Medical - global

Second year of COVID pandemic brought spike in child mental health visits to ED The number of young people in the United States visiting hospital emergency departments for mental health crises increased sharply during the second year of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a study ... Science X

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Predicting COVID-19 Incidence Using Wastewater Surveillance Data, Denmark, October 2021–June 2022 Predicting COVID-19 Using Wastewater Surveillance Emerging Infectious Diseases journal

Analysis of wastewater is used in many settings for surveillance of SARS-CoV-2, but it remains unclear how well wastewater testing results reflect incidence. Denmark has had an extensive wastewater analysis system that conducts 3 weekly tests in ≈200 sites and has 85% population coverage; the country also offers free SARS-CoV-2 PCR tests to all residents. Using time series analysis for modeling, we found that wastewater data, combined with information on circulating variants and the number of human tests performed, closely fitted the incidence curve of persons testing positive

Gene linked to long COVID found in analysis of thousands of patients Nature - The first genome-wide search for long-COVID risk factors could pave the way for larger studies. Ledford, Heidi nature

The first genome-wide hunt to find genetic risk factors for long COVID has yielded a hit: a DNA sequence near a gene called FOXP4, which is active in the lungs and in some immune cells.

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