Editor's Note Cleveland Clinic researchers have found a significant increase in patients with stress cardiomyopathy during the COVID-19 pandemic. For the study, cardiologists examined 1,914 patients coming to the Cleveland Clinic with heart symptoms between March 1 and April 30 and compared them with patients in four time periods before…
Editor's Note The Joint Commission on July 8 announced that because of extended data submission timelines and optional reporting for fourth quarter 2019 data due to COVID-19, the planned July 2020 display of two ORYX Perinatal Care measures on Quality Check has been placed on hold. The measures are: PC-02…
Editor's Note In this Letter to the Editor, epidemiologist and researcher Cori L. Ofstead, MSPH, and colleagues caution that because of high bronchoscope contamination rates found during routine use in previous studies, the possibility of bronchoscopy-associated transmission of COVID-19 or other pathogens must be considered. Though high-level disinfection should eliminate…
Editor's Note A new COVID-19 test that uses blood, saliva, and urine samples and can deliver results within 30 to 45 minutes without expensive lab equipment has been developed by researchers at Beaumont Research Institute, Royal Oak, Michigan. The test can be used at the point of risk, such as…
Editor's Note This investigation, by researchers at the University of California-Davis Medical Center, of the pattern of transmission of COVID-19 during two nosocomial outbreaks finds that close contact between patients and healthcare workers (HCWs) not airborne transmission was the cause of the outbreak. Two separate patients were admitted in February…
Editor's Note In a nationwide survey that assessed the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the emotional wellbeing of adults, 90% of respondents reported experiencing emotional distress. The survey of 1,500 adults found that: 80% were frustrated with not being able to do what they normally enjoy doing 80% were…
Editor's Note In this study, researchers from Henry Ford Health System in Michigan found that hydroxychloroquine alone decreased the mortality hazard ratio of COVID-19 by 66%, and hydroxychloroquine with azithromycin decreased the ratio by 71%, compared to neither treatment. The vast majority of the 2,541 COVID-19 patients included in the…
Editor's Note The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director Anthony Fauci says COVID-19 vaccine candidates will start moving into late-stage clinical trials by the end of July, continuing through the summer and into fall, the July 2 Reuters reports. The director of the National Institutes of Health, Dr…
Editor's Note In this study, Yale researchers found that endotheliopathy and platelet activation might be important factors in the pathophysiology of COVID-19-associated coagulopathy. The researchers examined the blood of 68 COVID-19 patients, 48 of them in ICU and 20 receiving care in a hospital unit, along with 13 disease free…
Editor's Note COVID-19 is associated with substantial alterations in the platelet transcriptome and proteome, and greater platelet hyper-reactivity, this study finds. Researchers examined 41 hospitalized COVID-19 patients at the University of Utah Hospital in Salt Lake City. Of these, 17 were in the ICU and nine were on ventilators. Blood…