Publications by authors named "Susanna Hartzell"
Article Synopsis
- NPIs significantly reduced asthma exacerbations and viral infections in pediatric patients during their enforcement from March 2020 to December 2022.
- A total of 5,758 asthma exacerbations were recorded, with a 50% decline during NPIs, while 87% of the 70,682 respiratory tests returned positive for pathogens but showed decreased rates for some viruses.
- After the NPIs ended, asthma exacerbations returned to pre-pandemic levels, and an unexpected spike in respiratory syncytial virus infections highlighted the importance of ongoing monitoring.
Purpose: To identify characteristics of SARS-CoV-2 infection that are associated with hospitalization in children initially evaluated in a Pediatric Emergency Department (ED).
Methods: We identified cases of SARS-CoV-2 positive patients seen in the Arkansas Children's Hospital (ACH) ED or hospitalized between May 27, 2020, and April 28, 2022, using ICD-10 codes within the Pediatric Hospital Information System (PHIS) Database. We compared infection waves for differences in patient characteristics and used logistic regressions to examine which features led to a higher chance of hospitalization.
Article Synopsis
- Whole Genome Sequencing (WGS) of SARS-CoV-2 is essential for tracking COVID-19, with various primer schemes like Midnight and ARTIC V4.1 used for amplification, although they face challenges like amplicon dropouts due to mutations.
- This study employs seven long-range PCR primer pairs to sequence SARS-CoV-2, producing larger amplicons (about 4500 bp) that cover the entire genome, including the important S-gene, and compares their effectiveness to traditional primers.
- Results indicate that using long-range primers significantly minimizes coverage bias and amplicon dropout, thereby improving the accuracy of identifying SARS-CoV-2 variants, crucial for monitoring emerging strains.
Whole Genome Sequencing (WGS) of the SARS-CoV-2 virus is crucial in the surveillance of the COVID-19 pandemic. Several primer schemes have been developed to sequence the ~30,000 nucleotide SARS-CoV-2 genome that use a multiplex PCR approach to amplify cDNA copies of the viral genomic RNA. Midnight primers and ARTIC V4.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose: To identify characteristics of SARS-CoV-2 infection that are associated with hospitalization in children initially evaluated in a Pediatric Emergency Department (ED).
Methods: We identified cases of SARS-CoV-2 positive patients seen in the Arkansas Children's Hospital (ACH) ED or hospitalized between May 27, 2020, and April 28, 2022 using ICD-10 codes within the Pediatric Hospital Information System (PHIS) Database. We compared infection waves for differences in patient characteristics, and used logistic regressions to examine which characteristics led to a higher chance of hospitalization.