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The Food and Drug Administration said that within a year it will ban menthol in cigarettes and ban all flavors including menthol in cigars.

Wikimedia Commons/FitzColinGerald/ Creative Commons License

Menthol makes it easier to start smoking, and also enhances the effects of nicotine, making it more addictive and harder to quit, the FDA said in announcing its actions on Thursday.

Nineteen organizations – including the American Academy of Pediatrics, American Cancer Society, American College of Chest Physicians, American Medical Association, American Heart Association, and the National Medical Association – have pushed the FDA to ban menthol for years. The agency banned all flavors in cigarettes in 2009 but did not take any action against menthol. In 2013, the groups filed a petition demanding that the FDA ban menthol, too. The agency responded months later with a notice that it would start the process.

But it never took any action. Action on Smoking and Health and the African American Tobacco Control Leadership Council, later joined by the AMA and the NMA, sued in 2020 to compel the agency to do something. Now it has finally agreed to act.

The African American Tobacco Control Leadership Council welcomed the move but said the fight is not over and encouraged tobacco control activists to fight to ban menthol tobacco products at the local, state and federal level. “We know that this rule-making process could take years and we know that the tobacco industry will continue to do everything in their power to derail any attempt to remove their deadly products from the market,” Phillip Gardiner, MD, council cochair, said in a statement.

The AMA is urging the FDA to quickly implement the ban and remove the products “without further delay,” AMA President Susan R. Bailey, MD, said in a statement.

“FDA’s long-awaited decision to take action to eliminate menthol flavoring in cigarettes and all flavors in cigars ends a decades-long deference to the tobacco industry, which has repeatedly demonstrated its willingness to profit from products that result in death,” Lisa Lacasse, president of the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, said in her own statement.

Ms. Lacasse said banning menthol will help eliminate health disparities. She said 86% of Black people who smoke use menthol cigarettes, compared with 46% of Hispanic people who smoke, 39% of Asian people who smoke, and 29% of White people who smoke. “FDA’s actions today send a clear message that Big Tobacco’s strategy to profit off addicting Black communities will no longer be tolerated,” she said.

Not all groups are on board, however. The American Civil Liberties Union and several other organizations wrote to the country’s top health officials urging them to reconsider.

“Such a ban will trigger criminal penalties which will disproportionately impact people of color, as well as prioritize criminalization over public health and harm reduction,” the letter says. “A ban will also lead to unconstitutional policing and other negative interactions with local law enforcement.”

The letter calls the proposed ban “well intentioned,” but said any effort to reduce death and disease from tobacco “must avoid solutions that will create yet another reason for armed police to engage citizens on the street based on pretext or conduct that does not pose a threat to public safety.”

Instead of a ban, the organizations said, policy makers should consider increased education for adults and minors, stop-smoking programs, and increased funding for health centers in communities of color.

The Biden administration, however, pressed the point that banning menthol will bring many positives. Acting FDA Commissioner Janet Woodcock, MD said in a statement that banning menthol “will help significantly reduce youth initiation, increase the chances of smoking cessation among current smokers, and address health disparities experienced by communities of color, low-income populations, and LGBTQ-plus individuals, all of whom are far more likely to use these tobacco products.”

The FDA cited data showing that, in the first year or so after a ban goes into effect, an additional 923,000 smokers would quit, including 230,000 African Americans. Another study suggests that 633,000 deaths would be averted, including 237,000 Black Americans.

Dr. Woodcock added that, “armed with strong scientific evidence, and with full support from the [Biden] administration, we believe these actions will launch us on a trajectory toward ending tobacco-related disease and death in the U.S.”

The FDA estimates that 18.6 million Americans who are current smokers use menthol cigarettes, with a disproportionately high number being Black people. Menthol cigarette use among Black and Hispanic youth increased from 2011 to 2018, but declined for non-Hispanic White youth.

Flavored mass-produced cigars and cigarillos are disproportionately popular among youth, especially non-Hispanic Black high school students, who in 2020 reported past 30-day cigar smoking at levels twice as high as their White counterparts, said the FDA. Three-quarters of 12- to 17-year-olds reported they smoke cigars because they like the flavors. In 2020, more young people tried a cigar every day than tried a cigarette, reports the agency.

“This long-overdue decision will protect future generations of young people from nicotine addiction, especially Black children and communities, which have disproportionately suffered from menthol tobacco use due to targeted efforts from the tobacco industry,” Lee Savio Beers, MD, president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, said in a statement.

The FDA’s announcement “is only a first step that must be followed with urgent, comprehensive action to remove these flavored products from the market,” he said.

A version of this article first appeared on WebMD.com.

The Food and Drug Administration said that within a year it will ban menthol in cigarettes and ban all flavors including menthol in cigars.

Wikimedia Commons/FitzColinGerald/ Creative Commons License

Menthol makes it easier to start smoking, and also enhances the effects of nicotine, making it more addictive and harder to quit, the FDA said in announcing its actions on Thursday.

Nineteen organizations – including the American Academy of Pediatrics, American Cancer Society, American College of Chest Physicians, American Medical Association, American Heart Association, and the National Medical Association – have pushed the FDA to ban menthol for years. The agency banned all flavors in cigarettes in 2009 but did not take any action against menthol. In 2013, the groups filed a petition demanding that the FDA ban menthol, too. The agency responded months later with a notice that it would start the process.

But it never took any action. Action on Smoking and Health and the African American Tobacco Control Leadership Council, later joined by the AMA and the NMA, sued in 2020 to compel the agency to do something. Now it has finally agreed to act.

The African American Tobacco Control Leadership Council welcomed the move but said the fight is not over and encouraged tobacco control activists to fight to ban menthol tobacco products at the local, state and federal level. “We know that this rule-making process could take years and we know that the tobacco industry will continue to do everything in their power to derail any attempt to remove their deadly products from the market,” Phillip Gardiner, MD, council cochair, said in a statement.

The AMA is urging the FDA to quickly implement the ban and remove the products “without further delay,” AMA President Susan R. Bailey, MD, said in a statement.

“FDA’s long-awaited decision to take action to eliminate menthol flavoring in cigarettes and all flavors in cigars ends a decades-long deference to the tobacco industry, which has repeatedly demonstrated its willingness to profit from products that result in death,” Lisa Lacasse, president of the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, said in her own statement.

Ms. Lacasse said banning menthol will help eliminate health disparities. She said 86% of Black people who smoke use menthol cigarettes, compared with 46% of Hispanic people who smoke, 39% of Asian people who smoke, and 29% of White people who smoke. “FDA’s actions today send a clear message that Big Tobacco’s strategy to profit off addicting Black communities will no longer be tolerated,” she said.

Not all groups are on board, however. The American Civil Liberties Union and several other organizations wrote to the country’s top health officials urging them to reconsider.

“Such a ban will trigger criminal penalties which will disproportionately impact people of color, as well as prioritize criminalization over public health and harm reduction,” the letter says. “A ban will also lead to unconstitutional policing and other negative interactions with local law enforcement.”

The letter calls the proposed ban “well intentioned,” but said any effort to reduce death and disease from tobacco “must avoid solutions that will create yet another reason for armed police to engage citizens on the street based on pretext or conduct that does not pose a threat to public safety.”

Instead of a ban, the organizations said, policy makers should consider increased education for adults and minors, stop-smoking programs, and increased funding for health centers in communities of color.

The Biden administration, however, pressed the point that banning menthol will bring many positives. Acting FDA Commissioner Janet Woodcock, MD said in a statement that banning menthol “will help significantly reduce youth initiation, increase the chances of smoking cessation among current smokers, and address health disparities experienced by communities of color, low-income populations, and LGBTQ-plus individuals, all of whom are far more likely to use these tobacco products.”

The FDA cited data showing that, in the first year or so after a ban goes into effect, an additional 923,000 smokers would quit, including 230,000 African Americans. Another study suggests that 633,000 deaths would be averted, including 237,000 Black Americans.

Dr. Woodcock added that, “armed with strong scientific evidence, and with full support from the [Biden] administration, we believe these actions will launch us on a trajectory toward ending tobacco-related disease and death in the U.S.”

The FDA estimates that 18.6 million Americans who are current smokers use menthol cigarettes, with a disproportionately high number being Black people. Menthol cigarette use among Black and Hispanic youth increased from 2011 to 2018, but declined for non-Hispanic White youth.

Flavored mass-produced cigars and cigarillos are disproportionately popular among youth, especially non-Hispanic Black high school students, who in 2020 reported past 30-day cigar smoking at levels twice as high as their White counterparts, said the FDA. Three-quarters of 12- to 17-year-olds reported they smoke cigars because they like the flavors. In 2020, more young people tried a cigar every day than tried a cigarette, reports the agency.

“This long-overdue decision will protect future generations of young people from nicotine addiction, especially Black children and communities, which have disproportionately suffered from menthol tobacco use due to targeted efforts from the tobacco industry,” Lee Savio Beers, MD, president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, said in a statement.

The FDA’s announcement “is only a first step that must be followed with urgent, comprehensive action to remove these flavored products from the market,” he said.

A version of this article first appeared on WebMD.com.

The Food and Drug Administration said that within a year it will ban menthol in cigarettes and ban all flavors including menthol in cigars.

Wikimedia Commons/FitzColinGerald/ Creative Commons License

Menthol makes it easier to start smoking, and also enhances the effects of nicotine, making it more addictive and harder to quit, the FDA said in announcing its actions on Thursday.

Nineteen organizations – including the American Academy of Pediatrics, American Cancer Society, American College of Chest Physicians, American Medical Association, American Heart Association, and the National Medical Association – have pushed the FDA to ban menthol for years. The agency banned all flavors in cigarettes in 2009 but did not take any action against menthol. In 2013, the groups filed a petition demanding that the FDA ban menthol, too. The agency responded months later with a notice that it would start the process.

But it never took any action. Action on Smoking and Health and the African American Tobacco Control Leadership Council, later joined by the AMA and the NMA, sued in 2020 to compel the agency to do something. Now it has finally agreed to act.

The African American Tobacco Control Leadership Council welcomed the move but said the fight is not over and encouraged tobacco control activists to fight to ban menthol tobacco products at the local, state and federal level. “We know that this rule-making process could take years and we know that the tobacco industry will continue to do everything in their power to derail any attempt to remove their deadly products from the market,” Phillip Gardiner, MD, council cochair, said in a statement.

The AMA is urging the FDA to quickly implement the ban and remove the products “without further delay,” AMA President Susan R. Bailey, MD, said in a statement.

“FDA’s long-awaited decision to take action to eliminate menthol flavoring in cigarettes and all flavors in cigars ends a decades-long deference to the tobacco industry, which has repeatedly demonstrated its willingness to profit from products that result in death,” Lisa Lacasse, president of the American Cancer Society Cancer Action Network, said in her own statement.

Ms. Lacasse said banning menthol will help eliminate health disparities. She said 86% of Black people who smoke use menthol cigarettes, compared with 46% of Hispanic people who smoke, 39% of Asian people who smoke, and 29% of White people who smoke. “FDA’s actions today send a clear message that Big Tobacco’s strategy to profit off addicting Black communities will no longer be tolerated,” she said.

Not all groups are on board, however. The American Civil Liberties Union and several other organizations wrote to the country’s top health officials urging them to reconsider.

“Such a ban will trigger criminal penalties which will disproportionately impact people of color, as well as prioritize criminalization over public health and harm reduction,” the letter says. “A ban will also lead to unconstitutional policing and other negative interactions with local law enforcement.”

The letter calls the proposed ban “well intentioned,” but said any effort to reduce death and disease from tobacco “must avoid solutions that will create yet another reason for armed police to engage citizens on the street based on pretext or conduct that does not pose a threat to public safety.”

Instead of a ban, the organizations said, policy makers should consider increased education for adults and minors, stop-smoking programs, and increased funding for health centers in communities of color.

The Biden administration, however, pressed the point that banning menthol will bring many positives. Acting FDA Commissioner Janet Woodcock, MD said in a statement that banning menthol “will help significantly reduce youth initiation, increase the chances of smoking cessation among current smokers, and address health disparities experienced by communities of color, low-income populations, and LGBTQ-plus individuals, all of whom are far more likely to use these tobacco products.”

The FDA cited data showing that, in the first year or so after a ban goes into effect, an additional 923,000 smokers would quit, including 230,000 African Americans. Another study suggests that 633,000 deaths would be averted, including 237,000 Black Americans.

