COVID-19

Using data from the largest health care organization in Israel, the authors present a comprehensive description of the risks for adverse events of the Pfizer/Biontech Covid vaccine in comparison to unvaccinated persons. In a second analysis they compare the risk of adverse events in persons with SARS-Cov-2 infection to a control group of uninfected and not-vaccinated persons. For example: myocarditis risk was 3.2 higher in vaccinated compared to unvaccinated (2.7 events per 100,000 persons higher), but 18.3 times higher in infected compared to uninfected and unvaccinated persons (11.0 events per 100,000 persons higher).

This Meta-analysis assesses whether preexisting mood disorders are associated with higher risk of COVID-19 infection, hospitalization, severe complications, and death. The Meta-analysis found significantly higher odds of COVID-19 hospitalization and death in persons with preexisting mood disorders compared with those without mood disorders. No association between mood disorders and COVID-19 susceptibility or severe events was shown.

In this 2:1 placebo-controlled trial of 2 doses of mRA-1273 (Moderna) among adolescents between 12 and 17 years of age, both safety and immunogenicity were comparable with those found in adults >18 years of age. Vaccine efficacy against COVID-19 was 93.3-100% (depending on case definition), but only 39.2-59.5% for all SARS-CoV-2 infections, which included asymptomatic infections.

This meta-analysis comprising 29 studies conducted in children and adolescents < 18 years from 4 continents establishes prevalence estimates for “clinically elevated” depression of 25% and of anxiety of 20%. Identified risk factors included female gender, older age and later period of the pandemic.

Immunologic analyses of sera of subjects enrolled in the mRNA-1273 efficacy trial (Moderna) reveal that short-term protection against COVID-19 closely correlates with the amount of both anti-spike binding and neutralizing serum antibodies against SARS-CoV-2.

This large-scale, app-based UK study evaluated reported symptoms of COVID-19 by a proxy (parent) of 1’734 children 5-17 years of age and the same number of symptomatic controls testing negative for SARS-CoV-2. Persistent symptoms beyond 28 days (LC28) were more common in patients with SARS-CoV-2 (4.4%) than in controls (0.9%). The most common persistent symptoms were fatigue, headache, anosmia and sore throat. Symptom persistence beyond day 56 (LC56) was infrequent (1.8%).

The authors screened a library of 1900 drugs for activity against common cold coronaviruses and SARS-CoV-2. The most potent was masitinib, an orally bioavailable tyrosine kinase inhibitor. Mice infected with SARS-CoV-2 and then treated with masitinib showed >200-fold reduction in viral titers in the lungs and nose, as well as reduced lung inflammation. Masitinib was also effective in vitro against all tested variants of concern (B.1.1.7, B.1.351 and P.1).

UK investigators find a field effectiveness of 2 doses of the BNT162b2 mRNA vaccine (Pfizer) of 88% against the delta variant (compared with 94% against the alpha variant). Effectiveness after one dose of vaccine was only 36%. Effectiveness of 2 doses of the AZ vaccine (ChAdOx) was 74%.

Investigators estimate the real-world effectiveness of 2 doses of the mRNA-1273 vaccine (Moderna) against the alpha (B.1.1.7 [British]) and beta (B.1.351;[South african] variants to be 100% and 96.4% respectively.

Sera from patients recovering from COVID-19 as well as those from individuals immunized with a mRNA vaccine showed significantly lower but still detectable protective antibody titers against to two emerging Indian variants (B.1.617.1 [kappa] and B.1.671.2 [delta)] in all 96% of cases tested