestones.^8,9 Among respiratory therapists, a hard hit group during this time, 79% reported burnout.¹⁰ Additionally, more healthcare workers left the field during the pandemic, with 15 million lost jobs. Future recovery of jobs looks bleak in some settings, like long-term care and among assistants and aides.¹¹ Overall, the long-term outcomes of these resource, disease, and mental health disruptions need to be assessed and solutions created to maintain a quality and effective healthcare system, with ample resources and measures to account for disease increases and address the impact on providers. 

Healthcare Capacity and Resources 

With COVID-19 affecting over 100 million in the United States as of March 1, 2023, the impact on healthcare resources since the start of the pandemic has been immense.¹² With 5% to 38% of hospitalized patients being admitted to the intensive care unit (ICU) and 75% to 88% of those patients requiring mechanical ventilation, a huge strain was placed on resources during and after the pandemic.¹ 

The question of balancing resources for other hospital needs while tending to patients with COVID-19 has been an ongoing discussion at many levels.¹ One core resource concern is the lack of staff. In a survey of 77 different countries, including physicians (41%), nurses (40%), respiratory therapists (11%), and advanced practice providers (8%), 15% reported insufficient intensivists and 32% reported insufficient ICU nursing staff during March and April of 2020.¹ A lack of hospital and care space that led to reallocation of limited-care acute care space was a concern. Thirteen percent reported a shortage of hospital ICU beds, while others reported the conversion of postoperative recovery rooms (20%) and operating rooms (12%) for patients with COVID-19.¹ 

Along with staff and care space concerns, hospital survey respondents reported that healthcare equipment was also challenged. Access to COVID-19 testing was one concern, with only 35% of respondents reporting availability for all patients at the beginning of the pandemic, and 56% reporting availability for only select patients based on symptom severity.¹ Access to personal protective equipment (PPE) was also affected, with PPE always available according to 83% to 95% of respondents but just 35% having access to N95 masks.¹ Additionally, 26% reported that there were no respirators in their hospital, and 11% reported limited ventilators.¹ 

Although resource depletion is a problem, studies have looked at public health measures that helped to mitigate this issue. With proper public health planning and implementation, such as physical distancing, aggressive testing, contact tracing, and increased hospital capacity, by freeing up existing resources or adding additional support, public health modeling showed that resources may be able to withstand the increase.¹³ Development of reallocation models at local, state, national, and international levels is an important step to be able to deal with future public health crises.¹⁴

The long-term impact from the pandemic includes disruption in the physical environment of healthcare, production, supply chain, staff structure, and workforce alterations.⁴ For example, the physical shape of healthcare facilities is changing to accommodate increasing volumes and decrease the risk of spreading disease.⁴ To accommodate the burden on staffing structure and workforce alteration, telehealth gained a prominent role.⁴ All in all, the pandemic has changed the healthcare system; however, institutions, organizations, and policy makers need to evaluate which measures were impactful and should be considered for long-term inclusion in healthcare practice. 

Impact on Other Diseases: Cancer, Heart Disease, Chronic Illnesses, and Other Viruses 

The treatment of other new and existing conditions has also been affected by the pandemic. Cancer, especially, is a disease of concern. Elective surgeries and screening were halted or altered during the pandemic, which is modeled to lead to higher cancer mortality in years to come.² The most affected cancers were breast, lung, and colorectal cancer.² A study of colorectal cancer screening showed that colonoscopies were delayed due to COVID-19 and that gastroenterology visits declined by 49% to 61%.¹⁵ This will likely lead to delayed cancer diagnoses and possible increases in mortality.¹⁵ Breast cancer screening was also delayed and many patients continued to avoid it for various reasons such as fears of contracting COVID-19 infection in healthcare facilities, and the economic effects of the pandemic such as job loss and healthcare coverage loss.¹⁶ These delays will result in an estimated potential 0.52% overall increase in breast cancer deaths by 2030.¹⁷

A study of 368 patients from Spain showed a 56.5% decrease in hospital admissions, usually related to heart attacks, in March and April of 2020, compared to January and February 2020.^18,19 For other chronic illnesses, the pandemic resulted in decreased preventative care and management.²⁰ The care of other infections similarly suffered. The World Health Organization announced that the number of patients receiving treatment for tuberculosis (TB) dropped by 1 million, setting the disease mitigation back considerably.²⁰ An estimated 500,000 more people died in 2020 from TB.²¹ The drastic shift in focus to COVID-19 care during this period will continue to have a profound impact on other diseases like these for many years post-pandemic.

