Prevention

Long COVID appears to be worsening the labor shortage in the United States, and the health care industry—which has lost 20% of workers over the pandemic—could be particularly hard hit.

Lisa Waldowski, DNP, RN, CIC, of Kaiser Permanente: “There will always be a role for infection preventionists. I don’t worry about job security, so to speak. There are so many elements within infection prevention and control.”

There’s a long way to go before the industry recovers from the mass worker exodus from health care during the COVID-19 pandemic. Infection prevention especially faces daunting challenges.

A recent literature review and meta-analysis sought to determine the effects of COVID-19 lockdown measures on mortality rates. Here's what a team of economists found.

A CDC program examines wastewater to get a jump on COVID-19 eruptions, and also to detect new variants, some of which may have been hatched in animals.

Former President Trump’s Presidential Federal Advisory Committee for COVID-19 needs to be reestablished under President Biden.

Jamie Seltzer: “We have so much history—recent history as well as 100 years ago—to tell us that it would be incredibly unusual and atypical if SARS-CoV-2 were the only viral infection that did not lead to post-viral complications.”

Take 5 minutes to catch up on Infection Control Today’s highlights for the week ending February 4.

A public/private enterprise taps into the entrepreneurial urge that will hopefully help the United States avoid the disastrous shortages of personal protective equipment that deviled the health care system in the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Beneficiaries in both original Medicare and Medicare Advantage plans will be able to obtain 8 free at-home COVID-19 tests a month.

Individuals who’ve been vaccinated and those vaccinated who’ve also gotten a booster are less likely to become infected by either Omicron or stealth Omicron, the study states.

As we approach year 3, the contribution made by infection preventionists in battling this pandemic needs to be appreciated more.

Proper ventilation can greatly reduce the environmental strain on operating rooms. However, there’s no one-size-fits all solution.

Many people suffer from long COVID, and since COVID-19 is a fairly recent development experts aren’t sure what “long” means exactly. Weeks? Months? Years? A lifetime?

ICU nurses, more than other clinicians, because they have the most interaction with patients. Non-clinical workers because they may not be knowledgeable enough about mitigation methods, a study states.

Initial data suggest that it appears to be more infectious than even the highly infectious original Omicron variant.

Take 5 minutes to catch up on Infection Control Today’s highlights for the week ending January 28.

Long COVID’s symptoms seem to match those of myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), a condition that millions have suffered from for decades.

COVID-19 mutations are evading our immunity and at the same time our immunity is waning. Herd immunity to disease and the eradication of SARS-CoV-2 is no longer possible.

Reinfections among study participants most likely occurred outside the hospital setting where workers might let their guard down and not practice nonpharmaceutical mitigation efforts against SARS-CoV-2.

Moves by the FDA and NIH to revise treatment guidelines run up against a system of testing for COVID-19 that faces logistical hurdles.

In making the ruling, the FDA stated that it wants to spare patients the risk of side effects such as injection site soreness or allergic reactions for treatments unlikely to work.

This frequency of symptoms 1 year after recovering from severe COVID-19 disease is concerning, as much is still unknown about “long COVID.”

The ability to be an excellent infection preventionist requires lifelong learning and taking the initiative to grow professionally.

Linda Spaulding, a member of ICT®’s Editorial Advisory Board, and a consultant, plans to fly out to Hawaii later this week to advise her LTCF clients in that state about how best to get through the current surge.

Contrary to the “vaccinate and all will be well” narrative, “mild” does not mean just avoiding hospitalization, nor does surviving a COVID-19 acute illness means you have recovered. Vaccines are an important layer of armor but they, in themselves, will not stop COVID-19.

The highly transmissible and dominant Omicron variant of COVID-19 places added pressure on infection preventionists and other clinicians to determine just what they’re dealing with.

Take 5 minutes to catch up on Infection Control Today’s highlights for the week ending January 21.

Outpatient settings are not like inpatient settings. They have unique requirements and circumstances, including those related to infection prevention and control.

The successful combination of products and the adoption and application of science-based practices will help the sterile processing profession rise above challenges to protecting frontline technicians.