The Wannabe Mayor And His Spokesperson, Unmasked

Will the vaccines work?
Vaccine manufacturers are cautiously optimistic. Oxford University, which developed a vaccine with AstraZeneca, has stated: “Despite the appearance of new variants over the past year, vaccines have continued to provide very high levels of protection against severe disease, and there is no evidence so far that Omicron is any different. However, we have the necessary tools and processes in place for rapid development of an updated COVID-19 vaccine if it should be necessary.”

Pfizer also sought to allay fears in a statement: “Pfizer and BioNTech are remaining vigilant and constantly conducting surveillance efforts focused on monitoring for emerging variants that potentially escape protection from our vaccine. We are beginning to run neutralization tests on the new Omicron variant of concern and expect to have initial data in the coming weeks.”

“In the event that a variant emerges that escapes protection of our vaccine, Pfizer and BioNTech expect to be able to develop and produce a tailor-made vaccine against that variant in approximately 100 days, subject to regulatory approval,” the Pfizer spokesperson added.

Tim Spector, a professor of genetic immunology at King’s College London and scientific co-founder of ZOE, which boasts the world’s largest COVID-19 study, commented in an interview with MNT:

“The vaccines are highly likely to be effective against severity, and modestly against infection with Omicron.”

This view was echoed by Dr. Arturo Casadevall, chair of the molecular microbiology and immunology department at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, who told us: “I believe that current vaccines will provide some protection against Omicron. I am optimistic that the vaccinated will have some protection against Omicron and that this protection will continue to reduce symptoms and mortality in those affected.”

Spike protein changes
The chief worry is that the Omicron variant has more than 50 mutations, 30 of which are in the spike protein, the area that vaccines targetTrusted Source.

Experts have expressed concern that the antibodies generated by vaccination will therefore not match the spike proteins of the Omicron variant, reducing the levels of immunity provided.

However, it appears that high levelsTrusted Source of neutralizing antibodies, produced after three vaccine doses, provide protection from severe symptoms following infection with the Omicron variant.

It is not only the spike protein that stimulates the immune response, as Dr. Casadevall pointed out:

“Even though there are large changes in the structure of the spike protein between Omicron and the virus used to design the vaccine, much of it remains the same, and these common areas should elicit immune responses to Omicron.”

– Dr. Arturo Casadevall

Vaccines also stimulate other parts of the immune response. This results in the production of T cells, which play an important role in controlling SARS-CoV-2 infections and are less affected by spike mutations.

Get the jab
Both Prof. Spector and Dr. Casadevall stressed that vaccination is the best way to avoid getting seriously ill from COVID-19 — regardless of the variant.

“This will hit the unvaccinated more,” emphasized Prof. Spector.

StudiesTrusted Source from Israel and the United Kingdom suggest that booster campaigns are decreasing the virus’s reproduction and associated hospitalizations.

Increasing vaccination should slow the pandemic, even in the face of the new variant.

Dr. Casadevall remains optimistic about the protection from current vaccines: “I believe that when it comes to this coronavirus, some immunity is better than no immunity. The vaccinated will have some protection against Omicron, and this protection will continue to reduce symptoms and mortality in those affected.”

Vaccination not only prevents serious illness and death. As Prof. Spector added: “Evidence from Delta [variant outbreaks] says the vaccine helps prevent long COVID. I think this will be the case with Omicron [as well].”

He continued: “Delta is still affecting 1 in 60 [people] in the U.K., and Omicron will spread very fast. People need to act sensibly.”

Dr. Casadevall reiterated this message: “Vaccines continue to be our best bet against Omicron, and people should be vaccinated and boosted.”

Deltacron: New variant or laboratory error?

Social media was recently lively with news that scientists in Cyprus claimed to have found a new hybrid variant of SARS-CoV-2. Named Deltacron, it appears to be a combination of the Delta and Omicron variants. However, other experts have questioned whether this is truly a new variant, suggesting the finding may be due to contamination during laboratory testing. Medical News Today looks at the arguments on both sides.

Is there a new SARS-CoV-2 variant on the loose? Image credit: Jason Alden/Bloomberg via Getty Images.
On January 7, scientists in Cyprus reported that they had discovered a new variant of SARS-CoV-2. The variant, named Deltacron, is said to be a hybrid of Delta and Omicron.

The scientists are led by Dr. Leondios Kostrikis, a professor of Biological Sciences at the University of Cyprus.

Dr. Kostrikis reported that the variant has a Delta-like genomeTrusted Source with Omicron characteristics. The team stated that Deltacron had been identified in 25 individuals — some hospitalized and some in the community.

