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February 3, 2021
SARS-CoV-2 Seropositivity among US Marine Recruits Attending Basic Training, United States, Spring–Fall 2020
A cross-sectional study of US Marine Recruits (n=3,249) conducted from Spring-Fall 2020 found a baseline IgG seroprevalence against SARS-Cov-2 of 9%. Participants were primarily males aged 18-20 from the Eastern US or states with large populations. Participants who identified as Hispanic or non-Hispanic Black had higher IgG prevalence (18%, OR=3.8 and 15%, OR=3.5, respectively) than…
Limited Benefit of Facility Isolation and the Rationale for Home Care in Children with Mild COVID-19
A study conducted in South Korea of 53 children with COVID-19 found that the risk of virus transmission to their caregivers was low, with no caregivers (n=15) in the study becoming ill when they used facemasks and practiced hand hygiene in an isolation unit. COVID-19 policies in South Korea require infected individuals to be admitted…
February 2, 2021
Under What Circumstances Could Vaccination Offset the Harm from a More Transmissible Variant of SARS-COV-2 in NYC Trade-Offs Regarding Prioritization and Speed of Vaccination
[Pre-print, not peer reviewed] A transmission model calibrated to COVID-19 hospital admissions, ICU admissions, and deaths in New York City suggests that the introduction of a 56% more transmissible variant could triple the peak in infections, hospitalizations, and deaths and more than double cumulative infections, hospitalizations, and deaths by the end of February 2021. For…
Genetically Predicted Serum Vitamin D and COVID-19 a Mendelian Randomization Study
[Pre-print, not peer reviewed] Long-term vitamin D nutritional status does not causally affect susceptibility to SARS-CoV-2 infection or more severe COVID-19 disease course, according to a two-sample Mendelian randomization study of a European cohort. No elevation in the risk of COVID infection, hospitalization, or progression to severe COVID-19 was associated with serum vitamin D status…
Viral Sequencing Reveals US Healthcare Personnel Rarely Become Infected with SARS-CoV-2 through Patient Contact
[Pre-print, not peer reviewed] Patient to healthcare worker (HCW) transmission could be rare, according to viral sequencing of 32 SARS-CoV-2 infection clusters involving 96 HCWs in the Upper Midwest. Using 140 possible patient contacts, only 4% of HCW infections were clearly traced to a patient source. In comparison, 10% could be traced to a coworker,…
Effect of RBD (Y453F) Mutation in Spike Glycoprotein of SARS-CoV-2 on Neutralizing IgG Affinity
[Pre-print, not peer reviewed] A mutation found in farm minks infected with SARS-CoV-2 (Y435F) was predicted to lead to reduced binding to the human ACE-2 receptor, and was experimentally shown to alter the affinity of convalescent polyclonal serum to the receptor binding domain (RBD). Using a modified ELISA assay, strong affinity to recombinant non-mutated RBD…
Articles Safety and Efficacy of an RAd26 and RAd5 Vector-Based Heterologous Prime-Boost COVID-19 Vaccine: An Interim Analysis of a Randomised Controlled Phase 3 Trial in Russia
Interim analysis of the randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled phase 3 trial for the recombinant adenovirus (rAd)-based vaccine Gam-COVID-Vac (Sputnik V) (n=19,866) showed an efficacy of 91.6% (CI: 85.6%-95.2%) by 21 days after the first dose of vaccine (the day of dose 2). 16 of 14,964 (0.1%) people in the vaccine group developed COVID-19 compared to 62…
Rapid Expert Consultation on Allocating COVID-19 Monoclonal Antibody Therapies and Other Novel Therapeutics (January 29, 2021)
Around 75% of the 641,000 COVID-19 monoclonal antibody (mAb) therapies allocated by the Department of Health and Human Services to states and local territories were not administered in the period before January 6, 2021. As a response, a rapid consultation by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine identified potential barriers, including the limited…
High Variability in Transmission of SARS-CoV-2 within Households and Implications for Control
[Pre-print, not peer reviewed] A probabilistic model based upon SARS-CoV-2 antibody and PCR test data from more than 9000 Utah households estimated a 35% household secondary attack rate. In contrast, the crude estimate for household attack rate unadjusted for serological test specificity was 15%. Given the high attack rate, the authors predict that the mean…
Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) Infection Rates in a Private School in Brooklyn, New York
COVID-19 cases were rare (0.13%) in a private school that reopened for in-person learning from October to December 2020, despite the school being in a red zone (the highest level of COVID-19 restrictions) in Brooklyn, New York. The school employed mandatory in-school SARS-CoV-2 testing using rt-PCR-confirmed nasopharyngeal swabs with a 48-72 hour turnaround time. A…
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