Infection Control

After discovering a room full of N95 masks hanging on clotheslines, some employees claim Poughkeepsie, N.Y.-based Vassar Brothers Medical Center is recycling masks for staff, Mid-Hudson News reports. 

Kapiolani Medical Center for Women & Children in Honolulu temporarily closed its adult intensive care unit after staff were exposed to COVID-19, according to local news station KHON2.

Neck gaiters are still a viable option to help prevent the spread of COVID-19 and are likely better than wearing no mask at all, researchers and health experts told The New York Times.

A Georgia school district has told 925 students and staff to quarantine a week after schools reopened, according to NBC affiliate WXIA.

Wearing bandanas or neck gaiters as face coverings to protect against COVID-19 may actually do more harm than not wearing a mask at all, a study published in Science Advances found.

The CDC closed some offices it leases in Atlanta after property managers discovered Legionella bacteria in water systems, reports CNN.

Children's National Hospital in Washington, D.C., treated what is believed to be the first case of resistant bacterial meningitis in the U.S., according to a study published in the Journal of the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society. 

Large-scale testing of front-line healthcare providers at New York City-Northwell Health found 13 percent of staff had COVID-19 antibodies, according to research published Aug. 6 in The Journal of the American Medical Association. 

Most primary care physicians acknowledge antibiotic resistance is an issue — but not in their own practices, a study published in Open Forum Infectious Diseases found. 

Early data from two hospitals in New York City and St. Louis suggest that the COVID-19 pandemic will cause an uptick in some healthcare-associated infections, researchers wrote in a commentary published in the American Journal of Infection Control.