SARS-CoV-2 Seroprevalence and Symptom Onset in Culturally Linked Orthodox Jewish Communities Across Multiple Regions in the United States

The paper discusses a number of the most remarkable responses to the COVID‑19 pandemic and to the social isolation measures coming from several, mostly ultra‑Orthodox, Jewish communities in Israel, the United States, and Russia. It examines major elements of the crisis discourse, i.e., the hermeneutics of the causes and meanings of the pandemic; the affirmation of group borders and hierarchies as a result of the search for culprits; the relations between the religious community and the state; as well as the possible transformations of social behavior and ritual practices resulting from the crisis.

Download Full-text

Raanan Rein, Fútbol, Jews and the Making of Argentina, trans. Marsha Grenzeback. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2014. 166 pp.

10.1093/oso/9780190912628.003.0031 ◽

2018 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

Jewish Identity ◽

The United States ◽

Orthodox Jewish ◽

Literary Representations ◽

Stanford University ◽

Common Theme ◽

American Jews ◽

The Common ◽

The One

This chapter reviews the books Fútbol, Jews and the Making of Argentina (2014), by Raanan Rein, translated by Marsha Grenzeback, and Muscling in on New Worlds: Jews, Sport, and the Making of the Americas (2014), edited by Raanan Rein and David M.K. Sheinin. Rein’s book deals with the “making” of Argentina through football (soccer), while Muscling in on New Worlds focuses on the “making” of the Americas (mainly the one America, called the United States) through sports. Muscling in on New Worlds is a collection of essays that seeks to advance the common theme of sport as “an avenue by which Jews threaded the needle of asserting a Jewish identity.” Topics include Jews as boxers, Jews and football, Jews and yoga, Orthodox Jewish athletes, and American Jews and baseball. There are also essays about the cinematic and literary representations of Jews in sports.

Download Full-text

Achieving More Rapid Door-to-Needle Times and Improved Outcomes in Acute Ischemic Stroke in a Nationwide Quality Improvement Intervention

Stroke ◽

10.1161/strokeaha.121.035853 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Ying Xian ◽

Haolin Xu ◽

Eric E. Smith ◽

Jeffrey L. Saver ◽

Mathew J. Reeves ◽

...

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

Quality Improvement ◽

Ischemic Stroke ◽

Thrombolytic Therapy ◽

Phase I ◽

Acute Ischemic Stroke ◽

Symptom Onset ◽

Odds Ratio ◽

Adjusted Odds Ratio ◽

The United States

Background and Purpose: The benefits of tPA (tissue-type plasminogen activator) in acute ischemic stroke are time-dependent. However, delivery of thrombolytic therapy rapidly after hospital arrival was initially occurring infrequently in hospitals in the United States, discrepant with national guidelines. Methods: We evaluated door-to-needle (DTN) times and clinical outcomes among patients with acute ischemic stroke receiving tPA before and after initiation of 2 successive nationwide quality improvement initiatives: Target: Stroke Phase I (2010–2013) and Target: Stroke Phase II (2014–2018) from 913 Get With The Guidelines-Stroke hospitals in the United States between April 2003 and September 2018. Results: Among 154 221 patients receiving tPA within 3 hours of stroke symptom onset (median age 72 years, 50.1% female), median DTN times decreased from 78 minutes (interquartile range, 60–98) preintervention, to 66 minutes (51–87) during Phase I, and 50 minutes (37–66) during Phase II ( P <0.001). Proportions of patients with DTN ≤60 minutes increased from 26.4% to 42.7% to 68.6% ( P <0.001). Proportions of patients with DTN ≤45 minutes increased from 10.1% to 17.7% to 41.4% ( P <0.001). By the end of the second intervention, 75.4% and 51.7% patients achieved 60-minute and 45-minute DTN goals. Compared with the preintervention period, hospitals during the second intervention period (2014–2018) achieved higher rates of tPA use (11.7% versus 5.6%; adjusted odds ratio, 2.43 [95% CI, 2.31–2.56]), lower in-hospital mortality (6.0% versus 10.0%; adjusted odds ratio, 0.69 [0.64–0.73]), fewer bleeding complication (3.4% versus 5.5%; adjusted odds ratio, 0.68 [0.62–0.74]), and higher rates of discharge to home (49.6% versus 35.7%; adjusted odds ratio, 1.43 [1.38–1.50]). Similar findings were found in sensitivity analyses of 185 501 patients receiving tPA within 4.5 hours of symptom onset. Conclusions: A nationwide quality improvement program for acute ischemic stroke was associated with substantial improvement in the timeliness of thrombolytic therapy start, increased thrombolytic treatment, and improved clinical outcomes.

