COVID wastewater levels have peaked and appear to be going down in most states, but wastewater virus levels are still at very high or high levels in most states.
Regarding the new metformin study - I think it relied on a review of patient charts and diagnosis codes of long covid. I’ll have to confirm that, but any study relying on clinical documentation of “long covid” will vastly underestimate the true prevalence. It’s hard to make that diagnosis as it is somewhat of a judgment call, and there are no consensus confirmatory tests like blood work ( although there are lots of suggestive tests). I like the studies that prospectively assess long covid symptom development via surveys, etc rather than mining icd 10 codes. What do you think? I trust the Covid-OUT ~40% RR reduction more, though I would have to review how they measured this, but it was prospective.
I agree. Mining EHR records with the Long COVID diagnosis code misses a lot of people. The new study was a retrospective cohort analysis of electronic health record (EHR) databases.
As always, thank you. I’ve been discouraged by the RECOVER Initiative Conference this week, so much so that I bowed out of it on Zoom on the last day, today. It’s so frustrating. They had patients with Long Covid as guest speakers (some of them medical professionals who developed LC early on). This is a room full of the supposed best researchers and scientists studying LC today, and they’re sitting in a large, crowded conference room and only 10% are wearing masks. This is what we’ve got, really? I can’t tell you how disheartening that fact was, along with many of the presentations.
Unfortunately, I wasn't able to catch the RECOVER talks live, so it is hard for me to comment. But, I do agree that masking is a good way to reduce risk in a crowded indoor space.
Thank you for this. You remain a primary source of accurate information for me. Regarding the accelerated aging study in the pediatrics section, I think it’s important to note that the authors did not control for history of Covid infection and in the discussion part of the study, the authors reported, “And finally, we do not know whether contraction of the COVID-19 virus itself may have contributed to these findings, though in the community from which our study sample was derived, COVID-19 prevalence was widespread,” I have seen this report used on various media platforms this week to point to lockdowns as harmful, when Covid is well known to cause brain damage and brain aging, particularly in the areas noted in this study. Covid infection is also known to disturb cortisol levels. I know that we can’t control what the media does with a headline but all we know from the study is that teens are showing significant changes in their brains. That should be alarming but it’s being brushed off as due to lockdowns while Covid continues to rip through society.
Wow. A lot of information there, thank you.
Some eye openers too. Like 50% of US think they will never get Covid again in their lifetimes 😬
Great presentation as usual thank you,
Regarding the new metformin study - I think it relied on a review of patient charts and diagnosis codes of long covid. I’ll have to confirm that, but any study relying on clinical documentation of “long covid” will vastly underestimate the true prevalence. It’s hard to make that diagnosis as it is somewhat of a judgment call, and there are no consensus confirmatory tests like blood work ( although there are lots of suggestive tests). I like the studies that prospectively assess long covid symptom development via surveys, etc rather than mining icd 10 codes. What do you think? I trust the Covid-OUT ~40% RR reduction more, though I would have to review how they measured this, but it was prospective.
I agree. Mining EHR records with the Long COVID diagnosis code misses a lot of people. The new study was a retrospective cohort analysis of electronic health record (EHR) databases.
Thank you so much for this work.
As always, thank you. I’ve been discouraged by the RECOVER Initiative Conference this week, so much so that I bowed out of it on Zoom on the last day, today. It’s so frustrating. They had patients with Long Covid as guest speakers (some of them medical professionals who developed LC early on). This is a room full of the supposed best researchers and scientists studying LC today, and they’re sitting in a large, crowded conference room and only 10% are wearing masks. This is what we’ve got, really? I can’t tell you how disheartening that fact was, along with many of the presentations.
Unfortunately, I wasn't able to catch the RECOVER talks live, so it is hard for me to comment. But, I do agree that masking is a good way to reduce risk in a crowded indoor space.
Thank you for this. You remain a primary source of accurate information for me. Regarding the accelerated aging study in the pediatrics section, I think it’s important to note that the authors did not control for history of Covid infection and in the discussion part of the study, the authors reported, “And finally, we do not know whether contraction of the COVID-19 virus itself may have contributed to these findings, though in the community from which our study sample was derived, COVID-19 prevalence was widespread,” I have seen this report used on various media platforms this week to point to lockdowns as harmful, when Covid is well known to cause brain damage and brain aging, particularly in the areas noted in this study. Covid infection is also known to disturb cortisol levels. I know that we can’t control what the media does with a headline but all we know from the study is that teens are showing significant changes in their brains. That should be alarming but it’s being brushed off as due to lockdowns while Covid continues to rip through society.
I agree.