Stay informed with live updates

Claims of lab contamination
The identification of Deltacron led to widespread news coverage and much debate on social media, but experts have questioned the findings.

Dr. Jeffrey Barrett, Director of the COVID-19 Genomics Initiative at the Wellcome Sanger Institute in the United Kingdom, believes the findings are due to a lab error.

“This is almost certainly not a biological recombinant of the Delta and Omicron lineages,” he says. “The apparent Omicron mutations are located precisely and exclusively in a section of the sequence encoding the spike gene (amino acids 51 to 143) affected by a technological artifact in certain sequencing procedures.”

Writing on Twitter, Dr. Tom Peacock, a virologist at Imperial College London in the U.K, also dismissed the findings, saying that “[t]he Cypriot ‘Deltacron’ sequences reported by several large media outlets look to be quite clearly contamination.”

In a separate tweet, he nevertheless clarified that this was not due to poor lab practice, stating that it “happens to every sequencing lab occasionally.”

The evolutionary evidence appears to back up their comments. Several experts have stated that if Deltacron was truly a new recombinant variant, samples would cluster on the same branch of SARS-CoV-2’s phylogenetic treeTrusted Source.

However, Deltacron appears randomly on several branches, which experts say is a sure sign of contamination.

Findings defended
However, Dr. Kostrikis defended his findings. He asserted that since Deltacron infection rates were higher in hospitalized patients than in nonhospitalized individuals, the contamination hypothesis was less likely.

In addition, the samples identified as Deltacron were processed in multiple sequencing procedures in more than one country, lessening the likelihood of lab errors, he noted.

The Cyprus team has since reported another 52 cases of Deltacron to the Cyprus Mail. The Cyprus health minister also defended the findings, saying that the groundbreaking research made him “proud of our scientists.”

Call for more evidence
While many experts have dismissed the claims that Deltacron is a new hybrid variant, others are willing to wait for more evidence.

Speaking to Medical News Today, Dr. William Schaffner, a professor of infectious diseases at the Vanderbilt University Medical Center, Nashville, TN, commented that “[f]urther local epidemiological investigation in Cyprus is warranted to sort this out. The world certainly is watching.”

“Deltacron has attracted a great deal of interest in the COVID scientific community. Whether it is, indeed, a new variant that has emerged as a result of a combination of Delta and Omicron viruses from a simultaneous infection in a human or whether it happened because of a laboratory accident still remains to be determined.”

– Dr. William Schaffner

Whether that evidence will be forthcoming from Cyprus, or elsewhere, is open to question. MNT contacted Dr. Kostrikis but was still awaiting a response when this article went to press.

In the meantime, researchers affiliated with the GISAID Initiative — a database that “promotes the rapid sharing of data from all influenza viruses and the coronavirus causing COVID-19” — have urged renewed caution when it comes to interpreting the data that allegedly indicate the emergence of a new sub-variant of SARS-CoV-2.

“[R]ushing to conclusions on data that have just been made available by labs that find themselves under significant time pressure to generate data in a timely manner is not helpful in any outbreak,” Cheryl Bennett, an official at the GISAID office in Washington, D.C., has told NatureTrusted Source.

Dr. Kostrikis has since commented to Nature that he and his team are planning to submit their data for peer review, noting that they are “in the process of investigating all the crucial views expressed by prominent scientists around the world about [their] recent announcement” regarding the emergence of an alleged new variant.

How COVID-19 is changing research and healthcare
The COVID-19 pandemic has caused millions of people to be ill and led to millions of deaths worldwide. This public health emergency has affected everyone’s life and well-being. Through the suffering, however, there is one silver lining: The pandemic has also provided motivation for different disciplines to come together and put up a united front against this crisis.

How has the COVID-19 pandemic changed interdisciplinarity? VICTOR TORRES/Stocksy
All data and statistics are based on publicly available data at the time of publication. Some information may be out of date. Visit our coronavirus hub and follow our live updates page for the most recent information on the COVID-19 pandemic.

Interdisciplinary and interprofessional collaboration are crucial to both research and care settings. When experts with different specialisms are able to come together and help each other, better outcomes are guaranteed for all.

As early as 2010, the World Health Organization (WHO) was stating the importance of interprofessional educationTrusted Source — that is, mutual teaching and learning exchanges between healthcare professionals with different specialisms — for the future of public health.

“Interprofessional education is a necessary step in preparing a ‘collaborative practice-ready’ health workforce that is better prepared to respond to local health needs,” the WHO then stated.

“Collaborative practice strengthens health systems and improves health outcomes.”

