• How Monoclonal Antibodies Might Prove Useful Against the Coronavirus

    When our bodies are invaded by a virus, our immune systems make particular proteins called antibodies to help fight off infection.
    NPR reports that scientists working to quell the COVID-19 pandemic think it will be possible to figure out which antibodies are most potent in quashing a coronavirus infection, and then make vast quantities of identical copies of these proteins synthetically.
    This approach — using infusions of what are known as monoclonal antibodies – has already proved to be effective in fighting a variety of diseases, such as rheumatoid arthritis and some cancers.
    Several efforts are underway to turn this approach on the coronavirus, with hopes of getting something ready for human testing within the next few months.

  • Blood Plasma from Survivors Will Be Given to Coronavirus Patients

    In people who have recovered, plasma is teeming with antibodies that may fight the virus. But the treatment beginning in New York is experimental.
    Denise Grady writes in the New York Times that doctors in New York will soon be testing the idea that blood from coronavirus survivors help other people fight the illness? The tests will be made with hospitalized patients who are seriously ill.
    Blood from people who have recovered can be a rich source of antibodies, proteins made by the immune system to attack the virus. The part of the blood that contains antibodies, so-called convalescent plasma, has been used for decades to treat infectious diseases, including Ebola and influenza.

  • Just How Many of Us Have Actually Had Coronavirus? Far More Than the Official Figures Suggest

    Uncertainty over asymptomatic or mild cases means true number of those who have, or have had, COVID-19, likely to be much higher.
    Amid the uniquely unsettling novelty the coronavirus epidemic has brought, one thing is more uncertain than any other: how many of us have, or have had, the virus? Harry de Quetteville writes in the Telegraph that on Tuesday, for example, Italy’s civil protection chief, Dr. Angelo Borrelli, briefed reporters with the latest statistics: cases up 3,612 to 54,030. The problem was that, earlier in the day, he had suggested there might be as many as 600,000. Asked to account for the difference, he said his earlier answer had taken into account asymptomatic cases. So what is it? 54,000 or 600,000?
    Italy is not alone. Earlier this week, the Self-Defense Forces Central Hospital in Tokyo published a report into the Diamond Princess cruise ship, which was quarantined in February with more than 800 of the 3,711 people on board eventually diagnosed with COVID-19. 
    According to the report, cited by the Japan Times, four-fifths of those infected showed no symptoms or just mild symptoms. Scans showed their lungs had suffered some physical consequences from the virus, but the patients had not been led by their symptoms to believe they were infected. Quite the reverse.
    “One way or another, it is clear that far more of us have, or have had, Covid-19, than the official figures tell us. But how many more? Only mass testing will give us a real picture of what is happening,” de Quetteville writes.

  • COVID Deniers: How Shadowy Social Media Groups Are Spreading Myths and Conspiracy about Coronavirus

    Conspiracies and fake news about Covid-19 are spreading across millions of users’ timelines.
    Two weeks ago an anti-vaccine Facebook group called ‘We Brought Vaxxed to the UK’ started to disseminate a new and dangerous contagion: misinformation about Covid-19.
    Paul Nuki writes in the Telegraph that its posts promote xenophobia, conspiracy theories and erroneous medical information about the disease and how it might be treated.
    One post claimed China was using the outbreak to cull the elderly, another suggested hand sanitiser causes cancer and a “probiotic yogurt suppository” was recommended as a cure.
    The group is just one of some 50 social media accounts being tracked by the Center for Countering Digital Hate (CCDH), a charity dedicated to preventing false and divisive lies and myths spreading across the web.
    “I took our file on these groups to Facebook executives to express our deep concern”, said CCDH chief executive Imran Ahmed. “But nearly two weeks later, they have still not taken action to enforce their own policies and remove them.”

  • The Debate over Ending Social Distancing to Save the Economy, Explained

    “America will again, and soon, be open for business,” President Donald Trump said on Monday. “Very soon. A lot sooner than three or four months that somebody was suggesting. A lot sooner. We cannot let the cure be worse than the problem itself.”
    Ezra Klein writes in Vox that the cure, in this case, is social distancing, and the mass economic stoppage it forces. The problem is Covid-19, and the millions of deaths it could cause. On Tuesday, Trump accelerated his timeline. He said he’d like to see normalcy return by Easter Sunday, which is 12 April. “Wouldn’t it be great to have all the churches full?” he asked. “You’ll have packed churches all over our country.”
    Public health experts reacted with horror. “But the question Trump is posing needs to be taken seriously,” Klein writes. “The costs of social distancing are tremendous. The economic forecasts now predict a GDP drop and an unemployment rate of Great Depression-level proportions. The human suffering that will be unleashed is real, and it is vicious.”

  • U.S. COVID-19 Cases Surge Past 82,000, Highest Total in World

    Confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus, COVID-19, reached 82,404 yesterday in the United States, giving it the most cases in the world. And yesterday was the most active day so far in the country, with 14,042 new cases reported, and the national death toll reaching 1,069 fatalities. The numbers came on day 10 of the White House’s “15 days to slow the spread campaign,” a nationwide effort at social distancing measures that has been implemented in a patchwork fashion across the 50 states.

  • Cyber Attacks against Hospitals and the COVID-19 Pandemic: How Strong are International Law Protections?

    In a situation where most, if not all of us are potential patients, few government-provided services are more important than the efficient delivery of health care. The strain on hospitals around the world is rapidly growing, to which states have responded by mobilizing military medical units, nationalizing private medical facilities, and building emergency hospitals. All of this underlines the urgent need to understand what protections the law offers against attacks – including cyberattacks – on medical facilities.

