Coronavirus Outbreak: Live Updates
- The outbreak, initially identified in China, is continuing to grow.
- The disease is called COVID-19. It’s caused by an infection with the new coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2, which is one of multiple coronaviruses that can be transmitted to humans.
- Other examples of coronaviruses include SARS, MERS, and even the common cold.
- Globally, there have been more than 2.8 million confirmed cases and more than 195,000 associated deaths, according to Johns Hopkins.
- The United States currently has the highest reported number of COVID-19 cases, with more than 929,000. However, due to a lack of testing, the number of actual cases may be far higher.
- More than 53,000 people in the United States have died from the disease.
In late March, doctors at Mount Sinai Hospital noticed something strange happening to patients’ blood, reports Reuters.
“Across New York City we were seeing a large number of strokes, and that these strokes were extremely concerning, and they were blocking big vessels to the brain,” Dr. J Mocco, a Mount Sinai neurosurgeon, said in an interview.
Reuters also reports that under a new protocol, higher doses of a blood thinner normally used to dissolve clots will be given to COVID-19 patients at Mount Sinai, before any clots are detected.
“We’re seeing clots everywhere, high rates of clots in veins of the legs. So, across the board, for sure, we all believe that — and there’s objective evidence, that this disease increases clot formation,” Mocco said.
The American Society of Hematology has noted COVID-19-associated clotting. Its guidance to physicians states the benefits of the blood-thinning therapy for those patients not already showing signs of clotting are “currently unknown.”
In less than 3 months, at least 50,000 people have died due to COVID-19 in the United States. The first known death occurred in northern California on Feb. 6.
As of April 24, there have been at least 50,890 deaths according to Johns Hopkins.
The number of dead in the United States far surpasses other countries including Spain with just over 22,000 deaths and Italy with nearly 26,000.
The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is reiterating its warning that people should not take hydroxychloroquine or chloroquine unless they’re under careful supervision from a physician.
The warning comes as serious side effects were noted during medical studies of the drug on people with COVID-19.
Some of the patients had serious side effects including abnormal heart rhythms and some even died.
The Lysol brand is warning users from ingesting or injecting any disinfectant products to treat the virus that causes COVID-19.
Reminder: Lysol disinfectant and hygiene products should only be used as directed and in line with usage guidelines
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The company made this disclaimer after President Donald Trump discussed disinfectants being studied as a potential treatment for COVID-19.
“I see the disinfectant where it knocks it out in a minute — 1 minute — and is there a way we can do something like that by injection inside, or almost a cleaning?” Trump said. “Because you see it gets in the lungs and it does a tremendous number on the lungs, so it would be interesting to check that.”
While bleach or other disinfectants can kill the virus on surfaces, using it to kill a viral infection in a living human body can be lethal.
Bleach can cause vomiting, irritation of the eyes, nose, and throat, and irritation to the gastrointestinal tract.
According to a briefing from Governor Andrew Cuomo, about 13.9 percent of New York residents had antibodies to SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, in a preliminary study.
This would be about 2.7 million people in New York who have developed the disease.
The detection of antibodies means that a person likely had the virus at some point and then their immune system fought off the disease.
The research is preliminary right now and about 3,000 New Yorkers in 19 counties across the state were studied. In New York City, which has been the U.S. epicenter for the COVID-19 outbreak, about 21 percent of people had antibodies to the virus.
The research is still in its early phases and samples were taken from people at grocery stores and other box stores, so it may have missed key groups of people who are less likely to be shopping like seniors, immunocompromised people, and people who are showing COVID-19 symptoms.
Percent positive by region:
Long Island: 16.7%
NYC: 21.2%
Westchester/Rockland: 11.7%
Rest of state: 3.6%
(Weighted results)
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Another study shared from Northwestern found that the virus was likely circulating widely before cases were detected. The study found that on March 1, over 10,000 people had COVID-19 in New York City. At that time, just one person was known to have the disease in the city.
The deaths of two people with COVID-19 in California has shed new light on when the virus that causes the disease was first circulating.
The Santa Clara County Medical Examiner reported Tuesday, April 21, that two people who died at home in early February had the virus. The cases were identified after the medical examiner tested samples from the patients for COVID-19 due to their flu symptoms.
Both of these people likely developed the disease via community spread and not from travel.
The first death occurred on February 6 and the second on February 17. Previously, the first known U.S. death from COVID-19 was said to occur in Washington state in late February.
“What these deaths tell us is that we had community transmission probably to a significant degree far earlier than we had known and that indicates that the virus was introduced and circulating in our community far earlier than we had known,” Santa Clara Health Officer Dr. Sara Cody told reporters on Tuesday.
