From long COVID-19 to vaccine efficacy to maternal outcomes, Becker's covered dozens of COVID-19-focused studies since the start of the year.
Here are 64 findings Becker's covered, starting with the most recent:
1. A study involving 12,000 COVID-19 patients in Hong Kong found the incidence of viral rebound after antiviral treatment was very low, according to findings published Dec. 6 in JAMA Network Open.
2. Repeat COVID-19 infections contribute significant additional risk of adverse health outcomes, including hospitalization and death, according to findings published Nov. 10 in Nature Medicine.
3. Major life stressors such as financial or food insecurity, death of a loved one or new disability are strong predictors of whether hospitalized COVID-19 patients will develop long COVID-19, according to findings published Nov. 5 in Journal of the Neurological Sciences.
4. People who take the antiviral Paxlovid within the first few days of a COVID-19 infection may have a 25 percent lower risk of developing a number of conditions associated with long COVID-19, according to findings published Nov. 5 in the preprint server medRxiv.
5. Researchers at NYU Langone Health in New York City found COVID-19 alone, and not the initial use of antibiotics, damages the gut microbiome.
6. A study published Oct. 20 in Pediatrics found about 7 percent of children hospitalized with COVID-19 experienced neurologic complications, such as seizures.
7. COVID-19 may age organs, according to a series of studies compiled by Ziyad Al-Aly, MD, director of the Clinical Epidemiology Center at Washington University in St. Louis and the chief of research and education service at Veterans Affairs St. Louis Health Care System. The studies on long COVID-19 in the brain, heart and kidneys all pointed to multiple human organs aging faster after COVID-19.
8. Even when asymptomatic, trauma patients with COVID-19 may be at greater risk of complications compared to those without the infection, according to research presented in mid-October from researchers at LAC+USC Medical Center in Los Angeles.
9. Researchers at Oakland, Calif.-based Kaiser Permanente identified 17 conditions most frequently associated with long COVID-19 in a study published Oct. 12 in Nature Medicine. The study is among the first to account for preexisting conditions when defining such symptoms. View the 17 most frequent conditions associated with long COVID-19 here.
10. Federal COVID-19 vaccination efforts prevented more than 650,000 hospitalizations and 300,000 deaths among Medicare beneficiaries last year, HHS said in an Oct. 7 report.
11. A study involving nearly 20,000 participants around the world, published Sept. 27 in the British Medical Journal, found people got their periods about a day late, on average, after their first dose of the COVID-19 vaccine. The evidence builds on the findings from smaller studies earlier in the year.
12. Patients with long COVID-19 symptoms are more likely to have autoimmune disease markers in their blood, a study published Sept. 22 in the European Respiratory Journal found.
13. COVID-19 may increase the risk of Type 1 diabetes in children, according to research from the Norwegian Institute of Public Health, which showed young people were about 60 percent more likely to develop the condition within 30 days of infection compared to children who were not infected.
14. Nearly 20 percent of COVID-19 survivors may experience lingering, worsening or new-onset symptoms two years after infection, according to a study of nearly 2,000 patients who were hospitalized at the start of the pandemic in Wuhan, China.
15. Adults 65 and older who contract COVID-19 may be at greater risk for new-onset Alzheimer's disease, according to a study published Sept. 13 in the Journal of Alzheimer's Disease.
16. Flushing the nasal cavity with a mild saline solution may significantly reduce the risk of hospitalization and death after testing positive for COVID-19, according to a recent study published in Ear, Nose & Throat Journal.
17. Some long COVID-19 patients still have impaired or loss of smell one year after symptom onset, suggesting the condition could be permanent, according to a small study published Sept. 8 in JAMA Network Open.
18. Psychological distress — including depression, anxiety, worry, perceived stress and loneliness — prior to COVID-19 infection was associated with an increased risk for long COVID-19, a study published Sept. 7 from Boston-based Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health found.
19. Brain fog and other neurological issues may linger for two years after a COVID-19 diagnosis, according to a study published Aug. 17 in The Lancet Psychiatry.
20. A pair of viruses and genetic mutation may be responsible for a string of acute hepatitis cases that's affected more than 1,000 children worldwide, according to early research cited by The Wall Street Journal.
21. The list of long COVID-19 symptoms may be much longer than the 20 included in the World Health Organization's clinical case definition of the condition, according to a study published July 25 in Nature Medicine. Other symptoms may include lower libido and hair loss.
