Issue link: https://beckershealthcare.uberflip.com/i/1337263
12 INFECTION CONTROL COVID-19 pandemic 'not necessarily the big one,' top WHO official says By Mackenzie Bean C OVID-19 has infected more than 92.6 million people and killed more than 1.9 million worldwide as of Jan. 14. While the toll of this pandemic has been severe, it is "not necessarily the big one," a top World Health Organization official warned Dec. 28, according to The New York Times. Mike Ryan, MD, executive director of WHO's emergencies program, said this pandemic has served as a "wake up call" for leaders worldwide. "These threats will continue," Dr. Ryan said. "If there's one thing we need to take from this pandemic with all the tragedy and loss is that we need to get our act together. We need to get ready for something that may even be more severe in the future." Dr. Ryan said the world's leaders and health experts have improved how they communicate with each other and govern during the pandemic, but warned more preparations must be made to better prepare for future pandemics. n Spike in negative candle reviews may be tied to COVID-19 By Mackenzie Bean T he average customer ratings for scented candles on Amazon fell in 2020, a trend that may correlate to Americans losing their loss of smell due to COVID-19, The Washington Post reported Dec. 1. Terri Nelson, a Portland, Ore.-based science illustrator, first suggested a potential correlation between the pandemic and negative candle reviews in a Nov. 24 tweet: "There are angry ladies all over Yankee Candle's site report- ing that none of the candles they just got had any smell at all," she wrote. The observation spurred Kate Petrova, a research assistant with the Har- vard Study of Adult Development at Bryn Mawr (Pa.) College, to analyze about 20,000 Amazon reviews for scented and unscented candles as a personal research project. She found reviews for the top-rated scented candles fell by about one full star rating in 2020 compared to prior years. Ms. Petrova did not find a similar trend for unscented candle reviews. The amount of scented candle reviews containing phrases like "can't smell" or "no scent" increased from 2 percent in January to 6 percent in November. The finding offers "strongly suggestive" evidence that Americans expe- riencing a loss of smell due to COVID-19 may be writing more negative candle reviews in 2020, according to the Post. However, Ms. Petrova said her analysis should be taken as "a fun exercise at data visualization — not a peer-reviewed study." n What shingles vaccination trends can tell us about COVID-19 immunization By Mackenzie Bean A Kaiser Family Foundation anal- ysis published Dec. 14 explored the potential challenges associat- ed with multidose COVID-19 vaccines by examining past immunization trends for Shingrix, a shingles vaccine for people 50 and older that also requires two doses. e vaccine requires patients to receive a second dose within two to six months aer the first. To assess how many patients received their second dose within this time frame, Kaiser Family Foundation analyzed prescription drug claims data for 80,000 Medicare patients who received their first Shingrix dose between January and June of 2018. ree findings: 1. About 74 percent of Medicare patients received their second dose within six months. 2. Follow-up rates were lower for people of color, those under 65 with long-term disabilities and low-income patients. 3. Seventy-six percent of white patients received the second dose within six months, compared to 61 percent of Black patients and 58 percent of Hispanic patients. ese findings underscore the challenge of vaccinating vulnerable populations against COVID-19, the researchers said. One bright side: Pfizer and Moderna's COVID-19 vaccines both require a second dose just a month aer the first, which could help eliminate some of the drop-off seen in follow-up vaccinations for Shingrix, the researchers said. n