New research finds that blood clots may be a major problem for hospitalized people with COVID-19.
A study published earlier this month in Thrombosis Research looked at results for 184 patients with COVID-19 being treated in an ICU. Researchers found that 31 percent developed blood clots, a percentage they called “remarkably high.”
The researchers theorized that patients are at high risk for these blood clots due to being immobilized in the ICU, a lack of oxygen, and high amounts of inflammation stemming from the infection.
In an article in the Washington Post, Dr. Harlan Krumholz, a cardiac specialist at the Yale-New Haven Hospital Center, said it’s unclear if the virus causes the blood clots by attacking the blood vessels, or if the immune system’s inflammatory response leads to the condition.
“One of the theories is that once the body is so engaged in a fight against an invader, the body starts consuming the clotting factors, which can result in either blood clots or bleeding,” Krumholz told the Washington Post.
“In Ebola, the balance was more toward bleeding. In COVID-19, it’s more blood clots,” he said.
In a new interview, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) Director Robert Redfield said if there’s a second wave of COVID-19 it could be much worse than the current outbreak.
In an interview with The Washington Post, Redfield explained that if COVID-19 leads to another wave of infections during the fall it would coincide with flu season.
“There’s a possibility that the assault of the virus on our nation next winter will actually be even more difficult than the one we just went through,” Redfield said. “And when I’ve said this to others, they kind of put their head back, they don’t understand what I mean.”
Simultaneous flu and COVID-19 outbreaks could put the healthcare system under even more strain than the current wave of illness.
Additionally, since the flu is a respiratory disease, there could be a continued shortage of ventilators and other devices to help people breathe.
The FDA has given emergency authorization to allow an at-home COVID-19 test.
The testing is being done by Laboratory Corporation of America (LabCorp).
Individuals use a nasal swab and saline at home and then send in the sample to a LabCorp facility for testing.
“Specifically, for tests that include home sample collection, we worked with LabCorp to ensure the data demonstrated from at-home patient sample collection is as safe and accurate as sample collection at a doctor’s office, hospital, or other testing site,” said FDA Commissioner Dr. Stephen M. Hahn.
“With this action, there is now a convenient and reliable option for patient sample collection from the comfort and safety of their home,” he said.
Nearly every resident of a small town in northern California will be tested for COVID-19 in an effort to understand how the virus that causes the disease is spreading in communities.
Researchers from the University of California, San Francisco, will test as many residents of Bolinas, California as possible during a 4-day period. The town has about 2,000 residents.
In addition to Bolinas, the researchers will test as many as 5,700 people from the Mission neighborhood in San Francisco, California.
They hope data from two very different locations will shed light on how the virus spreads, who’s at risk, and who’s spreading the virus without symptoms.
“This study stands to benefit people at three levels — individuals who will get to learn their disease status, the community for the opportunity to isolate and eradicate the virus, and worldwide through improved ability to understand how this virus spreads,” said Dr. Aenor Sawyer, a Bolinas resident and UCSF orthopedic surgeon said in a statement.
A new map posted by Facebook could help researchers understand where COVID-19 is clustered.
Facebook joined with Carnegie Mellon University to develop the map that tracks COVID-19 symptoms.
At least 2 million Facebook users have filled out a survey by Carnegie Mellon University Delphi Research Center that asks questions about fever, cough, and other symptoms that are common for people with COVID-19.
In theory, this data could help researchers figure out which communities have high numbers of COVID-19 cases before people end up at the hospital.
The number of people with COVID-19 could be up to 85 times higher than reported, according to a recent study.
Researchers in California tested the prevalence of antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 in a sample of 3,330 people. They report an estimated 48,000 and 81,000 people contracted the virus in Santa Clara County by early April, which is 50 to 85 times higher than the number of confirmed cases.
These findings raise questions regarding effectiveness of quarantine measures to contain the virus.
“There are reasons to be skeptical of the efficacy of quarantine, for respiratory diseases [like coronavirus] in particular,” Wendy Parmet, director of the Center for Health Policy and Law at Northeastern University Law School, told FiveThirtyEight.
A 2004 study examining the effectiveness of quarantining people with no symptoms of SARS in Toronto, Ontario, found that isolating asymptomatic individuals had little effect on preventing infection — instead, it was isolating those with symptoms that most reduced the infection rate.
The SARS outbreak lasted about 6 months in 2003.