– WHO Framework for Action on Interprofessional Education & Collaborative Practice, 2010

However, there are myriad obstacles in the way of interdisciplinary and interprofessional collaboration. These include a lack of targeted fundingTrusted Source and rigid, incompatible frameworks.

Perhaps for the first time in many decades, the COVID-19 pandemic has provided the motivation necessary for specialists from varied disciplines and professions to come together and overcome existing differences and difficulties.

The public health crisis has also meant that researchers have had more access to national and international funding, as they strove to develop effective vaccines to prevent infection and severe disease and drugs that could help fight COVID-19.

Collaboration at the root of vaccine development
When the rollout of COVID-19 vaccines started across the world, many people expressed hesitancy about receiving them, as they were used to a much longer timeline of vaccine development.

More often than not, in the past, the process of developing a vaccine and confirming its safety and effectiveness could take up to 10–15 years.

So, how was it possible to develop, test, and roll out several new vaccines — some of which use novel mRNA technology — in under a year from the start of the pandemic? The answer: interprofessional collaboration and generous funding.

In a talk they gave at the WIRED Health:Tech conference in 2020, both Tal Zaks, then the chief medical officer of Moderna Therapeutics, and Prof. Uğur Şahin, co-founder and CEO of BioNTech, strongly emphasized the importance of interdisciplinary, interprofessional, and interinstitutional collaboration in the fast development and testing of their new vaccines, which were then still at the stage of vaccine candidates.

“The way [in which] the whole industry developed vaccines against COVID-19 […] is the best performance of collaboration,” said Prof. Şahin.

“Moderna teamed up with the NIH [National Institutes of Health], we teamed up with Pfizer, [and] AstraZeneca teamed up with Oxford University. So, there are several models of collaboration, and we have the strongest transparency in the development of a vaccine,” he explained.

This strong collaboration was crucial to being able to develop new candidate vaccines within a matter of months, as a sense of urgency stemmed from the ever-rising number of COVID-19 cases in countries all around the world.

Funding was also key. Although funding bodies usually tend to split their funds a lot more between disciplines and projects, the pandemic made it necessary for more funds to go toward the development of vaccines and drugs that could tackle SARS-CoV-2, which is the virus that causes COVID-19, efficiently.

In the United States, Operation Warp SpeedTrusted Source went full steam ahead to support the development, manufacture, and distribution of COVID-19 vaccines in as little time as possible. In Europe, the European Commission pledged $8 billion to COVID-19 research.

In a guest editorial that appeared in the Journal of Interprofessional Care in August 2020, a team of 11 health experts wrote about how and why interprofessional education and collaborative practice research are especially important during the pandemic.

They also outlined some of the steps and considerations that would be necessary to ensuring constructive interdisciplinary collaboration in a medical research setting.

These include not only combining different types of expertise but also combining methodologies and building teams that are racially, socially, and professionally diverse.

“Inclusive [interprofessional education and collaborative practice] research teams would envision practitioners/clinicians from an array of experiential/applied settings, learners, service users, community members, various academic disciplines, and civil society as partners in all phases of research,” the authors wrote.

Collaboration in clinical settings
Collaboration between different experts and institutions has become more important than ever, not just in research but also in clinical settings and in ensuring effective communication between health experts and the general public during what has become a distressing time for all.

In a statement from May 2020, Dr. Hans Henri P. Kluge, the WHO regional director for Europe, emphasized the importance of “[c]ollaboration, coordination, and communication across the public health community.”

He noted that:

“Strong and integrated management of public health services, primary care services, and […] hospitals and long-term care facilities is critical to [navigating] this delicate phase.”

Although healthcare systems everywhere have been under great strain due to the high number of COVID-19 patients requiring urgent hospital care, this has not negatively impacted healthcare professionals’ collaborative efforts, according to some recent studies.

Medical News Today spoke with Dr. David Cutler, a family medicine physician at Providence Saint John’s Health Center in Santa Monica, CA, about the ways in which interprofessional collaboration in a clinical setting has changed since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Interprofessional and interdisciplinary collaboration has been important to clinicians for decades, he told us, as health workers aim for stronger communication between specialists to ensure holistic care for their patients.

“Several forces are at play [that] foster greater interprofessional cooperation. First, there is the hospitalist movement,” he explained.

“Over the past decade, inpatient hospital care has transitioned from being mostly provided by physicians with practice outside the hospital who would see their few patients in the hospital daily to one where full-time, hospital-based physicians provide the primary care for inpatients.”

