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).
- In a new study in Mitochondrion, scientists found more evidence of mitochondrial dysfunction in people with Long Covid. They assessed mitochondrial respiration in a specific type of blood cell important for the immune system and found that the mitochondria weren’t working correctly. The study adds to markers of Long Covid on a cellular level and suggests there may be viral persistence in the bone marrow of people with Long Covid, building on prior research that found SARS-CoV-2 RNA in the bone marrow of post-mortem samples. For more information on this complex study, check out this thread by Vipin Vashishtha.
- A new study in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology has found that nearly 1 in 10 people who get Covid-19 while pregnant get Long Covid. Using data from the NIH RECOVER Initiative, the study looked at 1,503 pregnant people and found post-exertional malaise (PEM) and fatigue to be two of the most common symptoms at six months past infection. “The trimester of infection was not associated with the development of Long Covid, so it did not seem to matter when in their pregnancy people were infected,” one of the study’s authors said. Compared to non-pregnant adults in an NIH RECOVER cohort, the study suggested that the rate of Long Covid was lower in non-pregnant adults than in pregnant adults.
- Failing to protect frontline workers early in the pandemic led to thousands of preventable deaths, a new analysis in BMJ has found.“The consequences of these failures were appalling and led to tens of thousands of deaths in frontline workers,” the study’s lead author said in a press release. “The risk of exposure was exacerbated by race- and labor-related economic inequality, resulting in disproportionally more of the nation’s Black and Hispanic workers being killed or sickened by the virus.” The paper also highlighted the CDC’s insistence on the idea that SARS-CoV-2 was spread by droplets — when it’s airborne — as one of the many layers leading to preventable deaths.
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