December 2023 Newsletter

Giorgia Lupi has been living with long COVID since March of 2020. As an information designer, Lupi has depicted her long COVID experience in a guest essay that allows readers to interact with her story and view her long COVID experience through her art and expression.

Read about Lupi’s long COVID experience, view her personal data collection record, and see her creative imagery that helps readers better understand someone's experience with long COVID.

COVID-19 is seen to cause damage to blood vessels in the brain. The purpose of this opportunity is to better understand if brain vessels fully recover or remain permanently impacted after initial COVID-19 infection. If you have been hospitalized with COVID-19 and have experienced or are currently experiencing symptoms that have lasted more than four weeks, you may be eligible for this opportunity.

Participation involves 3 in-person visits over 2 years with over $390 in eligible compensation. The study procedures include memory and thinking tests, a brief physical, a blood draw, and an MRI. Free parking, travel reimbursement, compensation, and flexible scheduling is offered.

If you are interested, please contact the research team at (585) 276-6599.

WellNow Urgent Care is now offering a clinical trial opportunity at its East Amherst location, located at 5965 Transit Road, East Amherst, NY 14051. You may be eligible for this opportunity if you tested positive (+) for COVID-19 more than three months ago, continue to have cough, and have 2 of the 3 following symptoms:

• fatigue
  
• shortness of breath
• cognitive dysfunction (brain fog)

If you are interested, please contact:
Sarah Pollock @ 937-912-4364 / sarah.pollock@wellnow.com
Irine at WellNow Recruiting @ 315-308-2451

A new study examines the risk of developing “long flu” after a severe case of influenza, similar to long COVID. Researchers compared the long-term health outcomes of 11,000 people hospitalized with influenza from 2015 to 2019 with 81,000 people hospitalized with COVID-19 from 2020 to 2022 and tracked how many people went on to develop health risks. Both groups were found to be at increased risk of developing health problems. “COVID is still more serious than the flu,” says Ziyad Al-Aly, MD, co-author of the study, nothing that previous research shows that even milder illnesses, like the flu, can lead to long-lasting health issues.

Another new study offers encouraging evidence that people who get vaccinated before their first COVID-19 case are at a significantly lower risk of developing long COVID. A single pre-infection dose of one of the original COVID-19 vaccines seemed to reduce the risk of long COVID by 21%, and three or more doses by 73%, researchers estimated. Using participants’ health records, researchers assessed who went on to be diagnosed with long COVID during the study’s follow up period. It was found that those who were unvaccinated were more likely to report a long COVID diagnosis than those who were vaccinated.

You can now find UBCoV, University at Buffalo's Long COVID Registry and UBMD's Long COVID Recovery Center, on social media! Follow us to stay in the loop about the latest long COVID news and for long COVID updates in Western New York.

Find us on:

If you had COVID-19 and would like to participate, enter the registry and begin filling out the questionnaire.

If you have already participated, feel free to share with others who may be interested.

Contact us: (716) 382 - 1808 / ubcov@buffalo.edu