“Since hospitalists will generally have no prior knowledge of these patients or follow them subsequent to their hospitalization, there needs to be close collaboration between inpatient and outpatient physicians during the course of the hospitalization to optimize care,” Dr. Cutler noted.

During the pandemic, this spirit of open collaboration in the healthcare system has become all the more present, he went on to say. According to Dr. Cutler, that is because:

“[COVID-19] is treated very differently when it is mild/moderate/outpatient than when it is severe/inpatient. […] [R]ecognizing early on when hospitalization may improve outcomes requires effective and timely communication between primary care, urgent care, ER, specialists, and inpatient physicians. Getting patients to the right level of care can be a matter of life and death. Decisions regarding monoclonal antibody infusions, steroids, remdesivir, intubation, and ECMO [extracorporeal membrane oxygenation] therapy involve multiple physician specialties.”

Technological advances, such as having greater access to e-medical records, are also helping strengthen interprofessional collaboration in a clinical setting, added Dr. Cutler.

“The electronic medical record is perhaps the greatest force improving physician collaboration during the pandemic,” he told MNT. “Physicians who may even be in different healthcare systems can see prior testing and treatment done elsewhere, which promotes improved interdisciplinary care.”

“Electronic records also allow patients access to records generated by geographically diverse providers, which is a great boon to the quality of care,” he added.

Addressing COVID-19’s social ‘side effects’
Inevitably, the public health crisis that led to numerous lockdowns and travel restrictions across the world has also had a severe impact on the mental health of people around the globe.

This means that mental health care has also had to step up to the challenge. One key way of doing this has, once again, been pushing for more interdisciplinary and interprofessional collaboration.

MNT spoke with Lea Milligan. He is the CEO of MQ Mental Health Research, which is a United Kingdom-based charity funding mental health research. Milligan told us more about the challenges and successes of collaboration across fields and specialisms during the pandemic.

“On the eve of the pandemic, the mental health research community had performed the great task of agreeing [on] a set of ambitious 10-year goals for 2020–2030,” he told us. “They derive from recommendations in the ‘Framework for Mental Health Research’ published in [December] 2017, and [they] also build on previous research priority exercises.”

Milligan explained that the agreed-upon goals for mental health research and care require cross-disciplinary collaboration from the get-go: “Research to support the targets under each goal should be undertaken in partnership with the life sciences industries, charities, the NHS [National Health Service], voluntary, social and independent healthcare sectors, together with patients/ service users, their families/carers and clinicians.”

This need for collaborative mental health research and care has increased exponentially due to the COVID-19 pandemic, he went on to point out:

“Coordination across the [mental health research] sector is essential for the tide to be turned and for mental health science to become the super discipline it has the potential to be. Substantial investment is needed in both human capacity and infrastructural capacity. The emergent umbrella discipline of mental health science needs [an] opportunity to convene, develop a common language, and explore opportunities for collaboration between different approaches.”

The good news is that collaboration is already happening. According to Milligan, “Over the [past] year, in response to the pandemic, we have seen many groundbreaking projects with experts from psychiatry, data science, [and] neuroscience and people with lived experience coming together to tackle some of the biggest challenges faced within mental health care.”

As an example, he mentioned DATAMIND. This is a U.K.-based “hub for mental health informatics research development,” which makes new tools and mental health-related data available to researchers from all disciplines who may benefit from using them.

He also mentioned the Post-hospitalisation COVID-19 Study, which aims to look at the long-term effects of COVID-19 — including those on mental health.

“This holistic approach has resulted in a far more in-depth understanding of the virus’s impact and has opened the door to further areas of research into the long-term cognitive effects [that] many [people] are reporting,” said Milligan.

Looking beyond the pandemic
What remains to be seen is whether or not the progress in establishing and fostering interdisciplinary approaches that researchers and healthcare workers have made throughout the pandemic will persist beyond this public health crisis.

Some challenges remain. For example, although collaborative research has been intensifying during the pandemic — particularly in terms of vaccine development and distribution — there is still a sense that equitable collaboration, wherein all research partners are actively listened to and receive due credit, is often lacking.

A comment feature that appeared in Nature Human BehaviourTrusted Source in March 2021 emphasized the continued inequitability in research settings, noting that it hampers progress and ultimately harms global collaboration.

The authors write that although “[n]umerous academic organizations and departments of anthropology, psychology, and related fields reliant on cross-cultural data production have now declared commitments to combat racism […] and improve [the] representation of minoritized groups among their faculty and student body,” these commitments are often shallow, failing to address deep-rooted systemic inequities.

“Often missing from this discussion among high income country-based researchers, however, is the promotion of equitable collaboration in cross-cultural research with national universities and research [centers] in low and middle income countries,” they go on to note.

