- The CDC added mood disorders to a list of conditions putting people at higher risk of severe COVID-19 infection.
- Adding mental health conditions allow those with the diagnoses to be eligible for COVID-19 booster shots.
- One in three COVID-19 survivors experience a neurological condition in the six months after infection, a study found.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention added mood disorders to a list of conditions that would put people at higher risk for severe symptoms of COVID-19, The Washington Post reported.
The addition of “mood disorders, including depression, and schizophrenia spectrum disorders,” which was made earlier this month, allows those diagnosed with mental health conditions eligible for COVID-19 vaccine booster shots.
“This is a population that is really, really at risk due to the way that COVID-19 interacts with the diagnoses,” Lisa Dailey, executive director of the Treatment Advocacy Center, told The Post. “Until the CDC put this group of disorders on their list, they would not have known that.”
In April, a large-scale study found that over a third of COVID-19 survivors experience a neurological condition or mental illness in the six months after infection, with people who had severe illness being at highest risk of rarer neurological complications.
Another meta-analysis conducted this month found a “strong link” between mood disorders and the risk of COVID-19 infection, hospitalization, and death.
“Taken together, we’ve got reasons to be hypervigilant for people who have depression,” Roger McIntyre, who was one of the researchers on the study, told The Post. “They’ve got to get in front of the queue to get their vaccines.”
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