Article Summary
April 7, 2020
Sample Pooling as a Strategy to Detect Community Transmission of SARS-CoV-2
The authors used sampled pooling, a strategy used for community monitoring of other infectious diseases, in this retrospective study to increase overall testing efficiency at an expected slight loss of sensitivity. 292 pools were screened, corresponding with 2740 nasopharyngeal samples and 148 bronchoalveolar lavage samples, collected from inpatients and outpatients between Jan 1-Feb 26 in…
Toilets dominate environmental detection of SARS-CoV-2 virus in a hospital
The authors tested 107 surface samples from 4 isolation rooms housing 10 COVID-19 patients in a Chinese hospital. Fecal-derived aerosols in the patients’ toilets contained most of the detected SARS-CoV-2 virus in the hospital, highlighting the importance of surface and hand hygiene for intervention as well as the importance of hygiene in both private and…
Why are pregnant women susceptible to COVID-19? An immunological Viewpoint
This article provides details on why pregnant women may be more susceptible to COVID-19, and the potential maternal and fetal complications from an immunological viewpoint. Pregnant women may be more susceptible to COVID-19 since pregnant women are vulnerable to respiratory infection in general. Liu et al reiterate that there is no evidence for vertical transmission…
Effectiveness of Surgical and Cotton Masks in Blocking SARS–CoV-2: A Controlled Comparison in 4 Patients
This experiment compared surgical masks to reusable cloth masks by measuring viral loads after patients coughed while wearing no mask, a surgical mask and a cloth mask. All swabs from the outer mask surfaces were positive for SARS–CoV-2, whereas most swabs from the inner mask surfaces were negative. Neither surgical nor cotton masks effectively filtered…
April 6, 2020
Medical Masks vs N95 Respirators for Preventing COVID-19 in Health Care Works- A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Randomized Trials
Findings from this meta-analysis of randomized control trials comparing the protective effect of medical masks to N95 respirators in health care workers suggests that medical masks and N95 respirators offer similar protection against viral respiratory infection during non-aerosol generating procedures. The authors recommend preserving N95 respirators for high-risk, aerosol generating procedures when in short supply,…
Rapid evidence summary on SARS-CoV-2 survivorship and disinfection, and a reusable PPE protocol using a double-hit process.
Based on a review of existing evidence on SARS-CoV-2 survivorship and methods to disinfect PPE, in particular N95 filtering facepiece respirators (FFR), the authors propose a two-step disinfection process using initial storage of PP for ≥4 days, followed by ultraviolet light for N95 FFRs and face shields, dry heat treatment for gowns and chemical disinfection…
Level of IL-6 predicts respiratory failure in hospitalized symptomatic COVID-19 patients
Herold et al found a strong association between elevated interleukin-6 (IL-6) and the need for mechanical ventilation in 40 hospitalized patients. The patients did not differ in age, comorbidities, radiological findings, respiratory rate of qSofa score. This suggests that IL-6 is an effective marker that could be used by physicians to predict upcoming respiratory failure…
Coronavirus Disease 2019 in Children—United States, February 12-April 2, 2020
The CDC COVID-19 Response Team reviewed lab confirmed pediatric cases of COVID-19 in the U.S. during February 12-April 2 and compared it to data on adults aged 18-64 years. Of the 149,082 (99.6%) cases for which age was known, 1.7% were among children under 18 years old and the median age was 11 years. Among…
Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 RNA Detected in Blood Donations
Wuhan Blood Center screened donations for SARS-CoV-2 RNA in real-time and retrospectively and found plasma samples positive for viral RNA from 4 asymptomatic donors. The study suggest that donors should call the blood donation center if they have any COVID-19 symptoms after donating, in case the donation occurred during the COVID-19 incubation period, and donations…
Patient-collected tongue, nasal, and mid-turbinate swabs for SARS-CoV-2 yield equivalent sensitivity to health care worker collected nasopharyngeal swabs.
This study explored the equivalency of patient-collected tongue, nasal and mid-turbinate samples to healthcare collected nasopharyngeal samples for detecting SARS-CoV-2. The sensitivity of patient collected samples was calculated to be above 90% and the sampling was feasible in ambulatory practice, even in cohorts of nearly 500 patients. Patient-collected sampling has several advantages over nasopharyngeal sampling:…
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