geoffrey modest medical blogs

  3 articles were published recently that may shed some light into the enigma of “long covid”, now morphing into PACS, or Post-acute Covid-19 syndrome. the whole issue of PACS is quite unclear. These symptoms can occur in small or large percentages of those with Covid (varies a lot in the studies), frequently happen in those who have mild symptoms or even are asymptomatic, can start early in the covid course or after a several month delay, can happen in quite healthy young people with no particular comorbidities, can vary from mildly disabling (a bit of fatigue, hair falling out, small changes in smell/taste) to being pretty devastating (unable to function because of fatigue, brain fog, profound changes in taste making it hard to eat, even severe neuromuscular problems).   Will do one article today (too long for others), with follow-up blog on 2 others.       The potential role of the GI microbiome in PACS/long covid (see  covid long covid gut microbio...

A recent study from Los Angeles found that 5% of people presenting with mild influenza-like illnesses actually had Covid-19 (see  covid presenting as mild flu jama2020  in dropbox, or doi:10.1001/jama.2020.4958 Details: -- 131 patients  with mild influenza-like illness   presenting to the Los Angeles County    + University of Southern California Medical Center between March 12-16 had nasopharyngeal swabs for influenza and RSV infection -- these swabs were automatically tested for SARS-CoV-2 -- patients were excluded if they had travel exposure or contact with a traveler, or if they were severely ill patients admitted for respiratory tract infections Results: -- 7 of the swabs were positive for SARS-CoV-2 (5.3%) -- median age of the patients who were positive was 38 years, 3 were male, median duration of symptoms was 4 days -- 6 of 7 patients had fever, 5 myalgias, and only one had a cough. -- All patients had mild illnesses, and...