Editor’s note: We shifted our article format last month to include research updates on our website, while we highlight upcoming events and advocacy opportunities in our newsletter and on social media (Twitter, Instagram, Bluesky).
- “Zombie” fragments?! A new study in PNAS discovered an important clue that might help us better understand Covid-19 and Long Covid. Scientists found small fragments of the broken-down SARS-CoV-2 virus can over-activate immune responses and turn the body against itself, which in severe cases can cause inflammation including cytokine storms and blood clotting. “We saw that the various forms of debris from the destroyed virus can reassemble into these biologically active ‘zombie’ complexes,” one of the study’s authors said in a press release, explaining that similar human peptides have been imitated in rheumatoid arthritis, psoriasis, and lupus. Some aspects of Covid-19 are reminiscent of these autoimmune conditions, he said.
- Frontiers in Public Health published a recent study that found BIPOC individuals faced greater burdens after Covid-19 infection compared to white individuals. The study followed over 2,400 people first infected with SARS-CoV-2 between 2020 and 2022. “We found that several minority populations reported worse overall health, lower activity levels or more missed work months after infection,” one of the authors said in a press release. “While we don’t know what caused these different impacts, we know that these populations can have a harder time accessing health care, which may complicate their recovery.”
- A drug often used to treat ME continues to show potential for offering some relief for Long Covid. A new study in Clinical Therapeutics reports that patients in a Long Covid clinic who received the drug low dose naltrexone (LDN) found it improved fatigue and pain. “Randomized controlled trials should evaluate these medications and translational studies should further evaluate their mechanisms of action,” the study’s authors wrote, explaining that other drugs adapted from the treatment of ME may be helpful for people with Long Covid.
- Another study in PNAS found that official Covid-19 mortality statistics have significantly undercounted deaths in the U.S. by tens to hundreds of thousands. Between March 2020 and August 2022, the U.S. reported about 1.2 million deaths above what demographers estimate would have occurred in typical, non-pandemic years. About one million of those deaths were attributed to Covid-19 — but many of the remaining 0.2 million could have been Covid-19 deaths too, uncounted due to limited access to testing, resources for death investigations, political stigma, and other issues. Betsy and her colleagues at MuckRock previously reported on this research team’s work in their Uncounted project.
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