Top news stories from AMA Morning Rounds®: Week of Aug. 8, 2022

Read AMA Morning Rounds®’ most popular stories in medicine and public health from the week of Aug. 8, 2022–Aug. 12, 2022.

The Washington Post (8/11, A1, Achenbach, Sun) reports that on Thursday, the CDC “loosened many of its recommendations for battling the coronavirus, a strategic shift that puts more of the onus on individuals, rather than on schools, businesses and other institutions, to limit viral spread.” Now, the agency’s focus “is on highly vulnerable populations and how to protect them—not on the vast majority of people who at this point have some immunity against the virus and are unlikely to become severely ill.”

The New York Times (8/11, A1, Anthes) reports, “People who are exposed to the virus no longer need to quarantine at home, regardless of their vaccination status, although they should wear a mask for 10 days and get tested for the virus on day 5, according to the new guidelines.”

Reuters (8/11, Erman) reports the agency will also “no longer recommend quarantines or test-to-stay programs at schools or daycare centers for people exposed to COVID-19.”

The AP (8/11, Stobbe, Binkley) reports the CDC “said people no longer need to stay at least 6 feet away from others.”

HealthDay (8/10, Reinberg) reports, “Swapping salt out for the salt substitute potassium chloride lowers blood pressure, and thereby the risk of heart attack, stroke and cardiovascular disease,” researchers concluded in findings published online in the journal Heart. Investigators arrived at these findings by combining “the results of 21 published studies involving nearly 30,000 people.”

Healio (8/10, Swain) reports, “The reductions in BP were consistent by region, age, sex, hypertension history, BMI, baseline 24-hour urinary sodium and baseline 24-hour urinary potassium,” the systematic review and meta-analysis revealed.

The AP (8/9, Perrone) reports the FDA “on Tuesday authorized a plan to stretch the nation’s limited supply of monkeypox vaccine by giving people just one-fifth the usual dose, citing research suggesting that the reduced amount is about as effective.” This “so-called dose-sparing approach also calls for administering the Jynneos vaccine with an [intradermal] injection just under the skin rather than into deeper tissue—a practice that may rev up the immune system better.”

Bloomberg (8/9, Muller) reports this emergency clearance “will also allow Jynneos to be used in kids under the age of 18 who are at high risk for infection, but the dose-sparing technique will not be used for this group.”

CNN (8/9, Dillinger) reports, “The move could increase the number of vaccine doses in the national stockpile from 441,000 to over 2.2 million, officials said.”

The Hill (8/8, Melillo) reports a survey study “found more teenagers of certain racial or ethnic, sexual or gender minority groups are using flavored nontobacco oral nicotine products like lozenges and gummies.” The “survey, conducted among 3,516 ninth and 10th graders in California, found e-cigarette use is still the most prevalent form of nicotine consumption among this age group.” But, “among the entire sample, 3.4% reported ever using non-tobacco nicotine oral products, and 1.7% had used these products within the past six months,” according to the results published in Pediatrics.

Healio (8/8, Weldon) reports the researchers “found that students who were Hispanic, identified as female or a gender-minority identity or a sexual minority identity were more likely to report using nontobacco nicotine products.”

MedPage Today (8/5, Lopilato) reported, “A wide range of symptoms and conditions cropped up in children and adolescents in the year after a COVID-19 infection, though they were seemingly spared from mental and breathing issues, a CDC study reported.” Still, “the incidence of these conditions remained uncommon in the post-COVID pediatric population, according to” researchers. The findings were published in the CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

Healio (8/5, Weldon) reported, “Among the conditions, acute pulmonary embolism, myocarditis and cardiomyopathy, and venous thromboembolic event were all around twice as likely to befall children and adolescents who had experienced COVID-19 than their peers who had not.”

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