  • Poor Leadership during Times of Disease: Malta and the Plague of 1813

    Disease ravaged the population. Thousands died and those who survived were forced to isolate themselves in their homes as medical officials attempted to purge the pestilence from the area.  The economy, previously growing and sound, came to a standstill. Blame for the disaster was widespread, but it was an absence of leadership that bore the brunt of responsibility. The government officials charged with protecting the population were lax in preparation for a possible disaster and were often insufficient in their response to events. Andrew Zwilling writes that the sentences above describe the outbreak of plague on the islands of Malta in 1813. “Despite these differences, modern policymakers can learn from Malta’s experience two centuries ago,” he writes.  

  • Duke University Hospital Will Help Test Potential Treatment for COVID-19

    Duke University Hospital will take part in the first national tests of a drug that could be effective in treating COVID-19. Duke patients with significant symptoms of COVID-19 will be given the option to participate in the trial, which will begin immediately and be limited to adults. Richard Stradling writes in Raleigh News Observer that the treatment, known as remdesivir, is an antiviral agent previously tested in humans with Ebola virus disease.

  • Repurposed Drugs Offer Shortest Path to Coronavirus Treatment

    With the global COVID-19 death toll surging past 20,000 people this week, accelerated efforts to develop coronavirus treatments are primarily focused on adapting existing drugs intended to fight other diseases.
    “The shortest path to a treatment, we think, is to repurpose something that already exists based on our knowledge of the mechanisms of action,” Dr. Hana Akselrod, an assistant professor of infectious diseases at the George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences, told VOA.

  • Lab Antibody, Anti-Viral Research Aids COVID-19 Response

    Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) scientists are contributing to the global fight against COVID-19 by combining artificial intelligence/machine learning, bioinformatics and supercomputing to help discover candidates for new antibodies and pharmaceutical drugs to combat the disease. See the visualization.

  • COVID-19 Preventative Vaccine Trial for Healthcare Workers

    Professor Kathryn North AC, Director of the Murdoch Children’s Research Institute in Melbourne, Australia, has announced its infectious disease researchers are preparing to roll-out a multi-center randomised controlled clinical trial of the BCG vaccine against COVID-19. 
    The trial has been endorsed by the Director-General of the WHO, Tedros Adhanom, who has called for global support and assistance in the fight against COVID-19.  

  • U.K. Patient Zero? East Sussex Family May Have Been Infected with Coronavirus as Early as Mid-January

    A family from East Sussex may have been Britain’s first coronavirus victims, catching the virus in mid-January after one of them visited an Austrian ski resort that is now under investigation for allegedly covering up the early outbreak.
    Paul Nuki writes in he Telegraph that if confirmed by official tests, it would mean the outbreak in Britain started more than a month earlier than currently thought.
    As things stand, the first recorded U.K. case was on January 31, and the earliest documented incidence of transmission within Britain occurred on 28 February.
    IT consultant Daren Bland, 50, was skiing in Ischgl, Austria from 15 to 19 January with three friends, two from Denmark and one from Minnesota in America.
    All three fell ill on their return with classic coronavirus symptoms, and Bland passed on the infection to his wife and children in Maresfield, East Sussex.

  • MyPillow, Other U.S. Companies Making Face Masks to Meet Coronavirus Shortages

    As coronavirus cases start to overwhelm U.S. hospitals, American companies say they’re starting to make face masks and other personal protective equipment critically needed by medical staff.
    Brie Stimson writes in Fox News that in Minnesota, the MyPillow company is refocusing 75 percent of its production to face masks for health care workers.
    “We have capacity to make a lot of things at big rates and we’re going to be going hopefully from 10,000 units a day to 50,000 units a day in a very short period of time,” CEO Mike Lindell told FOX 9 of Minneapolis-St. Paul.
    In New Jersey, Stuart Carlitz, president and CEO of mattress company Eclipse International, said he made the decision to switch production to masks last week after hearing New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo say that state had a shortage and was paying high prices for masks.
    “I’m not trying to sell masks,” Carlitz said. “Whether it’s a dollar apiece or four dollars apiece, that’s not going to change my business. I’m going to donate the masks.”
    Other companies, too, have converted their production lines to producing masks, among them: The Tablecloth Company in Paterson, N.J., decided to start making masks after requests from customers, including nursing homes where the virus can easily spread, according to NJ.com.
    Los Angeles-based apron company Hedley &Bennett will also be putting its 30 factory employees to work on face masks, Owner Ellen Bennett told Fast Company magazine.
    Other American fashion brands like Hanes, Los Angeles Apparel and Michael Costello and Karla Colletto Swimwear are also asking their workers to start making masks.
    Michigan-based Ford is assisting General Electric Healthcare with ventilator production, according to Yahoo Finance.

  • Economic Crash Could Cost More Life Than Coronavirus, Says Expert

    If the coronavirus lockdown leads to a fall in GDP of more than 6.4 per cent more years of life will be lost due to recession than will be gained through beating the virus, a study suggests.
    Philip Thomas, professor of risk management at Bristol University, said that keeping the economy going in the next year was crucial, otherwise the measures would “do more harm than good.”
    “I’m worried that in order to solve one problem we’d create a bigger problem,” he said a day after economists predicted we were on course for the worst recession in modern history.
    Tom Whipple writes in The Times that there is a clear link between GDP and life expectancy, in part due to richer countries being able to spend more on healthcare, safety and environmental regulations. This means it is possible to calculate roughly the effect of increased, or decreased, wealth on the health of a population.