September 29, 2021 5.21 pm This story is over 29 months old

Cases up 6% on Wednesday as research continues into long COVID impact

Research into loss of smell, diabetes and long COVID continue

New research is looking into treatments for the long-term health impacts of coronavirus as daily cases in Greater Lincolnshire rose 6% week-on-week on Wednesday.

Researchers at the University of East Anglia are conducting a 12-week study in how to treat the loss or altered sense of smell in some people who have had COVID using Vitamin A drops.

Meanwhile, doctors in New York have suggested that coronavirus could infect insulin-producing cells in the pancreas, causing some previously healthy people to develop diabetes after catching it.

The latest COVID stats for Lincolnshire are:

  • 660 new cases of coronavirus were confirmed in Greater Lincolnshire with 409 in Lincolnshire, 79 in North East Lincolnshire and 172 in North Lincolnshire.
  • Last Wednesday there were 624 cases – a rise of 6%
  • Two further deaths of Lincolnshire and North Lincolnshire residents were also recorded
  • Hospital data updated to include two further deaths in United Lincolnshire Hospitals Trust and Northern Lincolnshire and Goole Hospitals Trust
  • Nationally, cases rose by 36,722 while deaths increased by 150

A story by BBC News has outlined research into the loss of smell some COVID-positive people have experienced, with some odours drastically changing.

As part of the East Anglia trial some volunteer patients will receive a Vitamin A nasal treatment and will be asked to sniff items including rotten eggs and roses.

Brain scans will check if the vitamin has repaired any of the damage caused by the virus.

Lincolnshire’s coronavirus cases up to September 29. | Image: GOV.uk

Meanwhile, The Guardian is reporting on research by Prof Shuibing Chen at Weill Cornell Medicine in New York who has attempted to identify which organs in the body could be infected by COVID-19.

It showed the lung, colon, heart, liver, and pancreatic organoids could all be infected, along with insulin-producing beta cells within the pancreas.

It means that the cells produce less insulin but more hormones usually manufactured by different pancreatic cells.

The research feeds into increasing concerns that patients are developing diabetes either while infected with coronavirus, or shortly after recovering from it – though some instances can only be temporary, with control regained after recovering from COVID-19.

Elsewhere, researchers at the University of Oxford and the National Institute for Health Research have found that 37% of 270,000 recovering COVID-19 patients they tracked developed long COVID symptoms.

Anxiety and depression, breathing and abdominal problems, and pain in the chest and throat were most common with headaches and fatigue also well documented, according to a report in the Financial Times.


Coronavirus data for Greater Lincolnshire on Wednesday, September 29

114,494 cases (up 660)

  • 75,039 in Lincolnshire (up 409)
  • 18,553 in North Lincolnshire (up 172)
  • 20,902 in North East Lincolnshire (up 79)

2,343 deaths (up two)

  • 1,717 from Lincolnshire (up one)
  • 318 from North Lincolnshire (up one)
  • 309 from North East Lincolnshire (no change)

of which 1,412 hospital deaths (up two)

  • 867 at United Lincolnshire Hospitals Trust (up one)
  • 44 at Lincolnshire Community Health Service hospitals (no change)
  • 1 at Lincolnshire Partnership Foundation Trust (no change)
  • 500 in Northern Lincolnshire (NLAG) (up one)
DATA SOURCE — FIGURES CORRECT AT THE TIME OF THE LATEST UPDATE. POSTCODE DATA INCLUDES DEATHS NOT IN HEALTHCARE FACILITIES OR IN HOSPITALS OUTSIDE AUTHORITY BOUNDARIES.