“Did quarantine work for SARS? Notwithstanding the conclusions of the Toronto public health group, I think the evidence is now overwhelming that quarantine played little or no role in controlling SARS,” study authors wrote.
“Furthermore, mass quarantine, as practiced in Toronto, did considerable harm by sapping public health resources and fueling public anxiety.”
Responding to an outbreak in the southwest suburbs of Chicago, the Illinois National Guard is temporarily stepping in to provide much-needed assistance, according to WGN9 News.
The cases were confirmed at the state-run Ludeman Development Center, which cares for adults with developmental conditions. Eighty-three residents and 28 employees tested positive, three of whom have died.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is taking decisive action to increase COVID-19 testing capacity in an effort to get the state’s citizens back to work.
“As we work over the next several months to unpause New York, the testing and tracing is going to be our guidepost. No state is currently capable of doing the large-scale COVID testing that is needed,” Cuomo said in a statement. “I am going to issue an executive order that says the Department of Health will coordinate all of these labs so we can ramp up testing and get more people back to work.”
In Japan, hospitals are turning away patients in growing numbers as the island nation struggles to contain COVID-19 and its emergency medical system collapses.
Japanese health officials confirm that many hospital emergency rooms are refusing to treat people, including those with strokes, heart attacks, and external injuries, according to a report by the Associated Press (AP).
“We can no longer carry out normal emergency medicine,” Takeshi Shimazu, an Osaka University emergency doctor, told AP.
Researchers want to know if dogs can help them detect COVID-19 cases even in people who don’t have symptoms.
The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine (LSHTM) is crowdfunding a study where they would see if dogs could identify people with the disease. Researchers from Durham University in the U.K. are also working on the study.
The idea may seem far-fetched, but researchers have found that dogs can detect other diseases like malaria and even cancer.
“It’s early days for COVID-19 odor detection. We do not know if COVID-19 has a specific odor yet, but we know that other respiratory diseases change our body odor so there is a chance that it does. And if it does, dogs will be able to detect it,” Professor James Logan, head of the department of disease control at LSHTM said in a statement.
The researchers are working with Medical Detection Dogs to help figure out if dogs are an effective way to sniff out the virus.
New York and the United Kingdom are both extending their stay at home guidelines for a few more weeks.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said that the state will be under effective lockdown until May 15. It’s possible the order could be extended again if the virus is still circulating.
New York on PAUSE will be extended in coordination with other states to May 15.
Non-essential workers must continue to stay home.
Social distancing rules remain in place.
We must STAY THE COURSE.
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In the U.K., the foreign secretary Dominic Raab said the lockdown would continue for 3 more weeks until at least mid-May.
Raab, who has taken on the duties of prime minister from Boris Johnson who’s still recovering from COVID-19, said that stopping the lockdown now could cause cases to surge.
“We’re now at both a delicate and dangerous phase in this pandemic,” Raab said, according to the New York Times.
In the United States, President Donald Trump released his plan for slowly reopening the country. However, it was reported that the president told governors it was their call on when to lift shelter-in-place orders.
The guidelines stipulate that before reopening, all states should meet basic criteria including the ability to widely test for the virus and for viral antibodies, have ICU surge capacity at hospitals, and have enough protective equipment for healthcare providers.
Additionally, guidelines advise that for states that meet the criteria, they still don’t allow mass gatherings. Instead, they advise allowing groups of no more than 10, minimizing nonessential travel, and that vulnerable populations should continue to shelter in place.
To protect themselves from COVID-19, healthcare workers have to wear protective gear that shields nearly their entire face. It may be the safest option, but it can result in patients feeling unable to connect to their care team.
To combat that separation between medical staff and patient, respiratory therapist Robertino Rodriguez taped a picture on top of his personal protective gear.
“A reassuring smile makes a big difference,” he wrote on Instagram. “Today I made a giant laminated badge for my PPE. So my patients can see a reassuring and comforting smile.”
Other healthcare providers took a page from Rodriguez and also started to print pictures of themselves so they can better connect with their patients.
A new study in the medical journal Nature Medicine found that 44 percent of secondary COVID-19 cases may come from people without symptoms.
The study of 94 patients with the virus in China found that many people spread the virus before they had symptoms. This doesn’t mean they never had COVID-19 symptoms, but that they were infectious days before their symptoms appeared.
When the researchers examined how these people spread the virus, they found that 44 percent of people who later developed the disease had gotten it from a person before that person showed symptoms.
New York Governor Andrew Cuomo said April 15 that face masks would be mandated for New Yorkers when they’re in areas where they can’t practice safe physical distancing.
