The White House Covid-19 Response Team and federal public health officials hold a press briefing to provide updates on the Covid-19 response effort. Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases and chief medical advisor to the president, joins the briefing along with Dr. Vivek Murthy, surgeon general of the U.S., Jeff Zients, White House …
There is still much to be understood about the factors influencing the ecology and epidemiology of COVID-19. In particular, whether environmental variation is likely to drive seasonal changes in SARS-CoV-2 transmission dynamics is largely unknown. In a study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America (PNAS), the effects of the environment on …
Reported in a Medical Press article, a team of infectious disease modelers at Northeastern University has been answering the question “when will the pandemic be over” since January. The group has been developing a set of predictive models to project the future of the outbreak in various scenarios for the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as part of …
As we are all aware, the COVID-19 pandemic has hit our communities hard. Despite guidelines on co-horting and testing, and our efforts to protect our residents, nursing homes experienced large outbreaks. In a recent study published in JAMA Network Open, a discussion on whether pre-symptomatic and asymptomatic transmission could be the reason. Long-term separation after recovery kept the non-COVID-19 residents …
The CDC has updated the website to include healthcare facilities in production for COVID-19 electronic case reporting. Electronic case reporting (eCR) is the automated, real-time exchange of case report information between electronic health records and public health agencies. In partnership with the Association of Public Health Laboratories (APHL) and the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists (CSTE), CDC is rapidly …
The CDC has posted a forecast model for new cases of COVID-19 and deaths related to the virus. The data and how it is determined are outlined on the website. It is interesting information especially now that we are all relaxing and letting our guard down. Not to raise concern as much as to keep us informed as we move …
In a recent study published in PNAS, researchers explained how airborne transmission arises through the inhalation of aerosol droplets exhaled by an infected person and is now thought to be the primary transmission route of COVID-19. Their assumption is that the respiratory droplets are mixed uniformly through an indoor space. The study discusses a theoretical model that quantifies the extent …
The Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME), an independent global health research center at the University of Washington, made predictions about the future of the pandemic, including that April would be a turning point for COVID-19 vaccines. That said, predicting future cases and deaths has been made even more difficult due to mutating variants of the virus, including the …
A New York Department of Health surveyor auditing a Bronx nursing home exposed residents and staff to COVID-19 per a source at Fox News. According to an employee at Pelham Parkway Nursing Home, a team of health department surveyors began auditing the facility on April 5. While department guidance “strongly encourages” all visitors to be tested before entering a nursing …
The World Health Organization China Joint Mission reported human-to-human transmission in China largely occurred within families, accounting for 78% to 85% of clusters in Guangdong and Sichuan provinces. Stay-at-home orders reduced human mobility by 35% to 63% in the United States, 63% in the United Kingdom, and 54% in Wuhan, relative to normal conditions. This decrease in mobility increased time …
