Respiratory Infections News

Adults who said a health care provider recommended that they receive a COVID-19 vaccine were more likely to get one, data published in MMWR show.

The front page of Infectious Disease News was dominated this year by stories about COVID-19 and its impact on health care.

The omicron variant, which has been in the United States since at least mid-November, has now been confirmed in at least 36 states and more than 75 countries, CDC Director Rochelle P. Walensky, MD, MPH, said Wednesday.

Although influenza activity continues to increase in the United States, it remains low enough that the CDC does not consider the flu season to have started yet, a CDC expert said.

Among children with asthma, social risk interventions were associated with decreased asthma-related ED visits and hospitalizations, researchers reported in JAMA Pediatrics.

A final analysis confirmed that Pfizer’s investigational oral antiviral, Paxlovid, reduced the risk for severe COVID-19 outcomes by almost 90% when given within days of symptom onset, as first reported last month, the company said.

Less than 20% of eligible children in the United States have received a first dose of COVID-19 vaccine, and progress has slowed in the last 2 weeks, according the AAP.

In a recent MMWR report, members of the CDC’s COVID-19 Response Team provided details on the first 43 confirmed infections in the United States caused by the omicron variant of SARS-CoV-2.

Results from the CONTAIN COVID-19 trial showed that convalescent plasma did not meet prespecified efficacy endpoints in patients hospitalized with COVID-19.

A blood test at the time of diagnosis can predict the severity of COVID-19-related illness and a patient’s risk for death, according to a small study published in PLoS One.