Finally, some long Covid data

Some people get long Covid, others don’t – and we’re just beginning to get a picture of who and why.

Here’s what UCLA researchers found after checking out more than 1,000 Covid patients who crossed a whole lot of demographic lines:

• Just rolling the dice without any modifiers, about 30% of people who get Covid-19 will also get long Covid.
• The risk is higher for people with diabetes, a higher BMI, or who got bad enough to be hospitalized.
• The risk is lower for people covered by Medicaid, or who had received an organ transplant. (If you read that sentence twice, you’re not alone.)
• Age, ethnicity, and socioeconomic status didn’t make a difference.
• Fatigue (31%), loss of sense of smell (16%), and shortness of breath (15%) were the most common symptoms.

These pills can mix after all (maybe)

Good news, guys: It’s (probably) safe to take your nitrates along with your Viagra.

Mixing the two has been “a big red line” among cardiologists, but now those shifty Danes — knowing that “sex remains important among men with heart problems” — actually did the research. Well, well, well:

Men are not more likely to suffer a heart attack, stroke, or cardiac arrest if they’ve been prescribed both an ED drug and a nitrate medication.

One theory, though, is that the two really can’t mix, but men are taking them at different times: nitrates in the morning and — except for the occasional afternoon delight — ED drugs in the evening.

“[P]hysicians would warn them that as long as they don’t take them together so that they both come to a peak at the same time […] it should be less of an issue. I think the study has just borne out of what we have sort of suspected all along, at least in clinical practice.”

Tech training a-comin’

Hey, pharmacy techs: The next time a pharmacist you work with shows off a slick immunization certificate, be ready to whip out your own!

Sign up now for GPhA’s Immunization Delivery Training for Pharmacy Technicians — a six-hour CE program (half at home, half in the classroom) that’ll make sure you’re ready to give people the shots they so desperately need, and give you a certificate that not only looks great on a wall*, but can set you apart from the pack.

The next session is Saturday, April 23, in GPhA’s frighteningly beautiful Sandy Springs classroom. Get the details and register now!

* Depending on the wall. If you have paisley wallpaper, forget it.

Covid quickies

Vaccine happy meal: Moderna is the first company to release a study of a combo Covid vaccine: one shot against the original variant, plus a booster designed to stop the no-longer-circulating beta variant*. Result: Better protection against all strains, says the company.

Not really surprising: About 87 percent of kids 5-11 who were hospitalized with Covid-19 were unvaccinated, according to CDC data.

Out of touch: In removing its mask requirements following a federal judge’s ruling that it could do so, Delta Airlines referred to Covid-19 as “an ordinary seasonal virus.”

“If ordinary means causing over 987,000 deaths in the U.S. in a little over two years and still causing close to 500 deaths a day, stay far away from anyone who calls himself or herself ordinary.”

* It has some similarities to Omicron.

Better vision, better mental health?

People with vision problems are more likely to suffer from mental health issues, notably anxiety and depression, and the greater the vision problem, the more likely the psychological effect.

In fact, says a study by vision-rights organization Sightsavers*, being blind raises the risk of anxiety and depression by four times, “severe vision impairment” raises it three times, and even those with only “moderate visual impairment” were twice as likely to report having mental health issues.

* Your call whether this requires a grain of salt.

The Long Read: New Kid on the Block edition

Why aren’t older drugs being used much against Covid-19? Two big reasons:

The ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine fiascoes soured doctors on repurposed medications, and the pharmaceutical industry has shown little interest in testing them, especially when it can earn billions from even mediocre new ones, scientists tracking the field say.

Fluvoxamine (old) and molnupiravir (new) are about equally effective, but flvoxamine can’t even get a label change from the FDA, while “the government has bought more than 3 million doses for about $2.2 billion, or $733 per dose. Fluvoxamine, a generic, goes for less than $5 a pill.”