Editor's Note The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), on February 25, issued new recommendations on when masks should be worn by the public. Under the new guidelines: In communities with “low” or “medium” levels of COVID-19, masks are not recommended for the general public, which is now more…

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Editor's Note The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on February 23 identified the recall by Arrow International (Reading, Pennsylvania), a subsidiary of Teleflex Inc, of its Arrow-Trerotola Percutaneous Thrombolytic Device (PTD) as Class I, the most serious. The recall was initiated because of the risk of tip damage during use…

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Editor's Note According to a study in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, COVID-19 increases the risk of and may contribute to new-onset diabetes among children and adolescents, JAMA reports.  JAMA’s February 22 article notes that data from previous studies showed an average of 14% of adults hospitalized with COVID-19…

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Editor's Note This study led by researchers at Ascension Health Care, St Louis, finds that COVID-19 was associated with substantial increases in hospital-acquired bloodstream infections, which were largely attributed to COVID-19 infected patients. A total of 1,417,036 admissions in 69 US hospitals were analyzed before (703,556) and during (713,480) the…

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Editor's Note The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on February 17 identified the recall by Vyaire Medical (Mettawa, Illinois) of its Bellavista 1000 and 1000e Series Ventilators as Class I, the most serious. The recall was initiated because of issues with the software version 6.0.1600.0 or higher, after reports of…

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Editor's Note The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on February 23 released the “Maternal Mortality Rates in the United States” report for 2020, after analyzing data from the National Vital Statistics System and calculating mortality rates as the number of maternal deaths per 100,000 live births. The report…

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Editor's Note The Joint Commission recently released a Sentinel Event Data summary that includes a 2021 update and the 10 most common sentinel events reported to the accreditation body last year, the February 22 Becker’s Hospital Review reports. Only a small portion of all sentinel events are reported to The…

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Editor's Note The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on February 18 identified the recall by BASE10 Genetics of its RNAstill MTM specimen collection kits as Class I, the most serious. The specimen collection kits are intended for collection, transport, inactivation, stabilization, and long-term storage of nasopharyngeal or oropharyngeal swab samples…

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Editor's Note In this study from Switzerland, regular use of public transportation by healthcare workers (HCWs) was not found to affect the risk for acquiring COVID-19. Of 376 HCWs analyzed, 225 used public transportation. By group comparison, HCWs using public transportation did not acquire a significantly greater percentage of COVID-19…

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Editor's Note The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on February 18 identified the recall by E25Bio (Cambridge, Massachusetts) of its COVID-19 Direct Antigen Rapid Tests as Class I, the most serious. The tests are being recalled for several reasons, particularly because they were marketed and distributed in the US without…

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