Coronavirus Tidbits #82 9/13/20

Real-time gene sequencing can help control — and may someday prevent — pandemics

https://www.statnews.com/2020/09/11/real-time-gene-sequencing-can-help-control-and-may-someday-prevent-pandemics/?

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The value of a meat worker's life? Not much...per OSHA

OSHA fined Smithfield Foods a whopping $13,494 for failure to protect meat processing workers from coronavirus infection; four died and more than a thousand fell ill. (Reuters)

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Racial/ethnic variation found in nasal gene expression of key protein used by SARS-CoV-2

Findings suggest one factor that may contribute to disparities in COVID-19 infection

--study only had 305 people!  but...

"The virus that causes COVID-19, SARS-Cov-2, uses transmembrane serine protease 2 (TMPRSS2) to facilitate entry and spread in the body," says Dr. Bunyavanich. "The degree to which a person expresses TMPRSS2 may affect how easy it is for the virus to get in and spread. We found that nasal expression of TMPRSS2 was significantly higher in Blacks than in Asians, Latinos, those of mixed race/ethnicity, and Whites. An important point is that gene expression is a dynamic reflection of personal, social, and environmental history, and many complex factors contribute to health disparities."

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2020-09/tmsh-rvf091020.php

https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jama/fullarticle/2770682?resultClick=1

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Mortality Rates From COVID-19 Are Lower In Unionized Nursing Homes

Health Affairs

More than 40% of all reported coronavirus disease-19 deaths in the United States have occurred in nursing homes. As a result, health care worker access to personal protective equipment (PPE) and infection control policies in nursing homes have received increased attention. However, it is not known if the presence of health care worker unions in nursing homes is associated with COVID-19 mortality rates. Therefore, we used cross-sectional regression analysis to examine the association between the presence of health care worker unions and COVID-19 mortality rates in 355 nursing homes in New York State. Health care worker unions were associated with a 1.29 percentage point mortality reduction, which represents a 30% relative decrease in the COVID-19 mortality rate compared to facilities without health care worker unions. Unions were also associated with greater access to PPE, one mechanism that may link unions to lower COVID-19 mortality rates.

https://www.healthaffairs.org/doi/full/10.1377/hlthaff.2020.01011?

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COVID-19 may have been in LA as early as last December, UCLA-led study suggests

Researchers detected an unexpected 50% increase in patients presenting with respiratory illnesses at UCLA Health facilities in the months before the pandemic

This sudden spike in patients with these symptoms, which continued through February 2020, represents an unexpected 50% increase in such cases when compared with the same time period in each of the previous five years.

The findings, the study authors say, demonstrate the importance of analyzing electronic health records to monitor and quickly identify irregular changes in patient populations.

The study appears in the peer-reviewed Journal of Medical Internet Research.

https://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2020-09/uoc--cmh090820.php

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Many skipping medical care d/t Covid

31.5% of adults had avoided routine care and 12% had avoided urgent or emergency care due to COVID-19.

https://www.healio.com/news/primary-care/20200910/more-than-40-of-us-adults-skipped-medical-care-since-covid19

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Every Body Counts: Measuring Mortality from the COVID-19

Pandemic

As of mid-August 2020, more than 170 000 U.S. residents have died of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19); however, the true number of deaths resulting from COVID-19, both directly and indirectly, is likely to be much higher. The proper attribution of deaths to this pandemic has a range of societal, legal, mortuary, and public health consequences...

actionable estimates of excess mortality will require timely access to standardized and structured vital registry data, which should be shared directly at the state level to ensure rapid response for local governments. Correct attribution of direct and indirect deaths and estimation of excess mortality are complementary goals that are critical to our understanding of the pandemic and its effect on human life.

https://www.acpjournals.org/doi/10.7326/M20-3100

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Wildfires may be worsening Covid

Bad timing for ongoing wildfires on the West Coast: there may not be enough N95 masks for everyone, people are staying indoors together and increasing the risk of virus transmission, and air quality is so poor that COVID testing sites are shuttering.

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Scientists Find That Social Distancing Reduces COVID-19’s Infection Rate by Approximately 1% per Day

What researchers found was:

• Beginning 4 days after social distancing, the case growth rate declined by ~ 1% per day.
• Beginning 7 days after social distancing, the mortality growth rate decreased by 2% per day...

The authors’ findings imply that social distancing reduced the total number of COVID-19 cases substantially every week:

• 1st week by approximately 1,600.
• 2nd week by approximately 55,000
• 3rd week by approximately 600,000

https://www.zmescience.com/science/social-distancing-reduces-covid-rate-0432423/