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As COVID and its health effects move into a fourth year, those who become infected may be searching for remedies to improve their respiratory symptoms and keep them out of the hospital. A new study determined that both a low- and high-dose saline regimen appeared to be associated with lower hospitalization rates compared to controls in SARS-CoV-2 infections. "Between 2020 and 2022, individuals aged 18–65 years with positive PCR test for SARS-CoV-2 infection were randomly selected to undergo low- or high-dose saline regimens for 14 days," says Sebastian Espinoza. "The low- and high-saline solutions consisted of 2.13 grams and 6...

Almost 1.5 million people of working age in Japan are living as social recluses, according to a government survey, with about a fifth of cases attributed to the pressures unleashed by the Covid-19 pandemic. Large numbers of hikikomori said they had begun retreating from mainstream society due to relationship issues and after losing or leaving their jobs, the cabinet office said. A significant proportion – 20.6% – said their predicament had been triggered by changes in lifestyle imposed during the pandemic. Hikikomori – classed as people who withdraw from society, spending all or almost all of their time isolated at...

According to the U.K.’s chief scientific adviser Patrick Vallance, there are 23 changes in the virus’s genetic material, an unusually large number that appears to be helping it spread more quickly. British officials have now estimated that “VUI – 202012/01” is as much as 70 percent more transmissible — a number that is based on modeling, but not yet confirmed in lab experiments. Though there is no evidence to-date that the strain causes a more intense illness or leads to a higher fatality rate, faster transmission does mean more cases, which can lead to a higher hospitalization rate... ...Are new...

A professor who in an experiment infected himself with Covid-19 to become ill with the virus for a second time says hopes for herd immunity are overblown. Dr Alexander Chepurnov, 69, first caught coronavirus on a skiing trip to France in February. After recovering back home in Siberia without requiring hospitalisation, he and his team at the Institute of Clinical and Experimental Medicine in Novosibirsk launched a study into coronavirus antibodies. They studied 'the way antibodies behaved, how strong they were, and how long they stayed in the body' and found they decrease rapidly, he said. He said: 'By the...