Articles: sars-cov-2.
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Observational Study
Assessing COVID-19 pandemic policies and behaviours and their economic and educational trade-offs across US states from Jan 1, 2020, to July 31, 2022: an observational analysis.
The USA struggled in responding to the COVID-19 pandemic, but not all states struggled equally. Identifying the factors associated with cross-state variation in infection and mortality rates could help to improve responses to this and future pandemics. We sought to answer five key policy-relevant questions regarding the following: 1) what roles social, economic, and racial inequities had in interstate variation in COVID-19 outcomes; 2) whether states with greater health-care and public health capacity had better outcomes; 3) how politics influenced the results; 4) whether states that imposed more policy mandates and sustained them longer had better outcomes; and 5) whether there were trade-offs between a state having fewer cumulative SARS-CoV-2 infections and total COVID-19 deaths and its economic and educational outcomes. ⋯ Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, J Stanton, T Gillespie, J and E Nordstrom, and Bloomberg Philanthropies.
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Case Reports
Spontaneous Improvement of Aortitis Associated with Severe COVID-19 Infection-A Case Report.
Aortitis is a rare complication of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and is often treated empirically with steroids. We present a case of spontaneous resolution of aortitis without treatment. A 65-year-old man was admitted to our intensive care unit for severe COVID-19 pneumonia and underwent rehabilitation in the general ward. ⋯ During the investigation of the cause of aortitis, the fever and inflammatory reaction spontaneously resolved and the right cervical pain gradually improved. Therefore, the patient was diagnosed with transient COVID-19-related aortitis. To our knowledge, this is the first report describing the spontaneous resolution of COVID-19-related aortitis.
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Post‑viral syndrome is a well‑known medical condition characterized by different levels of physical, cognitive, and emotional impairment that may persist with fluctuating severity after recovering from an acute viral infection. Unsurprisingly, COVID‑19 may also be accompanied by medium- and long‑term clinical sequelae after recovering from a SARS‑CoV‑2 infection. Although many clinical definitions have been provided, "long‑COVID" can be defined as a condition occurring in patients with a history of SARS‑CoV‑2 infection, developing 3 months from the symptoms onset, persisting for at least 2 months, and not explained by alternative diagnoses. ⋯ Long‑COVID primarily encompasses the presence of at least 1 symptom, such as fatigue, dyspnea, cognitive impairment / brain fog, postexertional malaise, memory issues, musculoskeletal pain / spasms, cough, sleep disturbances, tachycardia / palpitations, altered smell / taste perception, headache, chest pain, and depression. The most important demographic and clinical predictors to date are female sex, older age, cigarette smoking, pre‑existing medical conditions, lack of COVID‑19 vaccination, infection with pre‑Omicron SARS‑CoV‑2 variants, number of acute phase symptoms, viral load, severe / critical COVID‑19 illness, as well as invasive mechanical ventilation. Concerning the care for long‑COVID patients, the greatest challenge is the fact that this syndrome cannot be considered a single clinical entity, and thus it needs an integrated multidisciplinary management, specifically tailored to the type and severity of symptoms.