Clinical characteristics
This cross-sectional study examined racial/ethnic variation in nasal gene expression of trans-membrane serine protease 2 (TMPRSS2). Within the 305 individuals with tissue samples (nasal epithelium collected during 2015-2018), TMPRSS2 expression was significantly higher in Black individuals compared with all others (all P <0.001). TMPRSS2 has an essential role in SARS-CoV-2 entry into tissues, so it is possible that higher nasal expression of TMPRSS2 could contribute to the more severe infections among Black individuals.
Case Reports
A case report describes a healthy preterm newborn who was inadvertently fed SARS-CoV-2-positive breast milk, but was ultimately uninfected.
This case report describes an 11 year old female diagnosed with COVID-19, who was admitted for respiratory failure, requiring intubation. During recovery, she began to have new onset fevers and increasing inflammatory biomarkers. After ruling out other infectious causes, she was diagnosed with MIS-C 1 month after initial symptoms.
This case report describes a previously healthy 3 year old boy had status epilepticus and fever as his first symptoms of COVID-19 infection.
Treatment
In this open-label, randomized clinical trial of adults in Brazil, patients with severe COVID-19 infection were randomized to either azithromycin (600mg once daily for 10 days) or standard of care without macrolides. All patients received hydroxychloroquine (400 mg twice daily for 10 days) because that was part of standard of care treatment. The primary outcome did not significantly differ between the azithromycin and control groups (OR 1·36 [95% CI 0·94–1·97], p=0·11). Rates of adverse events were also not different between group.
In this single-center retrospective cohort study, researchers focused on patients with COVID-19 pneumonia who had acute hypoxemic respiratory failure, but did not require the ICU. Patients were divided into two cohorts, based off of corticosteroid exposure, and they found that treatment with corticosteroid was associated with significantly lower risk of ICU transfer, intubation, and in-hospital death.
