Article Summary
May 12, 2020
Pandemic Related Health Literacy – A Systematic Review of Literature in COVID-19 SARS and MERS Pandemics
A literature review of health literacy related to COVID-19, MERS, and SARS, which included 70 articles, found low pandemic health literacy, ranging from 4.3% to 57.9% among medical-related populations, and from 4% to 82.5% among non-medical populations. The items most frequently evaluated were knowledge about symptoms and transmission, concern about infection, and practices related to mask use and…
Public Health Response to COVID-19 Cases in Correctional and Detention Facilities — Louisiana, March–April 2020
A COVID-19 Management Assessment and Response (CMAR) tool was used to assess 24 correctional facilities in Louisiana and identified general awareness and understanding of prevention guidance among administrators. While limited ability to quarantine exposed persons and inability to engage in social distancing likely contributed to transmission in these facilities, the CMAR tool could be implemented more broadly to…
Identification and Monitoring of International Travelers During the Initial Phase of an Outbreak of COVID-19 — California, February 3–March 17, 2020
Between early February and mid–March 2020 almost 12,000 passengers from selected countries were screened upon entry to the US and monitored by local health jurisdictions in California. Of these, 3 travelers were matched to COVID-19 patients reported to the state by April 15th, out of over 25,000 cases overall. This effort was found to be labor-intensive and its utility limited by incomplete information and…
Public Health Communication in Time of Crisis: Readability of On-Line COVID-19 Information
The mean readability score for the first 100 English language websites found using the search term “coronavirus” estimated that readability levels for nearly all websites exceeded the 10th grade by at least four of five tests, with one test finding a mean readability level of grade 18 (graduate school level) across the sampled websites. The majority of COVID-19 messages…
Characteristics and Outcomes of Children With Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) Infection Admitted to US and Canadian Pediatric Intensive Care Units
Shekerdemian et al. conducted a descriptive study among children with COVID-19 admitted to 46 PICUs in North America between mid-March and early April, 2020 (N=48). They found mean age was 13, 83% had significant pre-existing comorbidities, 38% required invasive ventilation, and 23% had failure of 2 or more organ systems. While 4% had died at the time the study concluded, 15 patients (31%) remained hospitalized and…
Development and External Validation of a Prognostic Tool for COVID-19 Critical Disease
Tools to predict COVID-19 severity will assist in management of critical care capacity and enable earlier targeted interventions to improve outcomes. These authors created a web-based tool for their prognostic model, which defined critical disease as ICU admission, ventilation, or death. They fit the model to patients presenting to UC Irvine, and validated on patients presenting to Emory Healthcare. Covariates included comorbidities,…
CT Scans Obtained for Nonpulmonary Indications: Associated Respiratory Findings of COVID-19
As non-pulmonary manifestations of COVID-19 are being increasingly recognized, Hossain et al. evaluated the extent to which non-chest (abdomen/pelvis or cervical spine/neck) CT scans in patients with gastrointestinal or neurological symptoms detected findings highly suspicious for pulmonary COVID-19. Among 62 patients with suspected COVID-19 on presentation, non-chest CT findings provided the initial evidence of COVID-19 related pneumonia in 52%…
Rapid Isolation of Potent SARS-CoV-2 Neutralizing Antibodies and Protection in a Small Animal Model
Rogers et al. screened over 1,000 antibodies for SARS-CoV-2 using serum from a cohort of recovered patients and an animal model (Syrian hamsters). They report multiple highly potent neutralizing antibodies, and demonstrate that passive transfer of these antibodies provides protection against a high dose viral challenge, suggesting potential for both prevention and treatment of COVID-19….
Use of Corticosteroids in Coronavirus Disease 2019 Pneumonia: A Systematic Review of the Literature
A systematic literature review identified four studies of corticosteroid use in patients with COVID-19 reported through March 15, 2020. The effect of corticosteroids on clinical outcomes for COVID-19 was mixed, with corticosteroids having a detrimental impact in two out of four studies. One study found that methylprednisolone could lower the mortality rate by 62% among patients with severe COVID-19. Veronese et al. (Apr 24, 2020). Use of Corticosteroids in Coronavirus…
Association of Treatment With Hydroxychloroquine or Azithromycin With In-Hospital Mortality in Patients With COVID-19 in New York State
A retrospective multi-center cohort study sampled randomly from all admitted participants with laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 in 25 hospitals (N=1,438) and compared hydroxychloroquine alone, azithromycin alone, and combination of the two relative to treatment with neither medication. There was a greater odds of cardiac arrest in patients receiving combination therapy (OR 2.13 95% CI: 1.12, 4.05), but otherwise no statistically significant associates with mortality or abnormal electrocardiogram findings. However, combination therapy had a non-significant association with…
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