- Researchers found immune abnormalities in the intestines of people with Long COVID, according to a new preprint. The small study compared colon tissue samples and blood of 44 people with Long COVID to 13 controls who “recovered” from COVID-19, using several different analysis methods. They found that 27% of the Long COVID participants had persistent SARS-CoV-2 virus, and that the prevalence was higher in tissues, compared to blood. Since the study was observational, it does not prove that viral persistence causes immune dysregulation, the researchers stated. Still, they concluded that antivirals, as well as combination treatments that target both viral reservoirs and tissue-based immune dysfunction, should be studied as Long COVID treatments. Read more about the study in Bloomberg.
- A new government report from the U.K. found that around one in four healthcare workers infected with SARS-CoV-2 early in the pandemic have had Long COVID. Called REACH-OUT, the mixed-methods study analyzed existing datasets and research from around the world, including a detailed survey of over 11,000 healthcare workers in the U.K. The study found a severe lack of support for workers and extensive stigma of the disease from managers and fellow healthcare workers. “This research highlights how much impact the COVID pandemic continues to have on healthcare workers,” Katherine Woolf, a medical education researcher, told London Daily News.
- A preprint from Yale estimates that universal healthcare in the U.S. could save the lives of over 114,000 Americans a year. Researchers ran models using data from 2024, comparing our current multi-payer system to a single-payer system, looking at both healthcare expenditure and mortality. Alongside the many thousand lives saved, they also projected universal healthcare would reduce expenditure by over $1 trillion per year. “Our results indicate that the existing budget is more than sufficient to cover everyone at lower total cost,” the researchers concluded. “The obstacle to universal coverage has never been the absence of resources, but the way they are allocated.”
