- Commonwealth Fund releases 2023 state health scorecard: This week, health research organization the Commonwealth Fund published its 2023 rankings of state health systems. These rankings are an extensive data source for anyone seeking to better understand the decentralized health system in the U.S., and may be particularly useful for local reporters looking for data on how their state compares to others. In the 2023 rankings, the researchers have added new metrics related to care and health outcomes for women, mothers, and infants. This year’s data also highlight preventable deaths from COVID-19 and other causes, and state efforts to take people off of Medicaid following the pandemic emergency’s end.
- New advisory about Long COVID and mental health: The U.S. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), a federal health agency under the overall Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), published a detailed advisory explaining the mental health implications of Long COVID. This advisory is directed at primary care doctors who may be seeing Long COVID among their patients, as well as others in the medical community who may benefit from the information. SAMHSA highlights that mental health symptoms may result from a coronavirus infection itself as well as from the stress and social isolation that long-haulers experience. For more on this topic, check out this article I wrote last year.
- Rapid test accuracy can vary widely: A common question that I’ve received from readers in the last few months has been, “How accurate are rapid tests with newer variants?” A new study, published last week in the journal Microbiology Spectrum, offers some insight. The researchers (a team at CalTech) found that rapid tests still work to detect the coronavirus, but their accuracy varies based on viral load and specimen type. Tests that involved swabbing the patient’s throat (along with their nose) were significantly more accurate than nose swabs alone. Tests conducted later in the course of a patients’ infection, when they had higher viral loads, were also more accurate, though some patients never tested positive on rapid tests despite testing positive on PCR. My takeaway here: swabbing your throat and testing multiple times help improve accuracy, but the best option is always to get a PCR if you can.
- CDC and state agencies track reinfections: Another new study, published this week in the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, examines coronavirus reinfections in the era of Omicron. Researchers at the CDC and 18 state and local health departments collaborated to track reinfections from September 2021 through December 2022, finding that these infections went up significantly when Omicron arrived in late 2021. The median time between infections ranged from 269 to 411 days, the researchers found, suggesting that Americans may expect to be sick with COVID-19 once or twice a year while our Omicron baseline persists.
- COVID-19 risk and air pollution exposure: One more study I wanted to highlight this week: researchers at Hasselt University in Belgium tracked the air pollution exposures of about 330 COVID-19 patients at hospitals in Belgium. Patients who were exposed to worse air pollution prior to their admission experienced more severe COVID-19 outcomes, including longer hospitalization and admission to the ICU. This paper provides further confirmation that poor air quality and COVID-19 can be compounding health problems for many people.
- Data problems persist with non-COVID vaccines: The CDC’s vaccine advisory committee met this week to discuss two new RSV vaccine candidates, recently approved by the FDA for seniors. While the CDC committee did vote to recommend these vaccines, I was struck by discussion (in Helen Branswell’s coverage for STAT) that the experts said they did not have sufficient data to make a truly informed decision. I’ve written a lot about data issues for COVID-19 vaccines; the same decentralized health system problems that make it hard to track COVID-19 vaccine effectiveness also apply to products for other diseases.
