Featured Headlines
Biden’s task force will have three co-chairs: Vivek H. Murthy, surgeon general during the Obama administration; David Kessler, Food and Drug Administration commissioner under Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton; and Marcella Nunez-Smith, associate dean for health equity research at the Yale School of Medicine. Murthy and Kessler have briefed Biden for months on the pandemic.
The group includes several other prominent doctors (many of the below names are subscribers to the Tulane Outbreak Daily!)
- Ezekiel Emanuel, chair of the Department of Medical Ethics and Health Policy at the University of Pennsylvania.
- Atul Gawande, a surgeon at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and a professor at Harvard Medical School who is a prolific author.
- Michael T. Osterholm, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota.
- Eric Goosby, global AIDS coordinator under President Barack Obama and professor of medicine at the University of California at San Francisco School of Medicine.
- Celine R. Gounder, clinical assistant professor of medicine and infectious diseases at New York University’s Grossman School of Medicine.
- Julie Morita, executive vice president of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, a philanthropy focused on health issues.
- Loyce Pace, president and executive director of the Global Health Council, a U.S.-based nonprofit organization dedicated to global health issues.
- Robert Rodriguez, professor of emergency medicine at the UCSF School of Medicine
- Rebecca Katz, director of the Center for Global Health Science and Security at Georgetown University Medical Center
- Beth Cameron, director for global health security and biodefense on the White House National Security Council during the Obama administration, are serving as advisers to the transition task force.
Eli Lilly Covid Antibody Drug Gets Emergency FDA Clearance – Bloomberg
Eli Lilly & Co.’s antibody therapy was granted an emergency-use authorization by U.S. drug regulators for treating Covid-19, widening access to a treatment that early data suggests is effective in keeping people infected with the coronavirus out of the hospital.
Dr. Fauci offers 2021 forecast on COVID-19 vaccines, treatments – American Medical Assn
SARS-CoV-2 vaccines and various new treatments for COVID-19 may be on their way even before 2020 ends, but the damage caused by the deadly novel coronavirus may linger for months or even years, said Anthony S. Fauci, MD, during an exclusive interview presented during a Saturday plenary session of the November 2020 AMA Section Meetings.
What Pfizer’s landmark COVID vaccine results mean for the pandemic – Nature
Scientists welcome the first compelling evidence that a vaccine can prevent COVID-19. But questions remain about how much protection it offers, to whom and for how long.
Pandemic total surges past 50 million cases – CIDRAP
Over the weekend, the global COVID-19 total passed 50 million cases, as the head of the World Health Organization (WHO) congratulated newly elected US leaders and the World Health Assembly resumed its annual meeting—cut short in May by the virus—virtually.
Understanding the Enduring Consequences of Covid-19 – Harvard Business Review
Azeem Azhar speaks with Yale Professor of Social and Natural Science, Internal Medicine & Biomedical Engineering, Nicholas Christakis, whose latest book “Apollo’s Arrow,” lays out the three phases of the world’s recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic. Christakis argues that each phase will be fraught with risk and will leave an enduring impact on our society, economy, and politics.
Short on Staff and PPE, Nursing Homes Prepare for a Hard Winter – MedPageToday
COVID-19 hit nursing homes with a situation that they “were not equipped to handle,” according to David Coppins, CEO and co-founder of IntelyCare, a workforce management company specializing in post-acute care. In the following Q&A, Coppins discusses the battle that nursing homes have had to confront during the pandemic, and Pennsylvania CNA Christine Pepple offers a frontline perspective.
Clinical Considerations
COVID Complications Common with Rheumatic Disease – MedPageToday
Patients with systemic autoimmune rheumatic diseases were at increased risk of adverse outcomes such as end-organ failure when infected with COVID-19, a researcher reported. [Link to meeting referenced in article]
Jennifer Spicer thought her days of feeling the effects of covid-19 were over. The fever, chills and severe fatigue that racked her body back in July had long dissipated. And much to the excitement of the self-described “foodie,” her senses of smell and taste were slowly returning.
