Australia’s National COVID-19 Clinical Evidence Taskforce has recommended women with COVID-19 stop taking oral hormone replacement therapy because of possible increased VTE risk.
Welcome to The Medical Republic’s COVID Catch-Up.
It’s the day’s COVID-19 news in one convenient post. Email bianca@biancanogrady.com with any tips, comments or feedback.
4 December
- Women with COVID-19 should considered stopping HRT because of VTE risk, experts suggest.
- Parliament wants mandatory reporting of COVID-19 immunisations.
- Facebook finally gets off the fence and decides to remove COVID-19 vaccine misinformation.
- Latest confirmed COVID-19 infection numbers from around Australia.
- Because of concerns about the increased risk of venous thromboembolism associated with COVID-19, Australia’s National COVID-19 Clinical Evidence Taskforce has recommended women with COVID-19 stop taking oral hormone replacement therapy or consider a transdermal preparation.
The Taskforce noted that while there are no studies examining the risk of VTE in women on HRT who contract COVID-19, their consensus recommendation was based on evidence that both HRT and COVID-19 are associated with an increased risk of VTE. - Federal parliament is considering a bill that would make it mandatory for vaccine providers to report all COVID-19 immunisations to the Australian Immunisation Register.
Currently vaccine providers are encouraged to report all immunisations administered, but it’s voluntary. According to the explanatory notes on the Bill, information on childhood immunisations is much more comprehensive than the information provided about adolescent and adult immunisation.
Given the investment the Australian government is making in providing the COVID-19, it seems they want to know exactly how effective that investment has been.
There’s no further detail yet on how such a mandatory requirement would be implemented, whether vaccine providers will be compensated for the time taken to register each immunisation, or on potential privacy issues. - In a spectacular display of ‘too little, too late’, Facebook has decided it will take action against COVID-19 misinformation on its apps, but only with respect to vaccines.
The social media giant said in a blog post, that removing false claims about COVID-19 vaccines was another way it could “remove misinformation about the virus that could lead to imminent physical harm.”
Misinformation includes claims about vaccines containing microchips or any other ingredient that isn’t on the official vaccine ingredient list, as well as conspiracy theories about vaccine testing. - Northern Territory has recorded a surprising six new cases, but all of them – and the nine new cases reported in NSW – are returned travellers in quarantine.
Here are the latest confirmed COVID-19 infection numbers from around Australia to 9pm Thursday:
National – 27,939 with 908 deaths
ACT – 117 (0)
NSW – 4597 (9)
NT – 59 (6)
QLD – 1206 (1)
SA – 562 (0)
TAS – 230 (0)
VIC – 20,345 (0)
WA – 823 (0)
