I have been hoping it was a lot more than that. 2.8-5.6 means 94 to 97% of the population do not have antibodies.
That means we are going to have a helluva second wave.
COVID-19 studies: Obesity boosts risk; diagnosing health workers
Filed Under:
COVID-19
Mary Van Beusekom | News Writer | CIDRAP News
| Apr 20, 2020
Nearly 36% of the first 393 adults admitted to two New York City hospitals with COVID-19 were obese, according to a research letter published late last week in the New England Journal of Medicine.
Also, a research letter in JAMA said that screening healthcare professionals (HCPs) in King County, Washington, only for fever, cough, shortness of breath, and sore throat might have led their employers to miss 17% of those with symptoms of the novel coronavirus, and broadening diagnostic criteria to include muscle pain and chills may still have missed 10%.
In other research, a study in Clinical Infectious Diseases identified secondary within-household COVID-19 transmission rates of 17.1% of adults and 4% of children in Wuhan, China.
Obesity, male gender, older age increase risk
In the New England Journal of Medicine retrospective case series, the investigators used electronic health record data to describe the clinical characteristics of hospitalized patients admitted from Mar 5 to 27 with the novel coronavirus.
Median age was 62.2 years, 60.6% were men, and 35.8% were obese. “Obesity was common and may be a risk factor for respiratory failure leading to invasive mechanical ventilation,” the authors wrote.
The most common symptoms included cough (79.4%), fever (77.1%), shortness of breath (56.5%), muscle pain (23.8%), diarrhea (23.7%), and nausea and vomiting (19.1%).
The vast majority of patients (90%) had lymphopenia (low levels of lymphocytes, white blood cells important to immunity), while 27% had low platelet levels, and many had signs of compromised liver function and inflammation.
Of the 130 patients on invasive mechanical ventilation from Mar 5 to Apr 10, only 43 (33.1%) have been extubated as of the date the paper was written. Forty patients of the 393 patients (10.2%) had died, and 260 (66.2%) had been released from the hospital. Complete outcome data were unavailable for the other 93 patients (23.7%).
Patients on mechanical ventilation were more often male and obese, with signs of compromised liver function and inflammation. They were also more likely than other patients to require vasopressors (drugs to raise low blood pressure) (95.4% vs 1.5%), have complications such as atrial arrhythmias (17.7% vs 1.9%), and require dialysis for the first time (13.3% vs 0.4%).
Forty patients (30.8%) of those on mechanical ventilation did not require supplemental oxygen in the first 3 hours of arrival at the emergency department.
The researchers noted that the patients’ signs and symptoms at admission were similar to those reported in a large case series in China, but that gastrointestinal symptoms were more common in the New York City patients, which could be a reflection of regional variation or a difference in reporting.
The percentage of patients receiving mechanical ventilation was more than 10 times higher than reported in China, which could be attributed to more severe disease and the early-intubation protocol used in New York City hospitals.
The authors said that the high demand for mechanical ventilation and dialysis might surpass their availability during the pandemic. “The observations that the patients who received invasive mechanical ventilation almost universally received vasopressor support and that many also received new renal replacement therapy suggest that there is also a need to strengthen stockpiles and supply chains for these resources,” they wrote.
The test also gives positives for some corona viruses that would be considered a cold.