Sep 18th, 2021 - This study aimed to evaluate the educational concerns and awareness level among dental hygiene students during the COVID-19 pandemic. A questionnaire, created via Google Forms, was sent electronically to 240 dental hygiene students from Turkey; of which, 223 replied to the survey. The questionnaire was divided into 4 parts and consisted of 24 close-ended questions. The main symptoms of COVID-19...

Sep 18th, 2021 - SARS-CoV-2 can remain transiently viable on surfaces. We examined if use of shared chairs in outpatient hemodialysis associates with a risk for indirect patient-to-patient transmission of SARS-CoV-2. We used data from adults treated at 2,600 hemodialysis facilities in United States between February 1st and June 8th, 2020. We performed a retrospective case-control study matching each SARS-CoV-2 ...

Sep 18th, 2021 - Many persons with active SARS-CoV-2 infection experience mild or no symptoms, presenting barriers to COVID-19 prevention. Regular temperature screening is nonetheless used in some settings, including university campuses, to reduce transmission potential. We evaluated the potential impact of this strategy using a prospective university-affiliated cohort. Between June and August 2020, 2912 partic...

Sep 18th, 2021 - The severity of COVID-19, as well as the speed and scale of its spread, has posed a global challenge. Countries around the world have implemented stringent non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPI) to control transmission and prevent health systems from being overwhelmed. These NPI have had profound negative social and economic impacts. With the timeline to worldwide vaccine roll-out being uncerta...

Sep 17th, 2021 - An FDA advisory panel recommended emergency use authorization (EUA) of a booster dose of the Pfizer/BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine (Comirnaty) for individuals 65 and older, and those judged to be at high risk of severe COVID-19. On Friday, the FDA's Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (VRBPAC) voted 18-0 that the known and potential benefits of a booster dose outweighed the k...

Sep 17th, 2021 - Every year, respiratory viruses exact a heavy burden on Canadian hospitals during winter months. Generalizable seasonal patterns of respiratory virus transmission may estimate the evolution of SARS-CoV-2 or other emerging pathogens. To describe the annual and biennial variation in respiratory virus seasonality in a northern climate. This cohort study is an epidemiological assessment using popul...

Sep 17th, 2021 - Access to healthcare has been strongly affected by the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, which has raised concerns about the increased risk of delays in receiving medical care. This study aimed to assess the patients' impressions of after-hour house-call (AHHC) medical services during the COVID-19 pandemic using a patient questionnaire. This was a cross-sectional observational study...

Sep 17th, 2021 - Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) has become a global crisis. However, cutaneous manifestations in children with SARS-CoV-2 infection have received little attention. Our study was aimed to present clinical and cutaneous manifestations of children with SARS-CoV-2 and to provide the basis for early diagnosis. We analyzed the clinical data of COVID-19 infected (CI) child...

Sep 16th, 2021 - The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has posted its review of Pfizer's application for permission to market a third dose of its COVID-19 vaccine to the public, setting the stage for what is likely to be a hot debate on Friday among an independent panel of experts that advises that agency on its regulatory decisions. "It's going to be a split vote. There's no way they're going to reach unan...

Sep 16th, 2021 - Understanding viral kinetics of SARS-CoV-2 is important to assess risk of transmission, manage treatment, and determine the need for isolation and protective equipment. The impact of viral load in asymptomatic infected children is important to understand transmission potential. We sought to determine whether children deemed to be asymptomatic had a difference in the PCR cycle threshold (Ct) val...

Sep 16th, 2021 - The rapid spread of the Delta variant suggests that SARS-CoV-2 will likely keep rampant for months or years and could claim millions of more lives. All known vaccines cannot well defeat SARS-CoV-2 except neglected live attenuated vaccines (LAVs), which could have much higher efficacy and much higher production efficiency than other vaccines. LAVs have well defeated more pathogenic viruses than ...

Sep 16th, 2021 - Genomic surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 plays an important role in COVID-19 pandemic control and elimination efforts, especially by elucidating its global transmission network and illustrating its viral evolution. The deployment of multiplex PCR assays that target SARS-CoV-2 followed by either massively parallel or nanopore sequencing is a widely-used strategy to obtain genome sequences from primary...

Sep 16th, 2021 - During the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, noninvasive respiratory support has played a central role in managing patients affected by moderate-to-severe acute hypoxemic respiratory failure, despite inadequate scientific evidence to support its usage. High-flow nasal cannula (HFNC) treatment has gained tremendous popularity because of its effectiveness in delivering a high fraction...

Sep 16th, 2021 - Starting in late 2019, COVID-19, caused by the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, spread around the world. Long-term care facilities are at particularly high risk of outbreaks, and the burden of morbidity and mortality is very high among residents living in these facilities. To assess the effects of non-pharmacological measures implemented in long-term care facilities to prevent or reduce the transm...

Sep 16th, 2021 - To examine the literature assessing safety of air travel relating to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) transmission from January 2020 to May 2021. The COVID-19 pandemic has had an unprecedented impact on air travel and global mobility, and various efforts are being implemented to determine a safe way forward. As the pandemic evolves, so do the challenges that force various stakeholders, inclu...

Sep 16th, 2021 - In this study, we formulate and analyze a deterministic model for the transmission of COVID-19 and evaluate control strategies for the epidemic. It has been well documented that the severity of the disease and disease related mortality is strongly correlated with age and the presence of co-morbidities. We incorporate this in our model by considering two susceptible classes, a high risk, and a l...

Sep 16th, 2021 - Complementing whole genome sequencing strategies with high-throughput multiplex RT-qPCR genotyping allows for more comprehensive and real-time tracking of SARS-CoV-2 variants of concern. During the second and third waves of COVID-19 in Qatar, PCR genotyping, combined with Sanger sequencing of un-typeable samples, was employed to describe the epidemiology of the Alpha, Beta and Delta variants. A...

Sep 15th, 2021 - The COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2) pandemic has profoundly impacted almost every aspect of healthcare systems worldwide, placing the health and safety of frontline healthcare workers at risk and still continues to remain an important public health challenge. Several hospitals have put in place strategies to manage space, staff, and supplies in order to continue to deliver optimum care to patients while ...

Sep 15th, 2021 - SARS-CoV-2 epidemiology implicates airborne transmission; aerosol infectiousness and impacts of masks and variants on aerosol shedding are not well understood. We recruited COVID-19 cases to give blood, saliva, mid-turbinate and fomite (phone) swabs, and 30-minute breath samples while vocalizing into a Gesundheit-II, with and without masks at up to two visits two days apart. We quantified and s...

Sep 15th, 2021 - Mother-to-child transmission of SARS-CoV-2 might occur during the antepartum (in utero), intrapartum, and/or postpartum period. Theoretically, in utero transmission is possible in cases of maternal COVID-19 infection due to disruption in the placental interface or viral particles in the amniotic fluid as a result of viremia. Intrapartum and postpartum transmission might occur due to the neonate...