Articles: sars-cov-2.
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Annals of family medicine · Jul 2024
The Disproportionate Impact of Primary Care Disruption and Telehealth Utilization During COVID-19.
The COVID-19 pandemic not only exacerbated existing disparities in health care in general but likely worsened disparities in access to primary care. Our objective was to quantify the nationwide decrease in primary care visits and increase in telehealth utilization during the pandemic and explore whether certain groups of patients were disproportionately affected. ⋯ Decreases in primary care visit volume were partially offset by increasing telehealth use for all patients during the COVID-19 pandemic, but the magnitude of these changes varied significantly across all patient characteristics. These variations have implications not only for the long-term consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic, but also for planners seeking to ready the primary care delivery system for any future systematic disruptions.
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The primary objective of the study was to assess the factors that influenced the increased failure rate among first-year Indian medical students who appeared for the Maharashtra University of Health Science (MUHS) summative university examination, having experienced the competency-based medical education (CBME) curriculum for the first time amid the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic. ⋯ The total failure rate of 27% in the MUHS examination was mainly attributed to interplay between the student's mental health, lack of devices or Internet, and the changed assessment part of the CBME curriculum. Surprisingly, lecture frequencies, teaching patterns, and study resources did not influence the failure rate. These results can be used to formulate interventions that will help to improve academic performance and mental health students and thus help them adapt to the new curriculum.
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Multicenter Study
Coronavirus Disease 2019 Infections Among Emergency Health Care Personnel: Impact on Delivery of United States Emergency Medical Care, 2020.
In the early months of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic and before vaccine availability, there were concerns that infected emergency department (ED) health care personnel could present a threat to the delivery of emergency medical care. We examined how the pandemic affected staffing levels and whether COVID-19 positive staff were potentially infectious at work in a cohort of US ED health care personnel in 2020. ⋯ During the first wave of the pandemic, COVID-19 infections in ED health care personnel were infrequent, and the time lost from the workforce was minimal. Health care personnel frequently reported for work while infected with SARS-CoV-2 before laboratory confirmation. The ED staffing levels were poorly correlated with facility and community COVID-19 burden.
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Preventive medicine · Jul 2024
Long COVID among US adults from a population-based study: Association with vaccination, cigarette smoking, and the modifying effect of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).
Post-COVID Conditions (or Long COVID) have been widely reported, but population-based studies exploring the relationship between its risk factors are lacking. We examined the associations between Long COVID, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease [COPD], vaccination status, and cigarette smoking. We also tested for the modifying effect of COPD status. ⋯ Our findings underscore a complex interaction between COPD, cigarette smoking, and Long COVID. Further, COVID-19 vaccination may be protective against Long COVID.