Cuomo said in areas like the subway trains or platforms, New Yorkers would be required to wear some sort of face covering in order to diminish the likelihood of spreading COVID-19.
The state has been hard hit by the virus with over 10,000 deaths associated with the disease.
#BREAKING: I am issuing an Executive Order today that all people MUST wear a mask or face covering in public in situations where social distancing is not possible.
For example, if you are riding on public transit where it is impossible to maintain social distancing, or walking on a busy sidewalk, you must wear a face covering like a bandana or a mask.
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In Los Angeles, Mayor Eric Garcetti reportedly said that the city may ban large-scale events like concerts or sporting events until 2021.
According to the Los Angeles Times, the mayor raised the issue during a weekly departmental meeting.
Garcetti spokesman Alex Comisar told the Times that the mayor doesn’t have a timeline for reopening the city.
COVID-19 has hit healthcare personnel hard with thousands developing the disease and some dying as a result.
The CDC released a report April 14 finding that 9,282 healthcare personnel have contracted the virus that causes COVID-19.
The CDC estimates that the actual number of COVID-19 cases among healthcare providers is much higher since many people with mild symptoms were not tested.
Approximately 8 to 10 percent of these people were hospitalized. The average age affected was 42 years old and over 70 percent were female.
Similar to other people with COVID-19, older healthcare workers and those with underlying conditions were more at risk of dying from the disease, but the CDC noted there were fatalities in all age ranges.
Governors of three western states announced they would work together as they contemplate easing restrictions on residents’ movement amid the COVID-19 outbreak.
Washington Gov. Jay Inslee, California Gov. Gavin Newsom, and Oregon Gov. Kate Brown announced they would coordinate their plans for reopening the economy and opening up public spaces.
There’s no timetable for when shelter-in-place orders would be lifted, but all three states have avoided the drastic spike in cases that have overwhelmed hospitals in New York, Michigan, and other states. This is despite the fact that California and Washington were among the first states to see community spread of COVID-19.
“We are announcing that California, Oregon, and Washington have agreed to work together on a shared approach for reopening our economies — one that identifies clear indicators for communities to restart public life and business,” the governors said in a joint statement.
Additionally, the governors of six states on the east coast announced they would form a committee to discuss issues with reopening the economy.
The governors of Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Delaware, New Jersey, New York, and Rhode Island said they would put together a panel that includes public health experts, economists, and their chiefs of staff to work together about when it would be safe to reopen businesses and ease stay-at-home orders.
The FDA is giving emergency use authorization to a company in order to allow for the sterilization of millions of N95 masks used by healthcare workers.
“Our nation’s healthcare workers are among the many heroes of this pandemic and we need to do everything we can to increase the availability of the critical medical devices they need, like N95 respirators,” said FDA Commissioner Dr. Stephen M. Hahn, in a statement.
Advanced Sterilization Products Inc., will now be allowed to use vaporized hydrogen peroxide gas plasma sterilization in order to decontaminate N95 face masks.
This is the second company to get emergency authorization to sterilize masks.
N95 masks are critical for healthcare workers treating people with COVID-19, but they’re in short supply. The new emergency use authorization could help protect healthcare workers that have been forced to ration or reuse masks.
Millions of Americans are out of work during the COVID-19 pandemic, and fast, accurate blood tests could play a critical role in getting people safely back to work or school.
However, public health officials caution that a broad range of “unregulated tests” are creating confusion that could significantly slow the path to recovery.
The Associated Press reports that governments worldwide are hoping the rapid tests — typically using a finger-prick of blood on a test strip — could soon “ease public restrictions by identifying people who have previously had the virus and have developed some immunity to it.”
These tests are different from the nasal swab tests used to detect whether someone actually has the virus in their body. Instead, they’re used to detect antibodies in the blood, which indicate whether someone has successfully beaten the infection.
Government researchers studying how the virus has spread through the U.S. population are using antibody tests to guide pandemic response efforts.
“This study will give us a clearer picture of the true magnitude of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States by telling us how many people in different communities have been infected without knowing it, because they had a very mild, undocumented illness, or did not access testing while they were sick,” said Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, in a statement.
“These crucial data will help us measure the impact of our public health efforts now and guide our COVID-19 response moving forward,” he said.
Research conducted at New York University showed that obesity may be a risk factor for hospitalization in people with COVID-19 under age 60.
The findings were published April 9 in Clinical Infectious Diseases.
With almost 40 percent of American adults younger than 60 at a body mass index (BMI) of 30 or higher, obesity is a significant risk factor for COVID-19 hospitalizations, according to the study.
