Abstract Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 has caused a pandemic in humans. Farmed mink (Neovison vison) are also susceptible. In Denmark, this virus has spread rapidly among farmed mink, resulting in some respiratory disease. Full-length virus genome sequencing revealed novel virus variants in mink. These variants subsequently appeared within the local human community. Severe acute [...]

Abstract The COVID-19 pandemic and related restrictions led to major transit demand decline for many public transit systems in the United States. This paper is a systematic analysis of the dynamics and dimensions of this unprecedented decline. Using transit demand data derived from a widely used transit navigation app, we fit logistic functions to model the [...]

Question  In a large county health care system with access to inpatient and outpatient testing, is severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection associated with pregnancy outcomes, maternal illness severity, placental pathology, and neonatal infections? Findings  In this cohort study of 252 SARS-CoV-2–positive and 3122 negative pregnant women tested in outpatient and inpatient settings at [...]

Two of Hong Kong’s top infectious disease experts advising the government on the coronavirus  pandemic warned on Thursday that the city’s fourth wave of Covid-19 had begun and called for urgent action, after health officials reported more than 30 confirmed and preliminary infections across various districts and sectors. All non-essential indoor gatherings should be postponed [...]

The issue of preventing healthcare-associated COVID-19 is very topical right now, to say the least (see this JAMA commentary), so now is a really good time to review what happened in our hospitals during the ‘first wave’ to help us prevent hospital transmission during the second. The study was performed during the first wave of COVID-19 in [...]

Abstract Environmental surveillance of surface contamination is an unexplored tool for understanding transmission of SARS-CoV-2 in community settings. We conducted longitudinal swab sampling of high-touch non-porous surfaces in a Massachusetts town during a COVID-19 outbreak from April to June 2020. Twenty-nine of 348 (8.3 %) surface samples were positive for SARS-CoV-2, including crosswalk buttons, trash can [...]

Although antimicrobial resistance has been a known and growing problem for decades, only one new class of antibiotics has been discovered since 1984. Tackling AMR requires a fundamental change in how new antibiotics are valued, and government incentives that reward biotech firms for successfully developing them.     PFahroni/iStock Read more… The post A Pandemic [...]

We read with interest the work by McQuaid et al. [1] exploring the potential impact of social distancing on global transmission of tuberculosis. Influenza is responsible for a large number of deaths, with the World Health Organization estimating up to 650 000 deaths per year globally [2]. We have explored the impact of social distancing on incidence of [...]

Critically ill patients with Covid-19 who have been treated with an arthritis drug that reduces inflammation are significantly more likely to have improved outcomes, according to early data from the REMAP-CAP trial. Led by Professor Anthony Gordon, Consultant in Intensive Care Medicine at Imperial College Healthcare NHS Trust, the research evaluated the effect of the treatment [...]

As the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) began to spread in the US in early 2020, older adults experienced disproportionately greater adverse effects from the pandemic including more severe complications, higher mortality, concerns about disruptions to their daily routines and access to care, difficulty in adapting to technologies like telemedicine, and concerns that isolation would exacerbate [...]