Feature Channels: Public Health

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Herd immunity to Covid-19 could be achieved with less people being infected than previously estimated according to new research.

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It seems there will never be enough “thank you’s” for the incredible doctors, nurses, technicians and support staff members who are working around the clock to help patients with the dangerous coronavirus disease. Their dedication, determination and spirit enable Johns Hopkins to deliver the promise of medicine.

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About three-quarters of U.S. workers, or 108 million people, are in jobs that cannot be done from home during a pandemic, putting these workers at increased risk of exposure to disease. This majority of workers are also at higher risk for other job disruptions such as layoffs, furloughs or hours reductions, a University of Washington study shows.

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Approximately 20 people in Pennsylvania lost their lives during a seven-year period because of particulate matter pollution emitted by shale gas wells, according to a recent study including faculty at Binghamton University, State University of New York.

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The American College of Radiology® (ACR®) Center for Research and Innovation™ (CRI) was selected by the Society of Clinical Care Medicine (SCCM) to serve as the overall imaging repository for the Discovery Viral Infection and Respiratory Illness Universal Study (VIRUS) COVID-19 Registry. The study aims to create a real time registry of current ICU and hospital care patterns to allow evaluation of safety and observational effectiveness of COVID-19 practices.

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In a new analysis of SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, test results for nearly 38,000 people has found a positivity rate among Latinx populations about three times higher than for any other racial and ethnic group. The findings, published June 18 in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), add to evidence that there are much higher COVID-19 infection rates among U.S. minorities, particularly in Latinx communities.

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With the global pandemic and nationwide protests, Americans are more stressed than ever, and strange and vivid dreams are a reality for many.

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A team of engineers and physicians at the University of California San Diego has developed a low-cost, easy-to-use emergency ventilator for COVID-19 patients that is built around a ventilator bag usually found in ambulances. The team built an automated system around the bag and brought down the cost of an emergency ventilator to just $500 per unit--by comparison, state of the art ventilators currently cost at least $50,000. The device's components can be rapidly fabricated and the ventilator can be assembled in just 15 minutes.

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Preliminary results from this first-of-its-kind survey found that gender diverse people and queer people of color are experiencing a number of disparities. They include higher rates of COVID-19, more difficulty accessing a variety of services, and higher rates of anxiety and depression, as well as high unemployment compared with white participants.

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— In an animal model for COVID-19 that shares important features of human disease, scientists at the University of Wisconsin–Madison, the University of Tokyo and the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai show that prior infection with the SARS-CoV-2 virus provides protection against reinfection, and treatment with convalescent serum limits virus replication in their lungs.

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Satya Dandekar, professor of microbiology and chairperson of the Department of Medical Microbiology and Immunology at UC Davis, honored by Prestigious NIH MERIT award for her illustrious journey in HIV research.

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A drug is being studied for its effectiveness in treating a type of severe immune overreaction seen in patients with COVID-19-induced pneumonia by researchers at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth). The clinical trial is enrolling patients at Harris Health System’s Lyndon B. Johnson Hospital.

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Two types of tests are used to track SARS-CoV-2. Reverse transcriptase PCR (rt-PCR) tests for current infection. Antibody tests reveal that an infection has taken place, even long after the fact.

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Traveling restraints and shelter-in-place orders that grounded planes and emptied streets during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic brought greenhouse gas emissions down and air quality up.

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The lockdown measures introduced in Italy to deal with COVID-19 have produced a mobility contraction which is not homogeneously distributed across Italian municipalities and regions.

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Scientists have completed large-scale tests on a new type of five-minute urine test that measures the health of a person's diet, and produces an individual's unique urine 'fingerprint'.

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Patients with COVID-19 who were admitted to an intensive care unit were 10 times more likely than other hospitalized COVID-19 patients to suffer cardiac arrest or heart rhythm disorders, according to a new study. .

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The University of Kentucky announced a research collaboration with Atomwise, an industry leader in using artificial intelligence (AI) for small molecule discovery, to explore potential COVID-19 therapies.

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The Outcomes Related to COVID-19 Treated with Hydroxychloroquine among In-patients with Symptomatic Disease (ORCHID) trial stopped enrolling new patients based on the fourth scheduled interim analysis showing no evidence of benefit or harm.

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ANN ARBOR—Nursing home residents and workers account for about one-third of COVID-19 deaths in the United States, so far, according to media reports.Sheria Robinson-Lane, a gerontologist and assistant professor at the University of Michigan School of Nursing, is an expert in palliative and long-term care and nursing administration.

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The American College of Radiology® (ACR®) Center for Research and Innovation™ (CRI) is pleased to announce the development of the COVID-19 Imaging Research Registry (CIRR), an effort by the ACR CRI and the ACR Data Science Institute® in collaboration with the ACR and the Society of Thoracic Radiology (STR).

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Notre Dame research finds that the poverty rate fell by 2.3 percentage points from 10.9 percent in the months leading up to the COVID-19 pandemic (January and February) to 8.6 percent in the two most recent months (April and May).

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A new study led by Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey and the Gift of Life Marrow Registry seeks to determine how different versions of immune-vital genes screened for transplant matching may shape who develops or resists COVID-19.

