Tulane Outbreak Daily – September 16, 2020

Featured Headlines

Hospitals Failed to Fully Contain Covid-19 Inside Their Walls – Wall Street Journal

CDC data suggests U.S. hospitals made improvements but could have done more to prevent in-house spread of the new coronavirus. An average of 120 patients a day became infected with the new coronavirus inside U.S. hospitals as the pandemic ebbed from its spring peak and rebounded into the summer, according to previously unpublished federal data. [Related Study JAMA]

COVID-19 Storms: Bradykinin In, Cytokine Out? – MedPageToday

Papers poke holes in cytokine storm as gene expression study offers a new theory. In the last week, questions have been raised about whether cytokine storm is indeed a culprit in severe COVID-19, while a paper from a government lab has made an intriguing and much-discussed case for a new mechanism, bradykinin storm. [Related paper] [Another Related Paper]

Clinical Considerations

CDC: Most Kids Dying From Coronavirus Had Underlying Conditions – MedPageToday

Among American children and teens who died of COVID-19, a large majority had an underlying medical condition or were nonwhite, CDC researchers found.

Post-COVID Heart Scans Without Symptoms: Not a Good Idea – MedPageToday

Multidisciplinary group urges against general population screening. Cardiac MRI (CMR) might be able to find abnormalities suggestive of myocarditis after COVID-19 recovery — or to rule them out — but it shouldn’t be used that way in the absence of symptoms, a group of cardiologists, radiologists, and others argued.

When Duty House Calls – Neurology

A neurologist conducts her first “house call” during the Covid-19 pandemic: the quaint nostalgia of a bygone era and seeming anachronism meet the conveniences of modernity and uncover the timeless qualities of medicine.

A neurologist in the COVID unit: Reflections on a redeployment – Neurology

Official Reporting for September 16, 2020

World Health Organization

Weekly Epi Update SEP 14, 2020 (Last Updated)

Cumulative Cases: 29,444,198

Cumulative Deaths: 931,321

ECDC

Confirmed Cases: 29,611,395

Deaths: 935 767

Johns Hopkins

Confirmed Cases: 29,730,140

Deaths: 938,575

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)

Total cases: 6,571,867
Total deaths: 195,053

Science and Tech

Therapeutics

Researchers Look To Early 2021 For Clinical Trials Of Pitt’s Coronavirus-Attacking Antibody – CBS Pittsburgh

Researchers expect clinical trials for a drug that could both treat and prevent coronavirus to begin at the start of 2021.

Eli Lilly reports first, promising results for an antibody against COVID-19 – Science Magazine

Today brings the first whisper of success for a class of closely watched drugs that it’s hoped will begin to beat back COVID-19 before vaccines are licensed: monoclonal antibodies, engineered versions of the same virus-fighting antibodies that the body naturally produces. [Another article on Eli Lily]

Vaccine

Synthetic biologists have created a slow-growing version of the coronavirus to give as a vaccine – MIT Technology Review

Live vaccines defeated smallpox and polio. One company claims a weakened coronavirus could do the same for covid-19.

US outlines sweeping plan to provide free COVID-19 vaccines – ABC News

The government outlined a sweeping plan Wednesday to make vaccines for COVID-19 available for free to all Americans, assuming a safe and effective shot is developed, even as top health officials faced questions about political interference with virus information reaching the public.

Diagnostics

Fast coronavirus tests: what they can and can’t do – Nature

Rapid antigen tests are designed to tell in a few minutes whether someone is infectious. Will they be game changers?

Social and Psychological Impact

 

Published Research

Incidence of Nosocomial COVID-19 in Patients Hospitalized at a Large US Academic Medical Center – JAMA

SARS-CoV-2 Infection Among Hospitalized Pregnant Women: Reasons for Admission and Pregnancy Characteristics — Eight U.S. Health Care Centers, March 1–May 30, 2020 – CDC

Coping in Quarantine

 

 

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