Article Summary
November 16, 2020
Critical Care Workers Have Lower Seroprevalence of SARS-CoV-2 IgG Compared with Non-Patient Facing Staff in First Wave of COVID19
[Pre-print, not peer-reviewed] Loss of smell was a reliable predictor of SARS-CoV-2 seropositivity in a study that screened over 500 healthcare workers at a regional critical care center in the UK. While 45% of participants reported symptoms potentially consistent with COVID-19, the overall seroprevalence was 14%. There was a significant difference in seropositivity between staff…
Newly Reported Studies on the Increase in Gastrointestinal Symptom Prevalence With COVID-19 Infection: A Comprehensive Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis
A systematic review and meta-analysis comparing the frequency of gastrointestinal symptoms among COVID-19 patients from Chinese studies conducted earlier in the epidemic and more recent studies predominantly conducted outside of China found higher rates of diarrhea, nausea/vomiting, and abdominal pain in non-Chinese studies. The pooled prevalence estimate of any GI symptom was 0.21, and the…
Association between COVID-19 Diagnosis and Presenting Chief Complaint from New York City Triage Data
A retrospective analysis of adult emergency department visits from New York City found there may be populations of patients at high risk for COVID-19 who present with atypical complaints and symptoms. While most people who received SARS-CoV-2 testing had a fever, shortness of breath, or a cough, many others who received testing reported symptoms of…
SARS-CoV-2 Serological Tests Can Generate False Positive Results for Samples from Patients with Chronic Inflammatory Diseases
[Pre-print, not peer-reviewed] Most SARS-CoV-2 serological assays were sensitive to interfering antibodies in samples from patients with chronic inflammatory diseases, which may lead to false positivity. Samples from patients with multiple sclerosis (MS), rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) were evaluated with 17 commercially-available lateral flow assays. Six of those assays, plus an…
Safety and Efficacy of Inhaled Nebulised Interferon Beta-1a (SNG001) for Treatment of SARS-CoV-2 Infection: A Randomised, Double-Blind, Placebo-Controlled, Phase 2 Trial
A phase 2 randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial of inhaled nebulized interferon beta-1a (SNG001) for patients hospitalized with COVID-19 (n=101) found that patients who received the study drug had greater odds of improvement on the WHO ordinal scale for clinical improvement (OSCI) (OR = 2.32) on day 15 or 16 and were more likely to recover…
Pattern of SARS-CoV-2 Infection among Dependant Elderly Residents Living in Long-Term Care Facilities in Marseille, France, March–June 2020
Results from a SARS-CoV-2 PCR-based screening campaign found a high proportion of asymptomatic infection among residents and staff of long-term care facilities in France, with higher frequencies among residents than staff (13.4% versus 8.7%). Among infected residents, 16.4% were detected based on symptoms and 83.6% through mass screening. While many SARS-CoV-2 positive residents had respiratory…
November 13, 2020
Estimation of US Children’s Educational Attainment and Years of Life Lost Associated With Primary School Closures During the Coronavirus Disease 2019 Pandemic
An analytical model estimated that closing public primary schools may be associated with an estimated 5.53 million years of life lost among US children. The authors first determined that missed instruction was associated with a mean loss of 0.31 years of final educational attainment for boys and 0.21 years for girls. By extrapolating from the…
Mental Health–Related Emergency Department Visits Among Children Aged <18 Years During the COVID-19 Pandemic — United States, January 1–October 17, 2020
During the COVID-19 pandemic (mid-March to October) mental health related emergency department (ED) visits among children and adolescents decreased in absolute numbers, but increased as a proportion all pediatric ED visits. The proportion of mental health related ED visits among all pediatric ED visits for children aged 5–11 and 12–17 years increased by 24% and…
Nothing Much Has Changed: COVID‐19 Nursing Home Cases and Deaths Follow Fall Surges
Surges in nursing home-associated SARS-CoV-2 infections occurred in hotspot states during the end of October. Data were collected from 778 facilities in Idaho, Montana, North and South Dakota, Utah, and Wisconsin regarding community spread, testing, and PPE and staffing shortages. Across the six states, weekly cases among staff members tripled from September to October and…
Diagnosis and Tracking of Past SARS-CoV-2 Infection in a Large Study of Vo’ Italy Through T-Cell Receptor Sequencing
[Pre-print, not peer-reviewed] The presence of T-cells reactive to SARS-CoV-2 was found to be a strong indicator of past SARS-CoV-2 infection. In a large population study (n = 2,200) in Italy that included 70 individuals with PCR-confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection, blood samples taken 60 days after PCR diagnosis indicated that 97% of the people with PCR-confirmed…
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