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February 19, 2021
Decline in Receipt of Vaccines by Medicare Beneficiaries During the COVID-19 Pandemic – United States, 2020
During the first week after the national COVID-19 emergency declaration in March 2020, weekly vaccination rates for bacterial pneumonia, tetanus-diphtheria-pertussis, and shingles among Medicare beneficiaries over the age of 65 declined by 25% to 62% compared with the corresponding period in 2019. Vaccination rates among racial and ethnic minority adults were lower than were those…
SARS-CoV-2 Positivity on or After 9 Days Among Quarantined Student Contacts of Confirmed Cases
Among student contacts of confirmed COVID-19 cases in Florida between August and November 2020, a protocol requiring a negative RT-PCR test as early as day 9 of quarantine reduced the loss of instruction days compared to a conventional 14-day quarantine without testing. The number of missed days decreased by 3,649 days with the 9-day testing…
Multicenter Evaluation of the PanbioTM COVID-19 Rapid Antigen-Detection Test for the Diagnosis of SARS-CoV-2 Infection
A prospective multi-center study conducted in Spain found that the PanbioTM COVID-19 Ag Rapid Test Device, which tests for SARS-CoV-2 using nasopharyngeal swabs, has an overall sensitivity of 91% and specificity of 99%. Among the 128 asymptomatic participants who had close contact with a COVID-19 patient, there was full concordance in the 31 (24%) who…
Self-Collected Oral Fluid Saliva Is Insensitive Compared With Nasal-Oropharyngeal Swabs in the Detection of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 in Outpatients
A study of people with confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infection suggests that self-collected oral fluid is significantly less sensitive for diagnosis than self-collected nasal-oropharyngeal specimens, especially after five days have passed since the onset of symptoms. Of the samples, which were matched by patient, 60 were concordantly negative, 45 concordantly positive, and 66 were discordant (63 nasal-OP…
Required and Voluntary Occupational Use of Hazard Controls for COVID-19 Prevention in Non-Health Care Workplaces – United States, June 2020
46% of non-remote, non–health care workers used hazard controls to prevent COVID (e.g., physical barriers, masks, and other personal protective equipment). Although 56% of workers surveyed reported required use at work, higher-income workers were more likely to report required use and to use hazard controls than were lower-income workers. Among workers not using hazard controls,…
February 18, 2021
Effectiveness of Interventions to Reduce COVID-19 Transmission in a Large Urban Jail: A Model-Based Analysis
A transmission model calibrated to an outbreak in a large urban US jail estimated that R0 for the first outbreak phase was as high as 8.44. Non-pharmaceutical interventions including reducing the size of the jail population (depopulation), single celling, and asymptomatic testing reduced R0 to 0.58 by day 37, preventing approximately 83% of the projected…
Innate Cell Profiles during the Acute and Convalescent Phase of SARS-CoV-2 Infection in Children
Cell profiles of children (n=48, aged <18 years) with clinically mild SARS-CoV-2 were characterized by reduced circulating subsets of monocytes, dendritic cells, and natural killer cells during the acute phase of infection. In contrast, adults with SARS-CoV-2 infection (n=70) showed reduced proportions of non-classical monocytes only. Both children and adults who were exposed to SARS-CoV-2…
Surge Effects and Survival to Hospital Discharge in Critical Care Patients with COVID-19 during the Early Pandemic: A Cohort Study
The odds of surviving to hospital discharge among critical COVID-19 patients increased over time in a retrospective cohort study (n=620) in the western US from February to May 20. Overall, 403 (65%) patients were discharged alive, increasing from 60% to 68% between the first 2 weeks of the study period to the last 2 weeks….
Viral Load of SARS-CoV-2 in Adults during the First and Second Wave of COVID-19 Pandemic in Houston, TX: The Potential of the Super-Spreader
Analysis of RT-PCR test results in Houston, Texas across two epidemiologic waves from March to August 2020 (n=11,64 samples) show that an increase in the viral load among the samples tested that week preceded the peak of each wave by approximately two weeks. This relationship was more evident during the second wave when the city…
Serum Neutralizing Activity Elicited by MRNA-1273 Vaccine — Preliminary Report
Neutralizing activity of sera from recipients of the 2-dose Moderna vaccine in the phase 1 trial (n=45) were similar against a SARS-CoV-2 pseudovirus bearing the spike protein from the original Wuhan-Hu-1 isolate, the D614G variant, as well as against 20E (EU1), 20A.EU2, N439K-D614G, and mink cluster 5 variants. In contrast, neutralizing titers against the D614G…
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