virology blog

About viruses and viral disease

Long Covid

Trial By Error: Is the Long Covid Phenomenon an Expression of “Psychosocial Distress”?

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By David Tuller, DrPH

For the second time in a few weeks, a major US news organization has provided Professor Michael Sharpe, lead PACE investigator and one-time Virology Blog commenter, with a high-profile platform to disseminate his typical blather and nonsense. Both articles—the first in New York Magazine, the second in The New Republic–-have presented the long Covid phenomenon as largely psychosomatic.

I wrote an extended twitter thread and a blog post about the pretty awful New York Magazine piece, which highlighted my 15,000-word investigation of the PACE trial but misrepresented my criticisms. I won’t bother more about that article for now. As for The New Republic‘s iteration by Natalie Shure, an experienced science and health journalist, poet Meghan O’Rourke, author of The Invisible Kingdom, has written an excellent thread about it.

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Trial By Error: The Long COVID Survival Guide and the Role of Patients in Research

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By David Tuller, DrPH

“The Long COVID Survival Guide: How to Take Care of Yourself and What Comes Next—Stories and Advice from Twenty Long-Haulers and Experts” is pretty much what it sounds like. The anthology was published earlier this month, and each chapter is written by one or more contributors. The topics covered address long Covid through a variety of lenses–the biases of the health care system, financial impacts, the importance of pacing, the challenge of cognitive impairments, menstruation, disability rights, and so on.

I spoke earlier today with three of those involved in the book. Writer Fiona Lowenstein, the book’s editor, brought public attention to the issue of prolonged recovery early in the pandemic through a prescient opinion piece in The New York Times in April, 2020. Lowenstein is a founder of Body Politic, the wellness collective that generated early survey data about persistent symptoms after acute bouts of Covid-19. Our conversation also included two contributors to The Long COVID Survival Guide. Lisa McCorkell works with the Patient-Led Research Collaborative, which arose out of Body Politic’s efforts, and wrote about how to parse medical research; Padma Priya, an Indian journalist, wrote about the importance of peer-to-peer and community support, especially in countries with fewer medical resources.

Thanks to all three of them! I have posted the conversation on YouTube and below.

TWiV 953: Clinical update with Dr. Daniel Griffin

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In his weekly clinical update Dr. Griffin discusses high demand for Amoxicillin causing shortages amid child RSV surge, epidemiologic and clinical features of children and adolescents aged <18 years with monkeypox, low risk of SARS-Cov-2 transmission by fomites, nucleocapsid antigenemia is a marker of acute SARS-CoV-2 infection, impact of community masking on COVID-19,  protection against Omicron from vaccination and previous infection in a prison system, Nirmatrelvir and the risk of post-acute sequelae of COVID-19, Bebtelovimab for high-risk outpatients with early COVID-19 in a large US health system, imprinted SARS-CoV-2 humoral immunity induces convergent Omicron RBD evolution, can SARS-CoV-2 trigger new onset of autoimmune disease in adults? A case-based review, and retrospectively modeling the effects of increased global vaccine sharing on the COVID-19 pandemic.

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TWiV 951: Clinical update with Dr. Daniel Griffin

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In his weekly clinical update Dr. Griffin discusses Influenza incidence and vaccine effectiveness during the southern hemisphere influenza season in Chile, Nirsevimab for prevention of RSV infection in healthy late-preterm and term infants, severe Monkeypox in hospitalized patients, reinfections with different SARS-CoV-2 Omicron subvariants, impact of community masking on COVID-19 in Bangladesh, unadjuvanted intranasal spike vaccine elicits protective mucosal immunity against sarbecoviruses, antibody responses to Omicron BA.4/BA.5 bivalent mRNA vaccine booster shot, immunogenicity of bivalent mRNA vaccine boosters, long-term gastrointestinal sequelae following COVID-19, evaluation of an automated text message–based program to reduce use of acute health care resources after hospital discharge, and how in adults with COVID-19, melatonin was assessed for effects on inflammatory markers, clinical signs and symptoms, and mortality.

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TWiV 949: Clinical update with Dr. Daniel Griffin

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In his weekly clinical update Dr. Griffin discusses progress toward poliomyelitis eradication in Pakistan, polio by the numbers , influenza and COVID-19 vaccination coverage among health care personnel, phase 1/2a safety and immunogenicity of an adenovirus 26 vector RSV vaccine encoding prefusion F in adults 18–50 years and RSV seropositive children 12–24 months, receipt of first and second doses of JYNNEOS vaccine for prevention of Monkeypox, distinguishing SARS-CoV-2 persistence and reinfection, Novavax NVX-COV2373 triggers potent neutralization of Omicron sub-lineages, association between regular physical activity and the protective effect of vaccination against SARS-CoV-2 in a South African case, COVID-19 outcomes in solid organ transplant recipients who received Tixagevimab-cilgavimab Prophylaxis and/or Bebtelovimab treatment, Omicron sublineage BA.2.75.2 exhibits extensive escape from neutralizing antibodies, and Tocilizumab versus Baricitinib in hospitalized patients with severe COVID-19.

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TWiV 947: Clinical update with Dr. Daniel Griffin

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In his weekly clinical update Dr. Griffin discusses the prediction of upcoming global infection burden of influenza seasons after relaxation of public health and social measures during the COVID-19 pandemic, severe COVID-19 outcomes after full vaccination of primary schedule and initial boosters, and how successful immunomodulators for treatment of COVID-19 have opened the pathway for comparative trials.

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