scholarly journals The COVID States Project #75: Attitudes toward COVID-19 boosters before and after Omicron

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Roy H. Perlis ◽  
Matthew Baum ◽  
Kristin Lunz Trujillo ◽  
David Lazer ◽  
Alauna Safarpour ◽  
...  

Recognizing that the protection conferred by COVID-19 vaccines may wane over time, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has encouraged adults in the United States to receive booster shots that can augment their immunity to the virus. While the Biden administration sought to encourage all adults to receive boosters, the CDC initially authorized the shots only for higher-risk individuals. Subsequently, authorization was broadened to all adults, although only higher-risk individuals were encouraged to pursue boosters. Most recently, after substantial criticism, the CDC changed its language to encourage all adults to receive boosters.But regardless of the language, are US adults sufficiently convinced to seek booster shots? Will the same factors that contributed to COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy and vaccine resistance impact booster shots? The answers may have profound public health implications as the US enters the season during which respiratory viruses typically have the greatest impact, and the highly-transmissible Omicron variant rapidly becomes the dominant form of COVID-19, after being labeled a variant of concern by the World Health Organization on November 26th.Between November 3rd and December 3rd, 2021, the COVID States Project asked 22,277 adults in all 50 US states and the District of Columbia about their attitudes and behaviors regarding COVID-19. In particular, we asked about whether people are vaccinated or intend to be vaccinated, and whether they had sought booster shots or intend to seek a booster shot. In this brief report, we examine attitudes toward COVID-19 booster shots, and whether they differ across particular groups of people. Since the survey was ongoing when news about Omicron emerged in the US, we also take an initial look at whether these attitudes have begun to shift along with perceptions of the threat posed by COVID-19 subsequent to the November 26th announcement.

2021 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 839-842
Author(s):  
Navid Shaghaghi ◽  
Andres Calle ◽  
George Kouretas ◽  
Jaidev Mirchandani ◽  
Michael Castillo

Abstract Vaccination is the primary strategy to prevent COVID-19 illness and hospitalization. However, supplies are scarce and due to the regional mutations of the virus, new vaccines or booster shots will need to be administered potentially regularly. Hence, the prediction of the rate of growth of COVID-19 cases is paramount to ensuring the ample supply of vaccines as well as for local, state, and federal government measures to ensure the availability of hospital beds, supplies, and staff. eVision is an epidemic forecaster aimed at combining Machine Learning (ML) - in the form of a Long Short-Term Memory (LSTM) Recursive Neural Network (RNN) - and search engine statistics, in order to make accurate predictions about the weekly number of cases for highly communicable diseases. By providing eVision with the relative popularity of carefully selected keywords searched via Google along with the number of positive cases reported from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and/or the World Health Organization (WHO) the model can make highly accurate predictions about the trend of the outbreak by learning the relationship between the two trends. Thus, in order to predict the trend of the outbreak in a specific region, eVision is provided with a weekly count of the number of COVID-19 cases in a region along with statistics surrounding common symptom search phrases such as “loss of smell” and “loss of taste” that have been searched on Google in that region since the start of the pandemic. eVision has, for instance, been able to achieve an accuracy of %89 for predicting the trend of the COVID-19 outbreak in the United States


2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
John W. Martel ◽  
Scott McCorvey

Diarrhea is a common emergency department (ED) complaint, leading to more than 1.5 million outpatient visits and 200,000 hospital admissions in the United States alone. Although concomitant dehydration also exists in some cases, there are no standard clinical criteria to aid in identifying those children who merit intravenous resuscitation. Current pediatric volume repletion guidelines are based primarily on the estimated degree of volume depletion per the World Health Organization, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and American Academy of Pediatrics criteria. These practice guidelines stratify patients into mild (3 to 5% volume depletion), moderate (5 to 10% volume depletion), and severe (> 10% volume depletion).  This review contains 5 figures, 9 tables, and 64 references. Key Words: Clostridium difficile, dehydration, diarrhea, gastroenteritis, hemolytic-uremic syndrome, pediatrics


Diagnostics ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 9 (3) ◽  
pp. 91 ◽  
Author(s):  
Mateo Cortes Rivera ◽  
Claudio Mastronardi ◽  
Claudia Silva-Aldana ◽  
Mauricio Arcos-Burgos ◽  
Brett Lidbury

