Tulane Outbreak Daily – July 7, 2020

Featured Headlines

Fauci: US is still ‘knee-deep’ in the first wave of the coronavirus pandemic – CNN

Teresa and Marvin Bradley can’t say for sure how they got the coronavirus. Maybe Ms. Bradley, a Michigan nurse, brought it from her hospital. Maybe it came from a visiting relative. Maybe it was something else entirely. What is certain — according to new federal data that provides the most comprehensive look to date on nearly 1.5 million coronavirus patients in America — is that the Bradleys are not outliers. [If link above does not work, try this]

Beijing Just Reported No Cases. Here’s How They Turned It Around – Bloomberg

Beijing reported zero new coronavirus cases for the first time in 26 days, a sign the resurgence that ignited fears of a second wave in China looks to have been brought under control for now.

WHO reviewing report urging new guidance over airborne spread of coronavirus – Reuters

The World Health Organization (WHO) is reviewing a report urging it to update guidance on the novel coronavirus after more than 200 scientists, in a letter to the health agency, outlined evidence the virus can spread in tiny airborne particles.

A group of 239 scientists says there’s growing evidence covid-19 is airborne – MIT Technology Review

A group of 239 scientists from 32 countries have written an open letter to the World Health Organization arguing that covid-19 can be transmitted through the air. You might think we know that already, but most current guidance is based on the idea that covid-19 is transmitted via droplets expelled from an infected person’s nose or mouth. The thought is that these larger respiratory droplets quickly fall to the floor. That’s the position the WHO has taken from early on in the pandemic, and that’s why we have been keeping at a distance from one other. However, the signatories of the open letter say the organization is underestimating the role of airborne transmission, where much smaller droplets (called aerosols) stay suspended in the air. These aerosols can travel farther than droplets and linger in an area even when an infected person has left.

Huge data set reveals COVID-19’s unequal toll in the United States – Nature

Black and Latino people have been three times as likely as white people to be infected with the coronavirus in the US. Plus: everything we don’t know about COVID-19, and the ever-present threat of chemical weapons.

Fauci Says Vaccines Likely to Offer Only ‘Finite’ Protection – Bloomberg

Any vaccine developed to ward off the novel coronavirus would likely be limited in how long it would shield against infection, top U.S. infectious disease expert Anthony Fauci said Monday. “You can assume that we’ll get protection at least to take us through this cycle,” Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said in an appearance on a live-streamed video conference hosted by the National Institutes of Health.

Preparing for Fall’s Second Wave — and Then Some – MedPageToday

Long ago, when I was a resident, I worked an overnight emergency room shift and saw a patient who presented with episodes of shortness of breath both at rest and on exertion. As a fairly freshly minted new intern, I was still definitely getting the hang of things, and probably took way longer to do my history and physical exam, before I was finally ready to present to the attending who was staffing the emergency department that night. Maybe I wasn’t very good at taking a history back then, and I may have missed some critical questions that needed to be asked or hadn’t ordered the right tests, but I remember finishing up my evaluation and still not really being sure what was going on with this patient.

How Coronavirus Will Forever Change Airlines and the Way We Fly – Bloomberg

From air fares to destinations to cabin layouts, things may look very different once we start traveling again.

COVID-19 Spread by Droplets? Free Particles? Or ‘A Little Bit of Both’? – MedPageToday

Video at the link – Hundreds of epidemiologists from around the world sent a letter to the World Health Organization (WHO) asserting that people can contract SARS-CoV-2 infection from airborne virions — free virus particles floating in the air, as distinct from aerosol droplets. In this exclusive MedPage Today video, David Aronoff, MD, of Vanderbilt University Medical Center in Nashville, reviews what we know about COVID-19 transmission dynamics, and what types of research could help pinpoint the spread of the virus in the future.

Clinical Considerations

Listen: How the Coronavirus Affects Kids – The Atlantic

Early on in the pandemic, it seemed as if kids were spared the worst effects of the coronavirus. But in May, a mysterious illness that affected children and appeared to be linked to the virus emerged. As parents now look to send kids back to school and day care, how should they think about these risks? What do we now know about this new syndrome?

The Emotional Evolution of Coronavirus Doctors and Patients – The New Yorker

Beth saw her first dead body of the day just as she was leaving the emergency department. Earlier, she’d admitted a patient with the coronavirus; now she was on her way to an upstairs doctor’s lounge to finish writing her notes. Standing by the elevators, lost in thought, she nearly missed the orange body bag as it was rolled out of the car that had just opened in front of her. She decided to take the next one.