COVID-19 can overwhelm your immune system, making you dependent on a ventilator in a matter of hours, reports ABC News Philadelphia.
“Some of those patients that you’ve seen, within 3 to 4 hours, they decompensate completely where that chest X-ray is whited,” Hernan Alvarado, MBA, RRT, RPFT, the director of respiratory therapy at Temple University Health System in Pennsylvania, told the television station. “Now they’re on a breathing tube.”
“The classic signs — increase in fever, shortness of breath, cough, difficulty breathing — if you have any of those symptoms, get checked. It could save your life,” Alvarado warned.
Dr. Anthony Fauci said April 9 that the number of deaths from COVID-19 may top 60,000.
“As you can see, the number of deaths and the cases that we’re seeing are really validating what we said, that this is going to be a bad week,” he said on NBC’s Today Show. “There are some glimmers of hope,” he added, since hospitalizations have gone down.
While that number is high, it’s still lower than the early estimates of fatalities that were between 100,000 to 240,000.
Fauci said the revised total is based on the idea that Americans still practice physical distancing to stop the spread of the virus.
“The mitigation and the physical separation that we have initiated have started to have a real effect now,” he said on NBC’s Today Show.
However, Fauci was clear that if physical distancing guidelines are relaxed there could be another surge in cases.
“I believe we are going to see the downturn in that and it looks more likely the 60,000 than the 100,000 to 200,000, but having said that we better be careful that we don’t say ‘OK, we’re doing so well we can pull back,'” he said. “We still have to put our foot on the accelerator when it comes to the mitigation and the physical separation, not pull back.”
Michigan has the third highest number of COVID-19 cases in the nation.
In a report on April 9, healthcare workers spoke out about the crush of COVID-19 patients and the lack of personnel to treat them in Detroit.
According to CNN, workers at Sinai-Grace Hospital in Detroit reported that some patients had died in the hallway. The situation was so dire that nurses staged a sit-in demanding more help to treat critically ill patients.
A study published April 7 found that the arrival of spring and summer weather likely won’t stop the spread of the virus.
The study was published after a panel from the National Academies of Sciences reviewed data from around the world about the spread of COVID-19.
Past pandemics such as the 1918 influenza outbreak have often waned dramatically in the summer with warmer temperatures and higher humidity helping to stop the spread of the virus, at least temporarily.
However, officials say in this new report there’s no sign that changes in temperature nor humidity will have a big effect on the spread of COVID-19.
In part, the panel found that because the virus is new and people don’t have natural immunity, they’ll be more susceptible to contracting the virus throughout the year.
The panel did say more research would be needed and there’s a chance the viral spread may slow somewhat during the summer months even if it doesn’t stop.
“There is some evidence to suggest that SARS-CoV-2 may transmit less efficiently in environments with higher ambient temperature and humidity,” the panel wrote, according to the Washington Post. “However, given the lack of host immunity globally, this reduction in transmission efficiency may not lead to a significant reduction in disease spread.”
The city where COVID-19 was first detected finally ended its weeks-long lockdown on April 8.
The lockdown was lifted about 10 weeks after it was first implemented, after officials realized how dangerous COVID-19 was. Wuhan was the first epicenter of the virus with tens of thousands of residents getting sick and thousands dying.
While the lockdown is being lifted, according to reports from the New York Times, authorities are still regulating movement in the region.
A report from the CDC gives more insight about how COVID-19 impacts children.
The report published in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report found that children were less likely than adults to have symptoms such as cough or fever.
The report found that 73 percent of children had symptoms of fever, cough, or shortness of breath compared to 93 percent of adults.
While most children didn’t have severe symptoms, infants and children with underlying health conditions appeared to be more at risk for dangerous complications.
Hospitals are still having difficulty getting enough key medical supplies, reporting issues with a variety of items including face masks, thermometers, and even toilet paper.
According to a report from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, hospitals across the country are reporting running out of supplies and having difficulty getting new materials as supply lines are shut down.
Hospitals reported a shortage of testing kits for COVID-19, a lack of protective equipment like face masks, and even a lack of basic items like linens, toilet paper, and IV poles.
As staff members get sick, there are also fewer and fewer medical providers available to care for the new COVID-19 patients.
The report also found that hospitals are trying to obtain ventilators in a variety of ways and reusing personal protective equipment so that they don’t run out.
A tiger in the Bronx Zoo is the first known animal in the United States to be diagnosed with COVID-19.
The Malayan tiger called Nadia, along with two other tigers and lions, developed symptoms including a dry cough, according to a press release. The animals are expected to recover.