Provider Experience and Mental Health Outcomes 

The impact on provider experiences and mental health has been immense. One study of 510 healthcare providers (HCPs) and first responders found that occupational stress from the pandemic correlated with psychiatric symptoms, including depression, PTSD, insomnia, and generalized anxiety.³ Occupational stress also correlated with one’s likelihood to leave the medical field and trouble doing work they had once loved.³ Half of the healthcare workers surveyed indicated a decreased likelihood of staying in their current profession after the pandemic.³ 

Other studies have also looked at specific subspecialties and impact on trainees during the pandemic. In neurosurgery, for example, resident burnout is high, at 26.1%.⁹ Additionally, the lack of surgeries in the pandemic made 65.8% of neurosurgery residents anxious about meeting career milestones.⁹ Respiratory therapists, a highly impacted group, also experienced burnout, reporting higher levels in those who worked more in the ICU. Another study identified several themes in the concerns reported by healthcare workers during the pandemic era including “changes in personal life and enhanced negative affect,” “gaining experience, normalization, and adaptation to the pandemic,” and “mental health considerations.”²² 

Some studies have investigated ways to mitigate this dissatisfaction with the healthcare field post-pandemic. Intrapreneurship, reverse mentoring, and democratized learning all had a reported positive impact on employee experience and retention during this time.²³ Intrapreneurship describes entrepreneurship within an existing organization, while reverse mentoring and democratized learning refer to newer employees teaching older employees and communicative learning on a breadth of topics. Other studies have examined the necessity of having mental health resources available, and that these resources need to be multi-stage and individualistic as well as specific to certain stressors HCPs faced during the pandemic.²² 

Conclusion and Future Directions

The COVID-19 pandemic had stark effects on the healthcare system, impacting resources and capacity, care of other diseases, and provider mental health and experiences.^1-3 After the chaos of the pandemic, many questions remain. What needs to be done now by health systems and HCPs? How can we learn from the challenges and the effects on capacity to change the healthcare workflow in times of crisis and in the present? How do we mitigate the impact of the pandemic on diagnosis and management of diseases? And how do we continue to provide healthcare workers with proper mental health and professional resources now, not just in times of stress, and encourage the future generation to pursue careers in healthcare? 

These are all the questions the pandemic has left us with, and more studies and initiatives are needed to investigate solutions to these issues. The COVID-19 pandemic left behind valuable lessons and changed the healthcare system, disease management, and staffing for many. Now is the time to pick up the pieces and strategize on how to make our existing system more effective for workers and patients post pandemic. 

More than 1 in 4 parents lied to school officials about their children’s COVID-19 status or refused to comply with public health rules during the height of the pandemic, a new study found. Researchers said they suspected the 26% of parents who misrepresented their children’s health status may have undercounted the actual figure.

“If anything, 26% is probably the minimum” of parents who misled school officials, said Angela Fagerlin, PhD, a researcher at the University of Utah Medical School, Salt Lake City.

In the survey, many parents said they considered it their right as parents to make their own decision about their children’s health status, said Dr. Fagerlin, who is also the chair of the department of population health sciences at the University of Utah School of Medicine. 

“It appears that many parents were concerned about their children missing school,” she said. “At the same time, they’re potentially exposing other kids to a serious illness.”

In the survey, parents were asked whether they lied or misrepresented information about their children on seven different COVID-19 topics, including illness and vaccination status and if they followed quarantine protocols. Researchers tallied survey responses collected in December 2021 from 580 parents, whose average age was 36 and of whom 70% were women. Results were published in the journal JAMA Network Open.

Overall, 24% of parents said they lied to people that their children were with while knowing or suspecting the children had COVID. About half of parents cited at least one of the following reasons for doing so: parental freedom, child did not feel very sick, or wanted the child’s life to feel “normal.”

About 20% of parents said they avoided testing when they thought their child had COVID, and parents also reported allowing children to break quarantine rules at a similar rate. More than half of parents who avoided testing said they were worried testing would hurt or feel uncomfortable.

About 4 in 10 parents who lied about their child’s illness status or who lied about whether their child should be in quarantine said they did so because of guidance from a public figure such as a celebrity or politician. At least 3 in 10 said they lied because they could not miss work to stay home with their child.

