09-22-22

Weekly Medical Briefs

September 22, 2022

U.S. Embarks on Latest COVID-19 Vaccination Campaign as New Bivalent Boosters Roll Out
“With a jumble of confusion, eagerness and vaccine fatigue, America embarked in earnest last week on a sprawling new campaign to get Omicron-specific boosters into the arms of a pandemic-weary country.” Millions of doses of bivalent boosters “arrived with little ceremony at pharmacies, nursing homes and clinics across the country, ready to be administered in what health officials now expect to become a yearly inoculation ritual akin to a flu shot.” Early data “from states and several cities showed what health officials described as a robust early response in a moment when vaccine rates have stagnated.”

The New York Times 9/18

COVID-19 Linked to Increased Alzheimer’s Risk
COVID-19 has been linked to a significantly increased risk for new-onset Alzheimer’s disease (AD) a new study suggests.
The study of more than 6 million people aged 65 years or older found a 50% – 80% risk for AD in the year after COVID-19. The risk was especially high for women older than 85 years.
However, the investigators were quick to point out that the observational retrospective study offers no evidence that COVID-19 causes AD. There could be a viral etiology at play, or the connection could be related to inflammation in neural tissue from the SARS-CoV-2 infection. Or it could simply be that exposure to the healthcare system for COVID increased the odds of detection of existing undiagnosed AD.

Journal of Alzheimer’s Disease 9/13