Top news stories from AMA Morning Rounds®: Week of Dec. 12, 2022

Read AMA Morning Rounds®’ most popular stories in medicine and public health from the week of Dec. 12, 2022–Dec. 16, 2022.

USA Today (12/15, Weintraub) reports, “As COVID-19 cases rise again with the arrival of winter and holiday gatherings, the White House on Thursday announced its plans for controlling cases this winter.” These plans include “collaborating with communities to open pop-up or mobile vaccination sites,” pre-positioning personal protective equipment from the Strategic National Stockpile, and “providing more support to nursing homes and long-term care facilities to protect the most vulnerable.”

The New York Times (12/15, Weiland) reports the Biden Administration also “announced...that it would restart a program that provided free coronavirus tests to American households through the Postal Service” as part of its push “to head off rises in virus cases and hospitalizations as winter approaches.” Households will now “be able to order four tests at covidtests.gov, with shipments beginning next week.”

CNN (12/14, Howard) reports, “A small proportion – 14.1% – of all diagnosed cancers in the United States are detected by screening with a recommended screening test, according to a new report.” Other “diagnosed cancers tend to be found when someone has symptoms or seeks imaging or medical care for other reasons, suggests the report.” The findings were posted online “by researchers at the nonprofit research organization NORC at the University of Chicago.”

MedPage Today (12/13, Kneisel) reports, “Older adults with subjective cognitive concerns who engaged in mindfulness-based stress reduction (MBSR) training, physical exercise, or a combination of the two did not improve cognitive function,” researchers concluded in the MEDEX (Mindfulness, Education, and Exercise) clinical trial. In that study, “adults over age 65 randomized to one of four groups – MBSR meditation for a target goal of 60 minutes daily; exercise with aerobic, strength, and functional components for at least 300 minutes weekly; a combination of MBSR and exercise; or a control group who received health education only – showed no significant differences on the primary outcome of improvement in episodic memory or executive function at six months.”

According to HealthDay (12/13, Murez), the findings of the 575-older adult study were published online in JAMA.

NBC News (12/12) reports research published Monday “has confirmed a link between a COVID infection and a debilitating heart condition called POTS, or postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome, that has been diagnosed in some patients with long COVID.” The findings “are in line with earlier reports from physicians that COVID may POTS, a disorder of the autonomic nervous system often characterized by a rapid heart rate, low blood pressure, fainting and lightheadedness.” Further, the syndrome “was also linked, to a lesser degree, to COVID vaccination with an mRNA vaccine, according to the new study.” The study was published in Nature Cardiovascular Research.

TODAY (12/9, Kee) reported, “After virtually disappearing for the last two winters, the flu is back in the United States and worse than it has been in a long time.” And “as flu cases surge and hospitalizations reach record highs...antivirals are in demand,” in particular oseltamivir phosphate (Tamiflu), “and at much higher levels than normally seen for this time of year during pre-pandemic seasons, TODAY previously reported.” GoodRx Research Director Tori Marsh, M.P.H., said, “Our initial data shows that fills” for oseltamivir “are higher at this time of year than they have been since 2013.”

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