Objective To investigate whether coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is associated with adverse perinatal outcomes in a large national dataset and to examine rates of adverse outcomes during the pandemic compared to pre-pandemic period. Methods This observational cohort study included 683,905 patients, between the ages of 12-50, hospitalized for childbirth and abortion between January 1, 2019 and May 31, 2021. During the pre-pandemic period, 271,444 women were hospitalized for childbirth. During the pandemic, 308,532 women were hospitalized for childbirth and 2,708 had COVID-19. Associations between COVID-19 and in-hospital adverse perinatal outcomes were examined using propensity score-adjusted logistic regression. Results Compared to women without COVID-19, women with COVID-19 were more likely to experience both early and late preterm birth (aOR 1.38 [95% CI 1.1-1.7], aOR 1.62 [95% CI 1.3-1.7], respectively), preeclampsia (aOR 1.2 [95% CI 1.0-1.4]), disseminated intravascular coagulopathy (DIC) (aOR 1.57 [95% CI 1.1-2.2]), pulmonary edema (aOR 2.7 [95% CI 1.1- 6.3]), and need for mechanical ventilation (aOR 8.1 [95% CI 3.8-17.3]). There was no significant difference in the prevalence of stillbirth among women with (n= 16 / 2,708) and without (n= 174 / 39,562) COVID-19, p=0.257. There were no differences in adverse outcomes among women who delivered during the pandemic versus pre-pandemic period. Combined in-hospital mortality was significantly higher for women with COVID-19 (147 [95% CI 3.0 -292] vs 2.5 [95% CI 0-7.5] deaths per 100,000 women). Women diagnosed with COVID-19 within 30 days prior to hospitalization were more likely to experience early preterm birth, placental abruption, and mechanical ventilation, compared to women diagnosed with COVID-19 > 30 days prior to hospitalization for childbirth (4.0% vs. 2.4% for early preterm birth, aOR 1.7 [95% CI 1.1-2.7]; 2.2% vs. 1.2% for placental abruption, aOR 1.86 [95% CI 1.0 - 3.4]); 0.9% vs. 0.1% for mechanical ventilation, aOR 13.7 [95% CI 1.8-107.2])). Conclusion Women with COVID-19 had a higher prevalence of adverse perinatal outcomes and increased in-hospital mortality, with highest risk occurring when diagnosis was within 30 days of hospitalization, raising the possibility of a high-risk period.

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The COVID-19 pandemic brought widespread attention to an “infodemic” of potential health misinformation. This claim has not been assessed based on evidence. We evaluated if health misinformation became more common during the pandemic. We gathered about 325 million posts sharing URLs from Twitter and Facebook during the beginning of the pandemic (March 8-May 1, 2020) compared to the same period in 2019. We relied on source credibility as an accepted proxy for misinformation across this database. Human annotators also coded a subsample of 3000 posts with URLs for misinformation. Posts about COVID-19 were 0.37 times as likely to link to “not credible” sources and 1.13 times more likely to link to “more credible” sources than prior to the pandemic. Posts linking to “not credible” sources were 3.67 times more likely to include misinformation compared to posts from “more credible” sources. Thus, during the earliest stages of the pandemic, when claims of an infodemic emerged, social media contained proportionally less misinformation than expected based on the prior year. Our results suggest that widespread health misinformation is not unique to COVID-19. Rather, it is a systemic feature of online health communication that can adversely impact public health behaviors and must therefore be addressed.

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