Articles related to COVID-19

Evidence is mounting that much of the concern about waning immunity to COVID-19 is overstated and that vaccines provide high levels of protection against the respiratory disease and its variants over the long-term. Immunologically, plasmablast and B-cell response after mRNA vaccination is long-lived and memory B cells increase over at least six months. And in the field, the evidence is that vaccination is doing what it is intended to do: reduce the severity and spread of the infection.

This BMJ editorial examines whether approaches better equipped to compare rates of menstrual variation in vaccinated versus unvaccinated populations are needed, based on the reports of changes to periods and unexpected vaginal bleeding after vaccination. The US has taken the first step, earmarking $1.67M from the National Institutes of Health to encourage research.

Vaccinations are up and COVID-19 cases continue to decline, but healthcare will forever be changed by the pandemic. The telehealth revolution is upon us, and health disparities are finally being addressed. Doctors and patients are working together to define what constitutes “necessary” healthcare. Discover what else the future holds for healthcare in a post-pandemic world.

Source: MedPage Today (from JAMA Oncology)Design: Analysis was from a previously published prospective cohort study that evaluated the rates of antibody response to Pfizer’s vaccine in 102 cancer patients who were on active treatment compared with 78 healthy controls. A fourth of the patients were undergoing treatment for lung cancer, 26% for gastrointestinal cancers, and 18% for breast cancer.Results: After four months from the second dose of Pfizer’s mRNA vaccine, 87% of cancer patients who had been on active treatment continued to produce COVID-19 antibodies.

Antibodies against COVID-19 continue to perplex and confound physicians and research scientists. Although people who have gotten COVID-19 or been vaccinated against the respiratory disease develop a humoral immune response that protects them from reinfection, those antibodies decline over time, leaving people vulnerable to reinfection. Understanding why this happens is critically important to modeling how COVID-19 spreads through the general population, including children.

Nearly a third of all Americans (100 million people) have now been infected with COVID-19. And scientific evidence shows that natural immunity from infection is durable and long-lasting. So why is it then that inoculations continue to be pushed for all people regardless of whether they have contracted COVID-19 or not? And why isn’t natural immunity factored into medical decisions about how we prioritize vaccinations?