By Nicole Montesano • Staff Writer • 

Oregon at 1,496 new COVID cases per day

 

New cases of COVID-19 increased 24% in Oregon from May 16 to May 29, the Oregon Health Authority reported in its most recent update, released on June 2. The OHA reports biweekly. As of Wednesday, Oregon was seeing a rolling 7-day average of 1,496 new cases.

The state reported 1,478 new cases on Wednesday; Yamhill County reported 36 new cases. Statewide, 298 people were hospitalized with COVID-19, 24 of them in ICU beds, and 4.2% of emergency room visits were for “COVID-19-like illness.”

Meanwhile, another study has come out showing that, although vaccination provides strong protection against hospitalization and death, it provides limited protection against long COVID, which affects 10% to 30% of people who contract COVID-19.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a study in May, showing that one in five people ages 18 to 64 develop long-term symptoms from COVID-19, and one in four people 65 and older. Common symptoms include breathing difficulties, coughing and fatigue. However, they can also include heart failure, stroke, heart disease, kidney failure, kidney disease, blood clotting disorders, muscle pain, prolonged loss of taste and smell, mental health problems, gastrointestinal problems, and other symptoms.

A study by the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis and the Veterans Affairs St. Louis Health Care System of more than 13 million veterans showed that “vaccination against the virus that causes COVID-19 reduced the risk of death by 34% and the risk of getting long COVID by 15%, compared with unvaccinated patients infected with the virus. However, vaccines were shown to be most effective in preventing some of the most worrisome manifestations of long COVID – lung and blood-clotting disorders – which declined about 49% and 56%, respectively, among those who were vaccinated,” according to a press release from Washington University.

It can affect children as well as adults. The Food & Drug Administration is expected to authorize vaccines for children 5 and younger this month.

Lead study author Ziyad-Al-Aly, MD, a clinical epidemiologist at Washington University, said that vaccinations “remain critically important in the fight against COVID-19.”

However, he said, vaccinations alone are not enough. “Now that we understand that COVID-19 can have lingering health consequences even among the vaccinated, we need to move toward developing mitigation strategies that can be implemented for the longer term since it does not appear that COVID-19 is going away any time soon,” Al-Aly, who is also the chief of research and development at the VA St. Louis Health Care System, said. “We need to urgently develop and deploy additional layers of protection that could be sustainably implemented to reduce the risk of long COVID.”

Another study, in which researchers analyzed insurance claims, found that more than 75% of long COVID sufferers were not hospitalized for their initial illness.

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