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July 30, 2020
Social Distancing Responses to COVID-19 Emergency Declarations Strongly Differentiated by Income
Weill et al. found that social distancing following US state-level emergency declarations substantially varied by income. Using mobility measures derived from mobile device location data, wealthier areas decreased mobility significantly more than poorer areas. Wealthy areas went from most mobile before the pandemic to least mobile, while the poorest areas went from least to most mobile. The authors suggest that previous research showing that lower income communities have…
July 29, 2020
Magnitude Demographics and Dynamics of the Impact of the First Phase of the Covid-19 Pandemic on All-Cause Mortality in 17 Industrialised Countries
[pre-print, not peer-reviewed] Kontis et al. modeled the impacts of the first phase of the COVID-19 pandemic on all-cause mortality for 17 industrialized countries. From mid-February through the end of May 2020, an estimated 202,900 (95%CI 179,400-224,900) more people died in these 17 countries than were expected had the pandemic not occurred. After accounting for population size, England and Wales and Spain…
Comparison of Weighted and Unweighted Population Data to Assess Inequities in Coronavirus Disease 2019 Deaths by Race/Ethnicity Reported by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Cowger et al. compared the percentage distribution of COVID-19 deaths in the US by race/ethnicity between the CDC’s National Center for Health Statistics–weighted population and the unweighted US Census population and found that the weighting approach affects the relative mortality burden by race/ethnicity. In an analysis using the unweighted US Census data, Black individuals were the most overrepresented among COVID-19 deaths, accounting for an excess in absolute COVID-19 mortality of 10%, whereas white individuals were underrepresented (−8%). In contrast, an analysis with the…
Threshold Analyses on Rates of Testing Transmission and Contact for COVID-19 Control in a University Setting
[pre-print, not peer-reviewed] Zhao et al. simulated epidemic projections of a potential COVID-19 outbreak in a university population of 38,000 persons. They estimated that the threshold number of contacts per person per day was 10 to prevent excess deaths in a scenario with a maximum capacity of trace and test of 50% and a 5.4% chance of transmission rate per contact per day. Further reducing the number of…
Relationship Between Serum SARS-CoV-2 Nucleic Acid (RNAemia) and Organ Damage in COVID-19 Patients: A Cohort Study
Among a cohort of 85 COVID-19 patients hospitalized with laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 in Wuhan, China, 32 had SARS-CoV-2 RNA detected in serum (RNAemia). Compared to patients without RNAemia, patients with RNAemia had a higher rate of organ damage (18/32 [56%] vs. 5/53 [9%], p<0.001), higher mortality (10/32 [31%] vs. 3/53 [6%], p=0.004), , and a variety of abnormal CT and laboratory biomarkers. Xu et al….
ACE2 Expression Is Elevated in Airway Epithelial Cells from Aged and Male Donors but Reduced in Asthma
[pre-print, not peer-reviewed] Wark et al. examined risk factors associated with ACE2 expression in 145 patients with asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) in Australia. They found that older age and male sex were associated with increased ACE2 expression, and asthma was associated with reduced expression. The authors concluded that altered ACE2 expression in the lower airway may be an important factor in SARS-CoV-2 virus…
Baseline Cardiometabolic Profiles and SARS-CoV-2 Risk in the UK Biobank
[pre-print, not peer-reviewed] Scalsky et al. examined the effect of cardiometabolic profiles on the risk of testing positive for SARS-CoV-2 among 9,005 UK Biobank participants. They found that elevated high density lipoprotein (HDL) was associated with reduced risk of testing positive for SARS-CoV-2 (aOR=0.85). Type II diabetes and HbA1c were associated with increased risk (OR=1.21 and 1.06), but the effects disappeared after controlling for HDL. Scalsky et al….
30-Day Mortality and Morbidity in COVID-19 versus Influenza A Population-based Study
[pre-print, not peer-reviewed] In an analysis using population-based data from Denmark (November 1, 2017 to June 30, 2020), among inpatients, those who tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 (n=1,657) had a 30-day mortality of 21% compared to 7% among those who tested positive for influenza (n=7,200). Among outpatients, the 30-day mortality was 2% among those positive for SARS-CoV-2 (n=6,263) and 0.4% among those positive for influenza (n=7,204). Nersesjan et…
High Prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 and Influenza A Virus (H1N1) Co-Infection in Dead Patients in Northeastern Iran
Co-infection with influenza A virus was found in 22% of a sample of patients in Iran who died and had SARS-CoV-2 infection confirmed by RT-PCR (n=1,444). The contribution of these co-infections to disease pathology is unclear from these results, but the authors note that such high rates of co-infection could make diagnostics more complicated. Hashemi et…
Evaluation of the MRNA-1273 Vaccine against SARS-CoV-2 in Nonhuman Primates
Corbett et al. report that vaccination of Indian-origin rhesus macaques with mRNA-1273, a vaccine candidate encoding the prefusion-stabilized spike protein of SARS-CoV-2, induced robust antibody and T-cell responses before challenge with SARS-CoV-2 in upper- and lower-airway. Following exposure of the animals to infectious doses of SARS-CoV-2 there was indication of rapid protection from infection and no pathologic changes in…
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