Prevention

Barbara Smith, RN, BSN, MPA, CIC: “I think that we need to do a little bit more with the public in terms of antibiotic use in the community. So that they’re not at risk for C. diff for whatever reason later in their life.”

The infection prevention department at Ascension Texas managed to shore up IP ranks by calling a couple of IPs out of retirement and asking another if she would postpone her retirement during a COVID-19 surge.

The rates of Clostridioides difficile remained about the same in March, April, May of 2020 as they were during the same 3 months in 2019, according to the study.

Over 2 million people in England may be suffering from long COVID. That’s almost 4% of England’s population; 4% of the U.S. population would be over 13 million people.

Take 5 minutes to catch up on Infection Control Today®’s highlights for the week ending June 25.

Marc L. Boom, MD, Houston Methodist Hospital’s CEO and president, took an unequivocal stand in mandating that employees get vaccinated and it’s a stand that not only other health care institutions—but all companies in every industry—might also possibly take thanks to guidance on the matter by the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

A multiplex PCR assay may be capable of simultaneously detecting and differentiating influenza viruses, respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), and SARS-CoV-2.

I want to acknowledge [infection preventionists]. You all inspire me daily and I’m eternally grateful to work among you. We work to protect our health care personnel and patients fiercely and often to the point where we are burned out.

Here's one method of containing COVID-19 at nursing homes: Pair long-term care facilities (LTCF) staff and residents who've recovered with susceptible residents to help reduce transmission. It seems to work, says a study.

Far too few have been fully vaccinated in the U.S.to ward off a run on our hospitals, and avoiding hospitalizations is an extremely low bar for public health, since 10% to 30% of the patients even with mild to moderate disease will develop long COVID.

An integrated air management system requires proper engineering and not a pile-up approach of unproven products. One concern is that decision makers will fall into the nearsighted trap of selecting piecemeal products that require frequent maintenance.

Take 5 minutes to catch up on Infection Control Today®’s highlights for the week ending June 18.

The threat of novel variants that are more transmissible is deeply worrisome as we work to vaccinate the world.

The first official case may have been recorded January 20, 2020, but recent evidence suggests that COVID came home for the holidays in the U.S. in mid-December of that year.

Paul Sax, MD: “It’s almost inevitable that even though we’re at very low infection rates right now that that's going to increase when the season changes, again, in the fall and winter. Coronaviruses are seasonal.”

Two doses of COVID-19 vaccines seem to be able to somewhat nullify the effects of the highly transmissible Delta variant, but fewer than 50% of adults in the United States have gotten two doses.

One junior at New Jersey’s Rutgers University, the first to mandate COVID-19 vaccination, said, “I’m not antivax, I’m anti-mandate. My education should not be restricted based on my personal decision to receive the COVID-19 vaccination.”

Shortened quarantines for employees located through contact tracing might have made COVID-19 spread “exponentially,” a study suggests.

Take 5 minutes to catch up on Infection Control Today®’s highlights for the week ending June 11.

Underlying conditions make young people more vulnerable to COVID-19, while the U.K. continues reopening despite the rise of the Delta variant.

Houston Methodist Hospital’s action occurs as the spreading of the COVID-19 Delta variant catches the eye of health care officials in the United States.

Investigators with Columbia University School of Nursing found that COVID-19 infections were 13.6 percentage points higher in nursing homes with 50% or more Black residents, and deaths were 3.5 percentage points higher, compared with nursing homes with no Black residents.

At the intersection of surgery and infection prevention resides a sometimes-neglected opportunity to further minimize infection risk by modernizing choices and innovation.

As long as the immune escape variants are on the rise in the U.S. and less than half of our population is fully vaccinated, the best advice is to continue public health strategies.

The CDC’s Lynnette Brammer: “We always had talked about being prepared for an influenza pandemic. And being able to scale up our systems. Well, COVID scaled up our systems way more than we ever dreamed about scaling up for.”