Zoo officials said they believe the animal developed the disease from a zookeeper who was asymptomatic, according to Business Insider.
Officials clarified the COVID-19 test used isn’t one that could have been used by a human.
From Dr. Paul Calle, Bronx Zoo chief veterinarian; "The COVID-19 testing that was performed on our Malayan tiger Nadia was performed in a veterinary school laboratory and is not the same test as is used for people.
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To prevent the spread of COVID-19, the CDC is recommending all Americans wear nonmedical face masks.
“We now know a significant portion of individuals with coronavirus lack symptoms… even those who eventually become presymptomatic… can transmit the virus before they show symptoms,” said U.S. Surgeon General Dr. Jerome Adams.
As a result, the CDC “task force recommends wearing cloth face coverings in public settings.”
The mayors of Los Angeles and New York have already recommended citizens wear face masks to decrease the likelihood of transmitting the virus.
Officials are recommending people wear cloth masks since medical-grade N95 masks should still be reserved for healthcare providers.
The FDA announced April 2 that they’re relaxing restrictions that prohibit many gay and bisexual men from donating blood or plasma.
The FDA will now allow gay and bisexual men to donate blood if they haven’t had sex with a man in the last 3 months. Previously, there was a ban on giving blood for men if they had sex with another man within the previous year.
Prior to 2015, any man who had ever had sex with another man was banned from donating blood or plasma.
Industry experts warn that key medications used for patients who are ventilated are running low.
According to STAT News, a variety of medications including sedatives, anesthetics, pain medications, and muscle relaxers may soon be in short supply due to the COVID-19 outbreak.
While there has been an increase in the need for these drugs as more people are put on ventilators to help them breathe, manufacturers are struggling to meet the demand.
U.S. intelligence believes that China may have downplayed the extent of the COVID-19 outbreak, according to Bloomberg News.
According to the report, China “intentionally” reported false numbers about the extent of the COVID-19 outbreak.
While the intelligence report itself hasn’t been revealed, certain government officials and experts say a lack of transparency about the actual data may have impacted how countries prepared for the COVID-19 outbreak.
“The medical community made — interpreted the Chinese data as: This was serious, but smaller than anyone expected,” said Dr. Deborah Birx, who’s coordinating the White House response to the outbreak, according to Bloomberg News.
“Because I think probably we were missing a significant amount of the data, now that what we see happened to Italy and see what happened to Spain,” she said.
This comes one day after China reported that an additional 1,500 asymptomatic cases of COVID-19 hadn’t been counted in national totals.
Currently, the United States, Italy, and Spain have reported more cases of COVID-19 than China.
In a poll, most Americans say they’re avoiding public places, mass transit, and both large and small social gatherings.
In the Gallup poll released March 31, the vast majority of Americans appear to be taking action to reduce the risk of contracting or transmitting SARS-CoV-2.
While there’s still no national stay-at-home order, many states have issued some stay at home or shelter in place orders to try to stop the spread of the virus.
At least 92 percent of Americans said they were avoiding crowds, 90 percent said they were avoiding mass transit, and 78 percent said they were avoiding public places such as stores or restaurants in the poll.
The poll also found that 83 percent of Americans say they’re avoiding even small gatherings like dinner with family and friends. This is dramatically higher compared to the middle of this month when just 23 percent of Americans said they were avoiding these gatherings.
In an effort to find new treatments, the FDA has approved the use of drugs primarily used as antimalaria treatments in the hopes they may help people with COVID-19.
The FDA announced March 29 that they’re accepting donations of “30 million doses of hydroxychloroquine sulfate donated by Sandoz, the Novartis generics and biosimilars division, and one million doses of chloroquine phosphate donated by Bayer Pharmaceuticals.”
The FDA had allowed the use of the drugs under an Emergency Use Authorization. This means physicians are allowed to give this drug to people with COVID-19 even though there hasn’t been extensive clinical testing on its effectiveness as a COVID-19 treatment.
These drugs remain experimental as a treatment for COVID-19, meaning it’s still unclear if they’ll actually help fight the disease. No one should take them without talking to their physician first.
Getting COVID-19 is an overriding worry for just about everyone, and we’re all doing our best to avoid it.
But there’s an important question that must be answered before we can declare victory over this virus. Can we become immune?
“Coronaviruses aren’t new, they’ve been around for a long, long time and many species — not just humans — get them. So we know a fair amount about coronaviruses in general,” Dr. Stephen Gluckman, an infectious diseases physician at Penn Medicine and the medical director of Penn Global Medicine told the Huffington Post.
