The Infection Control Today® COVID-19 page brings readers the latest information and clinical updates on the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic, from case counts and hospitalization rates to data on effective treatments for severe disease and the circulating viral variants.
June 20th 2025
Despite its critical role in patient safety, infection prevention and control (IPC) remains one of health care’s most misunderstood and understructured professions. While COVID-19 thrust IPC into the spotlight, the field still lacks a clear entry path, standardized training, and broad institutional recognition, leaving many professionals to learn on the job with minimal guidance.
COVID-19 Lesson: How IPs Can Ensure We Never Run Out of PPE Again
June 10th 2020In many cases, the relationship between IP and the supply chain department is passive and fluctuates with emergencies or new products. What if, though, we worked to have a more proactive relationship that involved weekly meetings regarding the level of supplies, like PPE?
COVID-19 Experience Suggests Need for National Reporting System for Dangerous Pathogens
June 9th 2020Infection preventionists (IPs) are stretched to the limit with both reporting and patient responsibilities with an unwillingness of facilities to prioritize infectious disease prevention in their operating budgets.
Q&A: Infection Preventionist Role Will Expand Because of COVID-19
June 4th 2020Rebecca Leach, RN, BSN, MPH, CIC: “Infection preventionists had to work very closely with our supply chain and look at all of our options and really keep track of it. I also think working with lab more closely will be important in the future, to understand testing modalities, understanding our abilities to test and interpreting those tests.”
COVID-19 Reveals Fatal Infection Prevention Flaws at Long-Term Care Facilities
June 2nd 2020Many healthcare facilities, not only LTCFs, have turned to online training for staff and then designate the employee as competent to do their job. Online training does not prove competency; it provides training.
Q&A: Reopening After COVID-19: Proceed With Caution
May 28th 2020Kevin Kavangh, MD: “What worries me the most about reopening is that people going to say, ‘Oh, it’s over with’ and not do any sort of protection, whether it’s social distancing, wearing masks, not gathering in crowds. I really think that people will think, ‘Well, we got this beat.’”
Q&A: How COVID-19 Might Affect Antimicrobial Stewardship Programs
May 25th 2020Katherine Perez, PharmD: “For patients with COVID-19, I think the jury’s still out as to how we should be using antibiotics in those patients and what the risk of a secondary bacterial infection truly is. And that type of information has not been made available, at least not in huge amounts at this time.”
Touch Screens: The High-Touch Surfaces Hiding in Plain Sight
May 22nd 2020In order to effectively achieve a safe healthcare environment where frequently used touch screen technology is both ubiquitous and mobile, education must be provided to highlight the appropriate products and practices for cleaning/disinfection and hand hygiene.
Q&A: Design Hospitals to Best Fight Infections Like COVID-19
May 22nd 2020Jeffrey Rose: “I think the desire to break apart some of the functionality of the hospital and spread it out into other facilities-like oncology centers or ambulatory surgery centers-to reduce the large population at one building, is going to continue to grow. And in addition, if you design them correctly, you can use those facilities for surge capacity.”
CDC Recommends Resumption of Non-COVID Related Elective Surgeries
May 21st 2020While starting to perform elective surgeries, hospitals should also keep an eye COVID-19 in their communities and have the resources available to respond to a surge in COVID patients without having to resort to a crisis standard of care.
How to Don, Doff Personal Protective Equipment During COVID-19 Pandemic
May 21st 2020Both donning and doffing are carefully laid out, but it’s the doffing part of the procedure that might present the most challenge because it involves the discarding of some of the PPE in a manner that most limits the chance of self-contamination or contaminating someone else.
Q&A: COVID-19 Lets Telemedicine Prove Itself
May 19th 2020Daniel F. Shay, Esq.: “COVID-19 is not the last infectious disease that we’re going to encounter…. I think that there are good reasons to use telemedicine to the extent that you can reduce the risk to healthcare practitioners, healthcare professionals, and also to other patients, and, frankly, the general populace.”
Q&A: How Bacterial Infections Can Complicate COVID-19 Cases
May 15th 2020Yi Guo, PharmD: “I think one thing that we learned is to work closely with the infection control preventionists because when we discovered the patient has multidrug resistant bacteria, we want to make sure the appropriate isolation policy is in place.”