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In a new article, scientists provide an exhaustive, evidence-based review of how COVID-19 droplets from infected patients spread through the air and describe how health care professionals can protect themselves. This Pulmonary Perspective is published online in the American Thoracic Society’s American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine.

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Researchers with the DHS S&T developed a do-it-yourself solution to decontaminate personal protective equipment (PPE) using a programmable multicooker.

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Calling systemic racism a public health crisis, three dozen Chicago healthcare organizations are pledging to do more to overcome health disparities in minority communities and ensure greater health equity across the city.

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In the early 2000s, Dino Rumoro, DO, MPH, had a vision for what an emergency department could be, and needed to be.

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The manner in which the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic has laid bare racist and systemic inequalities in the United States has parallels in other environmental health threats, such as lead exposure, according to an essay written for the online magazine Toxic News by two researchers from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute.

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A report from Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago shows that infants under 90 days of age who tested positive for COVID-19 tend to be well, with little or no respiratory involvement. Fever was often found to be the primary or only symptom. Findings were published in The Journal of Pediatrics.

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During the COVID-19 outbreak, delirium rates have doubled and tripled, which researchers attribute, in part, to intubated patients not being able to communicate and because of increasing sedation. In an editorial published in Critical Care Medicine, they argue that communication should be a vital sign.

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The Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory has launched a program designed to accelerate deployment of innovations that may help fight the COVID-19 pandemic. The COVID-19 Rapid Access Licensing Program will allow companies to license these select technologies at no cost for one year.

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Imagine if scientists could stop the coronavirus infection in its tracks simply by diverting its attention away from living lung cells?

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Administering the MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) vaccine could serve as a preventive measure to dampen septic inflammation associated with COVID-19 infection, say a team of experts in this week's mBio, a journal of the American Society for Microbiology.

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A new commentary in the journal One Earth highlights not only climate-related risks to the global food system, such as drought and floods, but also exposes the coronavirus pandemic as a shock to the system that has led to food crises in many parts of the world. To address the challenges of a globally interconnected food system, a systems approach is required.

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The COVID19 pandemic is creating unprecedented levels of sleep deprivation, presenting a significant risk to our mental and physical health. Now, a new randomized controlled cross-over pilot trial published online today in Neurophysiology explains that high doses of hydrogen-rich water (HRW) are just as effective as caffeine in raising alertness in sleep deprived men and women. Importantly, this research is the first of its kind to show that hydrogen water and caffeine had an impact on different domains of alertness. Specifically, the study results demonstrate that; hydrogen improves orienting to sensory stimulation, while caffeine alters awareness and executive attention that refers to the ability to control our attention and ongoing cognitive processes, including thoughts and feelings.

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Differences in the rate that genetic mutations accumulate in healthy young adults could help predict remaining lifespan in both sexes and the remaining years of fertility in women, according to University of Utah Health scientists. Their study, believed to be the first of its kind, found that young adults who acquired fewer mutations over time lived about five years longer than those who acquired them more rapidly.

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The report, by researchers at the University of Cambridge, Edge Hill University and the UK-based charity Stand Alone, brings together over 800 responses to a survey sent out to the charity’s UK community.

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Mayo Clinic researchers and collaborators have found investigational convalescent plasma to be safe following transfusion in a diverse group of 20,000 patients. The findings -- from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Expanded Access Program for COVID-19 -- are reported in Mayo Clinic Proceedings.

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Columbia fertility experts have developed a one-step saliva test for COVID-19 that could expand access to testing.

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A new American Cancer Society study finds higher medical and nonmedical financial hardships are independently associated with more emergency department visits, lower receipt of some preventive services, and worse self-rated health in cancer survivors.

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Nearly 9 in 10 U.S. adults are "very" (55%) or "somewhat" (33%) concerned that the pharmaceutical industry will leverage the COVID-19 pandemic to raise drug prices.

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Certain patients who receive hospital care for coronavirus infection (COVID-19) exhibit clinical and neurochemical signs of brain injury, a University of Gothenburg study shows. In even moderate COVID-19 cases, finding and measuring a blood-based biomarker for brain damage proved to be possible.

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Sports leagues may want to consider calling a timeout on reopening their doors to fans, based on new West Virginia University-led research that links an uptick in seasonal flu deaths to U.S. cities with pro sports teams.

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Sleeping less than normal impacts how we feel the next morning.

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An open-access American Journal of Roentgenology (AJR) article exploring the diagnostic value of chest CT for coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pneumonia--especially for patients with negative initial results of reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) testing--found that the less pulmonary consolidation on chest CT, the greater the possibility of negative initial RT-PCR results.

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Like a scene out of “Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” a virus infects a host and converts it into a factory for making more copies of itself.

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Recent research by the University at Albany and the New York State Department of Health shows that over 2 million adults in New York were infected with the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, through late March 2020.

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Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health has appointed Michele Decker, ScD, MPH, as a Bloomberg Associate Professor of American Health in the Department of Population, Family and Reproductive Health.

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A collaborative program developed at UVA Health to work with local long-term care facilities to control COVID-19 is saving lives and offers a model for communities across the country, a new scientific paper reports.