In terms of collaborations regarding clinical and mental health care, Milligan told MNT that future improvements should focus more on holistic approaches to treatment.

He also suggested that tackling structural racism and ingrained biases in healthcare remains crucial to building a true spirit of collaboration and to providing adequate care.

“Three areas we would like to see [a] more explicit focus on are: the need for truly interdisciplinary approaches, [the] requisite of seeing the whole person (not an isolated diagnosis), and [a] more explicit focus on addressing inequalities across all targets.”

Yet Milligan was hopeful. “Interdisciplinary working is here to stay, as it should be,” he told us. “When experts from across the spectrum of experience share views and knowledge, it gives us a more rounded approach to research.”

To achieve this “rounded approach,” he explained, it is important to include not just scientists and clinicians in the conversation about health research.

Those on the receiving end of care are also experts, thanks to their lived experience of ill health. Their unique expertise, Milligan added, can transform research and care for the better.

“The next step is to ensure that experts by lived experience are involved in the co-production of research so that their vital contributions are not missed out on.”

What are the long-term effects of COVID-19?
What we know
Mild and moderate cases
Severe cases
Mental health
Treatment and support
Chronic fatigue syndrome
When to seek help
Summary
Most people who develop coronavirus disease 19 (COVID-19) recover within 2–6 weeks, but some experience lasting symptoms. Others with severe COVID-19 may develop complications, require rehabilitation after a hospital stay, or both.

In addition to the physical impact of COVID-19, people may also experience changes in their mental health.

Below, we describe the long-term effectsTrusted Source of COVID-19 on physical and mental health and explore the resources available for help.

Since Medical News Today published this article, the paper in question has come under scrutiny. The journal in which it appears — PLOS ONE — has issued an “expression of concern.” The journal’s editors explain that “Concerns were raised about the validity of results and conclusions reported in the article and about undisclosed competing interests.” Read more here.

What we know about the long-term effects
Image credit: Jasmin Merdan/Getty Images.
Because COVID-19 is a new disease, scientists are unsure about the effects months or years after the initial illness.

Researchers have theorized that the virus responsible for COVID-19, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), may cause similar effects to other coronaviruses, such as those that cause severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS).

According to a 2020 study, around 30%Trusted Source of people who recovered from severe SARS or MERS had long-term lung abnormalities. A 2009 study found that 40%Trusted Source of people who survived SARS still experienced chronic fatigue about 3.5 years later, on average.

But while SARS, MERS, and COVID-19 are caused by viruses from the same family, there are key differences among them, as the 2020 study highlights. For this reason, looking to the other two diseases does not provide a reliable way to predict COVID-19’s long-term effects.

Research into the impact of COVID-19 is ongoing. Initiatives such as the COVID Symptom Study are tracking peoples’ symptoms and the long-term consequences of the disease via a mobile app.

In mild or moderate cases
Most people who develop COVID-19 experience a mild or moderate illness that improves on its own. However, some people who have had a mild or moderate illness go on to develop lasting symptoms that can be severe — even after they have recovered from the initial infection.

When these symptoms are prolonged, people sometimes refer to the issue as “long COVID” or to the people who have it as “long-haulers.”

People with mild or moderate COVID-19 oftenTrusted Source go on to report:

extreme fatigue
muscle weakness
a low-grade fever
trouble concentrating
lapses in memory
mood changes
trouble sleeping
headaches
a sensation of pins and needles
diarrhea
vomiting
a loss of taste and smell
a sore throat
difficulties swallowing
skin rashes
shortness of breath
chest pain
heart palpitations
the new onset of diabetes or high blood pressure
These symptoms may last for weeks or months after the body has cleared the virus.

It seems that anyone, including young people and those with no preexisting health conditions, can develop long COVID. Citing a telephone survey, the World Health Organization (WHO) observe that 20%Trusted Source of people aged 18–34 reported prolonged symptoms.

In severe cases
Around 10–15%Trusted Source of people who develop COVID-19 experience severe symptoms, and approximately 5% become critically ill. People with severe symptoms can also experience long COVID.

In addition, people with a more severe form of the illness may be more likely to experience complications. As the WHOTrusted Source note, the complications can involve damage to:

The lungs: An August 2020 studyTrusted Source found that people with severe COVID-19 are often discharged with signs of pulmonary fibrosis, a type of lung damage. In some people, it can cause long-term breathing difficulties.
The heart: According to a June 2020 review, 20–30% of people hospitalized with COVID-19 have signs that the illness has affected their heart muscle. The researchers speculate that in some people, COVID-19 may also cause myocarditis, inflammation of this muscle.
The nervous system: An April 2020 studyTrusted Source with 214 participants found that people with severe COVID-19 were more likely to experience neurological manifestations, such as dizziness, nerve pain, and impaired consciousness.
Currently, doctors are not sure how these complications will affect people in the long term.

