Respiratory Infections News

An expert panel told federal officials late Monday that AstraZeneca “may have included outdated information” in a press release announcing results from a trial of its COVID-19 vaccine candidate, the NIH said.

Patients with COVID-19-associated pulmonary aspergillosis, or CAPA, experience worse outcomes than COVID-19 patients who do not have the fungal infection, according to study results published in Clinical Infectious Diseases.

Recent study findings suggested that symptomatic children infected with SARS-CoV-2 had higher viral loads in their upper airways compared with asymptomatic children.

AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine demonstrated an overall efficacy of 79% against symptomatic disease and completely prevented severe disease or hospitalization in a trial conducted partly in the United States, the company said Monday.

About one-third of patients who reported having COVID-19 symptoms weeks after diagnosis were initially asymptomatic, according to a preprint study in medRxiv.

The CDC updated its guidance and now recommends that students in K-12 public schools can maintain at least 3 feet of physical distancing with universal masking in the classroom setting, with some exceptions.

The Infectious Diseases Society of America has updated its treatment guidelines for COVID-19 for several therapies, including tocilizumab, ivermectin and bamlanivimab with etesevimab.

Patients who were previously infected with COVID-19 were about 85% less likely to develop symptomatic reinfection and 80% less likely to develop reinfection in general over the next 8 months, according to researchers.

A new variant of SARS-CoV-2 identified in New York — B.1.526 — has increased in prevalence since it was first observed in samples collected in November 2020, according to researchers.

The European Medicines Agency, or EMA, has concluded its investigation of AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine and declared it safe to use.