Article Summary
February 13, 2021
Early Initiation of Prophylactic Anticoagulation for Prevention of Coronavirus Disease 2019 Mortality in Patients Admitted to Hospital in the United States: Cohort Study
Among 4,297 patients admitted to hospitals with lab-confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection and no history of using anticoagulation medications, initiation of prophylactic anticoagulation in the first 24 hours after hospitalization was associated with a 27% lower risk of 30-day mortality and no increased risk of serious bleeding events. The cumulative incidence of mortality at 30 days was…
Comparison of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 Screening Using Reverse Transcriptase-Quantitative Polymerase Chain Reaction or CRISPR-Based Assays in Asymptomatic College Students
Rauch et al. concluded that CRISPR-based methods appear to offer reliable SARS-CoV-2 screening based on testing 1,808 asymptomatic college students with both RT-qPCR and CRISPR-based assays. Of the nine samples that tested positive by RT-PCR, eight were also positive by CRISPR-based assays, which are cheaper to run and use lab-generated or off-the-shelf reagents, potentially alleviating…
Tocilizumab in Patients Admitted to Hospital with COVID-19 (RECOVERY): Preliminary Results of a Randomised, Controlled, Open-Label, Platform Trial
[pre-print; not peer-reviewed] Preliminary results from the RECOVERY trial, a randomized trial conducted among people hospitalized with COVID-19 in Britain, suggest that patients assigned to the interleukin (IL)-6 antibody tocilizumab group were more likely to be discharged from the hospital alive within 28 days than those receiving usual care (54% vs. 47%). Patients in the…
Before the Surge Molecular Evidence of SARS-CoV-2 in New York City Prior to the First Report
[pre-print; not peer-reviewed] SARS-CoV-2 RNA was found in pooled nasopharyngeal specimens collected from 3,040 people in New York City in the week ending January 25, 2020, suggesting that the virus was present in the city a month before the first officially documented case. The authors were also able to reconstruct phylogenetic relationships between seven complete…
The Effects of School Closures on SARS-CoV-2 among Parents and Teachers
Sweden kept schools open for in-person instruction for younger students (primary and lower-secondary) while closing schools for older students (upper-secondary), allowing for an evaluation of school closures on SARS-CoV-2 transmission. The rate of SARS-CoV-2 infection among lower-secondary teachers (who taught children age 14 to 16 in person) was twice as high (7.4 cases per 1,000)…
Operational Strategy for K-12 Schools through Phased Mitigation Executive Summary
The CDC released new guidelines for reopening K-12 schools for in-person learning, noting that evidence suggests that many K-12 schools that have strictly implemented mitigation strategies have been able to open safely for in-person instruction and remain open. In addition to recommending specific disease prevention measures, the guidelines include the following statements: (1) K–12 schools…
February 11, 2021
Information About COVID-19 Testing on College Websites in the New York City Metropolitan Area
A cross-sectional study of 150 community colleges and universities in the New York City metropolitan area found that institutes of higher education did not provide information on COVID-19 uniformly or comprehensively. 83% of institutions reported testing data to the campus community, of which 63% released the data bi-weekly. Larger institutions (>10,000 students) were more likely…
Modeling Effectiveness of Testing Strategies to Prevent COVID-19 in Nursing Homes —United States, 2020
A model calibrated to US nursing homes suggests that 54% SARS-CoV-2 infections could be prevented by instituting weekly testing with a 2-day turnaround for all staff and residents immediately following detection of an index case (i.e. outbreak testing). Increasing the frequency of testing and reducing the turnaround to daily testing with immediate results could further…
Factors Associated With Racial Differences in Deaths Among Nursing Home Residents With COVID-19 Infection in the US
COVID-19-associated deaths in the US were higher in nursing homes with greater proportions of non-white residents, according to a cross-sectional survey involving 13,312 nursing homes. Nursing homes with the lowest quintile proportion of white residents (<60%) had 4 more deaths on average from January to September 2020, corresponding to 3.3-fold higher deaths than those with…
Effect of the New SARS-CoV-2 Variant B.1.1.7 on Children and Young People
The clinical course of SARS-CoV-2 infection among children may be similar when infection occurs with the B.1.1.7 variant versus the original strain, according to an analysis of two cohorts of children admitted to King’s College Hospital for COVID-19. The B.1.1.7. variant accounted for ~70% of SARS-CoV-2 infections in London by January 2021 and the two…
Previous page Next page