JAMA network open
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The BNT162b2 vaccine showed high efficacy against COVID-19 in a phase III randomized clinical trial. A vaccine effectiveness evaluation in a real-world setting is needed. ⋯ In this comparative effectiveness study of a single dose of the BNT162b2 vaccine, results were comparable to that of the phase III randomized clinical trial.
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Black patients hospitalized with COVID-19 may have worse outcomes than White patients because of excess individual risk or because Black patients are disproportionately cared for in hospitals with worse outcomes for all. ⋯ This cohort study found that Black patients hospitalized with COVID-19 had higher rates of hospital mortality or discharge to hospice than White patients after adjustment for the personal characteristics of those patients. However, those differences were explained by differences in the hospitals to which Black and White patients were admitted.
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In-hospital mortality rates from COVID-19 are high but appear to be decreasing for selected locations in the United States. It is not known whether this is because of changes in the characteristics of patients being admitted. ⋯ In this cohort study, high rates of in-hospital COVID-19 mortality among registry patients in March and April 2020 decreased by more than one-third by June and remained near that rate through November. This difference in mortality rates between the months of March and April and later months persisted even after adjusting for age, sex, medical history, and COVID-19 disease severity and did not appear to be associated with changes in the characteristics of patients being admitted.
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After the emergence of COVID-19, studies reported a decrease in hospitalizations of patients with ischemic stroke (IS), but there are little to no data regarding hospitalizations for the remainder of 2020, including outcome data from a large cohort of patients with IS and comorbid COVID-19. ⋯ In this cohort study, after the emergence of COVID-19, hospital discharges of patients with IS decreased in the US but returned to prepandemic levels by July 2020. Among patients with IS between April and December 2020, comorbid COVID-19 was relatively common, particularly among Black and Hispanic populations, and morbidity was high.
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Nursing homes and other long-term care facilities have been disproportionately impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. Strategies are urgently needed to reduce transmission in these high-risk populations. ⋯ These findings suggest that increasing the frequency of screening testing of all residents and staff, or even staff alone, in nursing homes may reduce outbreaks in this high-risk setting. Immunity-based staffing may further reduce spread at little or no additional cost and becomes particularly important when daily testing is not feasible.