My patient is a brilliant, 30-something-year-old highly educated woman with type 1 diabetes. I’ve known her for many years, since she was a teenager. She is sweet and fun, even though she can be fierce and fiery at times. She has type 1 diabetes.
Early research estimates have shown anywhere between 10 percent to 30 percent of people with COVID-19 go on to become long-haulers, or those who experience persistent symptoms weeks or months after the infection has cleared. With more than 31.2 million COVID-19 cases reported in the U.S., and with the pandemic still raging, the number of people who are or will experience long-term effects presents health systems a profound challenge.
When an otherwise healthy 48-year-old Nebraska woman arrived at an emergency room after three days of abdominal pain and malaise, doctors discovered a life-threatening puzzle. Her platelets, the colorless blood cells that clump to form clots, had plummeted. But a CT scan of her abdomen and pelvis revealed extensive blood clots.
Recently, I was talking on the phone to a physician client of mine about the COVID-19 vaccine and how thrilled I was that everyone over the age of 30 is now eligible in New York, which meant I could now schedule my own appointment.
The COVID-19 variant B.1.1.7, also known as the U.K. variant, was not associated with more severe disease in hospitalized patients versus non-variant strains, but it does appear to be more transmissible, British researchers found.
Many U.S. states and cities have a growing surplus of Covid-19 vaccines, a sign that in some places demand is slowing before a large percentage of the population has been inoculated.
Most covid-19 vaccines are unlike any other vaccine that has ever come before them. The reason why boils down to one simple distinction, and it is not to do with speed. It is to do instead with the technique the vaccines are based on — namely, hacking the body’s own genetic blueprints.
Get the Journal of Medicine delivered to your inbox.
