I wonder if the city or district health department, or even the RKI, could produce a free official pamphlet to send out instead, explaining the thorough testing, the very low risk, and the importance of using up the first doses for the people most at risk, like, indeed, the elderly and their caregivers. Especially with these doses that have to be kept very cold, it's important to have a group of named people lined up and ready to take them every day, so that no doses are wasted.
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People without symptoms spread virus in more than half of cases, CDC model finds
The finding underscores the importance of following guidelines to wear masks and maintain social distancing
https://www.washingtonpost.com/science/2021/0...
Arthritis drugs could help save lives of Covid patients, research finds
Results suggest tocilizumab and sarilumab could cut relative risk of death of those in intensive care by 24%
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/jan/07...
Trying not to waste a single drop of coronavirus vaccine ...
The two authorized vaccines, made by Moderna and Pfizer-BioNTech, must be used within six hours after being removed from subzero storage and reaching room temperature. Otherwise, they must be discarded. ...
With a disease-weary nation awaiting deliverance, the workers distributing vaccines are trying not to waste a single drop.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/trying-...
Post-infection coronavirus immunity usually robust after 8 months, study shows
The human body typically retains a robust immune response to the coronavirus for at least eight months after an infection, and potentially much longer, researchers said in a study published in the journal Science.
( https://science.sciencemag.org/content/early/... )
About 90 percent of the patients studied showed lingering, stable immunity, the study found. ...
The review of blood samples from nearly 200 patients also saw that multiple elements of the immune system — not just antibodies — continued to be effective at recognizing and responding to the virus. The human body appears to retain a memory of the invader and is poised to generate a coordinated counterattack of antibodies and killer T cells quickly if exposed again. ...
The authors of the new study said they believe their findings would apply to the United Kingdom variant as well as the more common coronavirus. The reason: The immune responses target hundreds of different pieces of the virus, few of which are affected by the mutations seen so far. The consensus is that the coronavirus would need a tremendous number of transmission-enhancing mutations in concert to evade natural or vaccine-induced immunity. ...
There is one obvious cautionary note in the new research: About 10 percent of people infected with the coronavirus see their immune response degrade. There is no clear explanation for why this happens in some people. The human immune system is enormously complex, and the immune response varies greatly from person to person.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/post-in...
Large-scale global study to investigate links between covid-19 and cognitive decline ...
There is compelling evidence that covid-19 will have long-term effects on the brains and nervous systems of survivors as they age, and researchers on Tuesday announced a large international study to investigate the correlation between the coronavirus and cognitive decline, Alzheimer’s disease and other dementia in later life.
Decades of evidence from other respiratory viruses, along with observations of patients in recent months, suggests such infections may increase a person’s risk for Alzheimer’s disease, Parkinson’s disease and other brain disorders, according to a paper announcing the study, published Tuesday in Alzheimer’s & Dementia: The Journal of the Alzheimer’s Association.
( https://www.alz.org/research/for_researchers/... ) ...
year since the coronavirus began spreading across the globe, doctors have noted lingering post-recovery conditions ranging from brain fog and forgetfulness to anxiety, depression, and psychosis.
“Abnormal brain imaging has emerged as a major feature of COVID-19 from all parts of the world,” the paper said, adding that brain abnormalities have been observed even in a person whose only symptom was anosmia, or loss of smell. ...
The flu of 1918, severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) have been connected to memory impairment, sleep disruption, anxiety and psychosis. In some people, the novel coronavirus, also known as SARS-CoV-2, triggers a huge release of inflammation signals leading to blood-brain barrier dysfunction, which can promote neuroinflammation and brain cell death.
The coronavirus that causes the disease covid-19 is known to enter cells via receptors in the olfactory bulb, the brain structure involved in the sense of smell, which is why a telltale symptom of the disease is a loss of smell. The olfactory bulb connects with the hippocampus, a brain structure primarily responsible for short-term memory, according to the paper’s authors.
“The trail of the virus, when it invades the brain, leads almost straight to the hippocampus,” said Gabriel A. de Erausquin, the lead author and an investigator at the Glenn Biggs Institute for Alzheimer’s and Neurodegenerative Diseases at UT Health San Antonio. “That is believed to be one of the sources of the cognitive impairment observed in covid-19 patients. We suspect it may also be part of the reason why there will be an accelerated cognitive decline over time in susceptible individuals.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/social-i...