Pandemics

Studies describe pandemic's lasting influence on children CIDRAP

From school closures to delays in routine immunizations, the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on children are far-reaching.

Two new studies describe how Japanese children exposed to the first 2 years of the pandemic show developmental delays and note that 28% of US kids had delayed or missed preventive care visits due to COVID-19, with variations by race and ethnicity.

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New study shows robust pandemic preparedness strongly linked to lower COVID-19 mortality rates The vast majority of countries that entered the COVID-19 pandemic with strong capacity to prevent, detect, and respond to disease threats achieved lower pandemic mortality rates than less prepared nations, ... Science X

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The researchers sought to understand how different countries performed during the COVID-19 pandemic and how that relates to their pandemic preparedness capacity as measured by the GHS Index. ...

Almost 1 in 4 people in the US hadn’t gotten COVID by the end of 2022: CDC The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has estimated that almost 1 out of 4 people in the U.S. still hadn’t been exposed to COVID-19 by the end of 2022 after nearly three years … jchoi The Hill

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In its final survey looking at the period between October and December 2022, the CDC estimated that about 77.5 percent of people had infection-induced antibodies against the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

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COVID-19 digital contact tracing worked — heed the lessons for future pandemics Nature - For all the controversy over decentralized contact-tracing apps, data show that these privacy-preserving tools saved thousands of lives during the pandemic. National and international... Salathé, Marcel nature

...To harness this potentially transformative tool in future, policymakers and other stakeholders must heed the evidence — and the lessons — now emerging from its use during the COVID-19 pandemic.

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