“For the most part, the feeling is once you’ve had a specific coronavirus, you are immune. We don’t have enough data to say that with this coronavirus, but it is likely,” he said.
However, according to the CDC, the immune response to COVID-19 is “poorly understood,” and although people with MERS-CoV aren’t expected to become reinfected after recovery, “it is not yet known whether similar immune protection will be observed for patients with COVID-19.”
In New York City, a Mount Sinai West nurse who had been treating COVID-19 patients died March 24, 1 week after being admitted to hospital with COVID-19, reported NBC New York.
This news highlights the danger of protective gear shortages in hospitals as the crisis continues.
On March 24, the FDA announced that a process known as plasma-derived therapy or “convalescent plasma,” would be expedited as a potential treatment for people with COVID-19.
The idea is that blood plasma from people who have beaten the infection contains antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 that may be effective against it.
New York plans to be the first state to treat critically ill patients using these antibodies as another weapon against the ongoing pandemic.
New York is also set to start a clinical trial for two drugs already used for other diseases: hydroxychloroquine (used against malaria) and the antibiotic azithromycin.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) announced March 16 that a phase I clinical trial evaluating an investigational vaccine to protect against COVID-19 has begun at Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute in Seattle.
“Finding a safe and effective vaccine to prevent infection with SARS-CoV-2 is an urgent public health priority,” said Dr. Anthony Fauci, in a statement. “This phase I study, launched in record speed, is an important first step toward achieving that goal.”
On March 20, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced a global “megatrial,” called SOLIDARITY. The trial will discover if any of four existing drugs can treat the new coronavirus.
According to Science, the four drugs include:
- remdesivir, an experimental antiviral compound
- chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine, malaria medications
- lopinavir and ritonavir, a combination of HIV drugs
- lopinavir and ritonavir, plus interferon-beta, an immune system messenger that can cripple viruses
“It will be important to get answers quickly, to try to find out what works and what doesn’t work. We think that randomized evidence is the best way to do that,” said Dr. Ana Maria Henao-Restrepo, medical officer at the WHO’s Department of Immunization Vaccines and Biologicals, in a statement.
The American Academy of Otolaryngology – Head and Neck Surgery (AAO-HNS) recently proposed that a loss of smell should be added to the list of screening tools for COVID-19 due to “evidence accumulating from cases worldwide.”
Absent of other respiratory diseases such as allergic rhinitis (hayfever) or acute or chronic sinus inflammation, this symptom “should alert physicians to the possibility of COVID-19 and warrant serious consideration for self-isolation and testing of these individuals,” the AAO-HNS said in a statement.
No, the new coronavirus is not the flu. In fact, it can present very differently from that seasonal virus.
We spoke to experts about how you can identify the different symptoms for COVID-19, the flu, and spring allergies.
A new study examined 9 people with the new coronavirus, SARS-CoV-2. The researchers wanted to understand virus shedding (when the virus leaves its host) during illness to determine how infectious the disease may be.
Conducted by German researchers, though not yet peer-reviewed, the findings suggest that viral shedding occurred in high levels from the throat during early phases of illness for the patients studied.
However, the rate of shedding dropped after the fifth day in all patients except for two experiencing signs of pneumonia. They continued to shed COVID-19 at high levels until the 10th or 11th day, according to researchers.
“The present study shows that COVID-19 can often present as a common cold-like illness. SARS-CoV-2 can actively replicate in the upper respiratory tract, and is shed for a prolonged time after symptoms end, including in stool,” the study authors wrote.
Scientists also found that people with COVID-19 may shed over 1,000 times more virus than emitted during peak shedding of the 2003 SARS infection. They say this could explain why COVID-19 has spread so rapidly.
Researchers at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health analyzed publicly available data to find COVID-19 has roughly a 5-day incubation period from exposure to onset of symptoms.
The analysis also suggests that about 98 percent of people who develop symptoms will do so within 11.5 days of exposure.
Researchers said this average time from exposure to onset of symptoms suggests that the CDC’s 14-day quarantine period for people who were likely exposed to the virus is reasonable.
“Based on our analysis of publicly available data, the current recommendation of 14 days for active monitoring or quarantine is reasonable, although with that period some cases would be missed over the long-term,” said senior study author Justin Lessler, PhD, associate professor at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, in a statement.
Another recent study from Sun Yat-sen University in China has discovered that SARS-CoV-2 may have an ideal temperature at which it spreads most easily.
Researchers analyzed the cumulative number of all confirmed cases in all affected cities and regions from Jan. 20 to Feb. 4, 2020. Their findings suggest it spreads most easily at about 48°F (8.89°C).
