Socially connected older adults hit harder by pandemic than isolated peers

Socially connected older people had a sharper drop in their quality of life and life satisfaction and a greater increase in loneliness during the pandemic than their more isolated counterparts, according to a new study by UCL (University College London) researchers.

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Bird Flu Tests Are Hard To Get. So How Will We Know When To Sound the Pandemic Alarm? - KFF Health News If widely used, flu tests could be helpful now. In the meantime, the government needs to clear a path for H5N1 tests, researchers warn, to avoid the early missteps of the covid pandemic. khnkytjaw KFF Health News

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AHRQ survey: 7% of US adults reported having long COVID by early 2023 New findings from a US survey from Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) scientists concludes that 6.9% of US adults—or almost 18 million adults—have ever had long COVID as of early 2023, confirming the results of previous surveys.  CIDRAP

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COVID could damage your vision, new study says. Keep an eye out for these symptoms Extended exposure to SARS-CoV-2 may harm your retinas in particular. Fortune

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How $4 billion funded the unprecedented COVID-19 pandemic response (medicalxpress.com)

New University of Virginia School of Medicine research is shedding light on how federal funding helped scientists understand the COVID-19 virus, develop new treatments and deploy lifesaving vaccines in record time.

Paxlovid fails to improve long COVID symptoms in small study Using the popular COVID antiviral Paxlovid failed to significantly improve symptoms in 155 patients experiencing moderate to severe long COVID, according to a study published today in JAMA Internal Medicine.  CIDRAP

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The findings are part of the STOP-PASC trial, and the study was conducted at Stanford University from November 2022 to September 2023. All enrollees reported at least 3 months of postacute sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 infection (PASC) symptoms.

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Associations between obesity, a composite risk score for probable long COVID, and sleep problems in SARS-CoV-2 vaccinated individuals International Journal of Obesity - Associations between obesity, a composite risk score for probable long COVID, and sleep problems in SARS-CoV-2 vaccinated individuals Nature

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The disproportionate toll that COVID-19 took on people with diabetes continues today At the start of the pandemic, many people living with diabetes were wondering what COVID-19 meant for them. Diabetes was already known to put people at higher risks from other infectious diseases, including ... Jamie Hartmann-Boyce Medical Xpress

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