Articles: pandemics.
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Understanding educational patterns in excess mortality during the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic may help to identify strategies to reduce disparities. It is unclear whether educational inequalities in COVID-19 mortality have persisted throughout the pandemic, spanned the full range of educational attainment, or varied by other demographic indicators of COVID-19 risks, such as age or occupation. ⋯ Pervasive educational inequalities in excess mortality during the pandemic suggest multiple potential intervention points to reduce disparities.
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A Free School Meals (FSM) policy is a well recognised intervention for tackling food insecurity among children (up to the age 18 years) whose parents receive state benefits. National school closures during the COVID-19 pandemic resulted in the need to rapidly adapt the delivery of FSM to protect the most disadvantaged children in the UK from increased food insecurity. A range of food assistance policies were implemented, but whether they were evidence-based is unclear. The aim of study was to establish the transparency of evidence use behind FSM policy decisions in the UK during the COVID-19 pandemic and to identify other factors influencing decision making. ⋯ Newton's Apple (registered charity number 1121719). The authors are funded by the UK National Institute for Health and Care Research's School for Public Health Research. The views expressed herein are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the National Institute for Health and Care Research or the UK Department of Health and Social Care.
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The serial interval is a key epidemiological measure that quantifies the time between an infector's and an infectee's onset of symptoms. This measure helps investigate epidemiological links between cases, and is an important parameter in transmission models used to estimate transmissibility and inform control strategies. The emergence of multiple variants of concern (VOC) during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic has led to uncertainties about potential changes in the serial interval of COVID-19. We estimated the household serial interval of multiple VOC using data collected by the Virus Watch study. This online, prospective, community cohort study followed-up entire households in England and Wales since mid-June 2020. ⋯ UK Medical Research Council and Wellcome Trust.
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Preventive medicine · Nov 2022
Characterizing delayed care among US older adults by self-rated health during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Previous studies showed that older adults with fair or poor self-rated health (SRH) were more likely to experience delayed care during the COVID-19 pandemic. We aim to understand delayed care patterns by SRH during the COVID-19 pandemic among US older adults. ⋯ The results suggest that utilizing SRH as a simple indicator may help researchers and clinicians understand similarities and differences in care needs for older adults during the pandemic. Targeted interventions that address differences in healthcare needs among older adults by SRH during the evolving pandemic may mitigate the negative impacts of delayed care.
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Internal medicine journal · Nov 2022
The first Australian experience with ward-based CPAP for COVID19 respiratory failure: A retrospective cohort study.
We present the first Australian cohort of patients with COVID-19 respiratory failure managed with escalating respiratory support including continuous positive airway pressure (CPAP) on a standard medical ward at a tertiary Sydney hospital during the 2021 COVID-19 Delta variant outbreak. We demonstrate an equivalent mortality to CPAP delivered in intensive care unit and outline our ward structure and management during the pandemic.