Saskia v. Popescu, PhD, MPH, MA, CIC, FAPIC

The topic of in-person school has been a heated one as the epidemiology around children has been something that’s taken a while to understand.

There are pieces of novel variants that we’re still learning about, like the impact to therapies and how these variants might affect what we know about COVID-19, like reinfection.

The coming months will be telling in terms of how we approach quarantine and the implications of shortened quarantine periods. While it might be easier for people to adhere to, there is still concern for disease transmission.

For vaccines: Delivery doesn’t mean distribution. For variants: Their appearance underscores the importance of infection prevention methods.

2021 will likely mean a mixture of things for infection preventionists (IPs). First, a focused effort on vaccine education. While this is a larger effort, IPs have always played a significant role in education and answering questions while rounding on the units and clinics.

When it comes to COVID-19 vaccinations, it’s important to consider ancillary staff. Employees in environmental services, lab, respiratory therapy, physical therapy, and food services who have been working in high-risk areas.

In essence, infection prevention and control isn’t just one measure, like personal protective equipment (PPE), but all of these layers. Each layer is imperfect but plays a critical role in reducing risk.

At this point, since 2014, we all have improved our ability to respond to and prevent emerging infectious diseases, so why not make this practice a permanent part of infection control and not just one that comes up ad hoc?

Strategies are needed to reduce the risk of COVID transmission between the breastfeeding mother and newborn. Meanwhile, mask mandates work.

The CDC may lower the days someone needs to be quarantined because of COVID exposure from the current 14, to from 7 to 10 days. That range is troublesome: Which is it, 7 or 10?

IPs have not only that frontline experience, but also the ability to pivot and evolve with recommendations. In fact, our very jobs are about translating continuously evolving evidence and guidance into practice.

Healthcare workers are vigilant about personal protective equipment (PPE), hand hygiene, and disinfection efforts in the hospital when managing COVID-19 patients. Too often, though, they let their guard down when they get home.

Discussions about hospitalizations should include those of healthcare personnel who have been hospitalized with COVID-19. This is something that has been a gap in our data but increasingly discussed.

It’s no longer just a matter of case counts and hospitalizations due to COVID-19, but it’s what we’re seeing in terms of the demographic groups being affected and associative complications.

It can be helpful for infection preventionists to still provide quick COVID-19 rounds in units and high-risk areas like emergency departments and urgent care clinics. These can be as simple as 30-minute reviews of personal protective equipment, isolation precautions, and communication pathways.

Perhaps now is the time that innovation begins to rely more heavily on infection preventionists and our valuable insight into the world of healthcare PPE. The changes we help guide now, can help make healthcare safer and infection prevention easier.

Simply put, a single approach strategy, like the test-only approach within the White House, is one doomed for failure. Meanwhile, the CDC updates what it means by an airborne transmission of COVID-19.

The means of transmission of SARS-CoV-2 and the age group most likely to transmit the virus—people in their 20s—garnered headlines this week, as well as controversy for the CDC.

Most hospitals have implemented stringent visitor restrictions that don’t allow anyone to visit, even during end of life. While an understandable public health and infection prevention measure, it has generated some concern.

As these healthcare worker serology studies are designed and performed, we need more insight beyond just PPE use and symptoms, but also internal and external exposures.

The CDC released new guidance regarding recommendations for post-exposure COVID-19 testing. Here’s what this means for infection preventionists and public health.

Will it be a severe flu season? Will SARS-CoV-2/coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) surges occur this winter? How will this compound the stresses of COVID-19?

Knowing the needs of patients, how can we safely allow visitors again? When will universal masking not be required? A piece to this is that there is no hard rule. These are conversations that require considerable collaboration and plans to scale up and scale down.

Neck gaiters weren’t the only face coverings tested: in all 14 were analyzed, from N95s (unsurprisingly judged to be the most effective in containing COVID-19 spread) to bandanas (not much more effective then neck gaiters, according to the study).

As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to surge, it is unlikely that contact tracing within healthcare will become anything less than critical.

The concern is not only that COVID-19 significantly increases the burden to healthcare facilities during an already busy season, but that the potential for more testing in patients with non-specific respiratory virus symptoms could further strain testing capacity.

Many patients in the study who did not require hospitalization experienced prolonged or persistent symptoms, nonetheless. In addition, the absence of underlying medical conditions does not automatically mean patients will not experiences these longer lasting symptoms.

Supply chain issues are a larger, more systemic aspect of healthcare and national preparedness. Although IPs may not be able to fix them individually, there are ways we can ensure the safety of our hospitals.

We have much work to do in terms of risk communication and awareness. This is a good example of how quickly exposures can happen in the workplace when we focus only on employee-to-customer interactions or healthcare worker-to-patient interactions.

One news item: Hospitals will now be reporting COVID-19 information to the National Guard instead of to the CDC through the TeleTrack system within the Department of Health and Human Services.