Are Cancer Patients More Apt to Believe COVID Lies?
Misinformation about COVID-19 abounds, and cancer patients who are currently receiving treatment are more likely to believe COVID lies than cancer survivors who’ve completed treatment and people who’ve never had cancer, a new study says.
The findings are from a survey of nearly 900 U.S. adults about evenly divided into the three groups.
“These findings help us better understand the threat of COVID-19 misinformation in an already vulnerable population,” said study lead author Jeanine Guidry, an assistant professor in Virginia Commonwealth University’s Richard T. Robertson School of Media and Culture.
Mental Health Woes Can Rise in Year After COVID Recovery
COVID-19 can take a heavy toll on the body, but new research shows that patients are also 60% more likely to suffer lingering mental and emotional woes in the year following their infection.
These problems included anxiety, depression, suicidal thoughts, opioid use disorder, illicit drug and alcohol use disorders, sleep disturbances, and problems thinking and concentrating.
“If after COVID-19 people are suffering from sleep problems or depression or anxiety, you’re not alone. We see thousands of people like you. Definitely seek help,” said lead researcher Dr. Ziyad Al-Aly. He is a clinical epidemiologist at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and the Veterans Affairs St. Louis Health Care System.
Is the Next Great COVID Vaccine an Inhaled One?
“The jab” might soon be replaced with something like “the huff” as slang for a COVID-19 vaccine dose.
Some experts believe that an inhaled vaccine could be a checkmate move in the world’s ongoing chess match against COVID-19.
They argue that inhaled vaccines could not only deliver more effective protection, but could do it at a lower dosage and thus make vaccines available for more people around the globe.
“Targeting vaccines to specific anatomic areas of the body where immunity is most important, could provide more durable and extensive protection than injectable vaccines when it comes to respiratory viruses,” said Dr. Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar with the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, in Baltimore.
