Bioterrorism-related Inhalational Anthrax in an Elderly Woman, Connecticut, 2001

On November 20, 2001, inhalational anthrax was confirmed in an elderly woman from rural Connecticut. To determine her exposure source, we conducted an extensive epidemiologic, environmental, and laboratory investigation. Molecular subtyping showed that her isolate was indistinguishable from isolates associated with intentionally contaminated letters. No samples from her home or community yielded Bacillus anthracis, and she received no first-class letters from facilities known to have processed intentionally contaminated letters. Environmental sampling in the regional Connecticut postal facility yielded B. anthracis spores from 4 (31%) of 13 sorting machines. One extensively contaminated machine primarily processes bulk mail. A second machine that does final sorting of bulk mail for her zip code yielded B. anthracis on the column of bins for her carrier route. The evidence suggests she was exposed through a cross-contaminated bulk mail letter. Such cross-contamination of letters and postal facilities has implications for managing the response to future B. anthracis–contaminated mailings

Case fatality risk of the SARS-CoV-2 variant of concern B.1.1.7 in England, 16 November to 5 February.

The SARS-CoV-2 B.1.1.7 variant of concern (VOC) is increasing in prevalence across Europe. Accurate estimation of disease severity associated with this VOC is critical for pandemic planning. We found increased risk of death for VOC compared with non-VOC cases in England (hazard ratio: 1.67; 95% confidence interval: 1.34-2.09; p < 0.0001). Absolute risk of death by 28 days increased with age and comorbidities. This VOC has potential to spread faster with higher mortality than the pandemic to date

Severity of SARS-CoV-2 alpha variant (B.1.1.7) in England.

BACKGROUND: The SARS-CoV-2 alpha variant (B.1.1.7) is associated with higher transmissibility than wild type virus, becoming the dominant variant in England by January 2021. We aimed to describe the severity of the alpha variant in terms of the pathway of disease from testing positive to hospital admission and death. METHODS: With the approval of NHS England, we linked individual-level data from primary care with SARS-CoV-2 community testing, hospital admission, and ONS all-cause death data. We used testing data with S-gene target failure as a proxy for distinguishing alpha and wild-type cases, and stratified Cox proportional hazards regression to compare the relative severity of alpha cases compared to wild type diagnosed from 16th November 2020 to 11th January 2021. RESULTS: Using data from 185,234 people who tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 in the community (alpha=93,153; wild-type=92,081), in fully adjusted analysis accounting for individual-level demographics and comorbidities as well as regional variation in infection incidence, we found alpha associated with 73% higher hazards of all-cause death (aHR: 1.73 (95% CI 1.41 - 2.13; P<.0001)) and 62% higher hazards of hospital admission (aHR: 1.62 ((95% CI 1.48 - 1.78; P<.0001), compared to wild-type virus. Among patients already admitted to ICU, the association between alpha and increased all-cause mortality was smaller and the confidence interval included the null (aHR: 1.20 (95% CI 0.74 - 1.95; P=0.45)). CONCLUSIONS: The SARS-CoV-2 alpha variant is associated with an increased risk of both hospitalisation and mortality than wild-type virus