Comedian and commentator Bill Maher recently made news of his own when he contracted COVID-19 despite being fully vaccinated. But such breakthrough COVID-19 cases among the vaccinated are rare, according to new data from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s COVID-19 Vaccine Breakthrough Case Investigations Team. Nearly 10,300 SARS-CoV-2 infections have occurred in…  read on >  read on >

Although older adults are among the most vulnerable to the ravages of COVID-19, new research warns that young patients can develop long-lasting fatigue and concentration problems, even if their COVID-19 infection was mild. That’s the troubling takeaway from three COVID-19 cases involving patients between the ages of 19 and 30. Investigators said they all developed…  read on >  read on >

The virus fueling the COVID-19 pandemic could become just an ordinary sniffle-causing nuisance within the next 10 years, a new study suggests. Researchers stressed that the projection is based on mathematical models, and not a crystal-ball prediction. But, they say, given what’s known about the human immune response to SARS-CoV-2 — the virus that causes…  read on >  read on >

Moderna’s coronavirus vaccine fully protects children aged 12 to 17, the company announced Tuesday. In a clinical trial that included more than 3,700 young volunteers, there were no cases of symptomatic COVID-19 infection in the two-thirds of participants who received both doses of the vaccine, which translates into an efficacy rate of 100%. That’s the…  read on >  read on >

Since the COVID-19 pandemic emerged, doctors have reported rare but severe cases in infected children of an inflammatory disorder dubbed multisystem inflammatory syndrome (MIS-C). Now, a small new study out of Britain delivers some reassuring data for parents: Most symptoms of MIS-C (also known as pediatric inflammatory multisystem syndrome, or PIMS) appear to fade over…  read on >  read on >

Mild cases of COVID-19 leave people with long-term antibody protection against reinfection, according to a new study that challenges previous findings. “Last fall, there were reports that antibodies wane quickly after infection with the virus that causes COVID-19, and mainstream media interpreted that to mean that immunity was not long-lived,” said study senior author Ali…  read on >  read on >

A small number of teens and young adults have experienced heart inflammation after receiving mRNA COVID-19 vaccines produced by Pfizer and Moderna, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports. The CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP) said that it has received “relatively few” reports of the condition, known as myocarditis, among younger…  read on >  read on >

There was a sharp drop in mammography breast cancer screening during the COVID-19 pandemic, and the decline was especially severe among American women of color and those living in rural areas, new research shows. Those trends could cost lives in years to come, because “detecting breast cancer at an early stage dramatically increases the chances…  read on >  read on >