Dr. Woodcock added that, “armed with strong scientific evidence, and with full support from the [Biden] administration, we believe these actions will launch us on a trajectory toward ending tobacco-related disease and death in the U.S.”

The FDA estimates that 18.6 million Americans who are current smokers use menthol cigarettes, with a disproportionately high number being Black people. Menthol cigarette use among Black and Hispanic youth increased from 2011 to 2018, but declined for non-Hispanic White youth.

Flavored mass-produced cigars and cigarillos are disproportionately popular among youth, especially non-Hispanic Black high school students, who in 2020 reported past 30-day cigar smoking at levels twice as high as their White counterparts, said the FDA. Three-quarters of 12- to 17-year-olds reported they smoke cigars because they like the flavors. In 2020, more young people tried a cigar every day than tried a cigarette, reports the agency.

“This long-overdue decision will protect future generations of young people from nicotine addiction, especially Black children and communities, which have disproportionately suffered from menthol tobacco use due to targeted efforts from the tobacco industry,” Lee Savio Beers, MD, president of the American Academy of Pediatrics, said in a statement.

The FDA’s announcement “is only a first step that must be followed with urgent, comprehensive action to remove these flavored products from the market,” he said.

A version of this article first appeared on WebMD.com.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is finalizing new guidelines to help clinicians diagnose and manage long COVID, or postacute sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 infection.

In a day-long congressional hearing on April 28, John Brooks, MD, a medical epidemiologist at the CDC’s division of HIV/AIDS prevention, testified that the guidelines were going through the clearance process at the agency, but would be forthcoming.

“They should be coming out very shortly,” Dr. Brooks said.

The guidelines, which were developed in collaboration with newly established long-COVID clinics and patient advocacy groups, will “illustrate how to diagnose and begin to pull together what we know about management,” of the complex condition, he said.

For many doctors and patients who are struggling to understand symptoms that persist for months after the initial viral infection, the guidelines can’t come soon enough.

National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins, MD, PhD, who also testified at the hearing, estimated that as many as 3 million people could be left with chronic health problems after even mild COVID infections.

“I can’t overstate how serious this issue is for the health of our nation,” he said.

Dr. Collins said his estimate was based on studies showing that roughly 10% of people who get COVID could be affected by this and whose “long-term course is uncertain,” he said. So far, more than 32 million Americans are known to have been infected with the new coronavirus.

“We need to make sure we put our arms around them and bring answers and care to them,” said Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.), chairwoman of the Subcommittee on Health.

Jennifer Possick, MD, who directs the post-COVID recovery program at Yale New Haven (Conn.) Hospital, testified that the tidal wave of patients she and her colleagues were seeing was overwhelming.

“We are a well-resourced program at an academic medical center, but we are swamped by the need in our community. This year, we have seen more patients with post COVID-19 conditions in our clinic alone than we have new cases of asthma and COPD combined,” she said. “The magnitude of the challenge is daunting.”

Dr. Possick estimated that there are “over 60” clinics in the United States that have started to treat long-COVID patients, but said they are grassroots efforts and all very different from each other.

“Whoever had the resources, had the time, [and] was able to take the initiative and forge to the relationships because most of them are multidisciplinary, did so,” she said.
 

Patients testify

Several representatives shared moving personal stories of loved ones or staffers who remained ill months after a COVID diagnosis.

Rep. Ann Kuster, from New Hampshire, talked about her 34-year-old niece, a member of the U.S. Ski Team, who had COVID just over a year ago and “continues to struggle with everything, even the simplest activities of daily living” she said. “She has to choose between taking a shower or making dinner. I’m so proud of her for hanging in there.”

Long-COVID patients invited to testify by the subcommittee described months of disability that left them with soaring medical bills and no ability to work to pay them.

“I am now a poor, Black, disabled woman, living with long COVID,” said Chimere Smith, who said she had been a school teacher in Baltimore. “Saying it aloud makes it no more easy to accept.”

She said COVID had affected her ability to think clearly and caused debilitating fatigue, which prevented her from working. She said she lost her vision for almost 5 months because doctors misdiagnosed a cataract caused by long COVID as dry eye.

“If I did not have a loving family, I [would] be speaking to you today [from] my car, the only property I now own.”

Ms. Smith said that long-COVID clinics, which are mostly housed within academic medical centers, were not going to be accessible for all long-haulers, who are disproportionately women of color. She has started a clinic, based out of her church, to help other patients from her community.

“No one wants to hear that long COVID has decimated my life or the lives of other black women in less than a year,” Ms. Smith said. “We’ve just been waiting and hoping for compassionate doctors and politicians who would acknowledge us.”

A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is finalizing new guidelines to help clinicians diagnose and manage long COVID, or postacute sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 infection.

In a day-long congressional hearing on April 28, John Brooks, MD, a medical epidemiologist at the CDC’s division of HIV/AIDS prevention, testified that the guidelines were going through the clearance process at the agency, but would be forthcoming.

“They should be coming out very shortly,” Dr. Brooks said.

The guidelines, which were developed in collaboration with newly established long-COVID clinics and patient advocacy groups, will “illustrate how to diagnose and begin to pull together what we know about management,” of the complex condition, he said.

For many doctors and patients who are struggling to understand symptoms that persist for months after the initial viral infection, the guidelines can’t come soon enough.

National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins, MD, PhD, who also testified at the hearing, estimated that as many as 3 million people could be left with chronic health problems after even mild COVID infections.

“I can’t overstate how serious this issue is for the health of our nation,” he said.

Dr. Collins said his estimate was based on studies showing that roughly 10% of people who get COVID could be affected by this and whose “long-term course is uncertain,” he said. So far, more than 32 million Americans are known to have been infected with the new coronavirus.

“We need to make sure we put our arms around them and bring answers and care to them,” said Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.), chairwoman of the Subcommittee on Health.

Jennifer Possick, MD, who directs the post-COVID recovery program at Yale New Haven (Conn.) Hospital, testified that the tidal wave of patients she and her colleagues were seeing was overwhelming.

“We are a well-resourced program at an academic medical center, but we are swamped by the need in our community. This year, we have seen more patients with post COVID-19 conditions in our clinic alone than we have new cases of asthma and COPD combined,” she said. “The magnitude of the challenge is daunting.”

Dr. Possick estimated that there are “over 60” clinics in the United States that have started to treat long-COVID patients, but said they are grassroots efforts and all very different from each other.

“Whoever had the resources, had the time, [and] was able to take the initiative and forge to the relationships because most of them are multidisciplinary, did so,” she said.
 

Patients testify

Several representatives shared moving personal stories of loved ones or staffers who remained ill months after a COVID diagnosis.

Rep. Ann Kuster, from New Hampshire, talked about her 34-year-old niece, a member of the U.S. Ski Team, who had COVID just over a year ago and “continues to struggle with everything, even the simplest activities of daily living” she said. “She has to choose between taking a shower or making dinner. I’m so proud of her for hanging in there.”

Long-COVID patients invited to testify by the subcommittee described months of disability that left them with soaring medical bills and no ability to work to pay them.

“I am now a poor, Black, disabled woman, living with long COVID,” said Chimere Smith, who said she had been a school teacher in Baltimore. “Saying it aloud makes it no more easy to accept.”

She said COVID had affected her ability to think clearly and caused debilitating fatigue, which prevented her from working. She said she lost her vision for almost 5 months because doctors misdiagnosed a cataract caused by long COVID as dry eye.

“If I did not have a loving family, I [would] be speaking to you today [from] my car, the only property I now own.”

Ms. Smith said that long-COVID clinics, which are mostly housed within academic medical centers, were not going to be accessible for all long-haulers, who are disproportionately women of color. She has started a clinic, based out of her church, to help other patients from her community.

“No one wants to hear that long COVID has decimated my life or the lives of other black women in less than a year,” Ms. Smith said. “We’ve just been waiting and hoping for compassionate doctors and politicians who would acknowledge us.”

A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is finalizing new guidelines to help clinicians diagnose and manage long COVID, or postacute sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 infection.

In a day-long congressional hearing on April 28, John Brooks, MD, a medical epidemiologist at the CDC’s division of HIV/AIDS prevention, testified that the guidelines were going through the clearance process at the agency, but would be forthcoming.

“They should be coming out very shortly,” Dr. Brooks said.

The guidelines, which were developed in collaboration with newly established long-COVID clinics and patient advocacy groups, will “illustrate how to diagnose and begin to pull together what we know about management,” of the complex condition, he said.

For many doctors and patients who are struggling to understand symptoms that persist for months after the initial viral infection, the guidelines can’t come soon enough.

National Institutes of Health Director Francis Collins, MD, PhD, who also testified at the hearing, estimated that as many as 3 million people could be left with chronic health problems after even mild COVID infections.

“I can’t overstate how serious this issue is for the health of our nation,” he said.

Dr. Collins said his estimate was based on studies showing that roughly 10% of people who get COVID could be affected by this and whose “long-term course is uncertain,” he said. So far, more than 32 million Americans are known to have been infected with the new coronavirus.

“We need to make sure we put our arms around them and bring answers and care to them,” said Rep. Anna Eshoo (D-Calif.), chairwoman of the Subcommittee on Health.

Jennifer Possick, MD, who directs the post-COVID recovery program at Yale New Haven (Conn.) Hospital, testified that the tidal wave of patients she and her colleagues were seeing was overwhelming.

“We are a well-resourced program at an academic medical center, but we are swamped by the need in our community. This year, we have seen more patients with post COVID-19 conditions in our clinic alone than we have new cases of asthma and COPD combined,” she said. “The magnitude of the challenge is daunting.”

Dr. Possick estimated that there are “over 60” clinics in the United States that have started to treat long-COVID patients, but said they are grassroots efforts and all very different from each other.

“Whoever had the resources, had the time, [and] was able to take the initiative and forge to the relationships because most of them are multidisciplinary, did so,” she said.
 

Patients testify

Several representatives shared moving personal stories of loved ones or staffers who remained ill months after a COVID diagnosis.

Rep. Ann Kuster, from New Hampshire, talked about her 34-year-old niece, a member of the U.S. Ski Team, who had COVID just over a year ago and “continues to struggle with everything, even the simplest activities of daily living” she said. “She has to choose between taking a shower or making dinner. I’m so proud of her for hanging in there.”

Long-COVID patients invited to testify by the subcommittee described months of disability that left them with soaring medical bills and no ability to work to pay them.

“I am now a poor, Black, disabled woman, living with long COVID,” said Chimere Smith, who said she had been a school teacher in Baltimore. “Saying it aloud makes it no more easy to accept.”

She said COVID had affected her ability to think clearly and caused debilitating fatigue, which prevented her from working. She said she lost her vision for almost 5 months because doctors misdiagnosed a cataract caused by long COVID as dry eye.

“If I did not have a loving family, I [would] be speaking to you today [from] my car, the only property I now own.”

Ms. Smith said that long-COVID clinics, which are mostly housed within academic medical centers, were not going to be accessible for all long-haulers, who are disproportionately women of color. She has started a clinic, based out of her church, to help other patients from her community.

“No one wants to hear that long COVID has decimated my life or the lives of other black women in less than a year,” Ms. Smith said. “We’ve just been waiting and hoping for compassionate doctors and politicians who would acknowledge us.”

A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.

In a global meta-analysis of more than 7,000 patients who were hospitalized with COVID-19, individuals with overweight or obesity were more likely to need respiratory support but were not more likely to die in the hospital, compared to individuals of normal weight.
 

Compared to patients without diabetes, those with diabetes had higher odds of needing invasive respiratory support (with intubation) but not for needing noninvasive respiratory support or of dying in the hospital.

“Surprisingly,” among patients with diabetes, being overweight or having obesity did not further increase the odds of any of these outcomes, the researchers wrote. The finding needs to be confirmed in larger studies, they said, because the sample sizes in these subanalyses were small and the confidence intervals were large.

The study by Danielle K. Longmore, PhD, of Murdoch Children’s Research Institute (MCRI), Melbourne, and colleagues from the International BMI-COVID consortium, was published online April 15 in Diabetes Care.

This new research “adds to the known data on the associations between obesity and severe COVID-19 disease and extends these findings” to patients who are overweight and/or have diabetes, Dr. Longmore, a pediatric endocrinologist with a clinical and research interest in childhood and youth obesity, said in an interview.