People who spend time in the hospital and require mechanical ventilation may also experience other difficulties. A July 2020 studyTrusted Source lists the following complications of ventilator treatment:

chipped teeth
lacerated lips, tongue, or throat
injured vocal cords
infection
hypoxia
hypotension
collapsed lung
heart rhythm problems
People who leave the hospital after having COVID-19 need ongoing support and rehabilitation to help them recover.

Long-term effects on mental health
The COVID-19 pandemic has affected mental health on a large scale. According to an August 2020 reviewTrusted Source, many people felt an increase in stress, anxiety, depression, and sleep disturbances in response to the pandemic.

Some factors that can contribute to mental health difficulties during the pandemic include:

isolation and loneliness
difficulty working or the loss of employment
financial struggles
severe or lasting illness
preexisting mental or physical health conditions
emergency medical treatment
grief and bereavement
The impact of these experiences can be lasting, particularly if someone has experienced extreme or persistent distress. This could cause psychological trauma or post-traumatic stress disorder.

ResearchTrusted Source also shows that people can experience severe stress while using a ventilator, due to their dependence on the machine to breathe. Some people also develop depressive disorders after ventilator treatment.

Treatment and support
During the COVID-19 pandemic, many people have found it difficult to access treatment for their ongoing symptoms.

Below are just a few of the factors that have prevented people from accessing necessary medical care:

Lack of awareness: Early in the pandemic, doctors were not aware that COVID-19 could cause lasting symptoms. Early guidance indicated that for most people, the illness would be short-term.
Lack of information: Scientists are not yet sure what causes long COVID or how best to manage it. This can mean that even when doctors are aware of the potential long-term impact, they may not know how to provide treatment.
False-negative test results: According to an article in BMJTrusted Source, false negatives are common among people with COVID-19. This, coupled with a lack of access to testing in some areas, means that many people with long COVID do not receive medical attention. For this reason, the article’s authors recommend that doctors do not require positive test results in order to diagnose chronic COVID-19 symptoms.
More resources may now be available for support. These include:

Post-COVID clinics
Numerous healthcare centers in the United States and elsewhere have set up post-COVID clinics to help people recover from the illness.

Many of these clinics aim to help people who have spent time in the hospital. They focus on helping people with breathing and rebuilding muscle strength and also provide psychological care for people with anxiety or depression. Examples of these clinics include:

The Post-COVID Assessment and Recovery Clinic at Penn Medicine, in Philadelphia, PA
The Center for Post-COVID Care, part of the Mount Sinai Health System, in New York City
The COVID-19 Follow-up Clinic at the University of California, San Francisco
An increasing number of providers are also establishing clinics for long COVID.

If a person cannot reach a clinic in person, they may be able to request a phone or video appointment.

Apps and online tools
Some health organizations have developed online tools to provide people with information and guidance as they recover from COVID-19. Two examples include:

the Your COVID Recovery portal from the United Kingdom’s National Health Service
the Mental Health and COVID-19 Information and Resources portal from Mental Health America
A person may also be able to access therapy and other mental health support online, via an app, or over the phone.

Learn how teletherapy services work here.

Support groups
Online support groups can help people understand that they are not alone and provide a platform for talking through experiences. Some support groups have been involved in efforts to research long COVID.

Some examples of these groups include:

Body Politic’s COVID-19 Support Group
Survivor Corps, a nonprofit that also run a Facebook group
COVID-19 Support, a Facebook group
Long COVID Support, another Facebook group

Could COVID-19 cause chronic fatigue syndrome?
Many people with lasting COVID-19 symptoms report episodes of extreme fatigue, and some have expressed concern that COVID-19 may cause chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS).

CFS, or myalgic encephalomyelitis, is a long-term condition that can follow a viral illness, causing symptoms such as:

severe physical fatigue
mental fatigue, sometimes called “brain fog”
difficulty sleeping
muscle pain
symptoms that get worse after exercise, called post-exertional malaise
While many people with long COVID experience these or similar symptoms, it is unclear whether long COVID is — or could lead to — CFS.

Some researchers view long COVID as a separate phenomenon, calling it post-COVID-19 syndrome or a post-viral syndrome.

In a letter to the editor of the journal Medical HypothesesTrusted Source, scientists emphasize the importance of studying and finding treatments for post-COVID-19 syndrome.