“The study found that, to certain extent, temperature could significant[ly] change COVID-19 transmission, and there might be a best temperature for the viral transmission, which may partly explain why it first broke out in Wuhan,” wrote the study authors. “It is suggested that countries and regions with a lower temperature in the world adopt the strictest control measures to prevent future reversal.”
Public health experts have advised people stop touching their faces to cut down on the risk of contracting the new coronavirus. But that’s easier said than done.
We talked to experts who told us how we can train ourselves to avoid touching our face constantly. More information can be found here
In a press briefing on March 3, officials from the WHO said the fatality rate for COVID-19 may be higher than previously realized.
Dr. Tedros Ghebreyesus said in a statement that SARS-CoV-2 doesn’t appear to spread as efficiently as the flu.
“This virus is not SARS, it’s not MERS, and it’s not influenza. It is a unique virus with unique characteristics,” he said.
But it may be more deadly.
“Globally, about 3.4 percent of reported COVID-19 cases have died,” he said. “By comparison, seasonal flu generally kills far fewer than 1 percent of those infected.”
He pointed out one reason for those different fatality rates is that there are vaccines and antiviral medications to help treat flu symptoms. But nothing yet for COVID-19.
Additionally, he said that according to evidence from China, only 1 percent of COVID-19 cases have no symptoms, and many people develop symptoms later on.
The second major difference is that #COVID19 causes more severe disease than seasonal influenza.
While many people globally have built up immunity to seasonal flu strains, COVID-19 is a new #coronavirus to which no one has immunity"-@DrTedros
"Globally, about 3.4% of reported #COVID19 cases have died. By comparison, seasonal flu generally kills far fewer than 1% of those infected"-@DrTedros #coronavirus
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As the outbreak continues to spread, there are ways you can prepare. Among them is simply stocking up your medicine cabinet with over-the-counter cold and flu medications.
While they can’t cure the virus, they can help relieve symptoms of mild cases.
Researchers are studying how people with the virus shed it and what impact it’s having on affected populations.
One new study has found answers that many won’t find comforting.
Testing and confirmation of SARS-CoV-2 infection is currently carried out by oral swabs. But research published Feb. 17 in Emerging Microbes & Infections finds evidence that there’s an oral-fecal transmission route.
The scientists reported that viruses’ genetic material can be detected in both anal swabs and blood samples. Crucially, evidence of the new coronavirus was found in anal swabs and blood — even when it wasn’t detected using oral swabs.
According to the study, this was particularly true for those patients receiving supportive care for several days.
Although medical staff, people with illnesses, and older adults are most at risk, more than 80 percent of COVID-19 cases have been mild, according to a new report from the Chinese CDC.
Hubei province in China, where the infection is believed to have originated, is the hardest hit, according to the report.
One of the most effective ways to prevent the spread of illnesses like COVID-19 or the flu is simple: Encourage employees to stay home when they’re sick.
But since the United States doesn’t have a national paid sick leave policy, taking a sick day remains a financial sacrifice for 32 million workers who lack paid sick leave benefits.
Without paid sick leave, workers are more likely to come into work sick, exposing their co-workers to an illness.
The WHO announced Feb. 11 in a tweet that the disease from this new coronavirus will now be called COVID-19. The virus itself is called SARS-CoV-2.
Previously, it had been called 2019nCoV, although many media outlets referred to the virus simply as coronavirus — even though that refers to a larger family of viruses.
"On Thursday I will travel to Kinshasa, #DRC for meetings with the President and other senior ministers to look beyond #Ebola, and sketch out ways to strengthen DRC’s health system"-@DrTedros #HealthForAll
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Multiple organizations are already working on a vaccine for the new coronavirus, but it’s unlikely to be widely released within the year.
That’s because rigorous testing is needed to ensure that the vaccine is both safe and effective.
Experts are still investigating, but early research suggests the virus originated in bats and then was transmitted to humans via an intermediary animal.
What’s the intermediary animal? Potentially a snake or type of anteater called a pangolin.
A global outbreak is frightening enough for adults. For kids, it can be overwhelming.
We talked to experts about the best way for parents to talk to their kids about what’s going on and how to reassure them.
Parents should also check in with themselves and consider how their fears may be influencing their children.
HEALTHLINE RESOURCES
Do you have symptoms of COVID-19? Your options for care
Call your primary care provider and discuss symptoms before visiting a healthcare facility, or click below to find a local provider. If this is an emergency, call 911, and tell the operator you have COVID-19.
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