22. A July study involving more than 428,000 COVID-19 patients found the infection is tied to a sixfold increase in heart disease diagnoses in the weeks after infection, compared to those without COVID-19. The findings were published in PLOS Medicine.
23. Fully vaccinated patients who undergo surgery soon after COVID-19 don't have an elevated risk of post-surgery complications compared to surgery patients with no COVID-19 history, according to a study published July 15 in Annals of Surgery.
24. During the nation's first COVID-19 wave in spring 2020, hospitals with more COVID-19 patients reported higher inpatient mortality rates after surgery, according to a study published July 18 in the Journal of the American Medical Association.
25. People who've had COVID-19 two or more times have more than twice the risk of dying and three times the risk of being hospitalized within six months of their last infection, compared to people who've only been infected once, according to a preliminary study from researchers at Washington University in St. Louis.
26. Drug resistance or impaired immunity against the coronavirus are likely not the cause of rebound symptoms some patients experience after taking Pfizer's antiviral Paxlovid, suggesting insufficient drug exposure may be the culprit, according to a June study from University of California San Diego researchers.
27. Four weeks after testing positive for COVID-19 and feeling symptoms, women encountered recurring symptoms more often than men, according to a study published June 21 in Current Medical Research and Opinion.
28. A smaller proportion of people infected during the omicron period experienced long COVID-19 symptoms compared to those infected during the time when delta was the dominant strain, according to findings published June 16 in The Lancet.
29. Ivermectin did not significantly reduce recovery time among COVID-19 patients in a study of more than 1,500 people, The New York Times reported June 12.
30. Babies born to mothers who had COVID-19 during pregnancy were more likely to be diagnosed with a neurodevelopmental disorder by their first birthday compared to those born to mothers who did not have COVID-19, according to preliminary findings published June 9 in JAMA Network Open.
31. The risk of breakthrough COVID-19 infections was 28 percent higher in people who are HIV-positive, according to a study published June 7 in JAMA Network Open.
32. Pulse oximeter measurements are less accurate among Black, Hispanic and Asian COVID-19 patients compared to white patients. These inaccuracies may have led to minority patients receiving delayed or no treatment, according to a study published May 31 in JAMA Internal Medicine.
33. in 5 adult COVID-19 survivors between the ages of 18 and 64 has experienced at least one health condition that could be considered long COVID-19, a May 24 study from the CDC found.
34. Seventy-five percent of patients with post-COVID-19 conditions were never hospitalized, a study published May 19 from FAIR Health found.
35. In what researchers are calling the longest follow-up study to date, findings published May 11 in The Lancet Respiratory Medicine suggest more than half of patients hospitalized with COVID-19 still have at least one symptom two years later.
36. The cognitive impairment caused by severe COVID-19 is equivalent to 20 years of aging or the loss of 10 IQ points, according to a small study led by researchers at the University of Cambridge and Imperial College London.
37. Vaccinated people with a history of certain psychiatric conditions may have a higher chance of contracting breakthrough COVID-19, according to a study published April 14 in JAMA Network Open.
38. Loss of smell from COVID-19 may be a consequence of inflammation caused by the infection, versus a direct outcome from the virus itself, according to a study published April 11 in JAMA Neurology.
39. Co-infection with respiratory viruses such as the flu and COVID-19 is associated with more severe illness than COVID-19 alone, according to a March 25 study published in The Lancet.
40. Individuals with a past COVID-19 diagnosis are at greater risk of developing Type 2 diabetes within one year compared to those without past COVID-19 infection, according to a study published March 21 in The Lancet Diabetes & Endocrinology.
41. Compared to pre-pandemic, mortality rates after hospitalization for non-COVID-19 illnesses were substantially higher among more than 8 million Medicare recipients in 2020-21, according to a study published March 9 by JAMA Network Open.
42. A study published March 1 in the American Journal of Critical Care found nearly 1 in 4 COVID-19 survivors who were hospitalized required new at-home or facility-based healthcares services upon discharge.
43. A small study published March 1 in Neurology Neuroimmunology and Neuroinflammation involving 17 participants suggests long-term nerve damage may be behind some patients' long COVID-19 symptoms, such as brain fog.
