PREGNANT WOMEN AT GREAT RISK WITH COVID-19

A new study from UC San Francisco and UCLA shows COVID-19 may have a prolonged effect on pregnant women, KCRA 3 News said.

The study is the largest of its kind so far on pregnant women who were not hospitalized.

The early data looked at nearly 600 women and found that the most common early symptoms were a cough and a sore throat.

Only about 12% of participants said they had body aches and a fever first, which surprised one of the lead researchers.

“It was surprising to see the really low prevalence of a fever just because a fever was so common,” UCSF lead researcher Dr. Vanessa Jacoby said.

“One of the big take-homes is we want pregnant people and their families and their providers to know they shouldn’t wait for a fever to occur to think you might have COVID-19, and providers should know that fever is not a common first symptom during pregnancy in people that have COVID,” she said.

Researchers also found that about 60% had no symptoms after four weeks, but 25% still had symptoms lasting eight weeks or longer.

Of those people still having symptoms, 8% still had a loss of taste or smell.