May 26, 2020 - a podcast by COVID19LST

Your daily COVID-19 LST Report:

— Climate:  Investigators from the Harvard Business School, Indiana University School of Public Health, and the University of San Francisco’s Department of Medicine found that 41.2% of 3,512 hospitals and 302 hybrid health records were  unable to receive electronic COVID-19 surveillance data, demonstrating a crucial need for IT infrastructure in public health management of COVID-19.

— Epidemiology:  In a retrospective study of 72 COVID-19 patients admitted to the Beijing YouAn Hospital between January 21 and February 17, 2020 patients with severe and critical disease showed significantly lower lymphocyte counts and significantly higher leukocyte counts, neutrophil counts, and neutrophil-to-lymphocyte ratio at each time point when compared to patients with milder disease.

— Understanding the Pathology:  A case control study conducted at Northwestern University using 16 placental specimens from patients with severe COVID-19 found higher rates of maternal vascular malperfusion (MVM) and arterial arteriopathy, but no significant increase in acute or chronic inflammatory pathology when compared to controls, suggesting the importance of antenatal surveillance for these patients.

— Transmission and Prevention:  Researchers from the Chinese CDC outline disinfection techniques for hospital waste and wastewater suggest chlorine-based disinfection for hospital wastewater and incineration of pharmaceutical/chemical waste.

— Management  Treatments for immunosuppressed kidney transplant patients.  A prospective cohort study observing 5,279 COVID-19 patients in New York found that while age and co-morbidities were predictive of hospital admission, oxygen saturation and markers of inflammation may be predictive of critical illness and mortality

Adjusting Practice: A study in Canada of over 1,000 patients with polypharmacy found that almost 60% were currently prescribed drugs that exhibit adverse drug interactions with hydroxychloroquine suggesting the importance of considering current prescriptions when treating COVID-19

—R&D:  A retrospective case-series of 30 pediatric patients found that COVID-19 may appear predominantly as ground-glass opacities in a bilateral, peripheral, and lower-lobe distribution in pediatric patients; however, there was a significant rate of negative CT findings (77%) suggesting minimal utility of CT in children, especially those who are young or with mild symptoms.

— Visit COVID19LST.org for our full report with links to the articles.

— Reach out to us at: contact@covid19lst.org

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