COVID-19

The Association for Professionals in Infection Control and Epidemiology (APIC) argues that nursing homes in New York should have a fulltime IP on staff.

The CDC encourages double-masking if it’s done correctly, meaning with a tight fit. The agency updated the guidance with an eye on worrisome new COVID variants.

We need to have mandatory reporting of worker and patient acquisition of SARS-CoV-2 and the development of COVID-19 with metrics to provide us the most accurate estimate of cases so we can effectively plan and allocate resources.

Linda Spaulding RN, BC, CIC, CHEC, CHOP: “Now the new challenge is going to be will we get definitive answers that the COVID tests that we’re currently doing will pick this variant up?”

Double-masking can prove more cumbersome for many. If the goal is to protect the mask underneath, perhaps consider a face shield or a strategy for cleaning the mask more frequently.

Ann Marie Pettis, RN, BSN, CIC, FAPIC: “COVID-19 just never seems to let up. And every time you think you might be making a little bit of progress, some new thing comes along, like right now with potential resistance because of mutations. You can never let your guard down.”

The good news? The fact that 3 different viruses with 3 different lineages came up with the same mutation to evade natural immunity and the vaccines. And initial reports are that it only partially evades the vaccines.

Contact tracing is reactive—the goal is to avoid these close contact exposures in which people are interacting without masks and indoors. Practice makes permanence after all.

“Infection control measures, including surveillance, education, cleaning/disinfection, patient cohorting, isolation, and hand hygiene, effectively contained the outbreak; it was declared over within 2 months.”

Beware the loophole. Many clinics are often classified as office space, not health care buildings, so they do not have adhered to ventilation standards.

Caitlin Stowe MPH, CPH, CIC: “There’s still a lot we don’t know about SARS-CoV-2 and the direct mechanisms of transmission…. It can be aerosolized. However, there is evidence of indirect transmission from surfaces to people.”

Concerning the possibility of a B.1.1.7 COVID-19 surge, Michael Osterholm, PhD, and a member of President Joe Biden’s transition team, does not mince words: “That hurricane’s coming.”

Mary Jean Ricci MSN, RNBC: “[Infection preventionists] really need to think about how we’re getting people from the assessment area to the vaccination area to the evaluation area in a unidirectional flow so that we don’t have the spread of the virus at the time of inoculation.”

Aside from being more contagious and deadlier, the B.1.1.7 strain of COVID-19 seems to pose a greater threat to children, some experts believe.

The topic of in-person school has been a heated one as the epidemiology around children has been something that’s taken a while to understand.

Sharon Ward-Fore, MS, MT(ASCP), CIC: “Infection preventionists need to remind people to be vigilant both in health care and outside of health care. Because we’re not done with this yet. We have a long way to go before we’re fully protected.”

Whether to make getting the COVID vaccine mandatory for health care workers is something that needs to be worked out against a backdrop that sees the recent surge subsiding and states starting to reopen.

British Prime Minister Boris Johnson said that the B.1.1.7 variant of COVID-19 which was said to be 50% to 70% more contagious, has now been discovered to also be 30% deadlier. The CDC warns it could become the dominant strain in the US by March.

Infection preventionists can coordinate with physicians and other subject matter experts on common areas of vaccine hesitancy among staff, and work with key stakeholders to address them. As vaccine rollouts begin, IPs can also partner with occupational health teams to track and trend compliance with vaccination.

Anthony Harris, MD, MBA, MPH: “There are a number of ways that [infection preventionists] are going to continue to be on the frontlines helping us fully understand the impact of COVID-19 and get to the other side of it.”

There are pieces of novel variants that we’re still learning about, like the impact to therapies and how these variants might affect what we know about COVID-19, like reinfection.

Devin Jopp, EdD, MS: “I think from sports teams to hospitality to construction sites, to many, many more, the infection prevention field will absolutely be bulging.”

Infection preventionists have the skill set to provide guidance beyond the health care setting. We know how to select PPE and how to use it. Cleaning and disinfection are like breathing to us.

If quick action isn’t taken, then the highly infectious B.1.1.7 variant of COVID-19 will become the main variant in the United States by March, further burdening our already overburdened health care system.

Infection preventionists need to educate primary health providers on the importance of utilizing monoclonal antibodies to prevent hospitalizations from severe COVID-19.

Linda Spaulding RN, BC, CIC, CHEC, CHOP: “There’s not enough literature out there yet to say that once you get the vaccine, you won’t get COVID again, and the literature that is out there says that once you get the vaccine, even if you don’t get COVID again, you can still be an asymptomatic carrier.”

It’s possible that infection preventionists and other health care workers who caught COVID-19 in the first wave can be reinfected.

Many members of environmental service teams feel underappreciated and these health care professionals are not trained in any systematic and continuous way, a study states.

Within the South African COVID strain scientists have found what they’re calling an “escape mutation” named E484K. It’s feared that this escape mutation will do just what the name implies—allow 501.V2 to escape vaccine antibodies.

Cedric Steiner: “But the nursing home…. One could make an argument that [infection control is] more important there in some ways, because you have those residents in smaller spaces."