Immunologist Siroon Bekkering, PhD, of Radboud University Medical Center, Nijmegen, the Netherlands, explained that never before have so much data of different types regarding obesity been combined in one large study. Dr. Bekkering is a coauthor of the article and was a principal investigator.

“Several national and international observations already showed the important role of overweight and obesity in a more severe COVID-19 course. This study adds to those observations by combining data from several countries with the possibility to look at the risk factors separately,” she said in a statement from her institution.

“Regardless of other risk factors (such as heart disease or diabetes), we now see that too high a BMI [body mass index] can actually lead to a more severe course in [coronavirus] infection,” she said.
 

Study implications: Data show that overweight, obesity add to risk

These latest findings highlight the urgent need to develop public health policies to address socioeconomic and psychological drivers of obesity, Dr. Longmore said.

“Although taking steps to address obesity in the short term is unlikely to have an immediate impact in the COVID-19 pandemic, it will likely reduce the disease burden in future viral pandemics and reduce risks of complications like heart disease and stroke,” she observed in a statement issued by MCRI.

Coauthor Kirsty R. Short, PhD, a research fellow at the University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia, noted that “obesity is associated with numerous poor health outcomes, including increased risk of cardiometabolic and respiratory disease and more severe viral disease including influenza, dengue, and SARS-CoV-1.

“Given the large scale of this study,” she said, “we have conclusively shown that being overweight or obese are independent risk factors for worse outcomes in adults hospitalized with COVID-19.”

“At the moment, the World Health Organization has not had enough high-quality data to include being overweight or obese as a risk factor for severe COVID-19 disease,” added another author, David P. Burgner, PhD, a pediatric infectious diseases clinician scientist from MCRI.

Bruce Jancin/MDedge News

Does being overweight up risk of worse COVID-19 outcomes?

About 13% of the world’s population are overweight, and 40% have obesity. There are wide between-country variations in these data, and about 90% of patients with type 2 diabetes are overweight or obese, the researchers noted.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development reported that the prevalence of obesity in 2016-2017 was 5.7% to 8.9% in Asia, 9.8% to 16.8% in Europe, 26.5% in South Africa, and 40.0% in the United States, they added.

Obesity is common and has emerged as an important risk factor for severe COVID-19. However, most previous studies of COVID-19 and elevated BMI were conducted in single centers and did not focus on patients with overweight.

To investigate, the researchers identified 7,244 patients (two-thirds were overweight or obese) who were hospitalized with COVID-19 in 69 hospitals (18 sites) in 11 countries from Jan. 17, 2020, to June 2, 2020.

Most patients were hospitalized with COVID-19 in the Netherlands (2,260), followed by New York City (1,682), Switzerland (920), St. Louis (805), Norway, Italy, China, South Africa, Indonesia, Denmark, Los Angeles, Austria, and Singapore.

Just over half (60%) of the individuals were male, and 52% were older than 65.

Overall, 34.8% were overweight, and 30.8% had obesity, but the average weight varied considerably between countries and sites.
 

Increased need for respiratory support, same mortality risk

Compared with patients with normal weight, patients who were overweight had a 44% increased risk of needing supplemental oxygen/noninvasive ventilation, and those with obesity had a 75% increased risk of this, after adjustment for age (< 65, ≥ 65), sex, hypertension, diabetes, or preexisting cardiovascular disease or respiratory conditions.

Patients who were overweight had a 22% increased risk of needing invasive (mechanical) ventilation, and those with obesity had a 73% increased risk of this, after multivariable adjustment.

Being overweight or having obesity was not associated with a significantly increased risk of dying in the hospital, however.

“In other viral respiratory infections, such as influenza, there is a similar pattern of increased requirement for ventilatory support but lower in-hospital mortality among individuals with obesity, when compared to those with normal range BMI,” Dr. Longmore noted. She said that larger studies are needed to further explore this finding regarding COVID-19.

Compared to patients without diabetes, those with diabetes had a 21% increased risk of requiring invasive ventilation, but they did not have an increased risk of needing noninvasive ventilation or of dying in the hospital.

As in previous studies, individuals who had cardiovascular and preexisting respiratory diseases were not at greater risk of needing oxygen or mechanical ventilation but were at increased risk for in-hospital death. Men had a greater risk of needing invasive mechanical ventilation, and individuals who were older than 65 had an increased risk of requiring oxygen or of dying in the hospital.
 

A living meta-analysis, call for more collaborators

“We consider this a ‘living meta-analysis’ and invite other centers to join us,” Dr. Longmore said. “We hope to update the analyses as more data are contributed.”

No specific project funded the study. The authors have disclosed no relevant financial relationships.

A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.

In a global meta-analysis of more than 7,000 patients who were hospitalized with COVID-19, individuals with overweight or obesity were more likely to need respiratory support but were not more likely to die in the hospital, compared to individuals of normal weight.
 

Compared to patients without diabetes, those with diabetes had higher odds of needing invasive respiratory support (with intubation) but not for needing noninvasive respiratory support or of dying in the hospital.

“Surprisingly,” among patients with diabetes, being overweight or having obesity did not further increase the odds of any of these outcomes, the researchers wrote. The finding needs to be confirmed in larger studies, they said, because the sample sizes in these subanalyses were small and the confidence intervals were large.

The study by Danielle K. Longmore, PhD, of Murdoch Children’s Research Institute (MCRI), Melbourne, and colleagues from the International BMI-COVID consortium, was published online April 15 in Diabetes Care.

This new research “adds to the known data on the associations between obesity and severe COVID-19 disease and extends these findings” to patients who are overweight and/or have diabetes, Dr. Longmore, a pediatric endocrinologist with a clinical and research interest in childhood and youth obesity, said in an interview.

Immunologist Siroon Bekkering, PhD, of Radboud University Medical Center, Nijmegen, the Netherlands, explained that never before have so much data of different types regarding obesity been combined in one large study. Dr. Bekkering is a coauthor of the article and was a principal investigator.

“Several national and international observations already showed the important role of overweight and obesity in a more severe COVID-19 course. This study adds to those observations by combining data from several countries with the possibility to look at the risk factors separately,” she said in a statement from her institution.

“Regardless of other risk factors (such as heart disease or diabetes), we now see that too high a BMI [body mass index] can actually lead to a more severe course in [coronavirus] infection,” she said.
 

Study implications: Data show that overweight, obesity add to risk

These latest findings highlight the urgent need to develop public health policies to address socioeconomic and psychological drivers of obesity, Dr. Longmore said.

“Although taking steps to address obesity in the short term is unlikely to have an immediate impact in the COVID-19 pandemic, it will likely reduce the disease burden in future viral pandemics and reduce risks of complications like heart disease and stroke,” she observed in a statement issued by MCRI.

Coauthor Kirsty R. Short, PhD, a research fellow at the University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia, noted that “obesity is associated with numerous poor health outcomes, including increased risk of cardiometabolic and respiratory disease and more severe viral disease including influenza, dengue, and SARS-CoV-1.

“Given the large scale of this study,” she said, “we have conclusively shown that being overweight or obese are independent risk factors for worse outcomes in adults hospitalized with COVID-19.”

“At the moment, the World Health Organization has not had enough high-quality data to include being overweight or obese as a risk factor for severe COVID-19 disease,” added another author, David P. Burgner, PhD, a pediatric infectious diseases clinician scientist from MCRI.

Bruce Jancin/MDedge News

Does being overweight up risk of worse COVID-19 outcomes?

About 13% of the world’s population are overweight, and 40% have obesity. There are wide between-country variations in these data, and about 90% of patients with type 2 diabetes are overweight or obese, the researchers noted.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development reported that the prevalence of obesity in 2016-2017 was 5.7% to 8.9% in Asia, 9.8% to 16.8% in Europe, 26.5% in South Africa, and 40.0% in the United States, they added.

Obesity is common and has emerged as an important risk factor for severe COVID-19. However, most previous studies of COVID-19 and elevated BMI were conducted in single centers and did not focus on patients with overweight.

To investigate, the researchers identified 7,244 patients (two-thirds were overweight or obese) who were hospitalized with COVID-19 in 69 hospitals (18 sites) in 11 countries from Jan. 17, 2020, to June 2, 2020.

Most patients were hospitalized with COVID-19 in the Netherlands (2,260), followed by New York City (1,682), Switzerland (920), St. Louis (805), Norway, Italy, China, South Africa, Indonesia, Denmark, Los Angeles, Austria, and Singapore.

Just over half (60%) of the individuals were male, and 52% were older than 65.

Overall, 34.8% were overweight, and 30.8% had obesity, but the average weight varied considerably between countries and sites.
 

Increased need for respiratory support, same mortality risk

Compared with patients with normal weight, patients who were overweight had a 44% increased risk of needing supplemental oxygen/noninvasive ventilation, and those with obesity had a 75% increased risk of this, after adjustment for age (< 65, ≥ 65), sex, hypertension, diabetes, or preexisting cardiovascular disease or respiratory conditions.

Patients who were overweight had a 22% increased risk of needing invasive (mechanical) ventilation, and those with obesity had a 73% increased risk of this, after multivariable adjustment.

Being overweight or having obesity was not associated with a significantly increased risk of dying in the hospital, however.

“In other viral respiratory infections, such as influenza, there is a similar pattern of increased requirement for ventilatory support but lower in-hospital mortality among individuals with obesity, when compared to those with normal range BMI,” Dr. Longmore noted. She said that larger studies are needed to further explore this finding regarding COVID-19.

Compared to patients without diabetes, those with diabetes had a 21% increased risk of requiring invasive ventilation, but they did not have an increased risk of needing noninvasive ventilation or of dying in the hospital.

As in previous studies, individuals who had cardiovascular and preexisting respiratory diseases were not at greater risk of needing oxygen or mechanical ventilation but were at increased risk for in-hospital death. Men had a greater risk of needing invasive mechanical ventilation, and individuals who were older than 65 had an increased risk of requiring oxygen or of dying in the hospital.
 

A living meta-analysis, call for more collaborators

“We consider this a ‘living meta-analysis’ and invite other centers to join us,” Dr. Longmore said. “We hope to update the analyses as more data are contributed.”

No specific project funded the study. The authors have disclosed no relevant financial relationships.

A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.

In a global meta-analysis of more than 7,000 patients who were hospitalized with COVID-19, individuals with overweight or obesity were more likely to need respiratory support but were not more likely to die in the hospital, compared to individuals of normal weight.
 

Compared to patients without diabetes, those with diabetes had higher odds of needing invasive respiratory support (with intubation) but not for needing noninvasive respiratory support or of dying in the hospital.

“Surprisingly,” among patients with diabetes, being overweight or having obesity did not further increase the odds of any of these outcomes, the researchers wrote. The finding needs to be confirmed in larger studies, they said, because the sample sizes in these subanalyses were small and the confidence intervals were large.

The study by Danielle K. Longmore, PhD, of Murdoch Children’s Research Institute (MCRI), Melbourne, and colleagues from the International BMI-COVID consortium, was published online April 15 in Diabetes Care.

This new research “adds to the known data on the associations between obesity and severe COVID-19 disease and extends these findings” to patients who are overweight and/or have diabetes, Dr. Longmore, a pediatric endocrinologist with a clinical and research interest in childhood and youth obesity, said in an interview.

Immunologist Siroon Bekkering, PhD, of Radboud University Medical Center, Nijmegen, the Netherlands, explained that never before have so much data of different types regarding obesity been combined in one large study. Dr. Bekkering is a coauthor of the article and was a principal investigator.

“Several national and international observations already showed the important role of overweight and obesity in a more severe COVID-19 course. This study adds to those observations by combining data from several countries with the possibility to look at the risk factors separately,” she said in a statement from her institution.

“Regardless of other risk factors (such as heart disease or diabetes), we now see that too high a BMI [body mass index] can actually lead to a more severe course in [coronavirus] infection,” she said.
 

Study implications: Data show that overweight, obesity add to risk

These latest findings highlight the urgent need to develop public health policies to address socioeconomic and psychological drivers of obesity, Dr. Longmore said.

“Although taking steps to address obesity in the short term is unlikely to have an immediate impact in the COVID-19 pandemic, it will likely reduce the disease burden in future viral pandemics and reduce risks of complications like heart disease and stroke,” she observed in a statement issued by MCRI.

Coauthor Kirsty R. Short, PhD, a research fellow at the University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia, noted that “obesity is associated with numerous poor health outcomes, including increased risk of cardiometabolic and respiratory disease and more severe viral disease including influenza, dengue, and SARS-CoV-1.

