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October 26, 2020
COVID-19–Associated Hospitalizations Among Health Care Personnel — COVID-NET, 13 States, March 1–May 31, 2020
An analysis of COVID-19 hospitalization data from the US found that 6% of adults hospitalized for COVID-19 were health care professionals, of whom 67% were expected to have direct patient contact and 36% were in nursing-related occupations. 90% of health care professionals hospitalized with COVID-19 had at least one underlying condition, of which obesity (73%),…
Correlates of Death among SARS-CoV-2 Positive Veterans: The Contribution of Lifetime Tobacco Use
Veterans with COVID-19 who reported using tobacco at the time of their illness or at any time prior had a higher risk of mortality, even after controlling for other health and social factors. Other factors positively related to the relative risk of death were older age, male sex, immunodeficiency, and endocrine and pulmonary diseases. Results…
Social Media and Vaccine Hesitancy
Communities with a greater use of social media to organize offline political actions had more public concerns about vaccine safety in a cross-national analysis of social media and vaccine hesitancy. Additionally, foreign disinformation campaigns were found to be significantly associated with declining vaccination rates. The study found that a one-point shift upward in the five-point…
Efficacy of hydroxychloroquine for post-exposure prophylaxis to prevent severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection: a blinded, randomized, controlled trial
[conference abstract, not peer-reviewed] Taking a two-week course of hydroxychloroquine did not prevent SARS-CoV-2 infection among household members of people with SARS-CoV-2 in a national, household-randomized trial in the US. Among participants who were SARS-CoV-2 negative at enrollment, there were 46 new infections among participants randomized to hydroxychloroquine (n=381) and 43 in the control participants…
Seropositive Prevalence of Antibodies Against SARS-CoV-2 in Wuhan, China
A cross-sectional study of healthy adults in Wuhan, China (n=35,040) with no prior history of COVID-19 found that the seroprevalence was 3.9% among the study population in samples taken eight weeks following the peak infection period. Most individuals tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 IgG antibodies only, indicating previous infection. Seropositive prevalence was higher in urban areas…
No SARS-CoV-2 Detected in Air Samples (Pollen and Particulate Matter) in Leipzig during the First Spread
Results from a study in Leipzig, Germany during the first wave of SARS-CoV-2 infections did not find pollen to be a carrier for virus particles, nor that bioaerosol samples were infectious. While the authors note that aggregate findings from the study could suggest a correlation between Corylus pollen species and COVID-19 cases, none of the…
Cell-Based Culture of SARS-CoV-2 Informs Infectivity and Safe de-Isolation Assessments during COVID-19
Basile et al performed SARS-CoV-2 cell-based culture assays to assess infectivity of patients with COVID-19 and compare results to PCR. They found that viable SARS-CoV-2 was significantly more likely to be isolated from samples collected from inpatients and ICU patients compared with outpatients, and in samples with lower cycle threshold (i.e. higher viral load). The…
A Large National Outbreak of COVID-19 Linked to Air Travel, Ireland, Summer 2020
An analysis of an outbreak of laboratory-confirmed cases of COVID-19 from across Ireland in the summer of 2020 linked the outbreak to an international flight. Onward transmission from 13 passenger cases on the flight resulted in a total of 59 cases in six of eight health regions in Ireland. Attack proportions among contacts were estimated…
Comparison of Upper Respiratory Viral Load Distributions in Asymptomatic and Symptomatic Children Diagnosed with SARS-CoV-2 Infection in Pediatric Hospital Testing Programs
Children with asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infection were found to have lower levels of virus in their nasopharynx/oropharynx than children with symptomatic infection, but timing of infection relative to diagnosis likely influenced levels in asymptomatic children. A study assessing Ct values and estimated viral load in children with asymptomatic versus symptomatic infection showed that the median adjusted…
October 23, 2020
Association Between Social Vulnerability and a County’s Risk for Becoming a COVID-19 Hotspot — United States, June 1–July 25, 2020
Counties with greater social vulnerability were more likely to become areas with rapidly increasing COVID-19 incidence (“hotspot counties”), according to a report from the CDC. Counties with higher percentages of racial and ethnic minority residents (RR=5.3) and people living in high-density housing structures and crowded units (RR=3.1 and RR=2.0), were more likely to become hotspots,…
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