A Flu Shot Protects Against Severe COVID-19. And More Science News

Compiled by veteran medical journalist Brian Owens, this roundup of some of the newest science on the COVID-19 pandemic, straight from the scientific journals, is presented by Hakai Magazine in partnership with The Tyee.

Flu shot protects against severe COVID-19

The seasonal flu vaccine offers some protection against the worst effects of COVID-19. A study of almost 75,000 patients around the world found that the annual flu shot reduces the risks of stroke, sepsis and blood clots in people with COVID-19.

Patients with COVID-19 who had been vaccinated against the flu were also significantly less likely to visit the emergency department and be admitted to the intensive care unit. How the flu vaccine provides protection against COVID-19 is unknown, but it may boost the innate immune system — general defenses we are born with that do not protect against any one specific illness.

PLOS One, Aug. 3, 2021

The pandemic has been harder on girls than boys

Girls reported a greater negative impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on well-being and behaviour than boys, and a high level of depressive symptoms, according to a survey of teens in Iceland. Higher depressive symptoms were linked with increased passive social media use and decreased connecting with family members by telephone or social media among girls, and decreased sleeping and increased online gaming among boys. Contributors to poor mental health included concerns about others contracting COVID-19, changes in daily and school routines, and not seeing friends in person.

Another study found that in the first year of the pandemic one in four youth globally experienced clinically elevated depression symptoms, while one in five experienced clinically elevated anxiety symptoms, double the pre-pandemic rate.

JCPP Advances, Aug. 3, 2021

JAMA Pediatrics, Aug. 9, 2021

Long Covid is uncommon in kids

Long-term symptoms are uncommon in children infected with COVID-19, according to a study from the U.K. While as many as one in seven adults experienced COVID-19 symptoms lasting four weeks, and one in 20 were ill for eight weeks or longer, few children had such long-lasting illness. On average, the illness lasted for five days in children aged 5 to 11, and seven days in those aged 12 to 17. Fewer than one in 20 (4.4 per cent) experienced symptoms for four weeks or more, while only one in 50 (1.8 per cent) had symptoms lasting more than eight weeks.

The Lancet Child and Adolescent Health, Aug. 3, 2021

Inequality intensifies effect of COVID-19 on minority communities

The COVID-19 pandemic hit minority ethnic communities in Canada particularly hard, according to research done in these communities in Edmonton. The researchers found that COVID-19 destabilized family units and made it more time-consuming and resource-intensive for people to support their families. For many, finding appropriate information and support to help manage the impacts of the pandemic was also a major challenge. Financial, food and housing insecurity; precarious employment; job loss; lack of sick leave to allow self-isolation; and low English literacy were factors that intensified the negative effects of COVID-19.

Canadian Medical Association Journal, Aug. 9, 2021

How to reduce vaccine hesitancy among Black Canadians

Despite the higher risks of infection and serious complications, only 56.6 per cent of Black Canadians say they are willing to get the SARS-CoV-2 vaccine, compared with 76.9 per cent of the overall population. But an Afrocentric approach, which acknowledges that health-care experiences of Black people are affected by historical and present-day anti-Black racism, can help. For example, Black-led community vaccine clinics held in a hard-hit hotspot of Toronto from April to May 2021 increased vaccine uptake from 5.5 per cent to 56.3 per cent.

Canadian Medical Association Journal, Aug. 9, 2021

Vaccines work in organ transplant recipients

People who have received organ transplants must take drugs that suppress their immune system, which makes them more vulnerable to COVID-19, but also potentially less able to develop immunity from the vaccine. But a new study has found that COVID-19 vaccines are still able to offer protection to this group. Solid organ transplant recipients who were vaccinated experienced an almost 80-per-cent reduction in the incidence of symptomatic COVID-19 compared to unvaccinated counterparts.

Transplant Infectious Disease, July 29, 2021

The next COVID-19 vaccine might go up your nose

A new style of COVID-19 vaccine, one that is given via a nasal spray rather than a needle, is showing promise in early-stage research. Studies in hamsters showed a reduction in both the impact of the disease itself and transmission of the virus. Intranasal vaccines are easier to administer than injectable ones and can also be much cheaper. One version of the seasonal flu vaccine is already available this way.

iScience, Aug. 3, 2021

Eradicating COVID-19 is possible

Eradicating COVID-19 is technically feasible, and probably easier than eradicating polio, though harder than smallpox, according to public health experts. Researchers calculated scores based on 17 technical, sociopolitical, and economic factors for all three infections, such as the availability of a safe and effective vaccine; lifelong immunity; impact of public health measures; effective government management of infection control messaging; political and public concern about the economic and social impacts of the infection; and public acceptance of infection control measures.

Smallpox, which was eradicated in 1980, scored the highest, at 2.7, while COVID-19 had a score of 1.6 and polio 1.5. The biggest challenges to eradicating COVID-19 will be getting enough people vaccinated and being able to respond quickly enough to variants that may evade immunity.

BMJ Global Health, Aug. 9, 2021

Crowded prisons have more COVID-19 infections

Crowding in prisons dramatically increases the risk for COVID-19 infections among inmates, according to a study in Massachusetts. Researchers found that every increase of 10 percentage points in a prison population relative to the facility’s design capacity raised the risk of infection 14 per cent. Keeping prisoners apart helped to reduce that risk: every 10-percentage-point increase in the proportion of inmates living in single cells reduced the risk of infection by 18 per cent.

JAMA Internal Medicine, Aug. 9, 2021

Babies got more sleep during lockdown, but parents were depressed

A study of how pandemic lockdowns affected babies and their parents has found that they had both positive and negative impacts. For infants aged one to 18 months, night-time sleep duration increased by an average of 40 minutes, but so did screen time, by about 18 minutes for older infants. For parents, daytime sleepiness decreased, but they experienced mild increases in depressive symptoms.

Sleep Medicine, July 24, 2021