At the start of another school year, I have been thinking about the differences between 2021 and 2022. Last year, many schools had mask mandatestesting programs and quarantine rules (SN: 03/15/22). This year, masking is optional Y testing and quarantines are out (Serial number: 8/19/22).
We have launched measures that stop the spread of coronavirus and help avoid excessive disruptions to in-person learning. Without them, and with the absence of almost any controls in place in other parts of society, we are inviting the virus to continue to spread, to find new ways to thwart immunity, and to continue to derail plans and routines. And it is not only a risk for our day to day, but for our future health. As much as we want to put the pandemic in the rearview mirror, evidence continues to emerge that the impact of the coronavirus will be a recurring and unwanted feature of many tomorrows.
Scientists predict that cases of COVID-19 will increase this fall and winter in the United States, as more of life heads indoors during colder weather. The Biden Administration has said there could be 100 million new cases. We have a new help in the face of a possible rebound: a Renewed COVID-19 trigger targeting the omicron variantfrom Pfizer (ages 12 and up) and Moderna (ages 18 and up), is available now (Serial number: 9/2/22). Intended as a booster shot, the modified vaccine is the original version with added protection against the BA.4 and BA.5 variants. The BA.5 variant is dominant in the United States, accounting for 89 percent of cases in early September.
Public health officials would like to get as many boosters as possible this fall to temper a spike in cases. We know that the original vaccine has done an outstanding job protect people from serious illness and death. The vaccine has also helped reduce transmissionAlthough this benefit can decay quickly. In general, the COVID-19 vaccine is a crucial tool to protect public health. But it alone cannot shoulder the entire burden of keeping the virus at bay. The control of the coronavirus has a team approach, the vaccine together with masks, ventilation improvements and crowd control (Serial number: 4/4/22).
Without these additional measures, people will continue to get sick. Claire Taylor, a UK doctor, tweeted about his experience with COVID-19 three times this year, in March, June and August, while the family of omicron variants moved around their country. “How can it be sustainable, sensible, even bearable, to contract a virus that brings you down the same way several times a year?” she wrote.
It doesn’t seem sustainable, sensible or bearable to me. Not with what the virus can do in the midst of infection, and not with the damage that can linger after an infection is gone. Adults, for example, may face health problems throughout the body after a COVID-19 outbreak. A study of health records from the US Department of Veterans Affairs reported that, compared to those who have not had COVID-19, those who have, whether hospitalized or not, face increased risks of a variety of cardiovascular diseases beyond the first 30 days after infection. Other research has found a increased risk of neurological and psychiatric diseases for two years after a SARS-CoV-2 infection, compared with other respiratory infections.
In addition to the risks of COVID-19 itself, there are the expected health effects of health care disruptions from the pandemic. A study of a large health care system in Massachusetts found a drop in expected hospitalizations for urgent heart problems during the first year of the pandemic. breast and ovary cancer screening in the united states decreased in 2020 compared to 2018. These delayed and missed healthcare opportunities can reverberate for years.
And then there is the long COVID. Each wave of infections adds to the group of people who suffer a range of debilitating symptoms that they just can’t shake, from extreme fatigue to brain fog and shortness of breath (Serial number: 9/1/22). Because it takes time to identify people who develop prolonged COVID, we don’t yet know the number of victims from the omicron surge earlier this year. But the rise in cases was so great that “I suspect there will be millions of people getting long COVID after omicron infection”, immunobiologist Akiko Iwasaki told Liz Szabo about Kaiser Health News the 26 August.
Prolonged COVID can leave people unable to work, threatening their ability to support themselves and maintain health insurance, as well as a looming crisis for the economy. There are already an estimated 16.3 million Americans of working age, that is, those ages 18 to 65, who have long-standing COVID; 2 million to 4 million of them are out of work due to their illness, find a new report from Brookings Metro. The annual cost of lost wages is around $170 billion and can be as high as $230 billion.
exist also health impacts of the duel for loss of so many lives during the pandemic (Serial number: 10/27/21). Already 1 million people have died worldwide this year of COVID-19; near 6.5 million total have lost their lives to the disease during the pandemic.
Those deaths have included a devastating number of parents and caregivers of children. About 7.5 million children have lost one or both parents to COVID-19 as of May 2022, researchers report in JAMA Pediatrics on September 6. An estimated 10.5 million children have been orphaned or have lost their caregivers. these deaths endanger the education, health and well-being of childrendeficits that cannot be overcome without dedicated social support (Serial number: 02/24/22).
as adults, children who have had COVID-19 are at higher risk for various health problems compared with children who have not had the disease, including heart inflammation and blood clots, the researchers reported in Weekly Morbidity and Mortality Report on August 5th. children too develop prolonged COVID. And children and adolescents have suffered mental health damage of the pandemic, with many experiencing increased anxiety and depression. the subsequent demand for mental health services It has not been fulfilled.
We are just beginning to learn about other health issues that could stem from the virus or the circumstances of the pandemic. A recent US study found an alarming increase in youth-onset type 2 diabetes during the first year of the pandemic compared to the average of the previous two years. new cases jumped 77 percent in 2020. It is unclear whether the increase is due to COVID-19 infection, changes in diet or activity, or stressors from the pandemic, but the increase has strained existing health services for children with diabetes, the researchers wrote.
The pandemic has also disrupted vital health services for children around the world. A study of 18 low- and lower-middle-income countries found a decline in doctor visits and provision of maternal and child health care between March 2020 and June 2021. Lost care is estimated to have caused more than 110,000 additional deaths between children under 5 and more than 3,000 excess deaths among mothers, a threat to recent gains in reducing child and maternal mortalityresearchers report Aug. 30 in PLOS Medicine. The pandemic has also interfered with vaccination campaignsleaving children around the world vulnerable to vaccine-preventable diseases.
Even newborns may experience worsening health as a result of the pandemic. Research on prenatal exposure to maternal infection during the 1918 influenza pandemic has found health problems much later in life for babies who are born, including higher rates of cardiovascular diseasekidney disease and diabetes.
in one piece about Why studies throughout the life of children? born to mothers who have had COVID-19, the authors discuss the hypothesis that maternal infections during different trimesters may put developing fetal organs at that time at risk. For example, the heart develops in the first trimester, the kidneys in the third, so infections in those periods could mean a higher risk of cardiovascular disease or kidney disease later in life, respectively.
This is just a preview of the scope of the pandemic; we will continue to learn about the ways that COVID-19 will shape our health and lives in the future. It’s enough to keep me in a mask, and while the reasons for wearing one no doubt vary, I’m far from alone: 31 percent of Americans wear a face covering most or all of the timewhile 26 percent do so at some point, according to a survey conducted in late August by The Economist/YouGov.
Given what we know so far, and with an expected increase in COVID-19 cases on the horizon, it seems prudent to reinstate mask wearing and implement other indoor control measures in the coming months. It’s protection against infection now and can contribute to a healthier future.