The rollout for vaccines against COVID-19 is well underway in the U.S. – according to the Center for Disease Control and Prevention, over 110 million of doses of the vaccines have been administered as of Tuesday (March 16). More than 2.4 million doses continue to be given each day.
However, health experts have continued to urge everyone to continue practicing safety measures against the coronavirus – including wearing face masks, practicing social distancing, and avoiding large gatherings.
While the spread of the virus has gone down in recent weeks, health officials have expressed concern about the recent spring break.
“We have seen footage of people enjoying spring break festivities, maskless,” CDC Director Dr. Rochelle Walensky said on Monday (March 15). “This is all in the context of still 50,000 cases per day.”
“We could go in either direction,” emergency physician Dr. Leana Wen told CNN on Monday. “What happens now is really up to us and whether we keep up masking and avoiding indoor gatherings as we should be until the point that we’re vaccinated.”
The U.S. has a total of over 29.5 million reported cases of COVID-19, and a death toll of more than half-a-million Americans.
And, in according to a research by Mt. Sinai’s Center for Post-Covid Care, 10 to 30% of all Covid patients will suffer from long-haul symptoms.
Per the CDC website, the most commonly reported long-term symptoms include fatigue, shortness of breath, cough, joint pain, and chest pain. Other reported long-term symptoms include: difficulty with thinking and concentration (a.k.a. “brain fog”), depression, muscle pain, headache, intermittent fever, and heart palpitations.
While less common, there are also more serious long-term complications that have been reported, including: inflammation of the heart muscle, lung function abnormalities, acute kidney injury, skin rash, hair loss, smell and taste problems, sleep issues, difficulty with concentration, memory problems, depression, anxiety, and changes in mood.
Early research suggests that those who have been infected and suffered mild symptoms during the course of the illness are likely to struggle with the long-term effects mentioned above – but it’s still unclear if the long-haul effects will stay with COVID patients for the rest of their lives.
While younger people are less likely to die from contracting the virus, Dr. Peter Hotez of Texas Children’s Hospital hopes this will be a “wake-up call for young people” to avoid getting infected.
“The ones that worry me especially are the cognitive deficits. We call it ‘brain fog’ which kind of makes it sound like it’s not that serious but it is. You know people have terrible trouble concentrating and this is why it’s been so devastating because it’s difficult for people to go back to work,” he said.
Take care and keep safe, everyone!