“Given the large scale of this study,” she said, “we have conclusively shown that being overweight or obese are independent risk factors for worse outcomes in adults hospitalized with COVID-19.”

“At the moment, the World Health Organization has not had enough high-quality data to include being overweight or obese as a risk factor for severe COVID-19 disease,” added another author, David P. Burgner, PhD, a pediatric infectious diseases clinician scientist from MCRI.

Bruce Jancin/MDedge News

Does being overweight up risk of worse COVID-19 outcomes?

About 13% of the world’s population are overweight, and 40% have obesity. There are wide between-country variations in these data, and about 90% of patients with type 2 diabetes are overweight or obese, the researchers noted.

The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development reported that the prevalence of obesity in 2016-2017 was 5.7% to 8.9% in Asia, 9.8% to 16.8% in Europe, 26.5% in South Africa, and 40.0% in the United States, they added.

Obesity is common and has emerged as an important risk factor for severe COVID-19. However, most previous studies of COVID-19 and elevated BMI were conducted in single centers and did not focus on patients with overweight.

To investigate, the researchers identified 7,244 patients (two-thirds were overweight or obese) who were hospitalized with COVID-19 in 69 hospitals (18 sites) in 11 countries from Jan. 17, 2020, to June 2, 2020.

Most patients were hospitalized with COVID-19 in the Netherlands (2,260), followed by New York City (1,682), Switzerland (920), St. Louis (805), Norway, Italy, China, South Africa, Indonesia, Denmark, Los Angeles, Austria, and Singapore.

Just over half (60%) of the individuals were male, and 52% were older than 65.

Overall, 34.8% were overweight, and 30.8% had obesity, but the average weight varied considerably between countries and sites.
 

Increased need for respiratory support, same mortality risk

Compared with patients with normal weight, patients who were overweight had a 44% increased risk of needing supplemental oxygen/noninvasive ventilation, and those with obesity had a 75% increased risk of this, after adjustment for age (< 65, ≥ 65), sex, hypertension, diabetes, or preexisting cardiovascular disease or respiratory conditions.

Patients who were overweight had a 22% increased risk of needing invasive (mechanical) ventilation, and those with obesity had a 73% increased risk of this, after multivariable adjustment.

Being overweight or having obesity was not associated with a significantly increased risk of dying in the hospital, however.

“In other viral respiratory infections, such as influenza, there is a similar pattern of increased requirement for ventilatory support but lower in-hospital mortality among individuals with obesity, when compared to those with normal range BMI,” Dr. Longmore noted. She said that larger studies are needed to further explore this finding regarding COVID-19.

Compared to patients without diabetes, those with diabetes had a 21% increased risk of requiring invasive ventilation, but they did not have an increased risk of needing noninvasive ventilation or of dying in the hospital.

As in previous studies, individuals who had cardiovascular and preexisting respiratory diseases were not at greater risk of needing oxygen or mechanical ventilation but were at increased risk for in-hospital death. Men had a greater risk of needing invasive mechanical ventilation, and individuals who were older than 65 had an increased risk of requiring oxygen or of dying in the hospital.
 

A living meta-analysis, call for more collaborators

“We consider this a ‘living meta-analysis’ and invite other centers to join us,” Dr. Longmore said. “We hope to update the analyses as more data are contributed.”

No specific project funded the study. The authors have disclosed no relevant financial relationships.

A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.

Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla, DVM, PhD, says an oral drug the company is developing to treat COVID-19 symptoms could be available to the public by the end of the year.

“If all goes well, and we implement the same speed that we are, and if regulators do the same, and they are, I hope that (it will be available) by the end of the year,” Dr. Bourla said on CNBC’s Squawk Box.

So far, the only antiviral drug authorized for use with COVID-19 is remdesivir, which is produced by Gilead Sciences and must be administered by injection in a health care setting.

An oral drug like the one Pfizer is developing could be taken at home and might keep people out of the hospital.

“Particular attention is on the oral because it provides several advantages,” Dr. Bourla said. “One of them is that you don’t need to go to the hospital to get the treatment, which is the case with all the injectables so far. You could get it at home, and that could be a game-changer.”

The drug might be effective against the emerging variants, he said. Pfizer is also working on an injectable antiviral drug.

Pfizer, with its European partner BioNTech, developed the first coronavirus vaccine authorized for use in the United States and Europe. The Pfizer pill under development would not be a vaccine to protect people from the virus but a drug to treat people who catch the virus.

The company announced in late March that it was starting clinical trials on the oral drug.

In a news release, the company said the oral drug would work by blocking protease, a critical enzyme that the virus needs to replicate. Protease inhibitors are used in medicines to treat HIV and hepatitis C.

A coronavirus vaccine that could be taken as a pill may enter clinical trials in the second quarter of 2021. The oral vaccine is being developed by Oravax Medical, a new joint venture of the Israeli-American company Oramed and the Indian company Premas Biotech. So far, all coronavirus vaccines are injectable.

A version of this article first appeared on WebMD.com.

Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla, DVM, PhD, says an oral drug the company is developing to treat COVID-19 symptoms could be available to the public by the end of the year.

“If all goes well, and we implement the same speed that we are, and if regulators do the same, and they are, I hope that (it will be available) by the end of the year,” Dr. Bourla said on CNBC’s Squawk Box.

So far, the only antiviral drug authorized for use with COVID-19 is remdesivir, which is produced by Gilead Sciences and must be administered by injection in a health care setting.

An oral drug like the one Pfizer is developing could be taken at home and might keep people out of the hospital.

“Particular attention is on the oral because it provides several advantages,” Dr. Bourla said. “One of them is that you don’t need to go to the hospital to get the treatment, which is the case with all the injectables so far. You could get it at home, and that could be a game-changer.”

The drug might be effective against the emerging variants, he said. Pfizer is also working on an injectable antiviral drug.

Pfizer, with its European partner BioNTech, developed the first coronavirus vaccine authorized for use in the United States and Europe. The Pfizer pill under development would not be a vaccine to protect people from the virus but a drug to treat people who catch the virus.

The company announced in late March that it was starting clinical trials on the oral drug.

In a news release, the company said the oral drug would work by blocking protease, a critical enzyme that the virus needs to replicate. Protease inhibitors are used in medicines to treat HIV and hepatitis C.

A coronavirus vaccine that could be taken as a pill may enter clinical trials in the second quarter of 2021. The oral vaccine is being developed by Oravax Medical, a new joint venture of the Israeli-American company Oramed and the Indian company Premas Biotech. So far, all coronavirus vaccines are injectable.

A version of this article first appeared on WebMD.com.

Pfizer CEO Albert Bourla, DVM, PhD, says an oral drug the company is developing to treat COVID-19 symptoms could be available to the public by the end of the year.

“If all goes well, and we implement the same speed that we are, and if regulators do the same, and they are, I hope that (it will be available) by the end of the year,” Dr. Bourla said on CNBC’s Squawk Box.

So far, the only antiviral drug authorized for use with COVID-19 is remdesivir, which is produced by Gilead Sciences and must be administered by injection in a health care setting.

An oral drug like the one Pfizer is developing could be taken at home and might keep people out of the hospital.

“Particular attention is on the oral because it provides several advantages,” Dr. Bourla said. “One of them is that you don’t need to go to the hospital to get the treatment, which is the case with all the injectables so far. You could get it at home, and that could be a game-changer.”

The drug might be effective against the emerging variants, he said. Pfizer is also working on an injectable antiviral drug.

Pfizer, with its European partner BioNTech, developed the first coronavirus vaccine authorized for use in the United States and Europe. The Pfizer pill under development would not be a vaccine to protect people from the virus but a drug to treat people who catch the virus.

The company announced in late March that it was starting clinical trials on the oral drug.

In a news release, the company said the oral drug would work by blocking protease, a critical enzyme that the virus needs to replicate. Protease inhibitors are used in medicines to treat HIV and hepatitis C.

A coronavirus vaccine that could be taken as a pill may enter clinical trials in the second quarter of 2021. The oral vaccine is being developed by Oravax Medical, a new joint venture of the Israeli-American company Oramed and the Indian company Premas Biotech. So far, all coronavirus vaccines are injectable.

A version of this article first appeared on WebMD.com.

In past posts for this news organization, I’ve railed against the cost of inappropriate prescriptions for oxygen. A recent review recommended against prescribing oxygen for patients with isolated exertional or nocturnal desaturations, and recently published randomized trials found no demonstrable benefit to oxygen use in the absence of resting hypoxemia. My oxygen ire was previously directed at inappropriate screening for nocturnal or exertional hypoxemia in outpatients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder (COPD), a common practice in clinics where I’ve worked. However, oxygen prescriptions at hospital discharge are a far more pernicious cause of wasted resources.

Prescriptions at hospital discharge, sometimes referred to as short-term oxygen therapy (STOT), account for a large proportion of total oxygen use. Past data have shown that the term “STOT” is a misnomer, as most patients provided with oxygen at discharge are never reevaluated and become long-term oxygen users. The high cost of durable medical equipment related to oxygen delivery prompted the American Thoracic Society and American College of Chest Physicians to recommend postdischarge reassessment of oxygen needs in their Choosing Wisely campaign for adult pulmonary medicine.

A recent study published in the Annals of the American Thoracic Society (Ann ATS) highlights the benefits available if we decide to “choose wisely.” The authors studied patients covered by Veterans Affairs and discharged on STOT between 2006 and 2011. Only 43.6% (287/659) had complete reassessment (oxygen testing at rest and with ambulation) within 90 days. Of those, 124 (43.2%) were eligible for discontinuation via Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services guidelines. A total of 70.7% (466/659) were tested at rest, and only 15.7% (73/466) had resting hypoxemia. If one accepts the results of the recently published Long-Term Oxygen Treatment Trial, this means that 84.3% (393/466) would be eligible for oxygen discontinuation.

The Ann ATS study provides a blueprint for how we might improve these dismal numbers. There were five separate sites reviewed in their paper. At one site, reassessment occurred in 78.5% of STOT patients and 100% had oxygen discontinued when appropriate. What was their secret? An automatic alert system and a dedicated clinic, coordinator, and respiratory therapist. Also, among the 124 patients who had a full reassessment and no longer qualified for oxygen, 86.3% had it discontinued.

There are countless reasons why STOT is common, but discontinuation is not. Most COPD exacerbations are managed by nonpulmonologists on general medicine wards prior to discharge. In my experience, these physicians are reluctant to release a patient with exertional hypoxia without STOT. They also assume that the pulmonary clinic will do its job during the obligatory outpatient follow-up appointment they schedule with us. At the follow-up, the patient and physician are reluctant to stop therapy because of psychological dependence and therapeutic overconfidence, respectively.

In summary, STOT following hospitalization comprises the majority of all oxygen prescriptions. Historically, the United States provides far more oxygen than other developed countries, and only CMS reimbursement changes have bent the “overprescription” curve. The Ann ATS study shows that a well-designed program at the hospital level can put oxygen decisions back in the hands of providers.

Let’s “choose wisely” and follow what works, or we’ll have only ourselves to blame when reimbursement decisions are taken out of our hands.

A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.

In past posts for this news organization, I’ve railed against the cost of inappropriate prescriptions for oxygen. A recent review recommended against prescribing oxygen for patients with isolated exertional or nocturnal desaturations, and recently published randomized trials found no demonstrable benefit to oxygen use in the absence of resting hypoxemia. My oxygen ire was previously directed at inappropriate screening for nocturnal or exertional hypoxemia in outpatients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder (COPD), a common practice in clinics where I’ve worked. However, oxygen prescriptions at hospital discharge are a far more pernicious cause of wasted resources.

Prescriptions at hospital discharge, sometimes referred to as short-term oxygen therapy (STOT), account for a large proportion of total oxygen use. Past data have shown that the term “STOT” is a misnomer, as most patients provided with oxygen at discharge are never reevaluated and become long-term oxygen users. The high cost of durable medical equipment related to oxygen delivery prompted the American Thoracic Society and American College of Chest Physicians to recommend postdischarge reassessment of oxygen needs in their Choosing Wisely campaign for adult pulmonary medicine.

A recent study published in the Annals of the American Thoracic Society (Ann ATS) highlights the benefits available if we decide to “choose wisely.” The authors studied patients covered by Veterans Affairs and discharged on STOT between 2006 and 2011. Only 43.6% (287/659) had complete reassessment (oxygen testing at rest and with ambulation) within 90 days. Of those, 124 (43.2%) were eligible for discontinuation via Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services guidelines. A total of 70.7% (466/659) were tested at rest, and only 15.7% (73/466) had resting hypoxemia. If one accepts the results of the recently published Long-Term Oxygen Treatment Trial, this means that 84.3% (393/466) would be eligible for oxygen discontinuation.

