Frank Diamond

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."

Assume that everybody in a hospital setting is an asymptomatic carrier of COVID-19, two recent studies suggest.

Linda Spaulding RN, BC, CIC, CHEC, CHOP: “Infection preventionists need to learn how to clean an endoscope, or at least observe the cleaning…. Infection preventionists need to make rounds, they need to talk to the person processing.”

Kevin Kavanagh, MD: “One of the things that’s really frustrated me with this epidemic and pandemic is that people are totally focused on dying…. But in actuality, the disabilities are much, much more concerning because that is even affecting the young people.”

Yesterday, 3775 people died from COVID-19; that’s the highest single-day death total since the pandemic began, according to Johns Hopkins University. According to the COVID Tracking Project, 131,135 people were hospitalized yesterday for COVID-19, another single-day record.

Just how much more serious of a threat South Africa’s 501Y.V2 COVID variant represents has yet to be definitively answered, but British health officials argue that it’s much worse than the UK’s B117.

Maureen Vowles: “I think that the relationship between infection preventionists and public health is key to the success of preventing CRAB and other multi-drug resistant organisms.”

Kristy Warren: “We need to do everything we can to help protect our providers when performing these aerosol generating procedures. And subsequently those providers that enter the room or exit the room after these procedures have occurred.”

Paula J. Olsiewski, PhD: “Healthcare workers at hospitals are always concerned about the air because historically, we know many disease agents are transmitted through the air, whether it’s measles or tuberculosis. Those appear on the scene long before COVID-19.”

Ravi Starzl, PhD: “If you’re constantly focused on trying to escalate the war of destruction, I think that the bacteria will always win that war. They just have too many countermeasures available to them and our rate of developing new antibiotics is far slower than their rate of developing countermeasures.”

Healthcare experts around the world worry that the COVID-19 mutation—called VUI–202012/01—might be 70% more infectious than the standard SARS-CoV-2 strain. There are no indications yet that it may also be more lethal or that vaccines can’t neutralize it.

Bruce Y. Lee, MD, MBA: “We have to remember that infection control and prevention is not just dealing with the pathogen itself but dealing with the consequences and the downstream effects of what happens when you are dealing with the pathogen.”

An advisory panel to the FDA voted 17-4, with 1 abstention, to tell the FDA to approve the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine. US Health and Human Services secretary Alex Azar says that approval may come in days.

Sharon Ward-Fore, MS, MT(ASCP), CIC: “If it were my institution, I would make sure that infection preventionists are educated on everything they need to know about the COVID vaccine, as well as the flu vaccine side effects.”

Public acceptance of a COVID-19 vaccine is far from a lock. A nurse who participated in a trial for one of the vaccines up for FDA approval worries that side-effects will diminish uptake.

Healthcare experts warn that we still have not felt the full effects of the surge that’s sure to come from the Thanksgiving holiday.

The CDC says that people without symptoms can stop quarantining on day 10 without getting a COVID-19 test. People who are tested and test negative, can stop quarantining on day 7.

Rebecca Leach: “I think the biggest thing is just having support, whoever it is. If it’s a fellow infection preventionist…. It really is that emotional support of being able to talk to each other about your experiences and really process your feelings.”

The United States recorded 3157 COVID-19 deaths yesterday, the highest number in a single day and more than 20% higher than the previous record of 2603 deaths set back on April 15.

Healthcare providers, according to the CDC advisory panel, includes workers at hospitals, outpatient clinics, long-term care facilities, public health agencies, home healthcare firms, pharmacies, and emergency medical services. About 24 million Americans in all.

When an 850-bed urban hospital fought off COVID-19 in part by having to relax infection prevention protocols, the opportunistic and deadly carbapenem-resistant Acinetobacter baumannii (CRAB) struck.

Kevin Kavanagh, MD: “I would tell the Supreme Court that it’s very important that all high-risk venues are treated equally, but the remedy isn’t opening up one high-risk venue, the remedy should be closing down all high-risk venues.”

Susan E. Campbell, PhD, CIC: “In many cases, perhaps not all cases, but in many cases, infection preventionists can adapt what they know in the hospital setting and make it work in other settings.”

The photograph captures the human anguish caused by COVID-19. The elderly man just wanted to go home and see his wife for Thanksgiving. A doctor tried to comfort him.

CRAB has chameleon-like tendencies that allow it to absorb material from other organisms, and that allows it to ward off most antibiotics. It’s a Superbug.

The study states that “annual vaccination is necessary to maintain humoral immunity for the elderly population. Furthermore, our findings revealed that annual seasonal vaccination was not associated with reduced vaccine effectiveness….”

Susan E. Campbell, PhD, CIC, offers advice to infection preventionists and other healthcare professionals who’ll be working Thanksgiving on how to safely eat their holiday meal together.

Infection preventionists must brace themselves for a huge influx of COVID patients, as more data reveal just how formidable of a foe this novel coronavirus can be.

The CDC warns that it’s possible that the number of hospitalizations due to COVID-19 are likely to rise every day for the next 4 to 10 weeks, further straining an already strained healthcare system.

Kevin Kavanagh, MD: “I would be more worried about getting the family together for next Thanksgiving than this Thanksgiving. And if you’re going to get your family together this Thanksgiving, you may not have all members together next Thanksgiving, and that’s what needs to be remembered.”