COVID-19

After the Delta surge subsides, another surge is expected, possibly from the Mu variant. If Mu completely escapes immunity from vaccines and past infections, we must resort to stringent public health strategies.

Touchdown! Attendance at professional and college football games may resume with COVID-19 mitigation measures, according to a study. But will the delta variant move the goalpost?

The outbreak underscores the Delta variant’s potential for rapid spread especially in schoolchildren who are too young to be vaccinated.

Close to 85% of people hospitalized with COVID-19 said that they were not back to their pre-COVID lifestyle 1 month later, says the study.

Investigators created models which estimated the number of COVID-19 deaths and cases that would have occurred if the early vaccine campaign had never happened.

Questions that dog gain-of-function research relate to oversight of these potentially lethal projects and the secrecy surrounding them. Did such research cause COVID-19 to leak out of a laboratory in Wuhan, China?

Health care workers were significantly more likely to become infected and have severe symptoms, the study found.

In a study that has not yet been peer reviewed and had been done on mice, Japanese investigators pinpoint Delta variant mutations that might be able to evade COVID-19 vaccine antibodies.

Take 5 minutes to catch up on Infection Control Today’s highlights for the week ending August 27.

Infection preventionists and the hospital leadership teams need to communicate with all stakeholders to balance the health of the community and protect the current and future workforce.

Officials originally said that the boosters would be available 8 months after the last dose, but they’ve changed that to 6. That should help older Americans. But what about children?

In Beijing the total cases in an outbreak were reported to be less than 10. China used over 100 million tests to eradicate what would be classified as a very small outbreak by US standards.

CDC data cut to the heart of just how much protection COVID-19 vaccines offer infection preventionists (IPs) and other health care professionals on the frontlines from the delta variant.

Vaccines for children 5–12 who seem to be more vulnerable to the delta variant than earlier iterations of COVID-19 might come in the fall. Good news, but vaccines alone—for all age groups—represent only one layer of mitigation, some experts argue.

There needs to be a national standard for measuring the effectiveness of personal protective equipment at its most vulnerable spot—the wrist, urge CDC investigators.

Officials with the American Academy of Pediatrics stress that there’s no need for alarm but they do urge that more data be collected concerning children and COVID-19 infection, and they also note that there’s still no vaccine for youngsters 5–12.

Health care experts hope that the move will induce the vaccine hesitant—in the public, and among health care professionals—to get inoculated in the hope that that will stem the rising tide of the delta variant.

Testing of the infant of the COVID-19–positive mother requires 2 negative COVID-19 tests 2 days apart. This time delay adds to the challenge of ensuring available isolation beds.

Take 5 minutes to catch up on Infection Control Today’s highlights for the week ending August 20.

US health officials unveiled a booster shot program this week that says that some people should get the shots 8 months after their last initial dose. Where did that number come from?

While the US significantly struggles against this fourth COVID-19 wave, it’s critical we communicate that the vaccines are just 1 strategy—not the only strategy.

Only 40% of nursing home employees are vaccinated. Nursing home advocates counter that vaccine hesitancy exists in all health care settings, and if nursing home employees must get the vaccine, the same should apply to all health care workers in the United States.

In the Middle Ages a pandemic wiped out 50% of the world’s population. Presently we have a much higher population density, making us a feeding buffet for infectious disease…. If we do not follow the recommendations of modern science and public health, we are no better off than if we were living in the Middle Ages.

Booster shots for the adult population in the United States is feasible. The US currently has a stockpile of approximately 100 million COVID-19 vaccine doses. But, some ask, what about the poorer countries?

Herd immunity is no longer possible, the virus is mutating and likely has animal hosts. We must raise the bar on public health outcomes, not only focusing on deaths but also morbidity and long-hauler syndrome which can be all too common, even occurring with vaccine breakthrough infections.