Download Full-text

Statement from the Editors

Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry Volume 1 ◽

10.3828/liverpool/9781904113171.003.0001 ◽

2004 ◽

pp. 1-2

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

Seventeenth Century ◽

Jewish Community ◽

Religious Tradition ◽

The United States ◽

Considerable Extent ◽

Jewish Communities ◽

American Jewry ◽

The World ◽

Jewish Historian

To launch a new annual into a world which seems over-saturated with academic journals would seem a foolhardy and even superfluous undertaking. Yet we believe that Polin is a unique venture and we are convinced that it has a weighty task to fulfil. Polish Jewry was one of the largest and most important Jewish communities in the world. By the late seventeenth century, nearly three-quarters of the world's Jews lived within the borders of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Polish Jewry provided the basis for the religious tradition of much of the Jewish world, and the territories of the former Polish states were also the source for those movements - Zionism, Socialism, as well as Orthodox ones - which were to transform the Jewish world in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. As late as 1939, Poland still contained the second-largest Jewish community in the world, while the largest, that in the United States, derived to a considerable extent from the Polish lands. It was the great Jewish historian Salo Baron who described American Jewry as 'a bridge built by Polish Jews'....

Download Full-text

Bearing Witness

Polin: Studies in Polish Jewry Volume 20 ◽

10.3828/liverpool/9781904113058.003.0014 ◽

2007 ◽

pp. 324-336

Author(s):

Joanna B. Michlic

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

The United States ◽

Prose Poetry ◽

Orthodox Jewish ◽

Jewish Family ◽

Bearing Witness ◽

Central Poland ◽

The Holocaust ◽

The Village

HENRYK GRYNBERG was born in Warsaw in 1936 into an Orthodox Jewish family, and raised in the village of Radoszyna near Mińsk Mazowiecki in central Poland. He survived the Holocaust in hiding with his mother. He left for the United States in 1967 in protest at the Polish government’s antisemitic practices and the censorship of his writing. He is the author of some thirty books of prose, poetry, drama, and essays, and his work has been translated from Polish into many languages. Titles. translated into English include ...

Download Full-text

Group Size, Social Class, Religion, and Politics

Social Change and Halakhic Evolution in American Orthodoxy ◽

10.3828/liverpool/9781906764845.003.0002 ◽

2017 ◽

pp. 31-51

Author(s):

Chaim I. Waxman

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

New York ◽

York City ◽

Jewish Population ◽

Religion And Politics ◽

The United States ◽

Orthodox Jewish ◽

Social Scientists ◽

The Core ◽

Jewish Demography

This chapter focuses on determining the size of the Orthodox Jewish population in the United States and difficulties related to the problem of estimating the Jewish population as a whole. It analyses the acceptance of the notion of the 'core Jewish population' among social scientists and Jewish communal professionals. It also looks at major debates relating to significantly different estimates of population size among those specializing in Jewish demography. The chapter addresses questions as to whether belonging to an Orthodox synagogue makes one Orthodox, or whether being Orthodox entails matters of faith and behaviour. It cites the UJA-Federation of New York, which estimated the total Orthodox population in New York City at 493,000 in 2013.

Download Full-text

Social Vulnerability and Procedural Equity: Exploring the Distribution of Disaster Aid Across Counties in the United States

