Disaster Lit® Database Daily Updates | COVID-19

Disaster Lit® Database Daily Updates

Pathway to a Vaccine: Efforts to Develop a Safe, Effective and Accessible COVID-19 Vaccine

07/21/2020 12:00 AM EDT

Source: U.S. House of Representatives, Committee on Energy and Commerce. Published: 7/21/2020. This three-hour, four-minute Congressional hearing examines the current state of research, development, and manufacturing of potential vaccines for COVID-19. Witnesses are representatives of five of the multiple companies that are currently developing COVID-19 vaccines for use in the United States. (Video or Multimedia)

COVID Complexities: Converging Threats, Fractured Resources

07/21/2020 12:00 AM EDT

Source: Bipartisan Commission on Biodefense. Published: 7/21/2020. This three-hour, 56-minute virtual meeting was held to help us better understand the potential for COVID-19’s reemergence, the country’s efforts to track the spread of the disease, and national readiness to address future biological threats. Speakers discuss the potential for compoundment of the biological threat, disease-tracking needs, hospital preparedness, and emergency management challenges. (Video or Multimedia)

Tracking COVID-19 in the United States: From Information Catastrophe to Empowered Communities

07/21/2020 12:00 AM EDT

Source: Resolve to Save Lives. Published: 7/21/2020. It is crucial that state, county, and city health departments publicly report essential data on COVID-19 using consistent indicators that can be compared both across regions and over time. To better understand the publicly available data that currently exists, this 21-page report reviewed the state-level data dashboard for all 50 U.S. states, and the District of Columbia. (PDF)

Path to Zero and Schools: Achieving Pandemic Resilient Teaching and Learning Spaces

07/19/2020 12:00 AM EDT

Source: Harvard University, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Published: 7/19/2020. This four-page document explains how risk incidence levels, the creative adaptation of infection control guidelines for healthy buildings, and national investment in pandemic resilient schools can optimize operations, keep people safe, and restore our schools as trusted sites of learning in a densely populated world in which novel coronavirus and influenza epidemics are becoming increasingly frequent. It is co-published with the Harvard Global Health Institute, and Edmond J. Safra Center for Ethics. (PDF)

School Reopening Planning: Federal, Association, and State Considerations

07/14/2020 12:00 AM EDT

Source: Association of State and Territorial Health Officials (ASTHO). Published: 7/14/2020. The examples in this three-page document provide guidance and recommendations from national associations, state action plans, and other resources that can be used to inform future recommendations and policy decisions for determining the feasibility and practicality for schools to reopen in light of the COVID-19 pandemic. (PDF)

COVID-19: Dementia Challenges to Contact Tracing

06/30/2020 12:00 AM EDT

Source: Alzheimer's Association. Published: 6/30/2020. During this 33-minute webcast recording, experts from the Alzheimer’s Association and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention describe some of the challenges to COVID-19 contact tracing programs posed by dementia. They offer immediate steps contact tracing programs and personnel can take to better serve this vulnerable population, and resources public health departments and their partners can use. (Video or Multimedia)

Schools for Health: Risk Reduction Strategies for Reopening Schools

06/01/2020 12:00 AM EDT

Source: Harvard University, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Published: 6/2020. This 62-page report offers guidance regarding best practices for the general operations of school buildings in an effort to reduce the risk of disease transmission, specifically novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 and the disease it causes, COVID-19. It provides guiding principles, and recommendations for Healthy Classrooms, Healthy Buildings, Healthy Policies, Healthy Schedules, and Healthy Activities. (PDF)

Interpretation of Laboratory Results for COVID-19 Diagnosis

05/06/2020 12:00 AM EDT

Source: World Health Organization, Pan American Health Organization (PAHO). Published: 5/6/2020. This six-page document discusses the currently available assays for COVID-19, which can be classified into two groups, and how to interpret laboratory results for symptomatic and asymptomatic individuals. (PDF)

Ethics Guidance for the Use of Scarce Resources in the Delivery of Critical Health Care During the COVID-19 Pandemic

05/01/2020 12:00 AM EDT

Source: World Health Organization, Pan American Health Organization (PAHO). Published: 5/2020. This brief, one-page ethics guidance provides four basic recommendations to guide the work of health authorities during the COVID-19 pandemic. It has been developed on the basis of prior guidance, with adaptations to the context of the pandemic. (PDF)

Information and Criteria for Prioritizing Diagnostic Tests for SARS-CoV-2 in Order to Address the Procurement Needs of Health Systems

04/08/2020 12:00 AM EDT

Source: World Health Organization, Pan American Health Organization (PAHO). Published: 4/8/2020. This five-page document provides brief answers to common questions regarding COVID-19 diagnostic tests and how to prioritize them to the patients most in need. (PDF)

COVID-19: Technical Recommendations for the Configuration of a Specialized Emergency Medical Team for the Treatment of Severe Acute Respiratory Infection (SARI)

04/05/2020 12:00 AM EDT

Source: World Health Organization, Pan American Health Organization (PAHO). Published: 4/5/2020. The technical recommendations in this 22-page document outline how to set up the emergency medical team within hospitals to provide safe care to COVID-19 patients and others with severe acute respiratory infections. (PDF)

Considerations for the Use of Hotels During the COVID-19 Pandemic

04/02/2020 12:00 AM EDT

Source: World Health Organization, Pan American Health Organization (PAHO). Published: 4/2/2020. To the extent that health services network capacities need to be strengthened or have been overwhelmed during the COVID-19 pandemic, it is necessary to consider other strategies at the community level. This 11-page document discusses the strategy of fitting out hotels to be extensions of health facilities. (PDF)

COVID-19: Recommendations for Medical Surge Capacity and Deployment of Emergency Medical Teams

03/31/2020 12:00 AM EDT

Source: World Health Organization, Pan American Health Organization (PAHO). Published: 3/31/2020. The purpose of this nine-page document is to issue recommendations to facilitate the medical surge capacity and the deployment of emergency medical teams in order to guarantee the response to high numbers of patients that could overwhelm the capacity of the integrated health services network in communities or areas where COVID-19 is circulating. (PDF)

Essential Medicines List for Management of Patients Admitted to Intensive Care Units with Suspected or Confirmed COVID-19 Diagnosis

03/01/2020 12:00 AM EST

Source: World Health Organization, Pan American Health Organization (PAHO). Published: 3/2020. This 17-page document presents an essential medicines list (EML) to manage patients in intensive care units (ICUs) with suspected or confirmed COVID-19 diagnosis, which includes active ingredients with dosage form and concentration, and are preferably in the WHO Model Lists of Essential Medicines 2019. (PDF)