Respiratory Infections News

Experts said during a media briefing Thursday that the impact of COVID-19 on the tuberculosis epidemic is even worse than they predicted a year ago.

The Severe COVID-19 Adaptive Risk Predictor, or SCARP, tool showed greater than 80% accuracy in predicting a patient’s progression from moderate to severe COVID-19 disease or death within 14 days of hospitalization, researchers wrote.

Researchers reported that African American and Hispanic health care workers were more likely to test positive for SARS-CoV-2 antibodies than non-Hispanic white health care workers.

U.S. counties with high social vulnerability had lower COVID-19 vaccination coverage rates than counties with low social vulnerability during the first few months of rollout efforts, according to research published in MMWR.

Influenza-associated aspergillosis, or IAA, is uncommon in ICU patients in the United States, with a prevalence of 0.3%, according to an analysis of health insurance claims data.

Moderna announced that it started a phase 2/3 trial for its messenger RNA COVID-19 vaccine in children aged 6 months to 12 years.

Several more European countries have halted the rollout of AstraZeneca’s COVID-19 vaccine following reports of blood clots in people who have received it.

CMS has announced that it is increasing the Medicare payment rate for administering COVID-19 vaccine doses, in some instances by more than 75%.

Among the millions of Americans who received both doses of the Moderna or Pfizer-BioNTech vaccines during the first 2 months of the vaccination program, most received the second dose within the recommended time frame, according to the CDC.

Results from a study of 251 Massachusetts school districts suggest that maintaining a physical distance of 3 feet in schools may be safe, “provided other mitigation measures, such a as universal masking, are implemented,” researchers said.