Pregnant Women At Higher Risk Of Severe COVID Illness, Death

The Washington Post: Pregnant Women Are More Likely To Die From The Coronavirus, Though Risk Remains Small
Pregnant women who catch the coronavirus are at greater risk of death and severe illness than women who are not pregnant, even as the risk overall remains small, according to federal statistics released Monday. The data — the most comprehensive U.S. accounting to date of how the virus affects pregnant women — shows that pregnant women are almost three times more likely to be admitted to intensive care units, and more than three times more likely to be put on a ventilator. The findings echo previous studies linking pregnancy to increased risk for severe illness. (Wan, 11/2)

CNN: Pregnant Women With Covid-19 Face Higher Risk Of Severe Illness And Death, Study Says
Pregnant women infected with the coronavirus are more likely to become severely ill and die from Covid-19, and they're at increased risk for premature delivery, according to a pair of reports released Monday by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Although the overall risk of severe illness or death remains low, CDC researchers found that pregnant women with coronavirus are more likely to need intensive care, ventilation and heart and lung support than non-pregnant women with the virus. (Mascarenhas, 11/3)

In other COVID developments —

NBC News: The FDA's Cutoff For Covid-19 Vaccine Effectiveness Is 50 Percent. What Does That Mean?
Over the summer, the Food and Drug Administration announced that in order for an experimental Covid-19 vaccine to get the green light, it would need to be safe and “prevent disease or decrease its severity in at least 50 percent of people who are vaccinated.” In fact, no vaccine is 100 percent effective, but some work better than others. One of the most successful is the measles vaccine — two doses are 97 percent effective in preventing the disease, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (Stenson, 11/3)

Stateline: More Rapid Tests Are Here. There's No National Strategy To Use Them.
In theory, the growing supply of rapid-result antigen tests should allow millions of asymptomatic people — who make up at least 40% of those infected with the coronavirus — to be regularly screened for the virus, and for those who test positive to be isolated to curtail spread in classrooms, workplaces and other environments. But so far, that’s not the plan. (Vestal, 11/2)

The New York Times: Coronavirus Rapid Testing Falters In People Without Symptoms: Study
A new study casts doubt on whether rapid tests perform as promised under real-world conditions, especially when used in people without symptoms. In a head-to-head comparison, researchers at the University of Arizona found that, in symptomatic people, a rapid test made by Quidel could detect more than 80 percent of coronavirus infections found by a slower, lab-based P.C.R. test. But when the rapid test was used instead to randomly screen students and staff members who did not feel sick, it detected only 32 percent of the positive cases identified by the P.C.R. test. (Wu, 11/2)

Bloomberg: Covid Patients Show Immunity Gauge Lasting Six Months In Study
A crucial type of defensive blood cell persists for at least six months in people after Covid-19, even in those who had no symptoms, in a new study that may ease concern about waning immunity and its implications for a vaccine. The research on 100 people shows that all had T-cell responses against a range of the coronavirus’s proteins, including the spike protein used as a marker in many vaccine studies, after half a year. Those who experienced symptoms had levels that were at least 50% higher than those who didn’t. (Fourcade, 11/3)

CIDRAP: Confronting The Notion That Face Masks Reduce COVID 'Dose'
When two physicians at the University of California at San Francisco published a commentary in the New England Journal of Medicine (NEJM) on Sep 8 proposing to resurrect the 18th century practice of variolation using face coverings to prevent severe COVID-19 and confer immunity, the Internet lit up with headlines such as "Coronavirus: Another reason for that mask: You'll get less sick." The paper, written by Monica Gandhi, MD, MPH, and George Rutherford, MD, suggested that face coverings, in the absence of a vaccine, could reduce the inhaled dose of coronavirus by filtering some virus-containing droplets, leading to asymptomatic or mild disease and stimulating T- and B-cell immunity. (Van Beusekom, 11/2)

The Wall Street Journal: Doctors Begin To Crack Covid’s Mysterious Long-Term Effects
A leading explanation for long-Covid symptoms is that immune-system activity and ensuing inflammation continue to affect organs or the nervous system even after the virus is gone, researchers said. Some of the most compelling evidence for the inflammation theory comes from Covid-19 patients with signs of heart inflammation and injury months after illness. One study looking at 100 Covid-19 patients two months after getting sick found that 78 had abnormal findings on cardiac magnetic resonance imaging, while 60 had cardiac MRIs indicating heart-muscle inflammation. The study included hospitalized, nonhospitalized and asymptomatic patients. (Toy, Reddy and Hernandez, 11/1)

AP: Does Weather Affect The Spread Of The Coronavirus Outside?
The World Health Organization says the virus can be transmitted in any kind of weather and that there is no reason to believe that cold weather can kill it. The U.N. health agency says the virus is mainly spread between people. Rain and snow might dilute any traces of the virus on benches or other outside objects, but transmission from surfaces is not believed to be a major contributor to the pandemic. (11/3)