Vaccines Lower Long Covid Risks, Chances Of Death: Study

CIDRAP: Vaccines Lower Risk Of Long COVID 15%, Death By 34%, Data Show 
Long COVID-19 symptoms can affect even fully vaccinated people after mild breakthrough infections, but their risk of serious complications such as lung and blood-clotting disorders is much lower than that of their unvaccinated peers, finds a study of more than 13 million US veterans published this week in Nature Medicine. (Van Beusekom, 5/27)

Fortune: Do I Have Long COVID? As Many As 23 Million Americans Want To Know, As More Than 200 Symptoms Emerge 
One Long COVID patient complains of fatigue, loss of smell, and a persistent cough weeks after his initial COVID infection. Another experiences hallucinations and an inability to record new memories, and begins speaking unrecognizable words. It gets stranger. Among the 200-plus symptoms identified so far are ear numbness, a sensation of “brain on fire,” erectile dysfunction, irregular menstrual periods, constipation, peeling skin, and double vision, according to a landmark July study published in British medical journal The Lancet. (Prater, 5/29)

Fortune: Kids Get Long COVID, Too. Experts Are Racing To Understand It 
A year ago this month, Dr. Alexandra Brugler Yonts opened a clinic with hopes to shutter it quickly. “When we started, we weren’t sure how long we’d be open—we thought only a couple of months,” says Brugler Yonts, an infectious disease specialist at Children's National Hospital in Washington, D.C. She’s the head of the hospital’s new Pediatric Post-COVID Program, launched in May of last year to treat children who developed a slew of mysterious symptoms after COVID infection—and those whose symptoms never stopped. (Prater, 5/28)

Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Long COVID And Heart Conditions — Even Mild Cases Can Cause Long-Term Problems
Chadwick Knight weathered a rough bout of COVID-19 back in January 2021 without being hospitalized, but he never bounced back to his former healthy self. He got winded all the time. He experienced brain fog. Then, well over a year since catching the coronavirus, the 47-year-old collapsed on his living room floor last month. He was rushed to an emergency room with a new, life-threatening post-COVID complication: a blood clot in an artery going from his heart to his lungs. “You get sick, and you think you’re pretty much better and then you are still having issues. And now, it just seems like more things on top of things, and you don’t know what the future holds,” said Knight, who lived in metro Atlanta for several years before recently moving to Dothan, Alabama. “It causes you to worry a lot and weighs you down a lot mentally.” (Oliviero, 5/27)

KHN: Got Long Covid? Medical Expertise Is Vital, And Seniors Should Prepare To Go Slow
Older adults who have survived covid-19 are more likely than younger patients to have persistent symptoms such as fatigue, breathlessness, muscle aches, heart palpitations, headaches, joint pain, and difficulty with memory and concentration — problems linked to long covid. But it can be hard to distinguish lingering aftereffects of covid from conditions common in older adults such as lung disease, heart disease, and mild cognitive impairment. There are no diagnostic tests or recommended treatments for long covid, and the biological mechanisms that underlie its effects remain poorly understood. (Graham, 5/31)

In updates on the vaccine rollout —

USA Today: COVID Vaccine Kids Under 5: What To Know About Pfizer, Moderna Doses
An FDA advisory committee plans to meet on June 15 to discuss both vaccines for kids as young as 6 months. Pfizer and BioNTech have not yet provided their complete data to the FDA but expect to within about a week, according to the companies. Moderna said it completed its application for the youngest children last month. Assuming the committee recommends one or both vaccines and the FDA authorizes them, an advisory committee with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will evaluate the data before it would need to be signed off by the agency's director, Dr. Rochelle Walensky. If federal agencies follow a timeline similar to previous COVID-19 vaccine authorizations, health experts say parents should be able to vaccinate their little ones by the end of June or earlier. (Rodriguez, 5/29)

Stat: A Physician And Parent Weighs The Covid Vaccine Options For Kids Under 5
After months of delays and setbacks, there finally appears to be hope that there will be Covid-19 vaccine authorized for children under 5. Next month, the Food and Drug Administration plans to convene its vaccine advisory panel, known as VRBPAC, to review both Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech’s shots for the youngest kids. The vaccines are not identical: Moderna’s is two doses of 25 micrograms each, a quarter of Moderna’s adult dose. Its efficacy was between 37% and 51% in a trial against symptomatic Covid during the Omicron wave. Pfizer and BioNTech’s vaccine is three doses of 3 micrograms each, a tenth the adult dose. A preliminary efficacy figure based on only 10 cases seen in the trial was 80%, although that could change once more cases accrue. (Feuerstein and Tirrell, 5/27)

KHN: Politics And Pandemic Fatigue Doom California’s Covid Vaccine Mandates
In January, progressive California Democrats vowed to adopt the toughest covid vaccine requirements in the country. Their proposals would have required most Californians to get the shots to go to school or work — without allowing exemptions to get out of them. Months later, the lawmakers pulled their bills before the first votes. (Bluth, 5/31)

The Conversation: How Nasal COVID-19 Vaccines Can Help Prepare For Infection Where It Starts
Imagine inhaling just a few drops of liquid or mist to get protected from COVID-19. That is the idea behind nasal COVID-19 vaccines, and they have been getting a lot of attention recently as a spray or liquid. These nasal vaccines would be based on the same technology as normal vaccines given by injection. But as Mayuresh Abhyankar, a University of Virginia researcher who studies infectious diseases and works on nasal vaccines, explains, vaccinating someone right where the coronavirus is likely to start its attack comes with many immunological benefits. (Abhyankar, 5/30)

The Wall Street Journal: Paxlovid Becomes Household Name For Covid-19 Patients
Pfizer’s antiviral drug, called Paxlovid, totaled more than 412,000 prescriptions through May 6, compared with about 110,000 prescriptions of molnupiravir, an antiviral from Merck & Co. and Ridgeback Biotherapeutics LP, according to drug-data firm Iqvia Holdings Inc. (Hopkins, 5/30)