“We need to do a better job of providing support mechanisms like paid sick leave for family illness so that parents don’t feel like their only option is to engage in misrepresentation or non-adherence to public health guidelines during a future infectious disease outbreak that matches or exceeds the magnitude of COVID-19,” says researcher Andrea Gurmankin Levy, PhD, of Middlesex (Conn.) Community College.

A version of this article first appeared on WebMD.com.

More than 1 in 4 parents lied to school officials about their children’s COVID-19 status or refused to comply with public health rules during the height of the pandemic, a new study found. Researchers said they suspected the 26% of parents who misrepresented their children’s health status may have undercounted the actual figure.

“If anything, 26% is probably the minimum” of parents who misled school officials, said Angela Fagerlin, PhD, a researcher at the University of Utah Medical School, Salt Lake City.

In the survey, many parents said they considered it their right as parents to make their own decision about their children’s health status, said Dr. Fagerlin, who is also the chair of the department of population health sciences at the University of Utah School of Medicine. 

“It appears that many parents were concerned about their children missing school,” she said. “At the same time, they’re potentially exposing other kids to a serious illness.”

In the survey, parents were asked whether they lied or misrepresented information about their children on seven different COVID-19 topics, including illness and vaccination status and if they followed quarantine protocols. Researchers tallied survey responses collected in December 2021 from 580 parents, whose average age was 36 and of whom 70% were women. Results were published in the journal JAMA Network Open.

Overall, 24% of parents said they lied to people that their children were with while knowing or suspecting the children had COVID. About half of parents cited at least one of the following reasons for doing so: parental freedom, child did not feel very sick, or wanted the child’s life to feel “normal.”

About 20% of parents said they avoided testing when they thought their child had COVID, and parents also reported allowing children to break quarantine rules at a similar rate. More than half of parents who avoided testing said they were worried testing would hurt or feel uncomfortable.

About 4 in 10 parents who lied about their child’s illness status or who lied about whether their child should be in quarantine said they did so because of guidance from a public figure such as a celebrity or politician. At least 3 in 10 said they lied because they could not miss work to stay home with their child.

“We need to do a better job of providing support mechanisms like paid sick leave for family illness so that parents don’t feel like their only option is to engage in misrepresentation or non-adherence to public health guidelines during a future infectious disease outbreak that matches or exceeds the magnitude of COVID-19,” says researcher Andrea Gurmankin Levy, PhD, of Middlesex (Conn.) Community College.

A version of this article first appeared on WebMD.com.

More than 1 in 4 parents lied to school officials about their children’s COVID-19 status or refused to comply with public health rules during the height of the pandemic, a new study found. Researchers said they suspected the 26% of parents who misrepresented their children’s health status may have undercounted the actual figure.

“If anything, 26% is probably the minimum” of parents who misled school officials, said Angela Fagerlin, PhD, a researcher at the University of Utah Medical School, Salt Lake City.

In the survey, many parents said they considered it their right as parents to make their own decision about their children’s health status, said Dr. Fagerlin, who is also the chair of the department of population health sciences at the University of Utah School of Medicine. 

“It appears that many parents were concerned about their children missing school,” she said. “At the same time, they’re potentially exposing other kids to a serious illness.”

In the survey, parents were asked whether they lied or misrepresented information about their children on seven different COVID-19 topics, including illness and vaccination status and if they followed quarantine protocols. Researchers tallied survey responses collected in December 2021 from 580 parents, whose average age was 36 and of whom 70% were women. Results were published in the journal JAMA Network Open.

Overall, 24% of parents said they lied to people that their children were with while knowing or suspecting the children had COVID. About half of parents cited at least one of the following reasons for doing so: parental freedom, child did not feel very sick, or wanted the child’s life to feel “normal.”

About 20% of parents said they avoided testing when they thought their child had COVID, and parents also reported allowing children to break quarantine rules at a similar rate. More than half of parents who avoided testing said they were worried testing would hurt or feel uncomfortable.

About 4 in 10 parents who lied about their child’s illness status or who lied about whether their child should be in quarantine said they did so because of guidance from a public figure such as a celebrity or politician. At least 3 in 10 said they lied because they could not miss work to stay home with their child.

“We need to do a better job of providing support mechanisms like paid sick leave for family illness so that parents don’t feel like their only option is to engage in misrepresentation or non-adherence to public health guidelines during a future infectious disease outbreak that matches or exceeds the magnitude of COVID-19,” says researcher Andrea Gurmankin Levy, PhD, of Middlesex (Conn.) Community College.

A version of this article first appeared on WebMD.com.