Official Reporting for November 10, 2020
World Health Organization
Weekly Epi Update November 6, 2020 (Last Updated)
Confirmed Cases: 50,266,033
Deaths: 1,254,567
ECDC
Confirmed Cases: 50 414 235
Deaths: 1 255 831
Johns Hopkins
Confirmed Cases: 50,812,345
Deaths: 1,262,372
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
Total cases: 9,913,553
Total deaths: 237,037
Surveillance Headlines
UNITED STATES
Ohio: Southwest Ohio seeing ‘exponential growth’ in hospitalizations – Dayton News
Texas: Nears 1 Million Coronavirus Cases As U.S. Reports 5th Worst Day Since Start Of Pandemic – CBS Local
Utah: Utah Gov. Announces Statewide Mask Mandate, Citing Steep Spike In COVID-19 Cases – NPR
Virginia: COVID-19 outbreaks are increasing within Virginia’s hospitals – NOVA
Maryland: Tops 1,000 new coronavirus cases for record 6th straight day; positivity rate tops 5% – Baltimore Sun
Los Angeles, California: Coronavirus continues to spread in Los Angeles County at summer levels – LA Times
Arkansas: Sets new record for coronavirus hospitalizations – ABC News
Wisconsin: Wisconsin Sees 4,280 New COVID-19 Cases As Hospitalizations Continue To Rise – Wisconsin Public Radio
EUROPE
Hungary and Portugal in partial lockdown – BBC
Denmark: Europe tries to shut down new coronavirus strain from Danish mink farms – CNBC
ASIA
India: How a communist physics teacher flattened the COVID-19 curve in southern India – Science
Science and Tech
Vaccine
‘I’ve never worked harder’: the race to develop a COVID-19 vaccine – NatureSince mid-January, my laboratory at the Jenner Institute at the University of Oxford, UK, has had a clear focus: developing a vaccine against the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus. The −80 °C freezers in the background contain blood and serum samples from volunteers who have received a trial vaccine. The grey machine on my right reads the level of antibodies in those samples, a key measure of the vaccine’s effectiveness.
A promising vaccine developed by drug giant Pfizer and German biotechnology firm BioNTech would need to be stored at ultracold temperatures that experts say could make it far more difficult to distribute than other potential vaccines.
Therapeutics
Coronavirus (COVID-19) Update: FDA Authorizes Monoclonal Antibody for Treatment of COVID-19 – FDA
Today, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration issued an emergency use authorization (EUA) for the investigational monoclonal antibody therapy bamlanivimab for the treatment of mild-to-moderate COVID-19 in adult and pediatric patients. Bamlanivimab is authorized for patients with positive results of direct SARS-CoV-2 viral testing who are 12 years of age and older weighing at least 40 kilograms (about 88 pounds), and who are at high risk for progressing to severe COVID-19 and/or hospitalization. This includes those who are 65 years of age or older, or who have certain chronic medical conditions.
Fauci, NIAID Look to Past to Inform Future of COVID-19 Therapies – MedPageToday
Clinical agents in development for SARS-CoV-2 include antivirals and host targeted/immunomodulators, as well as neutralizing monoclonal antibodies. And randomized trials are still the best way to determine whether they work, experts said.
Psychological and Sociological Impact
In a May survey conducted by the Research Triangle Institute International, researchers polled 993 people from across the United States about their drinking habits before the pandemic hit and after. It found an average person’s drinks per day increased 27 percent; the frequency of a person’s drinking that “exceeds drinking guidelines” increased 21 percent; and binge drinking increased 26 percent. Researchers also found that being female or Black was associated with significant increases in at least one measure, and respondents with children in the household had greater-than-average increases in all three.
Published Research
Scientific quality of COVID-19 and SARS CoV-2 publications in the highest impact medical journals during the early phase of the pandemic: A case control study – PLoS One
Abdominal imaging findings in patients with SARS-CoV-2 infection: a scoping review – Abdominal Radiology
Pre-Print Studies
None Today
Misinformation, Disinformation, and Conspiracy Theories
Coping in 2020
Puzzle Business Goes ‘Bonkers’ As People Seek Pandemic Pastimes At Home – NPR
3 min audio at the link – Jigsaw puzzles have become such a favorite pandemic pastime, retailers are having a hard time keeping them in stock. “There’s a global shortage of puzzles actually,” says Brian Way, co-owner of the online retailer Puzzle Warehouse. “There’s not a factory on the planet that is not months behind on production.”
Are you a film buff who has never seen a Star Wars movie? A TV enthusiast who never got around to “Breaking Bad”? This list, compiled without judgment and in no particular order, is for you. We scoured streaming services for shows and films so iconic you might not publicly admit you missed out on them.
Serve Up Some Extra Precautions at Your Thanksgiving Table This Year – New York Times
Public health officials urge families to keep celebrations small, avoid mixing households and open the windows.