44. Most (89.1 percent) adult COVID-19 patients who were eligible for but didn't receive extracorporeal membrane oxygenation owing to a lack of resources during the peak of the pandemic died in the hospital, even though they were young and had few underlying health issues, according to findings published Feb. 24 by the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.
45. Pandemic-related stress brought on by societal and lifestyle disruptions may lead to brain inflammation — even among those not infected with COVID-19, according to early findings from researchers at Cambridge, Mass.-based Harvard University.
46. People who had COVID-19 were 39 percent more likely to be diagnosed with depression in the months after their infection compared to those without COVID-19, according to a study of nearly 154,000 COVID-19 patients at the Veterans Health Administration.
47. Vaccination may lower the risk of developing long COVID-19, according to a report published Feb. 15 from the U.K. Health Security Agency.
48. Infants born to mothers vaccinated for COVID-19 while pregnant were less likely to be hospitalized for the virus within the first six months of life, a Feb. 15 CDC report found.
49. Nearly a third — 32 percent — of adults 65 and older infected with COVID-19 in 2020 developed at least one new condition that required medical attention in the months after initial infection, finds a study published Feb. 9 by The British Medical Journal.
50. Among pregnant women, the coronavirus can severely damage the placenta, leading to fetal asphyxiation and stillbirth, according to research published Feb. 10 in the Archives of Pathology & Laboratory Medicine.
51. A study of more than 13,000 pregnant people from 17 U.S. hospitals found those with moderate to severe COVID-19 are more likely to experience pregnancy complications, according to findings published Feb. 7 in JAMA.
52. The first 30 consecutive patients who underwent a lung transplant due to COVID-19 complications at Chicago-based Northwestern Medicine had positive outcomes, according to findings published Jan. 27 in JAMA.
53. The COVID-19 virus indirectly decreases action olfactory receptors, which detect the molecules associated with odors. The research, published Feb. 1 in Cell, offers a potential explanation for why some people lose their sense of smell when infected.
54. A third dose of Pfizer or Moderna's COVID-19 vaccine reduces the risk of hospitalization among people with weakened immune systems, according to a CDC report published the week of Jan. 28.
55. A year after COVID-19 patients left intensive care, almost 75 percent reported lingering physical symptoms, more than 26 percent reported mental symptoms and more than 16 percent had cognitive symptoms, according to a study published Jan. 24 by JAMA Network.
56. Clinicians may be able to determine which patients are at risk of developing prolonged COVID-19 symptoms based on four clinical factors measured at the time of diagnosis, according to a study published Jan. 24 in Cell. The risk factors for long COVID-19 that can be assessed at the time of diagnosis are pre-existing Type 2 diabetes; SARS-CoV-2 RNA levels in the blood; Epstein-Barr virus DNA levels in the blood; and the presence of specific autoantibodies.
57. In a small study of 100 people who contracted COVID-19 in the first wave, more than half have long-term changes to their sense of smell, according to preliminary research published Jan. 20 by MedRxiv.
58. COVID-19 vaccination doesn't affect the chances of conception, according to a National Institutes of Health-funded study involving more than 2,000 couples.
59. Issues with attention span and memory may linger for months after a mild COVID-19 infection, according to a study from researchers at University of Oxford in the U.K. published Jan. 19 in Brain Communications.
60. A study involving nearly 132,000 women in Scotland found nearly all pregnant women who were admitted to critical care for COVID-19-related illness were unvaccinated, according to the findings published Jan. 13 in Nature Medicine.
61. After a COVID-19 infection, children are more likely to be diagnosed with Type 1 or Type 2 diabetes, compared to those who haven't been infected, according to the CDC's Jan. 7 Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.
62. Two doses of Pfizer-BioNTech's COVID-19 vaccine was 91 percent effective at preventing multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children, or MIS-C, a rare but serious condition tied to COVID-19, according to the CDC's Jan. 7 Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.
63. A study involving nearly 4,000 people found women's menstrual cycles were slightly longer after receiving the COVID-19 vaccine compared to unvaccinated women. The findings, published Jan. 5 in Obstetrics & Gynecology, back up anecdotal reports from more than 100,000 people who reported unexpected menstrual cycle changes around the time they received the shot in the months after the nation's vaccination rollout last year.
64. Women who got vaccinated against COVID-19 while pregnant do not have a greater risk of delivering their babies prematurely or having a baby who is smaller than usual, a CDC study published Jan. 4 found.