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When to seek help
Anyone experiencing new or persistent symptoms following recovery from COVID-19 should contact a doctor, by phone, if possible.

The doctor can assess the symptoms and, if needed, perform diagnostic tests to check for complications. They can also to help monitor and manage the symptoms over time.

If a person experiences severe or rapidly worsening symptoms, they should seek emergency medical help. Some of these concerning symptoms include:

chest pain or pressure
difficulty breathing
a change in the color of the lips —which may appear blue in people with lighter skin or grey or white in people with darker skin
an inability to stay awake
an inability to keep liquids down
rapid weight loss or gain
For anyone struggling with anxiety, grief, or depression, a doctor, a therapist, or another mental health professional can help.

Summary
Most people who develop COVID-19 experience mild symptoms and recover without treatment. However, as SARS-CoV-2 is a new virus, researchers are still learning about the long-term effects of the disease that it can cause.

Currently, doctors know that COVID-19 can cause lasting symptoms. Some call this issue long COVID or post-COVID-19 syndrome. When it is severe, COVID-19 can also cause lasting organ damage.

These and other experiences related to the pandemic can be traumatic, affecting a person’s mental health.

As scientists gather more data, they become better equipped to find effective treatments and management strategies.

To protect oneself and others, it is crucial to follow the COVID-19 prevention guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)Trusted Source.

Animal-based protein recommended for people being treated for cancer
by Bev Betkowski, University of Alberta

U of A professor Carla Prado is a co-author of a new opinion paper recommending that people being treated for cancer should get at least 65 per cent of their protein from animal-based sources. Credit: Faculty of ALES
If you're being treated for cancer, don't leave meat, fish and dairy off your plate, University of Alberta experts advise.

Though it may seem healthier to avoid animal-based proteins like red meat, relying on plant-based protein alone isn't a good plan while fighting cancer, said Carla Prado, a nutrition expert in the Faculty of Agricultural, Life & Environmental Sciences.

"When you have cancer, the majority of protein in your diet should be animal-based, and it is safe to eat."

Proteins like red meat or pork tend to get a bad rap when lumped in with their highly processed cousins like cured ham, bacon and salami, which have been linked to causing cancer.

"Unfortunately, there's this misconception that if one type of meat is bad, then all meat is bad, but this is certainly not the case."

In a new opinion paper, Prado and her co-authors—cancer nutrition experts from around the world—reviewed available scientific data and suggest that meat, fish, eggs, poultry and dairy offer better muscle-building properties than plant-based proteins, such as legumes.

Animal-based protein is higher in amino acids, which are vital for building and growing new muscle tissue, as well as helping people better tolerate cancer treatments like chemotherapy.

"Our research has already shown that the more muscle you have, the less severe the toxicity of cancer treatment, your quality of life is better and you can live longer," said Prado, a professor in the Department of Agricultural, Food & Nutritional Science.

Cancer treatments can also erode muscles through poor appetite, bedrest or the stress of surgery, so people undergoing treatments need more protein than healthy individuals, said dietitian Katherine Ford, a Ph.D. candidate in nutrition and metabolism and co-author on the paper.

Many people don't realize the body's nutritional needs differ during cancer treatment, versus eating for cancer prevention, Ford said.

"The amount of protein a person needs to maintain muscle goes up significantly during treatment."

The researchers recommend that at least 65 percent of total protein intake during treatment be from animal-based foods.

"Combined with plant protein, it's likely the best way to support muscles and avoid malnutrition," said Ford.

People being treated for cancer would have to eat significantly more plant-based proteins to get the same benefits of also including meat, fish, dairy or eggs on their plates, she noted.

Current recommendations suggest people should consume 1.2 to 1.5 grams of protein for every kilogram of body weight daily during cancer treatment. The easiest way to increase intake is to include a protein source in every meal and snack, Ford suggested.

Adding tuna or leftover chicken to a salad or casserole, pairing some cubed cheese with fruit or whole-grain crackers, or adding yogurt to a snack or as a dessert are all easy ways to include animal-based protein sources.

"By doing that, you're well on your way to meeting your nutrition needs."

The researchers also recommend that those sticking to an entirely or mostly plant-based diet during cancer treatment should see a dietitian to ensure they are getting enough protein.

"It's important for making sure they're getting adequate nutrition to properly support muscle health," Prado said.

