• PLOS publishes a retrospective cohort study using electronic health records from 81 million patients including 273,618 COVID-19 survivors to look at the incidence and co-occurrence of Long COVID symptoms, based on nine core features (breathing difficulties/breathlessness, fatigue/malaise, chest/throat pain, headache, abdominal symptoms, myalgia, other pain, cognitive symptoms, and anxiety/depression) within six months and in the three to six months after a COVID-19 diagnosis.
Overall, 57 percent of COVID-19 survivors had one or more feature of Long COVID during the six-month period, and 36.55 percent experienced them between 3 and 6 months. The incidence of each symptom was: abnormal breathing (18.71 percent in the 1- to 180-day period; 7.94 percent in the 90- to180-day period), fatigue/malaise (12.82 percent and 5.87 percent ), chest/throat pain (12.60 percent and 5.71 percent) headache (8.67 percent and 4.63 percent ), other pain (11.60 percent and 7.19 percent), abdominal symptoms (15.58 percent and ;8.29 percent ), myalgia (3.24 percent and 1.54 percent), cognitive symptoms (7.88 percent and 3.95 percent), and anxiety/depression (22.82 percent and 15.49 percent). The risk for Long COVID was higher in people who had severe illness and slightly higher among females and young adults; there were no race-or ethnicity-based differences. Source
• India reports 18,870 new daily coronavirus cases – its lowest in half a year – just one day after the lowest daily COVID-19 death toll – of 179 people – since March of 2021. Source
• The local disease control agency in Harbin, China euthanized three cats who tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 after their owner was diagnosed – and without her permission triggering outrage on social media. A community worker said the cats were killed because they could not be treated, and would have left traces of the virus in their home. According to Rachael Tarlinton, a virology professor at the University of Nottingham, “It doesn’t seem very realistic that the cats would contaminate the environment so badly that they would be a risk for their owner to re-contract COVID.” Vanessa Barrs, a professor at City University of Hong Kong who specializes in animal health and disease, added “…in the whole pandemic, there have been no confirmed reports of cat to human infection.” Source
• YouTube, which has removed over 130,000 videos that violated its Covid-19 vaccine policies over the last 12 months, announces that it is banning the accounts of several prominent anti-vaccine activists from its platform as part of an effort to remove all content that falsely claims that approved vaccines are dangerous. Source
• The US CDC issues a statement urging people who are pregnant, recently pregnant (including those who are lactating), and who are trying to become pregnant now or in the future to get vaccinated. In the US, pregnant people who have COVID-19 have a two-fold risk of intensive care admission, and a 70 percent increase in the risk of death – and they are also at higher risk for preterm birth, stillbirth, and having newborns with COVID-19 who wind up in the ICU. Source