Myalgic encephalomyelitis/chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS) is a debilitating chronic disease of unknown aetiology that is recognized by the World Health Organization (WHO) and the United States Center for Disease Control and Prevention (US CDC) as a disorder of the brain. The disease predominantly affects adults, with a peak age of onset of between 20 and 45 years with a female to male ratio of 3:1. Although the clinical features of the disease have been well established within diagnostic criteria, the diagnosis of ME/CFS is still of exclusion, meaning that other medical conditions must be ruled out. The pathophysiological mechanisms are unclear but the neuro-immuno-endocrinological pattern of CFS patients gleaned from various studies indicates that these three pillars may be the key point to understand the complexity of the disease. At the moment, there are no specific pharmacological therapies to treat the disease, but several studies’ aims and therapeutic approaches have been described in order to benefit patients’ prognosis, symptomatology relief, and the recovery of pre-existing function. This review presents a pathophysiological approach to understanding the essential concepts of ME/CFS, with an emphasis on the population, clinical, and genetic concepts associated with ME/CFS.


2020 ◽  
Vol 96 (5) ◽  
pp. 1281-1303 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carla Norrlöf

Abstract COVID-19 is the most invasive global crisis in the postwar era, jeopardizing all dimensions of human activity. By theorizing COVID-19 as a public bad, I shed light on one of the great debates of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries regarding the relationship between the United States and liberal international order (LIO). Conceptualizing the pandemic as a public bad, I analyze its consequences for US hegemony. Unlike other international public bads and many of the most important public goods that make up the LIO, the COVID-19 public bad not only has some degree of rivalry but can be made partially excludable, transforming it into more of a club good. Domestically, I demonstrate how the failure to effectively manage the COVID-19 public bad has compromised America's ability to secure the health of its citizens and the domestic economy, the very foundations for its international leadership. These failures jeopardize US provision of other global public goods. Internationally, I show how the US has already used the crisis strategically to reinforce its opposition to free international movement while abandoning the primary international institution tasked with fighting the public bad, the World Health Organization (WHO). While the only area where the United States has exercised leadership is in the monetary sphere, I argue this feat is more consequential for maintaining hegemony. However, even monetary hegemony could be at risk if the pandemic continues to be mismanaged.


2008 ◽  
Vol 22 (2) ◽  
pp. 169-175 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gregor Reid ◽  
Kingsley Anukam ◽  
Tara Koyama

Probiotics, defined as ‘live microorganisms, which when administered in adequate amounts, confer a health benefit on the host’, are finally becoming an option for gastroenterologists in Canada, after being available for many years in Japan, Europe and the United States of America. Unfortunately, Health Canada and the US Food and Drug Administration have not controlled the use of the term ‘probiotic’ or put into place United Nations and World Health Organization guidelines. The net result is that a host of products called ‘probiotics’ are available but are not truly probiotic. The aim of the present review was to discuss the rationale for probiotics in gastroenterology, and specifically examine which products are options for physicians in Canada, and which ones patients might be using. It is hoped that by clarifying what probiotics are, and the strengths and limitations of their use, specialists will be better placed to make recommendations on the role of these products in patient care. In due course, more clinically documented probiotics will emerge, some with therapeutic effects based on a better understanding of disease processes.


2009 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 9
Author(s):  
Atresha Karra, JD ◽  
Emily Cornette, JD

This article focuses on the existing methods for tracking and restricting the spread of communicable diseases, both within United States borders and across nations. It will first describe the roles played by the United States’ Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the World Health Organization and will then explore how communicable diseases across the world are identified and monitored. This will be followed by a discussion of US and world reporting requirements and methods. Finally, the article will discuss the tactics used by the United States to control the spread of disease.


2021 ◽  
Vol 25 (2) ◽  
pp. 258-260
Author(s):  
V. M. Dudnyk ◽  
V. Н. Furman ◽  
I. I. Andrikevych ◽  
N. O. Buglova ◽  
O. V. Кutsak ◽  
...  

Annotation. Peculiarities of clinical course and differential diagnosis of multisystem inflammatory syndrome (MIS-C) in children with coronavirus infection are described. The main features of this disease are long-term fever, multiorgan dysfunction, laboratory signs of inflammation and positive tests for SARS-CoV-2 (polymerase chain reaction using reverse transcription (RT-PCR), antigen test or positive serological test). The criteria of the World Health Organization (WHO) and the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) are used to confirm the MIS-C diagnosis.