The American Review of Public Administration ◽

10.1177/0275074019856122 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 49 (8) ◽

pp. 897-913 ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

Simone J. Domingue ◽

Christopher T. Emrich

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

Public Assistance ◽

Social Indicators ◽

The United States ◽

Assistance Program ◽

Major Disaster ◽

Vulnerability Indicators ◽

Multiple Regions ◽

Disaster Declarations ◽

Disaster Aid

To date, there has been limited research conducted on disaster aid allocation across multiple regions and disasters within the United States. In addition, there is a paucity of research specifically connecting social indicators of vulnerability to public assistance grants aimed at restoring, rebuilding, and mitigating against future damages in disasters. Given these gaps, this article inquires as to whether the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA’s) public assistance program is characterized by procedural inequities, or disparate outcomes for counties with more socially vulnerable populations. Specifically, this article analyzes county-level FEMA’s Public Assistance distribution following major disaster declarations, while controlling for damages sustained, population, household counts, and FEMA Region. Results indicate that FEMA’s Public Assistance program operates well when accounting only for disaster losses across the years, however, findings also show that county social conditions influence funding receipt. Although socioeconomic characteristics were significant drivers of assistance spending, additional vulnerability indicators related to county demographic and built environment characteristics were also important drivers of receipt. Cases of both procedural inequity and equity are highlighted, and implications for equitable disaster recovery are discussed along with recommendations.

Download Full-text

SARS-CoV-2 infectious virus, viral RNA in nasopharyngeal swabs, and serostatus of symptomatic COVID-19 outpatients in the United States

10.1101/2021.05.28.21258011 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Katie R. Mollan ◽

Joseph J. Eron ◽

Taylor J. Krajewski ◽

Wendy Painter ◽

Elizabeth R. Duke ◽

...

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

Symptom Onset ◽

Infectious Virus ◽

Virus Isolation ◽

Clinical Symptoms ◽

Comprehensive Evaluation ◽

Upper Airway ◽

The United States ◽

Viral Rna ◽

Treatment And Prevention

Background: SARS-CoV-2 infectious virus isolation in the upper airway of COVID-19 patients is associated with higher levels of viral RNA. However, comprehensive evaluation of the relationships between host and disease factors and infectious, replication competent virus is needed. Methods: Symptomatic COVID-19 outpatients were enrolled from the United States. Clinical symptoms were recorded via patient diary. Nasopharyngeal swabs were collected to quantitate SARS-CoV-2 RNA by reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction and for infectious virus isolation in Vero E6-cells. SARS-CoV-2 antibodies were measured in serum using a validated ELISA assay. Findings: Among 204 participants within one week of reported symptom onset (median=5, IQR 4-5 days), median age was 40 (min-max: 18-82 years), median nasopharyngeal viral RNA was 6.5 (IQR 4.7-7.6 log10 copies/mL), and 26% had detectable SARS-CoV-2 antibodies at baseline. Infectious virus was recovered in 7% of participants with antibodies compared to 58% of participants without antibodies (probability ratio (PR)=0.12, 95% CI: 0.04, 0.36; p=0.00016). Infectious virus isolation was also associated with higher levels of viral RNA (mean RNA difference +2.6 log10, 95% CI: 2.2, 3.0; p<0.0001) and fewer days since symptom onset (PR=0.79, 95% CI: 0.71, 0.88 per day; p<0.0001). Interpretation: The presence of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies is strongly associated with clearance of infectious virus isolation. Seropositivity and viral RNA are likely more reliable markers of infectious virus suppression than subjective measure of COVID-19 symptoms. Virus-targeted treatment and prevention strategies should be administered as early as possible and ideally before seroconversion. Funding: Ridgeback Biotherapeutics, LP and NIH ClinicalTrials.gov Identifier: NCT04405570

Download Full-text

Estimation of COVID-19 transmission rates in California and the U.S. with reporting delays

10.1101/2020.05.14.20101162 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Lee Worden ◽

Rae Wannier ◽

Micaela Neus ◽

Jennifer C. Kwan ◽

Alex Y. Ge ◽

...

Keyword(s):

United States ◽

Symptom Onset ◽

The United States ◽

Time Varying ◽

Transmission Rates ◽

Reproduction Numbers ◽

Serial Interval ◽

Reporting Delays ◽

Interval Distribution ◽

The U.S

We estimated time-varying reproduction numbers of COVID-19 transmission in counties and regions of California and in states of the United States, using the Wallinga-Teunis method of estimations applied to publicly available data. The serial interval distribution assumed incorporates wide uncertainty in delays from symptom onset to case reporting. This assumption contributes smoothing and a small but meaningful increase in numerical estimates of reproduction numbers due to the likely existence of secondary cases not yet reported. Transmission in many areas of the U.S. may not yet be controlled, including areas in which case counts appear to be stable or slowly declining.

Download Full-text