But the report, on the experiences of 13 patients, found that the drug had no benefit for some people and that some who benefited said the improvement didn’t last.Can Paxlovid treat long Covid? A new report suggests it might help some patients, but which patients might benefit remains unclear.The report, published Monday in the journal Communications Medicine, describes the cases of 13 long Covid patients who took extended courses of the antiviral drug. Results were decidedly mixed: Nine patients reported some improvement, but only five said it lasted. Four reported no improvement at all.Perhaps more than anything, the report underscores that nearly five years after the pandemic began, there is still little known about what can help the millions of people with long Covid. While some people improve on their own or with various therapies and medications, no treatment has yet been shown to be widely successful.“People with long Covid are eager for treatments that can help,” said Alison Cohen, an epidemiologist at the University of California, San Francisco, who is an author of the new report and has long Covid herself. “There’s been a lot of research, but it continues to be slow going.”Paxlovid, made by Pfizer, is considered a tantalizing prospect because it can prevent severe illness during active Covid infections and because patients who take the five-day course during the infection have been less likely to develop long Covid later.In addition, a theory that some long Covid cases may be caused by remnants of virus in the body suggests that an antiviral like Paxlovid might vanquish those symptoms by extinguishing lingering virus.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe.

The government has unveiled a new pledge to cut the list of patients waiting more than 18 weeks for NHS treatment in England by nearly half a million over the next year.

Some older Americans have come to depend on virtual consultations with doctors, covered by Medicare. To keep that option in the future, Congress will have to act quickly. Since his cancer diagnosis last year, Kent Manuel has regularly seen an oncologist near his home in Indianapolis. It’s been a tough time: After spinal surgery for paralysis caused by his cancer, he is regaining the use of his legs with physical therapy but still uses a wheelchair.Now, Mr. Manuel said, “I’m dealing with pain.” His oncologist recommended palliative care, a medical specialty that helps people with serious illnesses cope with discomfort and distress and maintain quality of life.So in November, Mr. Manuel, 72, a semiretired accountant, started seeing Dr. Julia Frydman, a palliative care doctor. “We talk through what works and what doesn’t,” he said. “She listens to what I have to say. She’s very flexible.”The first two medications she prescribed to reduce pain had troublesome side effects. On the third try, though, “I think we’ve landed on something that’s working,” he said. His pain hasn’t fully abated, but it has diminished.Dr. Frydman, the senior medical director at a cancer care technology company called Thyme Care, works hundreds of miles away in a Manhattan office. She and Mr. Manuel used a video telemedicine link — an option that barely existed in traditional Medicare before the Covid pandemic, thanks to restrictive federal policies.Medicare expanded its telemedicine coverage substantially in 2020, and the expansion has regularly been renewed. That could all have ended on Dec. 31.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe.

A woman who had eight organs removed after being diagnosed with a rare cancer has returned to work.

Getty ImagesWhen you think of new year’s resolutions, a 75-day workout might not top the list.

BBCPlans for an upgraded NHS App to allow more patients in England to book treatments and appointments will be part of a package of measures unveiled by the government on Monday.

Dr. Vivek Murthy’s report cites studies linking alcoholic beverages to at least seven malignancies, including breast cancer. But to add warning labels, Congress would have to act.Alcohol is a leading cause of cancer, and alcoholic beverages should carry a warning label as packs of cigarettes do, the U.S. surgeon general said on Friday.It is the latest salvo in a fierce debate about the risks and benefits of moderate drinking as the influential U.S. Dietary Guidelines for Americans are about to be updated. For decades, moderate drinking was said to help prevent heart attacks and strokes. That perception is embedded in the dietary advice given to Americans. But growing research has linked drinking, sometimes even within the recommended limits, to various types of cancer. Labels currently affixed to bottles and cans of alcoholic beverages warn about drinking while pregnant or before driving and operating other machinery, and about general “health risks.”But alcohol directly contributes to 100,000 cancer cases and 20,000 related deaths each year, the surgeon general, Dr. Vivek Murthy, said.He called for updating the labels to include a heightened risk of breast cancer, colon cancer and at least five other malignancies now linked by scientific studies to alcohol consumption.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe.

The number of people with flu in hospital in England has risen sharply over Christmas, NHS chiefs warn.

The woman, a field geologist, was healthy and active, yet she would pass out at inopportune moments.The day was sweltering. The 61-year-old woman urged her donkey into a trot. She loved riding around the ring on the beautiful white beast — at a walk, then a trot, then a canter. Suddenly she noticed a tingling in her hands and feet spreading toward her torso. She recognized the sensation but willed herself to ignore it. It didn’t work. Her strength seemed to melt away, and before she could say or do anything, she felt herself slumping forward. As the world turned gray, the donkey stopped. Her arms, and then her body, slid down the animal’s sweaty neck and onto the ground. Then everything went black.She woke up looking at her donkey’s snow-white belly. He leaned down and nickered softly, then brayed at the approaching instructor. Are you OK? The instructor called out in alarm. Should I call an ambulance? She was fine, the woman assured the instructor. It was just that hot weather could really get to her. She allowed herself to be helped over to the cool darkness of the barn. As she lay on the damp concrete floor, warm tears made their way down her face. I can’t keep going like this, she thought.She first fainted maybe four years earlier. She was at the gym, finishing up a brisk walk on the treadmill, when she felt the odd tingling. Black dots swam in front of her eyes, and she heard the thump of her head hitting the wall of windows in front of her. Then the black took over. She awakened surrounded by worried faces. It was strange — she was an active person. Her job as a field geologist kept her hiking and climbing regularly.She went to her primary care provider, a nurse practitioner. She had high blood pressure, the N.P. said, but was otherwise healthy. The woman was sent to a local cardiologist. Yes, she told that doctor, she did get out of breath more easily than she used to. And yes, sometimes she did get more tired than she expected. But no, she never had chest pain or pressure. Mostly she felt fine. And she didn’t faint often: a few times a year, mostly in the summer when she was exerting herself in the heat. She had an exercise stress test and, when that was normal, a scan in which a radioactive dye outlined how effectively her heart was beating. It was also normal. So was an echocardiogram.So the woman’s N.P. focused on her blood pressure and improvements to her diet. But even when her blood pressure seemed to be perfect, every now and then she would find herself on the ground looking up at concerned faces.A Hard Look at Her HeartIt was after the fall from the donkey that the woman decided she needed a new set of eyes on her problem. She made an appointment with Dr. David Ramos, a cardiologist at a Columbia New York-Presbyterian office in Monroe, N.Y., near her home in the village of Piermont. It took months to get in. But when she finally met Ramos, he listened thoughtfully as she described her worsening sense of being out of breath, her increasing fatigue during even mild exertion, the repeated blacking out. An exam was unremarkable. Ramos reviewed her records. Fainting, known medically as syncope, is a common enough problem caused by diminished blood flow to the brain. Forty percent of us will faint at least once in our lives. And for most of us, it will be only once, triggered by a sudden change in either blood pressure or heart rate, often in reaction to a medication or some type of emotional or physical stress.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe.

Meg HughesA mother is urging parents to get their children vaccinated after losing one of her baby twins to flu on Christmas Day.