COVID-19

We may never know what triggered the global pandemic that has claimed more than 3.8 million lives…. What we do know for certain is that the incredible strength and collaboration of the scientific community have allowed us to regain some semblance of normalcy.

A multiplex PCR assay may be capable of simultaneously detecting and differentiating influenza viruses, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), and SARS-CoV-2.

I want to acknowledge [infection preventionists]. You all inspire me daily and I’m eternally grateful to work among you. We work to protect our health care personnel and patients fiercely and often to the point where we are burned out.

Here's one method of containing COVID-19 at nursing homes: Pair long-term care facilities (LTCF) staff and residents who've recovered with susceptible residents to help reduce transmission. It seems to work, says a study.

Far too few have been fully vaccinated in the U.S.to ward off a run on our hospitals, and avoiding hospitalizations is an extremely low bar for public health, since 10% to 30% of the patients even with mild to moderate disease will develop long COVID.

An integrated air management system requires proper engineering and not a pile-up approach of unproven products. One concern is that decision makers will fall into the nearsighted trap of selecting piecemeal products that require frequent maintenance.

Take 5 minutes to catch up on Infection Control Today®’s highlights for the week ending June 18.

The threat of novel variants that are more transmissible is deeply worrisome as we work to vaccinate the world.

The first official case may have been recorded January 20, 2020, but recent evidence suggests that COVID came home for the holidays in the U.S. in mid-December of that year.

Paul Sax, MD: “It’s almost inevitable that even though we’re at very low infection rates right now that that's going to increase when the season changes, again, in the fall and winter. Coronaviruses are seasonal.”

Two doses of COVID-19 vaccines seem to be able to somewhat nullify the effects of the highly transmissible Delta variant, but fewer than 50% of adults in the United States have gotten two doses.

One junior at New Jersey’s Rutgers University, the first to mandate COVID-19 vaccination, said, “I’m not antivax, I’m anti-mandate. My education should not be restricted based on my personal decision to receive the COVID-19 vaccination.”

The most poorly fitting mask can almost double the risk of infection for the wearers and even those around them.

Shortened quarantines for employees located through contact tracing might have made COVID-19 spread “exponentially,” a study suggests.

Take 5 minutes to catch up on Infection Control Today®’s highlights for the week ending June 11.

Underlying conditions make young people more vulnerable to COVID-19, while the U.K. continues reopening despite the rise of the Delta variant.

Houston Methodist Hospital’s action occurs as the spreading of the COVID-19 Delta variant catches the eye of health care officials in the United States.

Investigators with Columbia University School of Nursing found that COVID-19 infections were 13.6 percentage points higher in nursing homes with 50% or more Black residents, and deaths were 3.5 percentage points higher, compared with nursing homes with no Black residents.

As long as the immune escape variants are on the rise in the U.S. and less than half of our population is fully vaccinated, the best advice is to continue public health strategies.

The CDC’s Lynnette Brammer: “We always had talked about being prepared for an influenza pandemic. And being able to scale up our systems. Well, COVID scaled up our systems way more than we ever dreamed about scaling up for.”

Some fear that hospitals will become “Robots R Us” environments, but that is unlikely. Chatbots, although useful, are poor stand-ins for in-depth, in-person conversation with a health care provider. And if COVID-19 did anything, it put a million faces to the tragedy of what it’s like to die without human contact.

Jody Feigel, RN, MSN: “A few years ago, nobody wanted to hear from infection prevention. Now, everybody wants to hear from infection prevention.”

The new approach to naming COVID-19 variants utilizes the Greek alphabet.

The U.S. Department of Defense signed a contract with a U.S. company that will boost capacity of nitrile glove production in the U.S. by 2.31 billion gloves per year by May 2023.

Frontline health care workers have given their lives and livelihood for our safety and need to be remembered during this Memorial Day.

Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra: “Phase 2 of the COVID origins study must be launched with terms of reference that are transparent, science-based, and give international experts the independence to fully assess the source of the virus and the early days of the outbreak.”

The company reports that for fully vaccinated study participants aged 12-17 (2 doses administered) no cases of COVID-19 were reported.

In terms of severe post-acute complications from COVID-19, there is a low relative risk for those who were not admitted to the hospital.

The new CDC mask guidance came down so quickly that it just didn’t give people time to prepare, and it also ignores that we still have a majority of the population not fully vaccinated.

Efforts to pinpoint the pandemic’s cause might have been stymied by the Chinese Communist Party.