Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Number of American Adults With Long Covid Fell Over The Past Year
In early June 2022, 7.5% of Americans aged 18 and were experiencing long COVID, a condition that occurs when patients still have symptoms at least four weeks after they have cleared the infection. In some cases, symptoms can be experienced for months or years. By mid-June 2023, that figure had fallen to 6%, according to a new report published Thursday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (Kekatos, 8/10)
Unlike the prevalence of long COVID, the percentage of people who said their lingering symptoms were affecting daily living remained stable from the summer of 2022 to the summer of 2023. A total of 26.4% of adults with long COVID reported significant activity limitations. "No clear pattern emerged for prevalence of significant activity limitation across age groups," the authors wrote. In a recent United Kingdom study, people with long COVID that affected daily living had similar quality of life to those of patients with advanced cancers. (Soucheray, 8/10)
In other covid news —
Whatever punch COVID and its variants have left, it’ll hit working poor families and people of color the hardest. That truth, which has repeatedly been demonstrated over the course of the pandemic, is one of the key takeaways from the 2023 California Health Interview Survey of more than 5,000 adults, teenagers and children across the state conducted in March and April. (Kreidler, 8/10)
More than two years after Dr. Sherri Tenpenny told state lawmakers that the COVID vaccines cause people to become magnetized, the state medical board indefinitely suspended her license on technical grounds and fined her $3,000. (Bischoff, 8/10)
Health leaders in the state say community health workers played a crucial role in facilitating the COVID-19 vaccine rollout, offered guidance to parents on navigating virtual schooling for their children, assisted people in accessing food and more. Now that COVID-19 is no longer classified a public health emergency, the federal funding that helped scale up this workforce is all but depleted, and many community health workers are uncertain about what the future holds. (Lewis, 8/10)
