UNH Report: Seafood workers at higher risk for COVID-19

Workers in the seafood industry were twice as likely to contract COVID-19 than employees in other food industries, according to a new study from the University of Hampshire.

Tight working conditions on vessels, as well as in seafood processing factories, appears to have played a direct role.

“You have people working, just like in any food processing, in really close quarters, working side by side together, on these food lines,” said Easton White, assistant professor of biological sciences at UNH, who led the study.

White said fishers faced challenges using PPE while onboard vessels, where a wet environment made the use of masks less effective.

The report, published in the journal PeerJ, based its findings on media reports and documented outbreaks between April 2020 and July 2021. ...

Long COVID study indicates “something concerning is happening”

Two new studies are reporting on an ongoing long COVID research project investigating the persistent effects of COVID-19 on cognition in the months after acute disease. The University of Cambridge-led research found many long COVID patients are experiencing significant and measurable memory or concentration impairments even after mild illness.

“Long COVID has received very little attention politically or medically,” said Lucy Cheke, senior author on the new studies. “It urgently needs to be taken more seriously, and cognitive issues are an important part of this. When politicians talk about ‘Living with COVID’ – that is, unmitigated infection, this is something they ignore.”

The new findings come from an ongoing project called The COVID and Cognition Study (COVCOG). The study recruited nearly 200 COVID-19 patients across late 2020/early 2021 and around the same amount of demographically matched uninfected controls. The goal was to “map the terrain” of cognition in post-acute COVID-19.