Decontaminating surfaces in airports, public transit vehicles and other public settings does little to prevent the spread of COVID-19 indoors, scientists told The New York Times.

Malnutrition is a highly prevalent issue among hospital patients but is not always on healthcare leaders' radars. About 30 percent to 50 percent of patients are malnourished upon admission, according to a 2016 study published in Journal of Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition. Additional studies also link malnutrition to various adverse patient outcomes, including prolonged hospitalizations, higher readmission rates and higher risk of complications or death. 

The American people must do their part to protect healthcare workers by scaling back traditional holiday gatherings to help mitigate COVID-19 spread, according to a Nov. 19 open letter from the American Medical Association, American Hospital Association and American Nurses Association.  

As the U.S. faces daunting COVID-19 milestones, surpassing 250,000 deaths and 11 million cases, 100 of the nation's top healthcare systems issued a public service message Nov. 19 urging people to stay vigilant and "#MaskUp." 

The U.S. surpassed 250,000 COVID-19 deaths Nov. 18, according to Baltimore-based John Hopkins University's COVID-19 Dashboard.

Men are more likely to experience negative outcomes or complications from a number of procedures and conditions compared to women, creating a large window of opportunity for health systems to improve men's health engagement, according to a Nov. 18 Healthgrades report. 

Multiple COVID-19 patients with critical infections have refused to accept that they have the virus, insisting it must be the flu or perhaps lung cancer, Jodi Doering, RN, an emergency room nurse at a South Dakota hospital, told CNN. 

About 40 percent of parents say their children missed routine vaccinations due to the pandemic, lowering community protection against vaccine preventable diseases, according to a data analysis published Nov. 18 from the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association.

In 2018, the U.S. saw 17 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births — a ratio more than double the rate of other high-income countries, according to a Nov. 18 report from the Commonwealth Fund. 

More than 3 million Americans may have active COVID-19 infections and be contagious, according to a new estimate cited by The Washington Post.

Infants receiving antibiotics are more likely to develop major health conditions later in childhood, according to research published Nov. 15 in Mayo Clinic Proceedings.  

During a Nov. 5 webinar hosted by Becker's Healthcare Review and sponsored by Masimo, UC Irvine Health System's CMO discussed an innovative, noninvasive care approach for critically ill patients.

Healthcare workers could soon be the first group to receive COVID-19 vaccinations "this December, literally next month," Anthony Fauci, MD, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told NPR Nov. 17. 

Thirty-two people contracted COVID-19 after attending an Ohio wedding, reports NBC affiliate WLWT.

The U.S. hit 77,000 COVID-19 hospitalizations Nov. 17, a single-day record, according to data from The COVID Tracking Project.  

COVID-19 immunity may last years, according to a study published Nov. 16 on the preprint server bioRxiv. 

The American Medical Association is calling for physicians and healthcare workers to voluntarily take appropriate measures to protect others if they are not immunized from a vaccine-preventable disease, according to an ethical guidance amendment approved during a Nov. 16 meeting.  

Patients who experienced out-of-hospital cardiac arrest faced worse outcomes during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic compared to the same period in 2019, according to a recent study published in JAMA Cardiology.

Faculty members and student activists across the U.S. are calling for medical schools to combat racism by changing their curriculum in three main ways, reports Kaiser Health News. 

The COVID-19 pandemic has presented health systems with the ultimate balancing act: Care for an influx of patients and ensure nurses and front-line staff are adequately supported, all amid staffing and personal protective equipment shortages.