Encouraging results from functional MRI in an unresponsive patient with COVID-19 – Medical Express

Many patients with severe coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) remain unresponsive after surviving critical illness. Investigators led by a team at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) now describe a patient with severe COVID-19 who, despite prolonged unresponsiveness and structural brain abnormalities, demonstrated functionally intact brain connections and weeks later he recovered the ability to follow commands. [Related Study]

Official Reporting for July 6, 2020

World Health Organization

SITREP #169

Confirmed Cases: 11,327,790

Deaths: 532,340

ECDC

Confirmed Cases: 11,586,205

Deaths: 537,701

Johns Hopkins

Confirmed Cases: 11,691,068

Deaths: 540,062

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)

Total cases: 2,932,596
Total deaths: 130,133

Surveillance Headlines

UNITED STATES

U.S.: Months into the pandemic, many U.S. cities still lack testing capacity. – NYT

Colorado: As Colorado’s new COVID-19 cases remain elevated, state sees uptick in hospitalizations – Denver Post

Florida: Florida orders schools to reopen in the fall, even as virus cases soar – Washington Post

Florida: More Than 40 Hospital ICUs In Florida Have Hit Maximum Capacity With Zero Beds Available – Forbes

Atlanta, Georgia: Mayor Tests Positive, Sees ‘Perfect Storm Of Distress In America’ – NPR

Nevada: Half of Nevada’s businesses failed to follow rules on masks, state investigators say – CNBC

Tennessee: How Chattanooga, Tennessee, became a coronavirus hot spot – NBC

Baltimore, Maryland: Baltimore ER Doctor Says While COVID-19 ER Visits Are Down, ‘The Ones That Are Coming In Are Very Sick’ – CBS Baltimore

AUSTRALIA

Melbourne Resumes Lockdown As Coronavirus Cases Surge – NPR

LATIN AMERICA

Brazil: Brazil’s Bolsonaro tests positive for coronavirus – Washington Post

MIDDLE EAST

Israel: Amid New Surge In Virus Cases, Israel’s Top Public Health Official Resigns – NPR

ASIA

India: ndia Surpasses Russia In Reported Coronavirus Infections – NPR

Science and Tech

Vaccine

U.S. Will Pay $1.6 Billion to Novavax for Coronavirus Vaccine – NYT

The Maryland-based company, which has never brought a product to market before, just made the biggest deal to date with the Trump administration’s Operation Warp Speed.

People Are Volunteering To Be Exposed To Coronavirus For Vaccine Research – CBS Los Angeles

Cinematographer Antonio Cisneros lost a friend to coronavirus and has decided to be more proactive in solutions to help find a vaccine. His solution involves a controversial method: volunteering to be infected. It’s part of the “COVID-19 Human Challenge Trials” initiative from researchers and scientists through a platform called 1 Day Sooner.

Moderna spars with U.S. scientists over COVID-19 vaccine trials – Reuters

As the United States accelerates the search for a coronavirus vaccine, tensions have erupted between government scientists and Moderna Inc, one of the leading developers, Reuters has learned.

Testing

A Better Way to Scale Covid-19 Testing – Harvard Business Review

Businesses, universities, and entire communities are realizing that while the Covid-19 pandemic continues, testing whole populations may be necessary to resume in-person interaction without uncontrolled outbreaks. “Assurance testing,” as we call it, faces novel challenges and requires a novel strategy: Online marketplaces for testing that make it simpler and cheaper for organizations and communities of any size to get their members tested while making it efficient for labs and test administrators to make tests available when and where they are needed.

Social/Psychological Impact

Voices from the Pandemic: “We are all starved for hope” – Washington Post

I track the numbers along with everyone else, and each day gets more depressing. Forty thousand new cases. Fifty thousand. How high can we go? There are scientifically proven ways to fight this virus, and we’ve failed at every one. Our testing is too slow. We have no clear leadership. Millions of people can’t afford to stay home, and now we’re throwing fits about social distancing or wearing masks.

Published Research

Prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 in Spain (ENE-COVID): a nationwide, population-based seroepidemiological study – The Lancet

Intact Brain Network Function in an Unresponsive Patient with COVID ‐19 – Annals of Neurology

Pre-Pub (not yet peer reviewed, should not be regarded as conclusive)

None Today

Coping in Quarantine

Listen: How Is College Going to Work? – The Atlantic

Colleges and universities pack students into dorms, classrooms, and parties. Now they have to figure out how to do that during a pandemic. The staff writer Adam Harris joins the podcast Social Distance to discuss what schools are planning for the fall.

Coronavirus And Drinking Games: Author Of New Book Sees Commonalities – NPR

The spread of the coronavirus has surprising similarities to the spread of fake news, gun violence and even social media fads. What they all have in common is that mathematics plays a role in predicting how things “go viral,” whether it’s a germ, a rumor or an internet trend.

Maintain Social Distancing On This Private Floating Beach Club – Forbes

I think we all need this about now… Dubbed a “floating beach club”, Benetti’s new 40m Oasis superyacht offers an outlet to those who are concerned about a second wave of Covid-19 and yet still want to live the high life this summer.