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New York Times
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Exclusive: Scientists examine whether this route enables infections at longer distances
Large virus-laden droplets from infected people’s coughs and sneezes fall to the ground within 1-2 metres. Photograph: Nick Gregory/Alamy
theguardian.com - by Damian Carrington - April 24, 2020
Coronavirus has been detected on particles of air pollution by scientists investigating whether this could enable it to be carried over longer distances and increase the number of people infected.
The work is preliminary and it is not yet known if the virus remains viable on pollution particles and in sufficient quantity to cause disease.
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A person in China scans a QR code with a smartphone to register their real name before getting off a bus in Wuhan, China. Zhang Chang/China News Service via Getty Images
The US is rolling out digital contact tracing. How has it been working in other countries?
vox.com - by Shirin Ghaffary - April 18, 2020
If and when lockdown restrictions are lifted in the US, would you agree to let the government anonymously track your interactions with people within a 6-foot radius to control the spread of Covid-19?
That’s an increasingly urgent question as President Trump and state governors debate how and when to safely reopen the US economy — and as technology is being touted as a solution that would help people reenter public life.
And tech giants are stepping up. Last week, Apple and Google announced a plan to turn phones into opt-in Covid-19 tracking machines that would, if all goes as planned, make it easier for health officials to identify and alert people if they’ve been exposed to the virus.
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Battelle Memorial Institute's CCDS Critical Care Decontamination System uses a hydrogen peroxide vapor to decontaminate N95 respirators. The organization says that the process takes about 2½ and that masks can be cleaned and reused up to 20 times.Battelle Memorial Institute
nbcnews.com - by Didi Martinez, Brenda Breslauer and Stephanie Gosk - April 14, 2020
Late Monday, the Pentagon announced a $415 million contract to commission 60 decontamination systems that will allow millions of highly protective N95 face masks to be reused.
The system, which can process up to 80,000 masks per day, has been called a potential "game changer" for the front-line health care workers and first responders who rely on the masks, according to hospital officials concerned about a shortage of protective equipment to shield their staff from COVID-19.
But the story of how this system came to be is a testament to what can happen when a doctor and an engineer — who happen to be husband and wife — ask, "What if?"
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kron4.com - by: Alexa Mae Asperin - April 9, 2020
Researchers in Finland have released a shocking simulation that apparently shows how respiratory droplets from just one cough in a grocery store can linger in the air for “several minutes” and travel across two aisles, possibly infecting other shoppers nearby with coronavirus.
Aalto University, the Finnish Meteorological Institute, VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland and the University of Helsinki studied how aerosolized particles released from the respiratory tract when coughing, sneezing or even talking flow through the air.
Preliminary results indicate that tiny particles carrying the coronavirus can linger in the air for longer than originally thought, reinforcing the importance of completely avoiding crowded spaces, or at the very least following social distancing guidelines.
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FILE PHOTO: A man wearing a face mask walks next to barriers set up to block buildings from a street in Wuhan, Hubei province, the epicentre of China's coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, March 29, 2020. REUTERS/Aly Song
reuters.com - by Cate Cadell, Yawen Chen - April 8, 2020
As the world grapples with the escalating coronavirus pandemic, China reopened the city of Wuhan on Wednesday, allowing its 11 million residents to leave for the first time in over two months, a milestone in its effort to combat the outbreak.
But while the operation to contain Wuhan’s coronavirus outbreak has been hailed as a success by China and many international health experts, it didn’t come easy.
Using virus case data, official reports and over a dozen interviews with officials, residents and scientists in Wuhan, Reuters has compiled a comprehensive account of how the military-style quarantine of the city unfolded.
(CLICK HERE - READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)
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Researchers in Shanghai found low levels of coronavirus antibodies in some people who had recently recovered from Covid-19. Photo: DPA
Scientists in Shanghai say some recovered patients show no signs of the neutralising proteins
Early-stage findings could have implications for vaccine development and herd immunity, they say
scmp.com - by Stephen Chen - April 7, 2020
Researchers in Shanghai hope to determine whether some recovered coronavirus patients have a higher risk of reinfection after finding surprisingly low levels of Covid-19 antibodies in a number of people discharged from hospital.
A team from Fudan University analysed blood samples from 175 patients discharged from the Shanghai Public Health Clinical Centre and found that nearly a third had unexpectedly low levels of antibodies.
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In just ten minutes, Gauthier used extra tubing to multiply the number of patients that could be ventilated.
themindunleashed.com - by Elias Marat - March 23, 2020
As health care facilities across the globe continue to grapple with a general shortage of supplies to help them with the devastating coronavirus pandemic, one doctor in Canada has managed to use a bit of creativity, ingenuity, and an idea inspired by YouTube to help future patients.