The Ann ATS study provides a blueprint for how we might improve these dismal numbers. There were five separate sites reviewed in their paper. At one site, reassessment occurred in 78.5% of STOT patients and 100% had oxygen discontinued when appropriate. What was their secret? An automatic alert system and a dedicated clinic, coordinator, and respiratory therapist. Also, among the 124 patients who had a full reassessment and no longer qualified for oxygen, 86.3% had it discontinued.

There are countless reasons why STOT is common, but discontinuation is not. Most COPD exacerbations are managed by nonpulmonologists on general medicine wards prior to discharge. In my experience, these physicians are reluctant to release a patient with exertional hypoxia without STOT. They also assume that the pulmonary clinic will do its job during the obligatory outpatient follow-up appointment they schedule with us. At the follow-up, the patient and physician are reluctant to stop therapy because of psychological dependence and therapeutic overconfidence, respectively.

In summary, STOT following hospitalization comprises the majority of all oxygen prescriptions. Historically, the United States provides far more oxygen than other developed countries, and only CMS reimbursement changes have bent the “overprescription” curve. The Ann ATS study shows that a well-designed program at the hospital level can put oxygen decisions back in the hands of providers.

Let’s “choose wisely” and follow what works, or we’ll have only ourselves to blame when reimbursement decisions are taken out of our hands.

A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.

In past posts for this news organization, I’ve railed against the cost of inappropriate prescriptions for oxygen. A recent review recommended against prescribing oxygen for patients with isolated exertional or nocturnal desaturations, and recently published randomized trials found no demonstrable benefit to oxygen use in the absence of resting hypoxemia. My oxygen ire was previously directed at inappropriate screening for nocturnal or exertional hypoxemia in outpatients with chronic obstructive pulmonary disorder (COPD), a common practice in clinics where I’ve worked. However, oxygen prescriptions at hospital discharge are a far more pernicious cause of wasted resources.

Prescriptions at hospital discharge, sometimes referred to as short-term oxygen therapy (STOT), account for a large proportion of total oxygen use. Past data have shown that the term “STOT” is a misnomer, as most patients provided with oxygen at discharge are never reevaluated and become long-term oxygen users. The high cost of durable medical equipment related to oxygen delivery prompted the American Thoracic Society and American College of Chest Physicians to recommend postdischarge reassessment of oxygen needs in their Choosing Wisely campaign for adult pulmonary medicine.

A recent study published in the Annals of the American Thoracic Society (Ann ATS) highlights the benefits available if we decide to “choose wisely.” The authors studied patients covered by Veterans Affairs and discharged on STOT between 2006 and 2011. Only 43.6% (287/659) had complete reassessment (oxygen testing at rest and with ambulation) within 90 days. Of those, 124 (43.2%) were eligible for discontinuation via Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services guidelines. A total of 70.7% (466/659) were tested at rest, and only 15.7% (73/466) had resting hypoxemia. If one accepts the results of the recently published Long-Term Oxygen Treatment Trial, this means that 84.3% (393/466) would be eligible for oxygen discontinuation.

The Ann ATS study provides a blueprint for how we might improve these dismal numbers. There were five separate sites reviewed in their paper. At one site, reassessment occurred in 78.5% of STOT patients and 100% had oxygen discontinued when appropriate. What was their secret? An automatic alert system and a dedicated clinic, coordinator, and respiratory therapist. Also, among the 124 patients who had a full reassessment and no longer qualified for oxygen, 86.3% had it discontinued.

There are countless reasons why STOT is common, but discontinuation is not. Most COPD exacerbations are managed by nonpulmonologists on general medicine wards prior to discharge. In my experience, these physicians are reluctant to release a patient with exertional hypoxia without STOT. They also assume that the pulmonary clinic will do its job during the obligatory outpatient follow-up appointment they schedule with us. At the follow-up, the patient and physician are reluctant to stop therapy because of psychological dependence and therapeutic overconfidence, respectively.

In summary, STOT following hospitalization comprises the majority of all oxygen prescriptions. Historically, the United States provides far more oxygen than other developed countries, and only CMS reimbursement changes have bent the “overprescription” curve. The Ann ATS study shows that a well-designed program at the hospital level can put oxygen decisions back in the hands of providers.

Let’s “choose wisely” and follow what works, or we’ll have only ourselves to blame when reimbursement decisions are taken out of our hands.

A version of this article first appeared on Medscape.com.

People with psoriasis have a higher risk of infection with COVID-19 than the general population, but some systemic treatments appear to lower risk in patients, compared with those on topical therapy, a new study finds.

“Our study results suggest that psoriasis is an independent risk factor for COVID-19 illness,” study coauthor Jeffrey Liu, a medical student at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, said in an interview after he presented the findings at the American Academy of Dermatology Virtual Meeting Experience. “And our findings are consistent with the hypothesis that certain systemic agents may confer a protective effect against COVID-19 illness.”

Mr. Liu and coinvestigators used a Symphony Health dataset to analyze the health records of 167,027 U.S. patients diagnosed with psoriasis and a control group of 1,002,162 patients. The participants, all at least 20 years old, had been treated for psoriasis or psoriatic arthritis from May 2019 through Jan. 1, 2020, and were tracked until Nov. 11, 2020.

The ages and races of peoples in the two groups were roughly similar. Overall, 55% were women and 75% were White, and their average age was 58 years. Type 2 diabetes was more common in the psoriasis group than the control group (23% vs. 16%), as was obesity (27% vs. 15%). Of the patients with psoriasis, 60% were on topical treatments, 19% were on oral therapies, and 22% were on biologic therapy, with only a few taking both oral and biologic therapies.

After adjustment for age and gender, patients with psoriasis were 33% more likely than the control group to develop COVID-19 (adjusted incidence rate ratio, 1.33; 95% confidence interval, 1.23-1.38; P < .0001).

In a separate analysis, the gap persisted after adjustment for demographics and comorbidities: Patients with psoriasis had a higher rate of COVID-19 infection vs. controls (adjusted odds ratio, 1.18; 95% CI, 1.13-1.23; P < .0001). Among all patients, non-White race, older age, and comorbidities were all linked to higher risk of COVID-19 (all P < .0001).

Psoriasis might make patients more vulnerable to COVID-19 because the presence of up-regulated genes in psoriatic skin “may lead to systemic hyperinflammation and sensitization of patients with psoriasis to proinflammatory cytokine storm,” Mr. Liu said. This, in turn, may trigger more severe symptomatic disease that requires medical treatment, he said.

Reduced risk, compared with topical therapies

After adjustment for age and gender, those treated with TNF-alpha inhibitors, methotrexate, and apremilast (Otezla) all had statistically lower risks of COVID-19 vs. those on topical therapy (aIRR, 0.82; 95% CI, 0.69-0.95; P < .0029 for TNF-alpha inhibitors; aIRR, 0.75; 95% CI, 0.67-0.86; P < .0001 for methotrexate; and aIRR, 0.69; 95% CI, 0.55-0.85; P < .0006 for apremilast).

Reduced risk held true for those in the separate analysis after adjustment for comorbidities and demographics (respectively, aOR, 0.87; 95% CI, 0.77-1.00; P < .0469; aOR, 0.81; 95% CI, 0.71-0.92; P < .0011; and aOR, 0.70; 95% CI, 0.57-0.87; P < .0014).

Apremilast and methotrexate may boost protection against COVID-19 by inhibiting the body’s production of cytokines, Mr. Liu said.

One message of the study is that “dermatologists should not be scared of prescribing biologics or oral therapies for psoriasis,” the study’s lead author Jashin J. Wu, MD, of the Dermatology Research and Education Foundation in Irvine, Calif., said in an interview.

However, the results on the effects of systemic therapies were not all positive. Interleukin (IL)–17 inhibitors were an outlier: After adjustment for age and gender, patients treated with this class of drugs were 36% more likely to develop COVID-19 than those on oral agents (aIRR, 1.36; 95% CI, 1.13-1.63; P < .0009).

Among patients on biologics, those taking IL-17 inhibitors had the highest risk of COVID-19, Mr. Liu said. “The risk was higher in this class regardless of reference group – general population, the topical cohort, and the oral cohort,” he said. “This may relate to the observation that this biologic class exerts more broad immunosuppressive effects on antiviral host immunity. Notably, large meta-estimates of pivotal trials have observed increased risk of respiratory tract infections for patients on IL-17 inhibitors.”

In an interview, Erica Dommasch, MD, MPH, of the department of dermatology at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, cautioned that “the data from this study is very hard to interpret.”

It’s likely that some patients with psoriasis on systemic medications “may have been the most careful about limiting exposures,” she said. “Thus, it’s hard to account for behavioral changes in individuals that may have led to the decreased incidence in psoriasis in patients on systemic agents versus topical therapy alone.”

Patients with psoriasis may also be tested more often for COVID-19, and unmeasured comorbidities like chronic kidney disease may play a role too, she said. Still, she added, “it’s reassuring that the authors did not find an increased rate of COVID among psoriasis patients on systemic agents versus topicals alone.” And she agreed with Dr. Wu about the importance of treating psoriasis with therapy beyond topical treatments during the pandemic: “Providers should feel comfortable prescribing systemic medications to psoriasis patients when otherwise appropriate.”

As for the next steps, Dr. Wu said, “we will be exploring more about the prognosis of COVID-19 infection in psoriasis patients. In addition, we will be exploring the relationship of COVID-19 infection with other inflammatory skin diseases, such as atopic dermatitis.”

No study funding is reported. Dr. Wu discloses investigator, consultant, or speaker relationships with AbbVie, Almirall, Amgen, Arcutis, Aristea Therapeutics, Boehringer Ingelheim, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Dermavant, Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories, Eli Lilly, Galderma, Janssen, LEO Pharma, Mindera, Novartis, Regeneron, Sanofi Genzyme, Solius, Sun Pharmaceutical, UCB, Valeant Pharmaceuticals North America, and Zerigo Health. Mr. Liu and Dr. Dommasch have no disclosures.

People with psoriasis have a higher risk of infection with COVID-19 than the general population, but some systemic treatments appear to lower risk in patients, compared with those on topical therapy, a new study finds.

“Our study results suggest that psoriasis is an independent risk factor for COVID-19 illness,” study coauthor Jeffrey Liu, a medical student at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, said in an interview after he presented the findings at the American Academy of Dermatology Virtual Meeting Experience. “And our findings are consistent with the hypothesis that certain systemic agents may confer a protective effect against COVID-19 illness.”

Mr. Liu and coinvestigators used a Symphony Health dataset to analyze the health records of 167,027 U.S. patients diagnosed with psoriasis and a control group of 1,002,162 patients. The participants, all at least 20 years old, had been treated for psoriasis or psoriatic arthritis from May 2019 through Jan. 1, 2020, and were tracked until Nov. 11, 2020.

The ages and races of peoples in the two groups were roughly similar. Overall, 55% were women and 75% were White, and their average age was 58 years. Type 2 diabetes was more common in the psoriasis group than the control group (23% vs. 16%), as was obesity (27% vs. 15%). Of the patients with psoriasis, 60% were on topical treatments, 19% were on oral therapies, and 22% were on biologic therapy, with only a few taking both oral and biologic therapies.

After adjustment for age and gender, patients with psoriasis were 33% more likely than the control group to develop COVID-19 (adjusted incidence rate ratio, 1.33; 95% confidence interval, 1.23-1.38; P < .0001).

In a separate analysis, the gap persisted after adjustment for demographics and comorbidities: Patients with psoriasis had a higher rate of COVID-19 infection vs. controls (adjusted odds ratio, 1.18; 95% CI, 1.13-1.23; P < .0001). Among all patients, non-White race, older age, and comorbidities were all linked to higher risk of COVID-19 (all P < .0001).

Psoriasis might make patients more vulnerable to COVID-19 because the presence of up-regulated genes in psoriatic skin “may lead to systemic hyperinflammation and sensitization of patients with psoriasis to proinflammatory cytokine storm,” Mr. Liu said. This, in turn, may trigger more severe symptomatic disease that requires medical treatment, he said.

