Cooling vests help COVID-19 nurses tolerate PPE; Diabetes adds to COVID-19 risks for Black patients

The following is a roundup of some of the latest scientific studies on the novel coronavirus and efforts to find treatments and vaccines for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), the illness caused by the virus.

Cooling vests help COVID-19 nurses tolerate PPE

Nurses in COVID-19 wards who wear cooling vests under their personal protective equipment (PPE) feel less burdened by heat during their shifts, a small study suggests.

Seventeen nurses wore a light-weight cooling vest under their PPE on one day, and PPE only on another day.

On both days, participants swallowed an electronic capsule that provides a continuous reading of core body temperature.

The vests led to a slight improvement in body temperature but a much bigger improvement in the sensation of being too hot, researchers reported in the journal Temperature.

Only 18% of nurses reported thermal discomfort and 35% a slightly warm thermal sensation at the end of the day with the vest.

That compared to 81% and 94%, respectively, on the day without the vest.

"PPE is known to induce heat stress, which increases fatigue and sensory displeasure, and is known to impair effective decision making," said study coauthor Thijs Eijsvogels of Radboud University Medical Center in the Netherlands.

The CoolOver vests made by Dutch company Inuteq are easy to disinfect and re-activate in a refrigerator, he said, and may extend work tolerance time and improve recovery of clinicians involved in COVID-19 care.

Diabetes adds to COVID-19 risks for Black patients

Black patients with Type 1 diabetes (T1D) who become infected with the new coronavirus face a particularly high risk of a life-threatening diabetes complication known as ketoacidosis, new data show.

T1D usually develops in children or young adults and requires daily insulin to survive. Researchers studied 180 patients from across the United States with T1D and COVID-19, including 31% who were Black and 26% who were Hispanic.

Black patients had nearly four times the odds of developing diabetic ketoacidosis (DKA) compared with white patients, the researchers reported in The Journal of Clinical Endocrinology and Metabolism.

Hispanics had a slightly higher risk than white patients.

Blacks and Hispanics were significantly less likely to be using new diabetes technology like continuous glucose monitoring and insulin pumps, and had significantly worse blood sugar control compared with white patients.

That suggested that the higher risk was likely driven by structural and systemic inequality, coauthor Dr. Osagie Ebekozien of the nonprofit T1D Exchange in Boston told Reuters.

Particularly during the pandemic, healthcare providers need to screen patients with T1D for socio-economic factors that increase their risk of DKA like food insecurity, insulin affordability, and access to diabetes supplies, the researchers said.  -- Reuters