Dr. Alain Gaithier, an anesthetist at the Perth and Smiths Falls District Hospital in Ontario, was worried about the possibility that his rural hospital’s one ventilator would hardly be able to carry the load that the CoViD-19 outbreak could entail.
So Gauthier, who has a Ph. D. in respiratory mechanics, borrowed an idea conceived by American doctors Greg Neyman and Charlene Babcock in 2006 to double the capacity of a single ventilator.
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Screenshot from a YouTube video on how to make a medical face mask. (Photo: Screen capture from YouTube)
courierpress.com - by Thomas B. Langhorne - March 18, 2020
Citing shortages, Deaconess Health System, including Henderson's Methodist Health, has asked the public to sew face masks for staff fighting coronavirus.
"This does follow CDC protocols that you can find on their website that if all other supplies are not available, that handmade masks that meet certain criteria are acceptable," Deaconess spokeswoman Becca Scott said.
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CLICK HERE - CDC - Strategies for Optimizing the Supply of Facemasks
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President Donald Trump at a Monday news conference on the Covid-19 pandemic. Doug Mills / The New York Times
nytimes.com - by Sheri Fink - March 17, 2020
Sweeping new federal recommendations announced on Monday for Americans to sharply limit their activities appeared to draw on a dire scientific report warning that, without action by the government and individuals to slow the spread of coronavirus and suppress new cases, 2.2 million people in the United States could die.
To curb the epidemic, there would need to be dramatic restrictions on work, school and social gatherings for periods of time until a vaccine was available, which could take 18 months, according to the report, compiled by British researchers. They cautioned that such steps carried enormous costs that could also affect people’s health, but concluded they were “the only viable strategy at the current time.”
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Image/Phil Jones, Senior Photographer, Augusta University
outbreaknews.com - March 20, 2020
The Georgia Esoteric and Molecular Laboratory at the Medical College of Georgia Department of Pathology has developed a novel, accurate coronavirus test that can tell patients if they are infected within about two hours instead of waiting typically days to hear from remote testing facilities.
(CLICK HERE - READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)
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Blood group patterns of more than 2,000 patients with the coronavirus in Wuhan and Shenzhen were compared to local healthy populations. Photo: Shutterstock
scmp.com - by Stephen Chen - March 17, 2020
People with blood type A may be more vulnerable to infection by the new coronavirus, while those with type O seem more resistant, according to a preliminary study of patients in China who contracted the disease known as Covid-19.
Medical researchers in China took blood group patterns of more than 2,000 patients infected with the virus in Wuhan and Shenzhen and compared them to local healthy populations. They found that blood type A patients showed a higher rate of infection and they tended to develop more severe symptoms.
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When an infected person touches a surface, like a door handle, there's a risk they leave viruses stuck there that can live on for two to three days. Andrew Harrer/Bloomberg via Getty Images
npr.org - by Allison Aubrey - March 14, 2020
How long can the new coronavirus live on a surface, like say, a door handle, after someone infected touches it with dirty fingers? A study out this week finds that the virus can survive on hard surfaces such as plastic and stainless steel for up to 72 hours and on cardboard for up to 24 hours . . .
. . . And given that wipes are hard to come by at many stores at the moment, you can instead buy an EPA-registered disinfecting spray, such as one on this list from the Center for Biocide Chemistries, recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and by Dr. David Warren, an infectious disease specialist at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis.
Or make a bleach-based spray yourself. You can make a DIY cleaning spray by mixing 4 teaspoons bleach per quart of water, according to the CDC.
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cdc.gov
Older adults and people who have severe chronic medical conditions like heart, lung or kidney disease seem to be at higher risk for more serious COVID-19 illness. Early data suggest older people are twice as likely to have serious COVID-19 illness. This may be because:
As people age, their immune systems change, making it harder for their body to fight off diseases and infection.
Many older adults are also more likely to have underlying health conditions that make it harder to cope with and recover from illness.
If a COVID-19 outbreak happens in your community, it could last for a long time. Depending on the severity of the outbreak, public health officials may recommend community actions to reduce exposures to COVID-19. These actions can slow the spread and reduce the impact of disease.
If you are at increased risk for COVID-19 complications due to age or because you have a severe underlying medical condition, it is especially important for you to take actions to reduce your risk of exposure.
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Volunteers take a pregnant woman into the Wuhan Maternal and Child Health Hospital to be tested for the coronavirus. Photo: Xinhua
scmp.com - Gigi Choy and Teddy Ng - March 5, 2020
A 36-year-old man has died of respiratory failure in Wuhan, five days after being discharged from one of the makeshift hospitals built to contain the outbreak, according to a report by Shanghai-based news portal The Paper . . .
