long covid

Dr. M’s SPA Newsletter Audiocast Volume 12 Issue 39

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Coronavirus Update #70 GOOD NEWS: This information is so important to help us all understand risk. Stratified risk is the only true way to measure personal risk. Let us look at some CDC data from the spring Omicron BA.1 and .2 spikes versus the fall 2021 delta wave.
Median age of hospitalization has increased from 60 years old with Delta to 64 with BA.1 and 71 with BA.2. Any underlying medical condition associated with hospitalization increased from 89% with Delta to 92% with BA.1 to 95% with BA.2 respectively. Length of hospital stay decreased from 4.8 to 3.9 to 3.3 days. ICU admission was down from 24% to 18% to 13% of admitted patients. Mechanical ventilation decreased from 14% to 8% to 6% of admitted patients. And Finally, death from 12% to 8% to 5% overall.

What we can glean from this data set is very clear. With successive SARS2 mutations coupled to increased population based exposure to virus via infection or vaccine, we are now seriously in a reduced risk state unless you are older than 65 years with a comorbid disease or younger than 65 with a serious disease. 95% of hospitalizations were related to a comorbid disease regardless of age. The other big takeaway was this: if you are in this high risk group, getting every available booster is vital to your survival based on the risk reduction data. For everybody else, the data is clear, you are ok – to boost or not to boost is up to you. But, absolutely work on your general health.

To your health,
Dr. M

Dr. M’s SPA Newsletter Audiocast Volume 12 Issue 37

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Coronavirus Update 69.

Quick Hits and other musings –
1) In the interview with Dr. Offit there were a few big take aways:
  • Boosters for non risk based teen and young adults are unlikely to provide benefit while offering a small but real level of risk from myocarditis
  • Boosters are offering minimal benefit to the nation from a transmission perspective. At best 8-12 weeks of protection against symptomatic disease
  • Dr. Offit voted against adding omicron antigens to this fall’s booster as there was limited data that it would any benefit. He was in the minority at the FDA advisory meeting, thus this fall’s booster will have new strain genetics in it
  • The boosters could, not shown yet in humans, block future variant immunity to newer strains through viral immune imprinting

A lot more this week to digest.

Dr. M

Dr. M’s Women and Children First Podcast #27 – Dr. Paul Offit – Covid Vaccines

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Dr. Paul A. Offit is Director of the Vaccine Education Center and professor of pediatrics in the Division of Infectious Diseases at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. He is the Maurice R. Hilleman Professor of Vaccinology at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.

Dr. Offit is an internationally recognized expert in the fields of virology and immunology, and was a member of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. He is a member of the Food and Drug Administration Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee, a member of the Institute of Medicine and co-editor of the foremost vaccine text, Vaccines.

He is a scientist, a skeptic, a thinker and an individual deeply passionate about children’s health.

This week we sit down to discuss Covid, vaccines and children’s health.

I hope that you enjoy my conversation with Dr. Offit,

 

Dr. M

Dr. M’s SPA Newsletter Audiocast Volume 12 Issue 31

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Coronavirus Update #66

This week is another close look at the current variants of the Omicron lineage, especially BA.5. What is the deal with this strain? Is it causing more heart ache in the United States or just an annoying highly infectious variant? In my opinion, when we have global flairs of Covid 19, there is clear evidence now that individuals that are immune compromised have unwittingly become breeding grounds for genomic mutations in SARS2 leading to variants of concern. These variants become our new circulating troublemakers. Thus, in my opinion, we should be making vaccines in this country that are high quality and targeted to the current strain. Then we should be releasing it worldwide very quickly to people in immune compromised states. This should have the effect of slowing down these emerging VOC’s that are evading our natural and vaccine induced immunity. Finally, we end with a discussion of chronic rhino sinusitis.

Enjoy,

Dr. M

Dr. M’s SPA Newsletter Audiocast Volume 12 Issue 29

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Coronavirus Update #65

This week we take another and deeper dive into PACS or long covid. What are the risk factors for it? How does the intestinal microbiome play out in this space? Are there certain bacteria that are associated with a negative outcome? Can we alter them to our advantage? We also take a closer look at the current variants of the Omicron lineage. Finally, we end with a discussion of social media concerns.

Enjoy,

Dr. M

Dr. M’s SPA Newsletter Audiocast Volume 12 Issue 27

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Coronavirus Update #64

What is the current state of affairs? We have a highly contagious and mutational SARS2 virus that is present in the United States. The mutations usually occur overseas in vaccine naive areas. The landscape here has changed as most of us have some immunity as vaccine induced, viral induced or a hybrid combination. That reality has dramatically reduced the death and hospitalization rate so that my colleagues in the ICU feel little to no stress anymore from Covid despite relatively high circulating case volume compared to other waves except wave 4. We discussed boosters and much more this week.

Enjoy,

Dr. M

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