United States: Many states are seeing big increases in COVID-19 cases, with 46 states reporting very high or high virus levels in wastewater. If these trends continue, it could be one of the biggest COVID waves since 2020.
Hospitalizations and Deaths Increasing
While hospitalizations and deaths are not as high as before, they are rising. COVID-19 was still one of the top ten causes of death in the U.S. last year, even with vaccines and better treatments.
But here as two new studies published in the past week show and severe COVID isn’t the only risk which is faced by those who are suffering with the disease.
Mental Health Risks After COVID-19
As reported by Forbes, new findings finds that the mental illness level such as depression, anxiety and self-harm are elevated after COVID-19 diagnosis. Additionally, a new study is published in the Scientific Reports that are found in those patients who lost their sense of smell after the COVID infection saw long term structural changes to their brains as well as a tendency to more impulsive behaviors.
Brain Changes Linked to Loss of Smell
However if you want to mitigate your risk of these mental side effects form the COVID infections and there is one key strategy is to make sure you are up to date on your vaccinations and this study also finds out that vaccination may reduce the risk of losing you smell though it’s not yet clear how much risk is mitigated and the CDC and FDA recently approved and recommended the updated vaccines to literally protect form the most recent COVID variants which should definitely be available.
Vaccination May Reduce Risks
Finally, in the bid to make realization of the goal possible, the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced that it has negotiated with drug companies to reduce prices for 10 different drugs that are under Medicare part D with the changes set to take effect in 2026. The Administration states that the agreement will spare a comparable amount of 6 billion dollars per year of taxpayers” money and $1 billion of Medicare patients’ money. 5 billion a year.
Januvia, Jardiance and Farxiga, used for type 2 diabetes and heart failure; Fiasp insulin, Entresto for heart failure and Imbruvica for blood cancer. Also on the list are Stelara which treats arthritis and Crohn’s diseases, Enbrel for rheumatoid arthritis and blood thinners, Eliquis and Xarelto.