The COVID Textbook
<<< Chapter Variants Paris is burning In Île-de-France (Greater Paris region, 12 million people), the 7-day rolling incidence per 100.000 was approaching 600 this week (Figure 1). Hospital services, both intensive and non-intensive COVID...
3 December Manna A. Be Aware of Droplets and Bubbles. Ann Intern Med 2020, published 1 December. Web page: https://doi.org/10.7326/G20-0114 No comment. 28 November Cunningham L, Nicholson PJ, O’Cnnor J, McFadden JP. Cold...
Blog 3 December WHO Solidarity Trial Consortium. Repurposed Antiviral Drugs for Covid-19 — Interim WHO Solidarity Trial Results. N Engl J Med 2020, published 2 December. Full-text: https://doi.org/10.1056/NEJMoa2023184 Harrington DP, Baden LR, Hogan JW...
Blog 3 December WHO Ad Hoc Expert Group on the Next Steps for Covid-19 Vaccine Evaluation. Placebo-Controlled Trials of Covid-19 Vaccines — Why We Still Need Them. N Engl J Med 2020, published 2...
Blog 3 December Dugdale CM, Anahtar MN, Chiosi JJ, et al. Clinical, laboratory, and radiologic characteristics of patients with initial false-negative SARS-CoV-2 nucleic acid amplification test results. Open Forum Infect Dis 2020, published 24...
Blog 1 Dezember Popa A, Genger JW, Nicholson MD. Genomic epidemiology of superspreading events in Austria reveals mutational dynamics and transmission properties of SARS-CoV-2. Science Translational Medicine 23 November 2020: eabe2555. Full-text: https://doi.org/10.1126/scitranslmed.abe2555 Alexandra...
Blog 2 Dezember Agarwal V, Venkatakrishnan AJ, Puranik A et al. Long-term SARS-CoV-2 RNA shedding and its temporal association to IgG seropositivity. Cell Death Discov. 6, 138 December 2, 2020. Full-text: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41420-020-00375-y A retrospective...
Blog 2 Dezember Cao A, Rohaut B, Guennec LL, et al. Severe COVID-19-related encephalitis can respond to immunotherapy. Brain December 2, 2020. Full-text: https://doi.org/10.1093/brain/awaa337 See title (“can” respond). The authors report a case series...
Blog 2 Dezember Perez S, Innes GK, Walters MS, et al. Increase in Hospital-Acquired Carbapenem-Resistant Acinetobacter baumannii Infection and Colonization in an Acute Care Hospital During a Surge in COVID-19 Admissions — New Jersey,...
The daily Top 10 – every day the best papers published in the best medical and scientific journals. By Christian Hoffmann & Bernd S. Kamps. Copy-editor: Rob Camp. 30 November Epidemiology Vos ERA,...
29 November Trieu MC, Bansal A, Madsen A, et al. SARS-CoV-2-specific neutralizing antibody responses in Norwegian healthcare workers after the first wave of COVID-19 pandemic: a prospective cohort study. J Infect Dis. 2020 Nov...
Blog 29 November Knoouhuizen SA, Aday A, Lee WM. Ketamine‐Induced Sclerosing Cholangitis (KISC) in a Critically Ill Patient with COVID‐19. Hepatology 23 November 2020. Full-text: https://doi.org/10.1002/hep.31650 Prior reports of recreational ketamine abuse have been...
Blog 2 Dezember Lee EH, Kepler KL, Geevarughese A, et al. Race/Ethnicity Among Children With COVID-19–Associated Multisystem Inflammatory Syndrome. JAMA Netw Open November 30, 2020;3(11):e2030280. Full-text: https://doi.org/10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2020.30280 Distribution of race/ethnicity among 223 MIS-C cases...
29 November Vogel G, Couzin-Frankel J. Grade: incomplete. Science 27 November 2020: Vol. 370, Issue 6520, pp. 1023-1027. Full-text: https://doi.org/10.1126/science.370.6520.1023 Schools around the world are again the site of a large, and largely uncontrolled,...
Blog 24 November Yu B, Li C, Sun Y, et al. Insulin treatment is associated with increased mortality in patients with COVID-19. Cell Metabolism November 23, 2020. Full-text: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cmet.2020.11.014 Oops! In this retrospective study...
13 November Rubin EJ, Baden LR, Morrissey S. An Update from Operation Warp Speed. Audio interview (28:20). N Engl J Med 2020; 383: e127. Access: https://doi.org/%2010.1056/NEJMe2033111 The editors discuss the pace of discovery in...
5th International Edition | 7 November | Finally, after five months, we have published the next edition of COVID Reference – The COVID Textbook (462 pages; we apologize for the delay). We will keep...
| 6 November | An early inhalation of nanobodies – the future treatment? VHH antibodies or nanobodies (Nbs) are minimal, monomeric antigen-binding domains derived from camelid single-chain antibodies. Unlike IgG antibodies, Nbs are small,...
| 5 November 2020 | The estimated risk of infection from touching a contaminated surface was less than 5 in 10,000 in a study by Amy Pickering, Abigail Harvey and colleagues. From April to...
| 3 November 2020 | Singapore’s comprehensive approach to COVID-19 control, much of which was prepared following the 2003 SARS epidemic, is likely to have contributed to the low secondary attack rate among household...
| 2 November 2020 | In this multicenter cohort study (7 hospitals in New York City and Milan) the authors analyzed hospitalized COVID-19 patients who had undergone transthoracic echocardiographic (TTE) and electrocardiographic evaluation during...
Is the low case ratality rate of COVID-19 in Hong Kong deceptive? During the first weeks of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, a very low CFR of only 0.4% has been reported (Lui GC 2000). Is...
| 31 October | Important study (because prospective). After enrollment, 101 index patients and 191 household members were trained remotely by study staff members to complete symptom diaries and obtain self-collected specimens, nasal swabs...
Purgatorio | 31 de octubre | Si lees español, lee Los médicos en las UCI: “Aún no es el infierno, pero sí el purgatorio”. El País 2020, published 31 October | Una cuarta parte...
| Treatment | 31 October 2020 | Let’s face reality: at the beginning of the second pandemic wave, we have some steroids which have been shown to reduce mortality in patients with severe COVID-19;...
SARS-CoV-2 viral loads, especially plasma viremia, are associated with increased risk of mortality. This is the result of a study by Jonathan Li, Jesse Fajnzylber and colleagues who report SARS-CoV-2 respiratory tract, plasma, and...
France lockdown | 28 October | The dramatic second COVID-19 wave in France has lead Emmanuel Macron to announce a new lockdown in the country. The November lockdown which is due to last at...
The country-specific crude case fatality rates (CFR), the percentage of COVID-19-associated deaths among confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infections, have been the subject of much speculation. There are still striking differences between countries. According to worldometer.com accessed...
Herd immunity has recently been discussed as a desirable result of wide-scale vaccination programs. (High levels of vaccination-induced immunity in the population benefits those who can’t receive or sufficiently respond to a vaccine, such...
Tocilizumab was not effective for preventing intubation or death in moderately ill hospitalized patients with Covid-19. This is the result of a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled trial involving SARS-CoV-2 patients with hyperinflammatory states and at...