Reduced risk, compared with topical therapies

After adjustment for age and gender, those treated with TNF-alpha inhibitors, methotrexate, and apremilast (Otezla) all had statistically lower risks of COVID-19 vs. those on topical therapy (aIRR, 0.82; 95% CI, 0.69-0.95; P < .0029 for TNF-alpha inhibitors; aIRR, 0.75; 95% CI, 0.67-0.86; P < .0001 for methotrexate; and aIRR, 0.69; 95% CI, 0.55-0.85; P < .0006 for apremilast).

Reduced risk held true for those in the separate analysis after adjustment for comorbidities and demographics (respectively, aOR, 0.87; 95% CI, 0.77-1.00; P < .0469; aOR, 0.81; 95% CI, 0.71-0.92; P < .0011; and aOR, 0.70; 95% CI, 0.57-0.87; P < .0014).

Apremilast and methotrexate may boost protection against COVID-19 by inhibiting the body’s production of cytokines, Mr. Liu said.

One message of the study is that “dermatologists should not be scared of prescribing biologics or oral therapies for psoriasis,” the study’s lead author Jashin J. Wu, MD, of the Dermatology Research and Education Foundation in Irvine, Calif., said in an interview.

However, the results on the effects of systemic therapies were not all positive. Interleukin (IL)–17 inhibitors were an outlier: After adjustment for age and gender, patients treated with this class of drugs were 36% more likely to develop COVID-19 than those on oral agents (aIRR, 1.36; 95% CI, 1.13-1.63; P < .0009).

Among patients on biologics, those taking IL-17 inhibitors had the highest risk of COVID-19, Mr. Liu said. “The risk was higher in this class regardless of reference group – general population, the topical cohort, and the oral cohort,” he said. “This may relate to the observation that this biologic class exerts more broad immunosuppressive effects on antiviral host immunity. Notably, large meta-estimates of pivotal trials have observed increased risk of respiratory tract infections for patients on IL-17 inhibitors.”

In an interview, Erica Dommasch, MD, MPH, of the department of dermatology at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, cautioned that “the data from this study is very hard to interpret.”

It’s likely that some patients with psoriasis on systemic medications “may have been the most careful about limiting exposures,” she said. “Thus, it’s hard to account for behavioral changes in individuals that may have led to the decreased incidence in psoriasis in patients on systemic agents versus topical therapy alone.”

Patients with psoriasis may also be tested more often for COVID-19, and unmeasured comorbidities like chronic kidney disease may play a role too, she said. Still, she added, “it’s reassuring that the authors did not find an increased rate of COVID among psoriasis patients on systemic agents versus topicals alone.” And she agreed with Dr. Wu about the importance of treating psoriasis with therapy beyond topical treatments during the pandemic: “Providers should feel comfortable prescribing systemic medications to psoriasis patients when otherwise appropriate.”

As for the next steps, Dr. Wu said, “we will be exploring more about the prognosis of COVID-19 infection in psoriasis patients. In addition, we will be exploring the relationship of COVID-19 infection with other inflammatory skin diseases, such as atopic dermatitis.”

No study funding is reported. Dr. Wu discloses investigator, consultant, or speaker relationships with AbbVie, Almirall, Amgen, Arcutis, Aristea Therapeutics, Boehringer Ingelheim, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Dermavant, Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories, Eli Lilly, Galderma, Janssen, LEO Pharma, Mindera, Novartis, Regeneron, Sanofi Genzyme, Solius, Sun Pharmaceutical, UCB, Valeant Pharmaceuticals North America, and Zerigo Health. Mr. Liu and Dr. Dommasch have no disclosures.

People with psoriasis have a higher risk of infection with COVID-19 than the general population, but some systemic treatments appear to lower risk in patients, compared with those on topical therapy, a new study finds.

“Our study results suggest that psoriasis is an independent risk factor for COVID-19 illness,” study coauthor Jeffrey Liu, a medical student at the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, said in an interview after he presented the findings at the American Academy of Dermatology Virtual Meeting Experience. “And our findings are consistent with the hypothesis that certain systemic agents may confer a protective effect against COVID-19 illness.”

Mr. Liu and coinvestigators used a Symphony Health dataset to analyze the health records of 167,027 U.S. patients diagnosed with psoriasis and a control group of 1,002,162 patients. The participants, all at least 20 years old, had been treated for psoriasis or psoriatic arthritis from May 2019 through Jan. 1, 2020, and were tracked until Nov. 11, 2020.

The ages and races of peoples in the two groups were roughly similar. Overall, 55% were women and 75% were White, and their average age was 58 years. Type 2 diabetes was more common in the psoriasis group than the control group (23% vs. 16%), as was obesity (27% vs. 15%). Of the patients with psoriasis, 60% were on topical treatments, 19% were on oral therapies, and 22% were on biologic therapy, with only a few taking both oral and biologic therapies.

After adjustment for age and gender, patients with psoriasis were 33% more likely than the control group to develop COVID-19 (adjusted incidence rate ratio, 1.33; 95% confidence interval, 1.23-1.38; P < .0001).

In a separate analysis, the gap persisted after adjustment for demographics and comorbidities: Patients with psoriasis had a higher rate of COVID-19 infection vs. controls (adjusted odds ratio, 1.18; 95% CI, 1.13-1.23; P < .0001). Among all patients, non-White race, older age, and comorbidities were all linked to higher risk of COVID-19 (all P < .0001).

Psoriasis might make patients more vulnerable to COVID-19 because the presence of up-regulated genes in psoriatic skin “may lead to systemic hyperinflammation and sensitization of patients with psoriasis to proinflammatory cytokine storm,” Mr. Liu said. This, in turn, may trigger more severe symptomatic disease that requires medical treatment, he said.

Reduced risk, compared with topical therapies

After adjustment for age and gender, those treated with TNF-alpha inhibitors, methotrexate, and apremilast (Otezla) all had statistically lower risks of COVID-19 vs. those on topical therapy (aIRR, 0.82; 95% CI, 0.69-0.95; P < .0029 for TNF-alpha inhibitors; aIRR, 0.75; 95% CI, 0.67-0.86; P < .0001 for methotrexate; and aIRR, 0.69; 95% CI, 0.55-0.85; P < .0006 for apremilast).

Reduced risk held true for those in the separate analysis after adjustment for comorbidities and demographics (respectively, aOR, 0.87; 95% CI, 0.77-1.00; P < .0469; aOR, 0.81; 95% CI, 0.71-0.92; P < .0011; and aOR, 0.70; 95% CI, 0.57-0.87; P < .0014).

Apremilast and methotrexate may boost protection against COVID-19 by inhibiting the body’s production of cytokines, Mr. Liu said.

One message of the study is that “dermatologists should not be scared of prescribing biologics or oral therapies for psoriasis,” the study’s lead author Jashin J. Wu, MD, of the Dermatology Research and Education Foundation in Irvine, Calif., said in an interview.

However, the results on the effects of systemic therapies were not all positive. Interleukin (IL)–17 inhibitors were an outlier: After adjustment for age and gender, patients treated with this class of drugs were 36% more likely to develop COVID-19 than those on oral agents (aIRR, 1.36; 95% CI, 1.13-1.63; P < .0009).

Among patients on biologics, those taking IL-17 inhibitors had the highest risk of COVID-19, Mr. Liu said. “The risk was higher in this class regardless of reference group – general population, the topical cohort, and the oral cohort,” he said. “This may relate to the observation that this biologic class exerts more broad immunosuppressive effects on antiviral host immunity. Notably, large meta-estimates of pivotal trials have observed increased risk of respiratory tract infections for patients on IL-17 inhibitors.”

In an interview, Erica Dommasch, MD, MPH, of the department of dermatology at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center, Boston, cautioned that “the data from this study is very hard to interpret.”

It’s likely that some patients with psoriasis on systemic medications “may have been the most careful about limiting exposures,” she said. “Thus, it’s hard to account for behavioral changes in individuals that may have led to the decreased incidence in psoriasis in patients on systemic agents versus topical therapy alone.”

Patients with psoriasis may also be tested more often for COVID-19, and unmeasured comorbidities like chronic kidney disease may play a role too, she said. Still, she added, “it’s reassuring that the authors did not find an increased rate of COVID among psoriasis patients on systemic agents versus topicals alone.” And she agreed with Dr. Wu about the importance of treating psoriasis with therapy beyond topical treatments during the pandemic: “Providers should feel comfortable prescribing systemic medications to psoriasis patients when otherwise appropriate.”

As for the next steps, Dr. Wu said, “we will be exploring more about the prognosis of COVID-19 infection in psoriasis patients. In addition, we will be exploring the relationship of COVID-19 infection with other inflammatory skin diseases, such as atopic dermatitis.”

No study funding is reported. Dr. Wu discloses investigator, consultant, or speaker relationships with AbbVie, Almirall, Amgen, Arcutis, Aristea Therapeutics, Boehringer Ingelheim, Bristol-Myers Squibb, Dermavant, Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories, Eli Lilly, Galderma, Janssen, LEO Pharma, Mindera, Novartis, Regeneron, Sanofi Genzyme, Solius, Sun Pharmaceutical, UCB, Valeant Pharmaceuticals North America, and Zerigo Health. Mr. Liu and Dr. Dommasch have no disclosures.

New cases of COVID-19 dropped among children for just the second time in the past 6 weeks, but that was not enough to reverse the trend in children’s share of the weekly total, according to a report from the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Children’s Hospital Association.

Despite the decline in new cases, which fell from 88,000 to just under 80,000, or 9.7%, during the week of April 16-22, children represented 20.8% of all COVID-19 cases reported for the week, surpassing the pandemic-high 20.6% seen just a week earlier, the AAP/CHA report shows.

The total number of cases in children is now over 3.7 million – that’s 13.7% of cases in all ages – since the start of the pandemic, and the cumulative rate of infection has reached 4,931 per 100,000 children, based on data from 49 states (excluding New York), the District of Columbia, New York City, Puerto Rico, and Guam.

Cases of more severe illness in children continue to trend lower. The cumulative number of hospitalizations in children (15,187) is only 2.0% of the total of almost 760,000 in the 25 jurisdictions (24 states and New York City) that report such data, and deaths in children now number 296, which is just 0.06% of all COVID-19–related mortality in 43 states, New York City, Puerto Rico, and Guam, the AAP and CHA said in their report.

Among those 46 jurisdictions, Texas has reported the most deaths (51) in children, followed by Arizona (29) and New York City (23), while 9 states and the District of Columbia have reported no deaths so far. Children represent the highest proportion of deaths (0.19%) in Colorado, but Guam, with 2 child deaths among its total of 136, has by far the highest rate at 1.47%, the AAP/CHA data show.

Data from the 25 reporting jurisdictions show that children make up the largest share of hospitalizations (3.1%) in Colorado and Minnesota, while New York City (1.9%), Georgia (1.3%), and Rhode Island (1.3%) have the highest hospitalization rates among children diagnosed with SARS-CoV-2 infection, the two groups reported.

[email protected]

New cases of COVID-19 dropped among children for just the second time in the past 6 weeks, but that was not enough to reverse the trend in children’s share of the weekly total, according to a report from the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Children’s Hospital Association.

Despite the decline in new cases, which fell from 88,000 to just under 80,000, or 9.7%, during the week of April 16-22, children represented 20.8% of all COVID-19 cases reported for the week, surpassing the pandemic-high 20.6% seen just a week earlier, the AAP/CHA report shows.

The total number of cases in children is now over 3.7 million – that’s 13.7% of cases in all ages – since the start of the pandemic, and the cumulative rate of infection has reached 4,931 per 100,000 children, based on data from 49 states (excluding New York), the District of Columbia, New York City, Puerto Rico, and Guam.

Cases of more severe illness in children continue to trend lower. The cumulative number of hospitalizations in children (15,187) is only 2.0% of the total of almost 760,000 in the 25 jurisdictions (24 states and New York City) that report such data, and deaths in children now number 296, which is just 0.06% of all COVID-19–related mortality in 43 states, New York City, Puerto Rico, and Guam, the AAP and CHA said in their report.

Among those 46 jurisdictions, Texas has reported the most deaths (51) in children, followed by Arizona (29) and New York City (23), while 9 states and the District of Columbia have reported no deaths so far. Children represent the highest proportion of deaths (0.19%) in Colorado, but Guam, with 2 child deaths among its total of 136, has by far the highest rate at 1.47%, the AAP/CHA data show.

