A large-scale Canadian study has confirmed again that the COVID-19 mRNA vaccines are safe in pregnancy, with lower rates of health events post vaccination. “The lower rate of significant health events amongst vaccinated pregnant people, compared with vaccinated non-pregnant individuals, is unexpected and requires more research,” senior author Julie Bettinger said in a statement.

A new study in JACC: Cardiovascular Imaging focuses on a potential new side effect of COVID-19, highlighting the continued importance of monitoring these patients going forward. 

“For 75 years, CDC and public health have been preparing for Covid-19, and in our big moment, our performance did not reliably meet expectations,” said Rochelle P. Walensky, MD, MPH, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Compared to healthy controls, the COVID group displayed significantly worse global and segmental circumferential systolic strain.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has loosened COVID-19 guidelines, citing “significantly less risk of severe illness, hospitalization and death.”

In the study, patients who had recovered from an COVID infection were injected with a small amount of the 89Zr-labeled radiotracer before undergoing a uExplorer PET/CT scan.

Authors of the new paper noted that radiologists should be highly suspicious of pulmonary embolism and DVT when they encounter these findings on chest CT exams of COVID patients.

This image gallery shows what the various clinical presentations associated with the COVID-19 virus that have been documented during the coronavirus pandemic.