Getting COVID-19 Multiple Times Is More Dangerous Than You Think
The longer COVID-19 is with us, the greater the number of people who contract the disease more than once—and the greater the likelihood that they’ll see repeated infections as little more than a nuisance, like multiple bouts with a cold or the flu. That, as my colleague Alice Park reports, can be a dangerous misconception.
In a new study published in Nature Medicine, Dr. Ziyad Al-Aly, clinical epidemiologist at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, and his colleagues analyzed the health records of 443,000 people who tested positive for COVID-19 once between March 2020 and April 2022, and compared them to the records of 41,000 people who tested positive two or more times during that period, as well as to those of 5.3 million people from U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs records who avoided infection entirely during that period.
Compared to the people who had been infected just once, those with multiple infections were three times likelier to be hospitalized for COVID-19 and twice as likely to die from the disease. They were also 3.5 times more likely to develop lung problems, 3 times likelier to have heart conditions, and 1.6 times as likely to have brain changes.
With each infection, it appears, the body’s resilience drains away a little more, until ultimately things reach a danger zone. “Cumulatively, each infection could get you closer and closer to the edge,” Al-Aly told Alice. “That’s why avoiding a second or third infection is important to try to continue preserving health.”
The best ways to avoid repeat infections are familiar by now: get vaccinated and boosted, wear a mask in public indoor settings, and avoid gatherings if you're feeling sick.
“The data are a pretty sobering reminder that COVID-19 isn't just an infection you can brush off, even if you only experience mild symptoms,” Alice tells me. “We may be tired of hearing about the pandemic, but the reality is that the disease is still relatively new, and we don't know everything about how it affects the body.”
More than 633.7 million people around the world had been diagnosed with COVID-19 as of 9 a.m. today, and over 6.6 million people have died. On Nov. 9, there were 420,767 new cases and 937 new deaths confirmed globally.
Here's how the world as a whole is currently trending, in terms of cases:
And in terms of deaths:
Here's where daily cases have risen or fallen over the last 14 days, shown in confirmed cases per 100,000 residents:
And here's every country that has reported over 10 million cases:
The U.S. had recorded more than 97.9 million coronavirus cases as of 9 a.m. today. More than 1.07 million people have died. On Nov. 9, there were 95,696 new cases reported in the U.S., and 937 deaths were confirmed.
Here's how the country as a whole is currently trending in terms of cases:
And in terms of deaths:
Here's where daily cases have risen or fallen over the last 14 days, shown in confirmed cases per 100,000 residents:
All numbers unless otherwise specified are from the Johns Hopkins University Center for Systems Science and Engineering, and are accurate as of Nov. 10. To see larger, interactive versions of these maps and charts,click here.
WHAT ELSE YOU SHOULD KNOW
Residents of Beijing and Tianjin, in northern China, can now schedule appointments for an inhalable COVID-19 boostermade by CanSino Biologics, reports Reuters. More than 90% of China’s population has been vaccinated, and the move is seen as one more step in pressing ahead with China’s zero-COVID policy. The new vaccine uses an inactivated COVID-19 booster, rather than mRNA technology. China has yet to develop or import any mRNA vaccine.
Elsewhere in China, things are not as promising: the government has locked down more than 5 million residents in the southern city of Guangzhou, in response to 3,007 COVID-19 infections recorded yesterday, reports CNN. The lockdown counts as a comparatively lenient one for China, since only a portion of the city’s 19 million residents are affected by the new orders—those living in the region where the cases were detected. That portion of Guangzhou has recorded at least 1,000 cases per day for the past five days.
AstraZeneca has dropped its long-running plans to seek approval of its COVID-19 vaccine in the U.S., citing reduced demand for vaccines, reports the Wall Street Journal. The U.S. did stockpile millions of doses of the AstraZeneca shot after it was developed in late 2020, pending approval for its use domestically, but competing shots developed by Pfizer-BioNTech, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson obviated the need for the AstraZeneca vaccine. Ultimately, those stockpiled doses were donated to other, lower-income countries. AstraZeneca is not alone in seeing demand for vaccines fall. Both Moderna and Pfizer reported reduced sales of their vaccines in the third quarter of 2022.
High blood pressure is associated with a 91% greater risk of severe COVID-19, reports a new study published yesterday in the journal PLOS One. Hypertension has long been known to be a COVID-19 risk factor, but just how great a risk and how high blood pressure has to be to trigger the danger was unknown. In the study of 16,134 people who tested positive for COVID-19, the researchers found that a systolic blood pressure of 150 to 159 nearly doubled the risk of a severe case of the disease compared to a systolic reading of 120 to 129. The researchers also found that people with a history of stroke had a 47% greater risk of severe COVID, and those with a history of cardiovascular disease had a 30% higher risk.
Thanks for reading. We hope you find the Coronavirus Brief newsletter to be a helpful tool to navigate this very complex situation, and welcome feedback at coronavirus.brief@time.com. If you have specific questions you'd like us to answer, please send them to covidquestions@time.com.
If you were forwarded this and want to sign up to receive it twice a week on Mondays and Thursdays, click here.
Today's newsletter was written by Jeffrey Kluger and edited by Angela Haupt.
沒有留言:
張貼留言