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NOVEMBER 26, 2021

Grains: An overlooked source of sustainable protein for health
by University of Eastern Finland

Credit: Pixabay/CC0 Public Domain
Cereal foods already play a major role in the diet in most countries worldwide, as the main dietary source of energy, carbohydrate, dietary fiber, and plant-based protein. However, currently, less than half of the grains are used for human consumption. Changes in grain consumption and novel cereal protein-enriched food innovations could play a major role in transitioning towards a more sustainable food system for healthy diets, conclude Nordic researchers in a joint review published in Nutrition Reviews.

"Both scientists and public seem to have missed the yet untapped potential that grains can contribute towards a more sustainable food system and a healthier population. Even small changes in dietary patterns could make a large difference both to environment and health and grains could represent one of these possibilities," says Professor Rikard Landberg from Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden.

Food production is responsible for 26 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. Increased use of plant-based foods to replace animal-based foods such as meat and dairy is one of the strategies to meet sustainability targets. This includes improving human health, particularly in the Western world.

A joint consortium of researchers within food, nutrition, environment and medicine from Nordic universities and institutes developed a potential scenario to reduce meat intake in Europe and replace it with more sustainable and healthier whole grain-based foods. Which foods shall be used and what are the nutritional consequences and the implications for the environment?

"In our scenario, if 20 percent of the current daily European animal protein intake was to be replaced by plant-based protein, 50 percent could come from cereals. This would mean less than 6 grams more cereal protein daily, corresponding to a serving of 60 grams of grains," says Senior Adviser Kaisa Poutanen, VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland. The current cereal protein intake would need to be increased by 19 percent. With an average content of 10 percent protein in grains, this would mean an additional need of 15 million tons of grains, which corresponds to 5 percent of the current European grain production.

"Since only one third of the current grain production is used for human consumption, there is a possibility to switch from animal feed production to human consumption if consumers would accept it. Such transition would correspond to an increased consumption of about 60 grams per day—for example, three slices of whole-grain rye bread or a large portion of oatmeal," says Anna Kårlund, Postdoctoral researcher at University of Eastern Finland.

Whole grains are beneficial to health and a high intake has consistently been associated with reduced risk of developing type 2 diabetes, coronary heart disease and colorectal cancer in observational studies. Whole grains are rich in dietary fiber, vitamins, minerals, and bioactive compounds, but grain protein contains low amounts of the essential amino acid lysine. Therefore, the nutritional composition of the overall diet should be highlighted to ensure an optimal amino acid intake. This can easily be done by increased intake of legumes to complement cereal protein.

Furthermore, a strong future focus from the industry on processing and product design will benefit both society and industry.

Increased availability and use of new protein-rich cereal food concepts, including dairy and meat analogs with well-balanced nutrition profiles, along with a shift towards more whole grain traditional cereal food, could help in the transition towards healthier and more sustainable diet.

Increased consumption of whole grains could significantly reduce the economic impact of type 2 diabetes
by University of Eastern Finland

Credit: Unsplash/CC0 Public Domain
Increased consumption of whole grain foods could significantly reduce the incidence of type 2 diabetes and the costs associated with its treatment in Finland, according to a recent study by the University of Eastern Finland and the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare. The findings were published in Nutrients.

"Our study shows that already one serving of full grains as part of the daily diet reduces the incidence of type 2 diabetes at the population level and, consequently, the direct diabetes-related costs, when compared to people who do not eat whole grain foods on a daily basis. Over the next ten years, society's potential to achieve cost savings would be from 300 million (-3.3%) to almost one billion (-12.2%) euros in current value, depending on the presumed proportion of whole grain foods in the daily diet. On the level of individuals, this means more healthier years," says Professor Janne Martikainen from the University of Eastern Finland.

Type 2 diabetes is one of the fastest-growing chronic diseases both in Finland and globally. Healthy nutrition that supports weight management is key to preventing type 2 diabetes. The association of daily consumption of whole grain foods with a lower risk of diabetes has been demonstrated in numerous studies.

"According to nutrition recommendations, at least 3–6 servings of whole grain foods should be eaten daily, depending on an individual's energy requirement. One third of Finns do not eat even one dose of whole grains on a daily basis, and two thirds have a too low fiber intake," Research Manager Jaana Lindström from the Finnish Institute for Health and Welfare says.

The now published study utilized findings from, e.g., national follow-up studies, such as the FinHealth Study, to assess the health and economic effects of increased consumption of whole grain foods on the prevention of type 2 diabetes.

"By combining population-level data on the incidence of type 2 diabetes and the costs of its treatment, as well as published evidence on the effects of how consumption of whole grain foods reduces the incidence of type 2 diabetes, we were able to assess the potential health and economic benefits from both social and individual viewpoints," Martikainen says.