The coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 can replicate only after using its spike proteins to bind with receptors on human cells, then injecting its genetic code into a host cell, as depicted in this artist’s impression, then hijacking the host cell’s reproduction machinery. Credit: SCIGRAPHIX / S. Westermann
Given Covid fatigue, you’re excused if you cut down on doomscrolling and tried to ignore the bad pandemic news as 2020 wound down. But welcome to 2021. Covid-19 hospitalizations and deaths continue rising in the United States and elsewhere, vaccine rollouts are proceeding slower than hoped, and a post-holiday surge in cases looms.
Here are brief summaries of several important recent developments and ominous trends:
Community burden of COVID-19 linked to survival rates of hospitalized patients
High rates of COVID-19 in the county where a hospital is located appears to reduce survival rates among hospitalized patients with the virus, according to a new study from researchers in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and at UnitedHealth Group. These findings were published in
JAMA Internal Medicine.
We have known that individual risk factors like age and gender, comorbidities such as obesity, and whether someone is a nursing home resident, are all part of what determines whether patients have a good or bad outcome. But our research shows it also matters where a patient is admitted.
E-Mail
PHILADELPHIA and MINNETONKA, Minn. High rates of COVID-19 in the county where a hospital is located appears to reduce survival rates among hospitalized patients with the virus, according to a new study from researchers in the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and at UnitedHealth Group. These findings were published in
JAMA Internal Medicine. We have known that individual risk factors like age and gender, comorbidities such as obesity, and whether someone is a nursing home resident, are all part of what determines whether patients have a good or bad outcome. But our research shows it also matters where a patient is admitted, said lead investigator David Asch, MD, director of the Center for Health Care Innovation and a Professor of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania.