#COVID19 Journal Club: “Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 RNA contamination of inanimate surfaces and virus viability in a health care emergency unit”

Another quick post here.  “Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 RNA contamination of inanimate surfaces and virus viability in a health care emergency unit.” One of several studies that have found the presence of viral RNA in a healthcare setting, but who were unable to culture virus from surfaces there.  Abstract below: Objectives To detect …

#COVID19 Journal Club: “Lack of SARS-CoV-2 RNA environmental contamination in a tertiary referral hospital for infectious diseases in Northern Italy”

Just a quick one here… a study looking for viral RNA in an intensively cleaned healthcare study showing very little detectable RNA in shared spaces in the hospital (in contrast to patient areas).  No viral culturing which is pretty normal for these short notes.  “Lack of SARS-CoV-2 RNA environmental contamination in a tertiary referral hospital …

#COVID19 Journal Club: “Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) Environmental Contamination and Childbirth”

A short article here from our prolific collaborators at the University of Oregon, “Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) Environmental Contamination and Childbirth”.  Basically they are looking here at the risk of the spreading of the virus during childbirth… and show that an asymptomatic carrier results in environmental contamination.  No Abstract since it’s a …

#COVID19 Preprint Journal Club: “Viable SARS-CoV-2 in the air of a hospital room with COVID-19 patients”

I missed blogging about this important preprint when it came out for some reason. “Viable SARS-CoV-2 in the air of a hospital room with COVID-19 patients“.   I’ve talked in the past about how many of the environmental sampling studies come out are only looking at SARS-CoV-2 RNA and not viable virus.   Here’s a nice …

#COVID19; Of fomites and nosocomial infections

(h/t to Jonathan Eisen for the original article) Virtually all the discussion these days is about aerosol/airborne transmission of SARS-CoV-2, and probably rightly so… there’s a lot of evidence that these are the primary routes of transmission.   But as a recent Medscape article admonishes; “Don’t Forget the Fomites as Face-to-Face Care Ramps Up“.  It’s still …

#COVID19 Journal Club: Kind of strange “study” that’s not really about SARS-CoV-2

So here’s a bit of an odd “study”, published as a letter in the Journal of Hospital Infection about which the authors put out a press release as well.  The title is “COVID-19 pandemic, let’s not forget surfaces”.  No abstract since it’s a letter. Basically the authors took DNA from cauliflower mosaic virus, and inoculated …

#COVID19 Preprint Journal Club: Detection of Air and Surface Contamination by SARS-CoV-2 in Hospital Rooms of Infected Patients

(h/t to Patrick Horve for this article) Definitely seeing a theme here these days.  People are swabbing hospitals and finding the SARS-CoV-2 virus pretty much all over the place.  This article “Detection of Air and Surface Contamination by Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) in Hospital Rooms of Infected Patients” fits perfectly in that …

#COVID19 Preprint Journal Club: “Toilets dominate environmental detection of SARS-CoV-2 virus in a hospital”

Another short #COVID19 Preprint with relevance to the built environment came out yesterday.  This one from a hospital in Nanjing, China where they collected 107 samples from the air and various surfaces.  Most of those were negative (RT qPCR as usual) but most of the positives were found in the bathroom.   Abstract below:   Abstract …

A #COVID19 in the Built Environment preprint: shedding in a hospital

A preprint came out yesterday entitled “Transmission Potential of SARS-CoV-2 in Viral Shedding Observed at the University of Nebraska Medical Center“.  They looked at actual virus shed by patients in a healthcare setting (as opposed to artificial virus aerosols).  They found widespread contamination of surfaces and objects in the room… but all of the detection …

Postdoctoral positions in engineering the microbiome – Cornell University

The Brito Lab at Cornell University in Ithaca, NY works in the area of systems biology of the human microbiome. We are looking for talented postdocs to fill two open positions for postdoctoral researchers interested in investigating mechanistic linkages between microbes and human health outcomes. Postdoctoral candidates can have an experimental or computational background, or both. One of …