Articles related to COVID-19

The Wisconsin State Supreme Court has taken on a case that will rule on a patient’s autonomy vs. a hospital’s duty to refuse to provide care it considers below its accepted standard of care.

In a study of 563 placebo-treated patients with COVID, symptoms and viral rebound were recorded in over 30% of cases.

Maternal immunization with 2 doses of vaccine was 97% and 53% effective against infant hospitalization from delta and omicron variants, respectively. The effectiveness of the vaccine in preventing infant hospitalization declined by nearly 20% after 16 weeks. Receiving the second dose in the third trimester yielded the greatest benefit.

Short appointment times, complex patient cases, stressors in electronic health records, a lack of control, and a poor work-life balance can all have a negative impact on patients’ health and even lead to physicians leaving their practices. Physician burnout reached 63% in 2021, demonstrating how the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated the problem. Recognizing the characteristics of zero-burnout practices and translating them into individual professional environments is one potential burnout intervention.

The incidence of hospitalization or an emergency department visit (observation for more than 6 hours) was significantly lower among those who received a single dose of pegylated interferon lambda than among those who received a placebo.

A recent segment of the BBC’s Panorama program revealed that many NHS employees who contracted COVID-19—likely at work—now find themselves abandoned and in a perilous financial situation. The episode profiled NHS employees who are dealing with the long-term health impacts of the COVID-19 infection and revealed the experiences of those who, while being too ill to work, risk losing their jobs or receiving decreased sick pay. Some employees have already experienced this. This physician is one of them.