Vaccines ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (2) ◽  
pp. 39 ◽  
Author(s):  
Deborah K. Johnson ◽  
Emily J. Mello ◽  
Trent D. Walker ◽  
Spencer J. Hood ◽  
Jamie L. Jensen ◽  
...  

In 2019, the World Health Organization (WHO) listed vaccine hesitancy in its top ten threats to global health. Vaccine hesitancy is a “delay in acceptance or refusal to vaccinate despite availability of vaccination services”. Urban areas with large amounts of vaccine hesitancy are at risk for the resurgence of vaccine-preventable diseases (VPDs). Many vaccine-hesitant (VH) parents may be unfamiliar with the consequences of VPDs, and thus might be swayed when confronted with the symptoms and dangers of VPDs. As such, we sought to educate college students (future parents) in an urban vaccine-hesitant hotspot by assigning them to interview family or community members who had experienced a VPD. Student vaccine attitudes were assessed by surveys before and after the interviews. Vaccine-hesitant students who conducted a VPD interview but received no additional vaccine educational materials were significantly more likely (interaction term p < 0.001) to become pro-vaccine (PV) (68%) than students who conducted an autoimmune interview and received no additional educational materials. Additionally, students whose interviewees experienced intense physical suffering or physical limitations or students who were enrolled in a course with intensive VPD and vaccine curriculum had significantly increased vaccine attitudes. This suggests that introducing students to VPDs can decrease vaccine hesitancy.


Pathogens ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 8 (4) ◽  
pp. 213 ◽  
Author(s):  
Al Mana ◽  
Yassine ◽  
Younes ◽  
Al-Mohannadi ◽  
Al-Sadeq ◽  
...  

Human cytomegalovirus (CMV) is a highly prevalent herpesvirus worldwide. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the World Health Organization (WHO), CMV infects people of all ages, and by the age of five, approximately one-third of children in the United States are infected. Although the infection is generally asymptomatic, it can cause severe disease in immunocompromised patients, transplant and transfusion recipients, as well as newborn neonates. The objective of this study is to systematically review published literature on CMV in the MENA region to estimate its incidence in the region and describe its epidemiological and clinical significance. The literature was searched through four scientific databases: PubMed, Scopus, Science Direct, and Web of Science. A total of 72 studies from 11 countries satisfied the inclusion criteria, covering a period from 1988–2019. The CMV IgG seroprevalence ranged from 8.7%–99.2% (SD = 38.95%). CMV incidence in these countries ranged between 1.22% and 77% in transplant and transfusion recipients, with an increase in incidence with advanced age. However, the incidence rate was unclear for congenital CMV due to the variability of the reporting. This review highlights the need for more robust and well-designed studies to better estimate CMV incidence in the MENA region, standardize diagnostic criteria, and consider prophylactic and pre-emptive treatments to limit the morbidity and mortality of the disease.


Author(s):  
Vanessa Cozza ◽  
Harry Campbell ◽  
Howard H Chang ◽  
A Danielle Iuliano ◽  
John Paget ◽  
...  

Abstract Prior to updating global influenza-associated mortality estimates, the World Health Organization convened a consultation in July 2017 to understand differences in methodology and implications on results of three influenza mortality projects from the United States Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the Netherlands Institute for Health Service Research (GLaMOR), and the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME). The expert panel reviewed estimates and discussed differences in data sources, analysis, and modeling assumptions. We performed a comparison analysis of the estimates. Influenza-associated respiratory death counts were comparable between CDC and GLaMOR; IHME estimate was considerably lower. The greatest country-specific influenza-associated mortality rate fold differences between CDC/IHME and between GLaMOR/IHME estimates were among countries in South-East Asia and Eastern Mediterranean region. The data envelope used for the calculation was one of the major differences (CDC and GLaMOR: all respiratory deaths; IHME: low respiratory infection deaths). With the assumption that there is only one cause of death for each death, IHME estimates a fraction of the full influenza-associated respiratory mortality that is measured by the other two groups. Wide variability of parameters was observed. Continued coordination between groups could assist with better understanding of methodological differences and new approaches to estimating influenza deaths globally.


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