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Covid-19 infections from variant strains are quickly spreading across the U.S., but there’s one big problem: Lab officials say they can’t tell patients or their doctors whether someone has been infected by a variant.
Federal rules around who can be told about the variant cases are so confusing that public health officials may merely know the county where a case has emerged but can’t do the kind of investigation and deliver the notifications needed to slow the spread, according to Janet Hamilton, executive director of the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists.
“It could be associated with a person in a high-risk congregate setting or it might not be, but without patient information, we don’t know what we don’t know,” Hamilton said. The group has asked federal officials to waive the rules. “Time is ticking.”
Feb 26, 2021 11:55 AM EDT
COVID-19 infections from variant strains are quickly spreading across the U.S., but there’s one big problem: Lab officials say they can’t tell patients or their doctors whether someone has been infected by a variant.
Federal rules around who can be told about the variant cases are so confusing that public health officials may merely know the county where a case has emerged but can’t do the kind of investigation and deliver the notifications needed to slow the spread, according to Janet Hamilton, executive director of the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists.
“It could be associated with a person in a high-risk congregate setting or it might not be, but without patient information, we don’t know what we don’t know,” Hamilton said. The group has asked federal officials to waive the rules. “Time is ticking.”
Feb 26, 2021 3:20pm Tests for detecting variants have not yet been approved as a diagnostic either by the FDA or under federal rules governing university labs. (Getty Images)
COVID-19 infections from variant strains are quickly spreading across the U.S., but there’s one big problem: Lab officials say they can’t tell patients or their doctors whether someone has been infected by a variant.
Federal rules around who can be told about the variant cases are so confusing that public health officials may merely know the county where a case has emerged but can’t do the kind of investigation and deliver the notifications needed to slow the spread, according to Janet Hamilton, executive director of the Council of State and Territorial Epidemiologists.
Perrine Janiaud, PhD; Cathrine Axfors, MD, PhD; Andreas M. Schmitt, MD; Viktoria Gloy, PhD; Fahim Ebrahimi, MD, MSc; Matthias Hepprich, MD; Emily R. Smith, ScD, MPH; Noah A. Haber, ScD; Nina Khanna, MD; David Moher, PhD; Steven N. Goodman, MD, PhD; John P. A. Ioannidis, MD, DSc; Lars G. Hemkens, MD, MPH
In this issue of
JAMA, Janiaud et al
1 present a meta-analysis of randomized clinical trials (RCTs) of convalescent plasma for the treatment of patients with COVID-19. Based on an analysis of 1060 patients from 4 RCTs published in peer-reviewed journals and 10 722 patients from 6 RCTs (5 published as preprints and 1 as a press release), the authors found that treatment with convalescent plasma vs placebo or standard of care was not associated with a significant decrease in all-cause mortality (risk ratio, 0.93 [95% CI, 0.63-1.38] for the 4 peer-reviewed RCTs; risk ratio, 1.02 [95% CI, 0.92-1.12] for all 10 RCTs) or with benefit for other clinical outcom
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