Data from the 25 reporting jurisdictions show that children make up the largest share of hospitalizations (3.1%) in Colorado and Minnesota, while New York City (1.9%), Georgia (1.3%), and Rhode Island (1.3%) have the highest hospitalization rates among children diagnosed with SARS-CoV-2 infection, the two groups reported.

[email protected]

New cases of COVID-19 dropped among children for just the second time in the past 6 weeks, but that was not enough to reverse the trend in children’s share of the weekly total, according to a report from the American Academy of Pediatrics and the Children’s Hospital Association.

Despite the decline in new cases, which fell from 88,000 to just under 80,000, or 9.7%, during the week of April 16-22, children represented 20.8% of all COVID-19 cases reported for the week, surpassing the pandemic-high 20.6% seen just a week earlier, the AAP/CHA report shows.

The total number of cases in children is now over 3.7 million – that’s 13.7% of cases in all ages – since the start of the pandemic, and the cumulative rate of infection has reached 4,931 per 100,000 children, based on data from 49 states (excluding New York), the District of Columbia, New York City, Puerto Rico, and Guam.

Cases of more severe illness in children continue to trend lower. The cumulative number of hospitalizations in children (15,187) is only 2.0% of the total of almost 760,000 in the 25 jurisdictions (24 states and New York City) that report such data, and deaths in children now number 296, which is just 0.06% of all COVID-19–related mortality in 43 states, New York City, Puerto Rico, and Guam, the AAP and CHA said in their report.

Among those 46 jurisdictions, Texas has reported the most deaths (51) in children, followed by Arizona (29) and New York City (23), while 9 states and the District of Columbia have reported no deaths so far. Children represent the highest proportion of deaths (0.19%) in Colorado, but Guam, with 2 child deaths among its total of 136, has by far the highest rate at 1.47%, the AAP/CHA data show.

Data from the 25 reporting jurisdictions show that children make up the largest share of hospitalizations (3.1%) in Colorado and Minnesota, while New York City (1.9%), Georgia (1.3%), and Rhode Island (1.3%) have the highest hospitalization rates among children diagnosed with SARS-CoV-2 infection, the two groups reported.

[email protected]

Hospitalized patients with acute respiratory failure can benefit from high-flow nasal oxygen in certain settings, according to a new clinical guideline from the American College of Physicians.

High-flow nasal oxygen (HFNO) has demonstrated advantages including improved oxygenation and ventilation, wrote Arianne K. Baldomero, MD, of Minneapolis Veterans Affairs Health Care System and the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, and colleagues. “However, the comparative benefits and harms of HFNO in clinical outcomes, including mortality, intubation, hospital length of stay, patient comfort, clearance of airway secretions, and reduced work of breathing are not well known.”

In the guideline, published in Annals of Internal Medicine, the authors recommend the use of high-flow nasal oxygen in hospitalized patients for initial or postextubation management of acute respiratory failure. The target population includes those patients treated in hospital wards, EDs, intermediate/step-down units, and ICUs.

Use of HFNO therapy as a form of noninvasive respiratory support for hospitalized patients has increased in recent years. The treatment involves delivering warm, humidified oxygen via nasal cannula at a flow level higher than the patient’s inspiratory flow.

Potential benefits of HFNO include greater patient comfort, improved compliance, and psychological benefits, according to the authors. HFNO also can be used as respiratory support in critically ill patients for a number of indications including respiratory failure or support post extubation; however, treatment of patients with COVID-19 and related conditions were not considered in the guideline.

The guideline was based on evidence comparing HFNO with conventional oxygen therapy (COT) and noninvasive ventilation (NIV). The authors reviewed 29 randomized, controlled trials that showed clinically meaningful outcomes in HFNO patients, as well as similar rates of, or reductions in, mortality, intubations, and hospital-acquired pneumonia, and increased reports of patient comfort. Data also supported the safety of HFNO with few, if any, contraindications other than problems with fitting the nasal cannula.

Across several trials comparing HFNO and NIV for initial management of acute respiratory failure, HFNO reduced all-cause mortality, intubation, and hospital-acquired pneumonia, although the authors categorized the results as “low-certainty evidence.” HFNO was not more effective than NIV for postextubation management. Based trials comparing HFNO and COT for postextubation management, the authors concluded that HFNO may reduce rates of reintubation and improve patient comfort, also with low-certainty evidence.

The research was limited by a lack of studies comparing HFNO with NIV or COT for acute respiratory failure in patients who were post lung transplantation, or for those with pulmonary embolism, pulmonary arterial hypertension, or asthma, the authors said. Other limitations included the variation in study design, study populations, and treatment protocols across the included studies. Additional research is needed to better identify the patients most likely to benefit from HFNO, according to type of acute respiratory failure.

Despite these limitations, the results support the guideline recommendation for HFNO in cases of acute respiratory failure and postextubation management. However, “broad applicability, including required clinician and health system experience and resource use, remains unknown,” the authors concluded.

Research catches up with practice

The guidelines are important at this time because “the medical literature over the past 3-4 years is catching up to what hospitalists, pulmonologists, and critical care specialists have been doing clinically over the past 6-8 years with perceived better results, Jacqueline W. Fincher, MD, MACP, President of the American College of Physicians, said in an interview.

“HFNO has been used to a varying degree over the last 6-8 years by physicians with much-perceived improved benefit in patients who are hypoxemic on usual noninvasive therapy or conventional oxygen therapy with the impending need for intubation or post extubation,” Dr. Fincher said. “During the COVID pandemic particularly with the attack on the respiratory system with COVID pneumonia and frequently associated ARDS [acute respiratory distress syndrome], the use of HFNO has been enormously helpful in trying to keep patients well oxygenated without having to intubate or reintubate them.

“We now have the medical literature that supports what has been seen clinically to make the recommendations and guidelines based on the scientific evidence,” Dr. Fincher added. “If we can avoid intubation associated with the patient being sedated, unable to eat, talk, or meaningfully participate in their care or get the patient off the ventilator sooner for the same reasons, then we have significantly improved the quality of their care, decreased their risk of infection, decreased their days in the ICU and the hospital, we will have succeeded in providing the best care possible. The availability of HFNO, with much greater comfort to the patient than being intubated, is a great tool in the toolbox of respiratory care.”

Dr. Fincher said she was not surprised by any of the recommendations. “We knew the use of HFNO helped but we were surprised by the evidence of the degree to which it is enormously helpful to patients.

“The good news is that HFNO is readily available at most hospitals, but it really requires an intensive care unit and a team of physicians, nurses, and respiratory therapists to be familiar with its use and work closely together to monitor the patient for significant changes in their respiratory status to titrate therapy,” she noted.

Looking ahead, some areas in need of more research that might impact updates to the guidelines include “What are some areas in need of more research that might impact future updates to these guidelines? Specifics on whether initiating HFNO earlier in the course of the patient’s hypoxemic illness is better or worse, as well as the use of HFNO outside of the ICU setting,” Dr. Fincher said. “The needed monitoring of the patient to know whether their respiratory status was deteriorating and how fast would be critical along with the specific indications for titration of the HFNO.”

The evidence review was commissioned and funded by the ACP. The data come from work supported by and conducted at the Minneapolis VA Health Care System. Lead author Dr. Baldomero was supported in part by the National Institutes of Health National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences.

Hospitalized patients with acute respiratory failure can benefit from high-flow nasal oxygen in certain settings, according to a new clinical guideline from the American College of Physicians.

High-flow nasal oxygen (HFNO) has demonstrated advantages including improved oxygenation and ventilation, wrote Arianne K. Baldomero, MD, of Minneapolis Veterans Affairs Health Care System and the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, and colleagues. “However, the comparative benefits and harms of HFNO in clinical outcomes, including mortality, intubation, hospital length of stay, patient comfort, clearance of airway secretions, and reduced work of breathing are not well known.”

In the guideline, published in Annals of Internal Medicine, the authors recommend the use of high-flow nasal oxygen in hospitalized patients for initial or postextubation management of acute respiratory failure. The target population includes those patients treated in hospital wards, EDs, intermediate/step-down units, and ICUs.

Use of HFNO therapy as a form of noninvasive respiratory support for hospitalized patients has increased in recent years. The treatment involves delivering warm, humidified oxygen via nasal cannula at a flow level higher than the patient’s inspiratory flow.

Potential benefits of HFNO include greater patient comfort, improved compliance, and psychological benefits, according to the authors. HFNO also can be used as respiratory support in critically ill patients for a number of indications including respiratory failure or support post extubation; however, treatment of patients with COVID-19 and related conditions were not considered in the guideline.

The guideline was based on evidence comparing HFNO with conventional oxygen therapy (COT) and noninvasive ventilation (NIV). The authors reviewed 29 randomized, controlled trials that showed clinically meaningful outcomes in HFNO patients, as well as similar rates of, or reductions in, mortality, intubations, and hospital-acquired pneumonia, and increased reports of patient comfort. Data also supported the safety of HFNO with few, if any, contraindications other than problems with fitting the nasal cannula.

Across several trials comparing HFNO and NIV for initial management of acute respiratory failure, HFNO reduced all-cause mortality, intubation, and hospital-acquired pneumonia, although the authors categorized the results as “low-certainty evidence.” HFNO was not more effective than NIV for postextubation management. Based trials comparing HFNO and COT for postextubation management, the authors concluded that HFNO may reduce rates of reintubation and improve patient comfort, also with low-certainty evidence.

The research was limited by a lack of studies comparing HFNO with NIV or COT for acute respiratory failure in patients who were post lung transplantation, or for those with pulmonary embolism, pulmonary arterial hypertension, or asthma, the authors said. Other limitations included the variation in study design, study populations, and treatment protocols across the included studies. Additional research is needed to better identify the patients most likely to benefit from HFNO, according to type of acute respiratory failure.

Despite these limitations, the results support the guideline recommendation for HFNO in cases of acute respiratory failure and postextubation management. However, “broad applicability, including required clinician and health system experience and resource use, remains unknown,” the authors concluded.

Research catches up with practice

The guidelines are important at this time because “the medical literature over the past 3-4 years is catching up to what hospitalists, pulmonologists, and critical care specialists have been doing clinically over the past 6-8 years with perceived better results, Jacqueline W. Fincher, MD, MACP, President of the American College of Physicians, said in an interview.

“HFNO has been used to a varying degree over the last 6-8 years by physicians with much-perceived improved benefit in patients who are hypoxemic on usual noninvasive therapy or conventional oxygen therapy with the impending need for intubation or post extubation,” Dr. Fincher said. “During the COVID pandemic particularly with the attack on the respiratory system with COVID pneumonia and frequently associated ARDS [acute respiratory distress syndrome], the use of HFNO has been enormously helpful in trying to keep patients well oxygenated without having to intubate or reintubate them.

“We now have the medical literature that supports what has been seen clinically to make the recommendations and guidelines based on the scientific evidence,” Dr. Fincher added. “If we can avoid intubation associated with the patient being sedated, unable to eat, talk, or meaningfully participate in their care or get the patient off the ventilator sooner for the same reasons, then we have significantly improved the quality of their care, decreased their risk of infection, decreased their days in the ICU and the hospital, we will have succeeded in providing the best care possible. The availability of HFNO, with much greater comfort to the patient than being intubated, is a great tool in the toolbox of respiratory care.”

Dr. Fincher said she was not surprised by any of the recommendations. “We knew the use of HFNO helped but we were surprised by the evidence of the degree to which it is enormously helpful to patients.

“The good news is that HFNO is readily available at most hospitals, but it really requires an intensive care unit and a team of physicians, nurses, and respiratory therapists to be familiar with its use and work closely together to monitor the patient for significant changes in their respiratory status to titrate therapy,” she noted.

Looking ahead, some areas in need of more research that might impact updates to the guidelines include “What are some areas in need of more research that might impact future updates to these guidelines? Specifics on whether initiating HFNO earlier in the course of the patient’s hypoxemic illness is better or worse, as well as the use of HFNO outside of the ICU setting,” Dr. Fincher said. “The needed monitoring of the patient to know whether their respiratory status was deteriorating and how fast would be critical along with the specific indications for titration of the HFNO.”

The evidence review was commissioned and funded by the ACP. The data come from work supported by and conducted at the Minneapolis VA Health Care System. Lead author Dr. Baldomero was supported in part by the National Institutes of Health National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences.

Hospitalized patients with acute respiratory failure can benefit from high-flow nasal oxygen in certain settings, according to a new clinical guideline from the American College of Physicians.

