Article Summary
March 29, 2021
Stochastic Sampling Effects Favor Manual over Digital Contact Tracing
A study using a stochastic model to compare manual and digital contact tracing methods found that even if the probability of tracing a contact was equal by each method, manual tracing robustly performed better than digital, after accounting for intrinsic delays and limited scalability associated with manual measures. The authors note that better performance of…
Symptoms of Anxiety or Depressive Disorder and Use of Mental Health Care Among Adults During the COVID-19 Pandemic — United States, August 2020–February 2021
The percentage of US adults reporting symptoms of an anxiety or depressive disorder in the past seven days increased from 36.4% in August 2020 to 41.5% in February 2021, and the percentage of those reporting an unmet mental health care need increased from 9.2% to 11.7%. Increases were largest among adults aged 18–29 years and…
Interim Estimates of Vaccine Effectiveness of BNT162b2 and MRNA-1273 COVID-19 Vaccines in Preventing SARS-CoV-2 Infection Among Health Care Personnel, First Responders, and Other Essential and Frontline Workers — Eight U.S. Locations, December 2020–March
The mRNA vaccines (Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna) were 90% effective at preventing SARS-CoV-2 infection after full immunization (≥14 days after second dose) and 80% after partial immunization (≥14 days after first dose but before second dose), according to interim estimates among 3,950 healthcare personnel, first responders, and other essential and frontline workers in multiple locations across…
Hemodialysis Patients Show a Highly Diminished Antibody Response after COVID-19 MRNA Vaccination Compared to Healthy Controls
[Pre-print, not peer-reviewed] Patients receiving hemodialysis had significantly lower anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibody titers than healthy controls 21 days after vaccination with the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine (171 U/ml versus 2500 U/ml, respectively), according to a prospective cohort study (n = 81 patients, 80 controls). There was no correlation between antibody responses to the Hepatitis B vaccine and the…
Counties with Lower Insurance Coverage Are Associated with Both Slower Vaccine Rollout and Higher COVID-19 Incidence across the United States
[Pre-print, not peer-reviewed] US counties with high levels of uninsured individuals had significantly lower COVID-19 vaccination rates and tended to have the highest COVID-19 incidence rates in March 2021 relative to December 2020, according to an analysis of data from over 1,500 counties (228 million individuals). Counties with higher percentages of Black and Hispanic individuals…
Quantitative SARS-CoV-2 Anti-Spike Responses to Pfizer-BioNTech and Oxford-AstraZeneca Vaccines by Previous Infection Status
[Pre-print, not peer-reviewed] Vaccination with either the Pfizer-BioNTech or Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccines led to detectable anti-spike antibodies in nearly all participants in a study of adult healthcare workers (HCWs) in the UK. 3570/3610 (98.9%) HCWs were seropositive >14 days post-first vaccination and prior to second vaccination, 2706/2720 (99.5%) after Pfizer-BioNTech and 864/890 (97.1%) following Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccines….
Single Dose of a MRNA SARS-CoV-2 Vaccine Is Associated with Lower Nasopharyngeal Viral Load among Nursing Home Residents with Asymptomatic COVID-19
Among nursing home residents in Pennsylvania with asymptomatic COVID-19 diagnosed through twice-weekly surveillance testing (n=10), residents who received a single dose of the BNT162b2 (Pfizer-BioNTech) vaccine had significantly lower nasopharyngeal viral load (-2.4 mean log10 lower) than unvaccinated residents. The authors note their results suggest a single dose may start to reduce transmission among nursing home…
Comparison of Cough Particle Exposure for Indoor Commercial and Aircraft Cabin Spaces
[Pre-print, not peer-reviewed] Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations from Boeing showed that in an airplane cabin (Boeing 737), 80% of particles from a coughing person were removed 5-12 times faster than from a similar indoor commercial space, which resulted in 7 times less particulate mass inhaled. Davis et al. (Mar 26, 2021). Comparison of Cough Particle…
SARS-CoV-2 Acquisition and Immune Pathogenesis Among School-Aged Learners in Four K-12 Schools
[Pre-print, not peer-reviewed] A study of SARS-CoV-2 infection in four schools (A-D) with either remote or onsite learning determined that infections in schools reflected regional infection rates rather than learning modality type (remote vs. onsite). School A (mostly low-income Hispanic students, remote instruction) had the highest frequency of infection (9/70, 12.9%) and IgG positivity (13/70,…
Evaluating the Effects of Shelter-in-Place Policies during the COVID-19 Pandemic
A study of shelter-in-place (SIP) policies during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic (February 24 – May 30, 2020) in the US did not find the SIP policies impacted disease spread or deaths, but did impact mobility and unemployment. The authors note that SIP policies may not have made meaningfully impacts on behaviors beyond…
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