This week in Clipboard Health’s Nursing News round-up … 

CDC Study Indicates Many COVID-19 Cases in Frontline Health Care Personnel Go Undetected

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a study that observed several thousand frontline health care personnel and found that not only are they at a much higher risk for getting COVID-19, but they are also at a higher risk of having it go undetected. 

Of the thousands of personnel involved in the study, 6% had evidence of antibodies. Of that 6%, about one-third of the personnel didn’t remember ever being sick, and almost two-thirds never had a positive test result during an infection.

Telemonitoring May Reduce Heart Attack, Stroke Risk by 50% in People with High Blood Pressure

Researchers completed a study that looked at two groups of people with uncontrolled hypertension over the course of five years: one group entered a telemonitoring program overseen by pharmacists, and the other group received normal and routine primary care. At the end of the five years, the group that used the telemonitoring program were 50% less likely than the other group to have an adverse cardiovascular event, such as heart attack, stroke, a stent placement, or hospitalization for heart failure. This averaged out to saving almost $1,900 in costs of interventions per patient.

Survey of Nurses Analyzes Nurse Burnout and Its Link to Work Environment

The European Society of Cardiology presented a survey examining nurse burnout among nurses caring for children with heart problems. It measured the work environment and the nurses’ emotional exhaustion and determined that more than half of the nurses surveyed were emotionally exhausted, and 30% of the nurses wanted to either find a new job or a new career. 

When the work environment was improved, then the rates of emotional exhaustion fell by 81%.

First COVID-19 Reinfection Case in the U.S. Reported in Nevada

The U.S. has now reported its own first documented COVID-19 reinfection case in a patient in Nevada. Genetic sequencing showed that the 25-year-old man was infected by two slightly different variants of the coronavirus.

Unlike the first reinfection case reported in Hong Kong just several days before, in this case, the patient had a worse case of the coronavirus the second time and was hospitalized with pneumonia.

Race for the Vaccine: Coronavirus Vaccine Updates

There’s not much new news this week for the coronavirus vaccine as many continue trials.

• China grants emergency-use approval for Sinovac’s vaccine, in order to begin vaccinating high-risk populations.

• Kazakhstan begins Phase I trials with forty-four volunteers for its COVID-19 vaccine.

• Venezuela’s president announces that the country will be asking its citizens to volunteer to test the COVID-19 vaccine developed by Russia.

• A recent study shows that one dose of a new nasal COVID-19 vaccine tested in mice may offer protection against the virus. The intranasal vaccine is being developed by the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.