Article Summary
January 11, 2021
Incidence and Secondary Transmission of SARS-CoV-2 Infections in Schools
Very limited within-school transmission of SARS-CoV-2 was found in the first 9 weeks of in-person instruction in North Carolina secondary schools between August and October 2020. There were 773 community-acquired infections documented by molecular testing in the 11 school districts with over 90,000 students and staff. Through contact tracing, health department staff identified an additional…
Time from Start of Quarantine to SARS-CoV-2 Positive Test Among Quarantined College and University Athletes — 17 States, June–October 2020
An analysis conducted by CDC with the National Collegiate Athletic Association found that among collegiate athletes exposed to COVID-19 (n=1,830), one quarter had positive test results during quarantine with a mean of 3.8 days from quarantine start until the positive test result. Among athletes who had not received a positive test result by day 5,…
January 8, 2021
Effectiveness of Physical Distancing: Staying 6 Feet Over to Put Respiratory Viruses 6 Feet Under
Results from an analysis of 13,324 nasopharyngeal swabs collected at a single hospital in Arizona between January 1, 2017, and July 31, 2020, found a significant reduction in the detection of respiratory viruses other than SARS-CoV-2, coinciding with the implementation of distancing and masking policies during the COVID-19 pandemic. The average monthly positivity rate for…
Misinformation about COVID-19: Evidence for Differential Latent Profiles and a Strong Association with Trust in Science
Agley et al. found that believing misinformation about SARS-CoV-2 may not keep people from simultaneously believing in the scientifically accepted explanation for the novel virus’s origins. Among a sample of 660 US-based users of Mechanical Turk (MTurk), 70% of people believed the scientific consensus about the virus originating in animals and rejected related conspiracy theories….
Early Transmissibility Assessment of the N501Y Mutant Strains of SARS-CoV-2 in the United Kingdom, October to November 2020
A model incorporating information from genome sequencing and other epidemiological data suggests that the SARS-CoV-2 mutant strain 501Y Variant 2, which became the dominant strain in England in November and December 2020, has an R0 1.75-times that of the 501N variant, meaning that it is 75% more transmissible. Because of limited genetic sequence data, the…
SARS-CoV-2 Transmission From People Without COVID-19 Symptoms
A mathematical model estimates that 59% of all transmission of SARS-CoV-2 comes from asymptomatic cases, suggesting that strategies based on identifying and isolating symptomatic people will not control the pandemic. The model estimates that 35% of SARS-CoV-2 transmission comes from presymptomatic individuals and 24% from individuals who never become symptomatic. Johansson et al. (Jan 7,…
Neutralization of N501Y Mutant SARS-CoV-2 by BNT162b2 Vaccine-Elicited Sera
[pre-print, not peer-reviewed] Sera from people vaccinated with the Pfizer-BioNTech mRNA vaccine (BNT162b2) (n=20) had equivalent neutralizing antibody titers to the SARS-CoV-2 strain on which the vaccine was based and a laboratory-developed SARS-CoV-2 strain carrying a N501Y substitution, which is one of the mutations associated with rapidly spreading variants in the United Kingdom and South…
Candida Auris Outbreak in a COVID-19 Specialty Care Unit — Florida, July–August 2020
A dedicated COVID-19 specialty care unit at an acute care hospital in Florida reported four fungal infections with Candida auris, which is often resistant to several anti-fungal medications, in July 2020. An additional 35 patients were found to be colonized with C. auris during testing between August 4 and 18. During that time, investigators observed…
Assessment of Day-7 Postexposure Testing of Asymptomatic Contacts of COVID-19 Patients to Evaluate Early Release from Quarantine — Vermont, May–November 2020
Following a policy change to shorten the duration of quarantine for people exposed to SARS-CoV-2 who remained asymptomatic and tested negative by PCR at day 7, an analysis did not identify any contacts who tested positive within the subsequent week. Among 940 contacts of people with COVID-19 who tested negative seven days after exposure, 154…
Interleukin-6 Receptor Antagonists in Critically Ill Patients with Covid-19
[pre-print; not peer-reviewed] A randomized trial of the IL-6 receptor antagonists tocilizumab and sarilumab showed better patient outcomes, including 90-day survival and time to discharge, in critically ill adult COVID-19 patients who were receiving respiratory or cardiovascular organ support in intensive care units. According to this preliminary report from the randomized trial, in-hospital mortality was…
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