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June 7, 2021
Marked Increase in Avidity of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) Antibodies 7-8 Months after Infection Is Not Diminished in Old Age
A study assessing the avidity, or binding strength, of IgG among 217 participants in Austria soon after SARS-CoV-2 infection and 7-8 months later found that avidity increased from 18% to 42% and did not diminish among older participants. High avidity was associated with a residual neutralization capacity in 97% of participants (211/217). The authors suggest…
Symptomatic Acute Myocarditis in Seven Adolescents Following Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 Vaccination
Reports from seven cases of acute myocarditis (inflammation of the heart) or myopericarditis among adolescent males who developed chest pain within four days of receiving the Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine and were hospitalized found that six of seven patients had negative SARS-CoV-2 nucleocapsid antibody assays (indicating no prior infection), and all patients’ symptoms resolved quickly. Three patients…
Naturally Acquired SARS-CoV-2 Immunity Persists for up to 11 Months Following Infection
A longitudinal study of convalescent plasma donors (n = 228) detected anti-SARS-CoV-2 antibodies in 97% of donors at initial presentation, and found that 91.4% of the 116 donors presenting for repeat timepoints had detectable IgG levels up to 11 months post-symptom recovery. The VITROS® Anti-SARS-CoV-2 Total and IgG assays, and an in-house fluorescence reduction neutralization…
Adverse Events Following MRNA SARS-CoV-2 Vaccination among U.S. Nursing Home Residents
No major safety problems were detected following the first or second dose of either of the two mRNA SARS-CoV-2 vaccines in a study of electronic health records from US nursing home residents (n = 8,553) between December 18, 2020 and March 7, 2021. The analysis of pre-specified adverse events did not detect statistical signals for…
Early Monoclonal Antibody Administration Can Reduce Both Hospitalizations and Mortality in High-Risk Outpatients with COVID-19
Treatment with monoclonal antibody (mAb) therapy, including casirivimab/imdevimab and bamlanivimab, was associated with a significant reduction in the frequency of hospitalization compared to controls not receiving mAb treatment (1.7% vs. 24%) in a retrospective study of 617 outpatients with COVID-19 classified as high-risk (n = 175 received mAb). There were no COVID-19-related deaths in the…
2020 SARS-CoV-2 Diversification in the United States Establishing a Pre-Vaccination Baseline
[Pre-print, not peer-reviewed] A study investigating SARS-CoV-2 genetic diversity in the US using sequences publicly available prior to December 15th, 2020, when vaccination was initiated in the U.S., found that the regional distribution of COVID-19 cases varied by pandemic phase and was not always correlated with the level of viral sequencing in different regions. In…
Early Epidemiological Signatures of Novel SARS-CoV-2 Variants Establishment of B.1.617.2 in England
[Pre-print, not peer-reviewed] A study in the UK suggested that many SARS-CoV-2 cases were S-gene positive, a pattern associated with the B.1.617.2 variant, which the authors suggest may become dominant over B.1.1.7. In early 2021, the majority of positive SARS-CoV-2 tests in England were genomically sequenced (74% in April 2021), with the sequencing subject to…
Comparative Household Secondary Attack Rates Associated with B.1.1.7 B.1.351 and P.1 SARS-CoV-2 Variants
[Pre-print, not peer-reviewed] A study conducted in Ontario, Canada found that household secondary attack rates were 20.2% for wild-type, 25.1% for B.1.1.7, 27.2% for B.1.351 or P.1, and 23.3% for non-variants of concern (VOC) mutations in SARS-CoV-2. Cases were grouped into households based on reported residential address: 7,555 (28%) were wild-type, 17,058 (63%) were B.1.1.7,…
Early Epidemiological Evidence of Public Health Value of WA Notify a Smartphone-Based Exposure Notification Tool Modeling COVID-19 Cases Averted in Washington State
[Pre-print, not peer-reviewed] A study of the impact of Washington State’s exposure notification tool, WA Notify, in mitigating the spread of COVID-19 during the first four months of implementation found that based on an estimated COVID-19 case fatality of 1.4%, WA Notify saved 30-120 lives over this period. A model was run on a range…
June 4, 2021
COVID-19 Case Investigation and Contact Tracing in the US, 2020
A cross-sectional study of contact tracing programs in 13 US health departments and 1 Indian Health Service Unit across 11 states found that 2 out of 3 individuals with SARS-CoV-2 infection (N=74,185) were either not reached for interview or named no contacts when interviewed. A mean of 0.7 contacts per case were reached by telephone…
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