High-flow nasal oxygen (HFNO) has demonstrated advantages including improved oxygenation and ventilation, wrote Arianne K. Baldomero, MD, of Minneapolis Veterans Affairs Health Care System and the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, and colleagues. “However, the comparative benefits and harms of HFNO in clinical outcomes, including mortality, intubation, hospital length of stay, patient comfort, clearance of airway secretions, and reduced work of breathing are not well known.”

In the guideline, published in Annals of Internal Medicine, the authors recommend the use of high-flow nasal oxygen in hospitalized patients for initial or postextubation management of acute respiratory failure. The target population includes those patients treated in hospital wards, EDs, intermediate/step-down units, and ICUs.

Use of HFNO therapy as a form of noninvasive respiratory support for hospitalized patients has increased in recent years. The treatment involves delivering warm, humidified oxygen via nasal cannula at a flow level higher than the patient’s inspiratory flow.

Potential benefits of HFNO include greater patient comfort, improved compliance, and psychological benefits, according to the authors. HFNO also can be used as respiratory support in critically ill patients for a number of indications including respiratory failure or support post extubation; however, treatment of patients with COVID-19 and related conditions were not considered in the guideline.

The guideline was based on evidence comparing HFNO with conventional oxygen therapy (COT) and noninvasive ventilation (NIV). The authors reviewed 29 randomized, controlled trials that showed clinically meaningful outcomes in HFNO patients, as well as similar rates of, or reductions in, mortality, intubations, and hospital-acquired pneumonia, and increased reports of patient comfort. Data also supported the safety of HFNO with few, if any, contraindications other than problems with fitting the nasal cannula.

Across several trials comparing HFNO and NIV for initial management of acute respiratory failure, HFNO reduced all-cause mortality, intubation, and hospital-acquired pneumonia, although the authors categorized the results as “low-certainty evidence.” HFNO was not more effective than NIV for postextubation management. Based trials comparing HFNO and COT for postextubation management, the authors concluded that HFNO may reduce rates of reintubation and improve patient comfort, also with low-certainty evidence.

The research was limited by a lack of studies comparing HFNO with NIV or COT for acute respiratory failure in patients who were post lung transplantation, or for those with pulmonary embolism, pulmonary arterial hypertension, or asthma, the authors said. Other limitations included the variation in study design, study populations, and treatment protocols across the included studies. Additional research is needed to better identify the patients most likely to benefit from HFNO, according to type of acute respiratory failure.

Despite these limitations, the results support the guideline recommendation for HFNO in cases of acute respiratory failure and postextubation management. However, “broad applicability, including required clinician and health system experience and resource use, remains unknown,” the authors concluded.

Research catches up with practice

The guidelines are important at this time because “the medical literature over the past 3-4 years is catching up to what hospitalists, pulmonologists, and critical care specialists have been doing clinically over the past 6-8 years with perceived better results, Jacqueline W. Fincher, MD, MACP, President of the American College of Physicians, said in an interview.

“HFNO has been used to a varying degree over the last 6-8 years by physicians with much-perceived improved benefit in patients who are hypoxemic on usual noninvasive therapy or conventional oxygen therapy with the impending need for intubation or post extubation,” Dr. Fincher said. “During the COVID pandemic particularly with the attack on the respiratory system with COVID pneumonia and frequently associated ARDS [acute respiratory distress syndrome], the use of HFNO has been enormously helpful in trying to keep patients well oxygenated without having to intubate or reintubate them.

“We now have the medical literature that supports what has been seen clinically to make the recommendations and guidelines based on the scientific evidence,” Dr. Fincher added. “If we can avoid intubation associated with the patient being sedated, unable to eat, talk, or meaningfully participate in their care or get the patient off the ventilator sooner for the same reasons, then we have significantly improved the quality of their care, decreased their risk of infection, decreased their days in the ICU and the hospital, we will have succeeded in providing the best care possible. The availability of HFNO, with much greater comfort to the patient than being intubated, is a great tool in the toolbox of respiratory care.”

Dr. Fincher said she was not surprised by any of the recommendations. “We knew the use of HFNO helped but we were surprised by the evidence of the degree to which it is enormously helpful to patients.

“The good news is that HFNO is readily available at most hospitals, but it really requires an intensive care unit and a team of physicians, nurses, and respiratory therapists to be familiar with its use and work closely together to monitor the patient for significant changes in their respiratory status to titrate therapy,” she noted.

Looking ahead, some areas in need of more research that might impact updates to the guidelines include “What are some areas in need of more research that might impact future updates to these guidelines? Specifics on whether initiating HFNO earlier in the course of the patient’s hypoxemic illness is better or worse, as well as the use of HFNO outside of the ICU setting,” Dr. Fincher said. “The needed monitoring of the patient to know whether their respiratory status was deteriorating and how fast would be critical along with the specific indications for titration of the HFNO.”

The evidence review was commissioned and funded by the ACP. The data come from work supported by and conducted at the Minneapolis VA Health Care System. Lead author Dr. Baldomero was supported in part by the National Institutes of Health National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences.

Use of the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine should resume in the United States for all adults, the Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Disease Contol and Prevention said April 23, although health care providers should warn patients of the risk of developing the rare and serious blood clots that caused the agencies to pause the vaccine’s distribution earlier this month.

Johnson &amp; Johnson

Use of the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine should resume in the United States for all adults, the Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Disease Contol and Prevention said April 23, although health care providers should warn patients of the risk of developing the rare and serious blood clots that caused the agencies to pause the vaccine’s distribution earlier this month.

Johnson &amp; Johnson

Use of the Johnson & Johnson COVID-19 vaccine should resume in the United States for all adults, the Food and Drug Administration and Centers for Disease Contol and Prevention said April 23, although health care providers should warn patients of the risk of developing the rare and serious blood clots that caused the agencies to pause the vaccine’s distribution earlier this month.

Johnson &amp; Johnson

Long-haul COVID-19 patients face many health threats – including a higher chance of dying – up to 6 months after they catch the virus, according to a massive study published in the journal Nature.

Researchers examined more than 87,000 COVID-19 patients and nearly 5 million control patients in a federal database. They found COVID-19 patients had a 59% higher risk of death up to 6 months after infection, compared with noninfected people.

Those findings translate into about 8 extra deaths per 1,000 patients over 6 months, because many deaths caused by long-term COVID complications are not recorded as COVID-19 deaths, the researchers said. Among patients who were hospitalized and died after more than 30 days, there were 29 excess deaths per 1,000 patients over 6 months.

“As far as total pandemic death toll, these numbers suggest that the deaths we’re counting due to the immediate viral infection are only the tip of the iceberg,” Ziyad Al-Aly, MD, the senior author of the study and a director of the Clinical Epidemiology Center at the Veterans Affairs St. Louis Health Care System, said in a news release from the Washington University, St. Louis.

Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore says more than 3 million people worldwide and about 570,000 people in the United States have died of coronavirus-related reasons.

Long-haul COVID patients also had a much higher chance of getting sick, and not just in the respiratory system, according to the study.

The patients had a high rate of stroke and other nervous system ailments, mental health problems such as depression, the onset of diabetes, heart disease and other coronary problems, diarrhea and digestive disorders, kidney disease, blood clots, joint pain, hair loss, and general fatigue.

Patients often had clusters of these ailments. And the more severe the case of COVID-19, the higher the chance of long-term health problems, the study said.

Researchers based their study on health care databases of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. Besides the 87,000 COVID patients, the database included about 5 million patients who didn’t catch COVID. The veterans in the study were about 88% men, but the large sample size included 8,880 women with confirmed cases, the news release said.

Dr. Al-Aly, an assistant professor at Washington University, said the study shows that long-haul COVID-19 could be “America’s next big health crisis.”

“Our study demonstrates that, up to 6 months after diagnosis, the risk of death following even a mild case of COVID-19 is not trivial and increases with disease severity,” he said. “Given that more than 30 million Americans have been infected with this virus, and given that the burden of long COVID-19 is substantial, the lingering effects of this disease will reverberate for many years and even decades.”

A version of this article first appeared on WebMD.com.

Long-haul COVID-19 patients face many health threats – including a higher chance of dying – up to 6 months after they catch the virus, according to a massive study published in the journal Nature.

Researchers examined more than 87,000 COVID-19 patients and nearly 5 million control patients in a federal database. They found COVID-19 patients had a 59% higher risk of death up to 6 months after infection, compared with noninfected people.

Those findings translate into about 8 extra deaths per 1,000 patients over 6 months, because many deaths caused by long-term COVID complications are not recorded as COVID-19 deaths, the researchers said. Among patients who were hospitalized and died after more than 30 days, there were 29 excess deaths per 1,000 patients over 6 months.

“As far as total pandemic death toll, these numbers suggest that the deaths we’re counting due to the immediate viral infection are only the tip of the iceberg,” Ziyad Al-Aly, MD, the senior author of the study and a director of the Clinical Epidemiology Center at the Veterans Affairs St. Louis Health Care System, said in a news release from the Washington University, St. Louis.

Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore says more than 3 million people worldwide and about 570,000 people in the United States have died of coronavirus-related reasons.

Long-haul COVID patients also had a much higher chance of getting sick, and not just in the respiratory system, according to the study.

The patients had a high rate of stroke and other nervous system ailments, mental health problems such as depression, the onset of diabetes, heart disease and other coronary problems, diarrhea and digestive disorders, kidney disease, blood clots, joint pain, hair loss, and general fatigue.

Patients often had clusters of these ailments. And the more severe the case of COVID-19, the higher the chance of long-term health problems, the study said.

Researchers based their study on health care databases of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. Besides the 87,000 COVID patients, the database included about 5 million patients who didn’t catch COVID. The veterans in the study were about 88% men, but the large sample size included 8,880 women with confirmed cases, the news release said.

Dr. Al-Aly, an assistant professor at Washington University, said the study shows that long-haul COVID-19 could be “America’s next big health crisis.”

“Our study demonstrates that, up to 6 months after diagnosis, the risk of death following even a mild case of COVID-19 is not trivial and increases with disease severity,” he said. “Given that more than 30 million Americans have been infected with this virus, and given that the burden of long COVID-19 is substantial, the lingering effects of this disease will reverberate for many years and even decades.”

A version of this article first appeared on WebMD.com.

Long-haul COVID-19 patients face many health threats – including a higher chance of dying – up to 6 months after they catch the virus, according to a massive study published in the journal Nature.

Researchers examined more than 87,000 COVID-19 patients and nearly 5 million control patients in a federal database. They found COVID-19 patients had a 59% higher risk of death up to 6 months after infection, compared with noninfected people.

Those findings translate into about 8 extra deaths per 1,000 patients over 6 months, because many deaths caused by long-term COVID complications are not recorded as COVID-19 deaths, the researchers said. Among patients who were hospitalized and died after more than 30 days, there were 29 excess deaths per 1,000 patients over 6 months.

“As far as total pandemic death toll, these numbers suggest that the deaths we’re counting due to the immediate viral infection are only the tip of the iceberg,” Ziyad Al-Aly, MD, the senior author of the study and a director of the Clinical Epidemiology Center at the Veterans Affairs St. Louis Health Care System, said in a news release from the Washington University, St. Louis.

Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore says more than 3 million people worldwide and about 570,000 people in the United States have died of coronavirus-related reasons.

Long-haul COVID patients also had a much higher chance of getting sick, and not just in the respiratory system, according to the study.

The patients had a high rate of stroke and other nervous system ailments, mental health problems such as depression, the onset of diabetes, heart disease and other coronary problems, diarrhea and digestive disorders, kidney disease, blood clots, joint pain, hair loss, and general fatigue.

Patients often had clusters of these ailments. And the more severe the case of COVID-19, the higher the chance of long-term health problems, the study said.

Researchers based their study on health care databases of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. Besides the 87,000 COVID patients, the database included about 5 million patients who didn’t catch COVID. The veterans in the study were about 88% men, but the large sample size included 8,880 women with confirmed cases, the news release said.

Dr. Al-Aly, an assistant professor at Washington University, said the study shows that long-haul COVID-19 could be “America’s next big health crisis.”

“Our study demonstrates that, up to 6 months after diagnosis, the risk of death following even a mild case of COVID-19 is not trivial and increases with disease severity,” he said. “Given that more than 30 million Americans have been infected with this virus, and given that the burden of long COVID-19 is substantial, the lingering effects of this disease will reverberate for many years and even decades.”

A version of this article first appeared on WebMD.com.