Bmc Med
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Predicting the likely size of future SARS-CoV-2 waves is necessary for public health planning. In England, voluntary "plan B" mitigation measures were introduced in December 2021 including increased home working and face coverings in shops but stopped short of restrictions on social contacts. The impact of voluntary risk mitigation behaviours on future SARS-CoV-2 burden is unknown. ⋯ Predicting future infection burden is affected by uncertainty in disease severity and vaccine effectiveness estimates. In addition to biological uncertainty, we show that voluntary measures substantially reduce the projected impact of the SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant but that voluntary measures alone would be unlikely to completely control transmission.
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The COVID-19 pandemic caused rapid changes in primary care delivery in the UK, with concerns that certain groups of the population may have faced increased barriers to access. This study assesses the impact of the response to the COVID-19 pandemic on primary care consultations for individuals with multimorbidity and identifies ethnic inequalities. ⋯ The COVID-19 pandemic significantly affected primary care utilisation in patients with multimorbidity. While there is evidence of a successful needs-based prioritisation of multimorbidity patients within primary care at the start of the pandemic, inequalities among ethnic minority groups were found. Strengthening disease management for these groups may be necessary to control widening inequalities in future health outcomes.
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Common pregnancy and perinatal complications are associated with offspring cardiometabolic risk factors. These complications may influence multiple metabolic traits in the offspring and these associations might differ with offspring age. ⋯ These reassuring findings suggest little evidence of wide-spread and long-term impact of common pregnancy and perinatal complications on offspring metabolic traits, with most associations only observed for newborns rather than older ages, and for perinatal rather than pregnancy complications.
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Retinal structural abnormalities have been found to serve as biomarkers for cardiovascular disease (CVD). However, the association between retinal nerve fiber layer (RNFL) thickness and the incidence of CVD events remains inconclusive, and relevant longitudinal studies are lacking. Therefore, we aimed to examine this link in two prospective cohort studies. ⋯ RNFL thinning was independently associated with increased incident cardiovascular risk and improved reclassification capability, indicating RNFL thickness derived from the non-invasive OCT as a potential retinal fingerprint for CVD event across ethnicities and health conditions.
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Beginning May 7, 2022, multiple nations reported an unprecedented surge in monkeypox cases. Unlike past outbreaks, differences in affected populations, transmission mode, and clinical characteristics have been noted. With the existing uncertainties of the outbreak, real-time short-term forecasting can guide and evaluate the effectiveness of public health measures. ⋯ Our top-ranked model consistently predicted a decreasing trend in monkeypox cases on the global and country-specific scale during the last ten sequential forecasting periods. Our findings reflect the potential impact of increased immunity, and behavioral modification among high-risk populations.