Tulane Outbreak Daily | May 1, 2020

Upcoming Events

Today! COVID-19: The New Orleans Experience

Friday, May 1, 2020 – 2:00pm to 4:00pm

Featured Headlines

COVID-19 clotting and therapeutic anticoagulation – FLARE

The FLARE team discuss the increased activation of the coagulation cascade and reduced fibrinolytic activity in ARDS, therapeutic anticoagulation, and guideline data strategies.

[Opinion] Will Warm Weather Slow Coronavirus? – NYT/John Barry

Will there be another wave of Covid-19? And if so, how big will it be, and will there be more waves after it? The answer to those questions depend on seasonality, the susceptibility of the population to the disease, the rate at which the coronavirus mutates and how we come out of lockdown.

Substantial undocumented infection facilitates the rapid dissemination of novel coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) – Science

The virus causing coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has now become pandemic. How has it managed to spread from China to all around the world within 3 to 4 months? Li et al. used multiple sources to infer the proportion of early infections that went undetected and their contribution to virus spread.

The effect of human mobility and control measures on the COVID-19 epidemic in China – Science

What sort of measures are required to contain the spread of severe acute respiratory syndrome–coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), which causes coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)? The rich data from the Open COVID-19 Data Working Group include the dates when people first reported symptoms, not just a positive test date. Using these data and real-time travel data from the internet services company Baidu, Kraemer et al. found that mobility statistics offered a precise record of the spread of SARS-CoV-2 among the cities of China at the start of 2020. The frequency of introductions from Wuhan were predictive of the size of the epidemic sparked in other provinces.

Cytokine release syndrome in severe COVID-19 – Science

n December 2019, a new strain of coronavirus, severe acute respiratory syndrome–coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), was recognized to have emerged in Wuhan, China. Along with SARS-CoV and Middle East respiratory syndrome–coronavirus (MERS-CoV), SARS-CoV-2 is the third coronavirus to cause severe respiratory illness in humans, called coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). This was recognized as a pandemic by the World Health Organization (WHO) in March 2020 and has had considerable global economic and health impacts. Although the situation is rapidly evolving, severe disease manifested by fever and pneumonia, leading to acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS), has been described in up to 20% of COVID-19 cases. This is reminiscent of cytokine release syndrome (CRS)–induced ARDS and secondary hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis (sHLH) observed in patients with SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV as well as in leukemia patients receiving engineered T cell therapy. Given this experience, urgently needed therapeutics based on suppressing CRS, such as tocilizumab, have entered clinical trials to treat COVID-19.

Coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 infects cells of the intestine – Eureka Alert

Researchers from the Hubrecht Institute in Utrecht, Erasmus MC University Medical Center Rotterdam, and Maastricht University in the Netherlands have found that the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, which causes COVID-19, can infect cells of the intestine and multiply there. [Related Study in Science]

Russia’s Prime Minister Says He Has Coronavirus, As Country Tops 100,000 Cases – NPR

Russian Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin says he’s infected with the novel coronavirus, joining nearly 106,500 others in the country who have been similarly diagnosed.

Speaking during a video conference with President Vladimir Putin that was broadcast Thursday on state-run Rossiya 24 television, Mishustin — who took over as prime minister from Dmitry Medvedev in January — told Putin that he had tested positive for the virus.

Surveillance

Editor’s note: Regarding the case counts below, please consider due to limited testing capabilities in some locations, the real number of cases could be considerably higher.

Official Reporting for May 1, 2020

WHO SITREP #101 ECDC | Country Data Johns Hopkins
Confirmed Cases 3,090,445 3,214,256 3,276,373
Deaths 217,769 232,570 235,860

 

Total cases: 1,031,659
Total deaths: 60,057
(Numbers close out at 4 p.m. the day before reporting.)

Surveillance Headlines

USA

Georgia: Cases pass 27K, with 1K added in 24 hours – AJC

LATIN AMERICA

Latin America Wrestles With Reopening as Coronavirus Peak Looms – NYT

Brazil: Virus surge brings a coffin shortage, morgue chaos – AP

EUROPE

UK: ‘Past The Peak’ Of Its Coronavirus Outbreak – NPR

Turkey: Turkey has 84 new deaths amid partial lockdowns – AP

MIDDLE EAST

Iran: False belief poison cures virus kills over 700. – AP

ASIA

Indonesia: Fearing Infection, Some In Indonesia Refuse Nearby Burial Of COVID-19 Victims – NPR

Science and Tech

SARS-CoV-2 Protein Interaction Map Reveals Drug Targets – Genetic Engineering and Biotechnology News

Vaccine

Find a Vaccine. Next: Produce 300 Million Vials of It. – NYT

Scaling up the manufacturing of syringes and other medical products required to deliver a vaccine to millions of Americans will be just as important as the vaccine itself.

Antivirals

Chinese scientists uncover structural basis for SARS-CoV-2 inhibition by Remdesivir – Eureka Alert

A team of Chinese scientists have reported the high-resolution cryo-EM structure of Remdesivir-bound RNA replicase complex from SARS-CoV-2, the infective virus of COVID-19.

Diagnostics

How Reliable Are COVID-19 Tests? Depends Which One You Mean – NPR

Testing for the coronavirus has been very much in the news. The first and most urgent focus is on increasing access to tests to diagnose people with current infections. But now other tests are appearing as well. Antibody tests, which can identify people with signs of past infection, are starting to be available. And a third type of test is on the way.


Published Research

COVID-19 and the cardiovascular system: implications for risk assessment, diagnosis, and treatment options – Oxford Academic

SARS-CoV-2 productively infects human gut enterocytes – Science

Environmental Contamination of SARS-CoV-2 in Healthcare Premises – Journal of Infection

Children with Covid-19 in Pediatric Emergency Departments in Italy – NEJM

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

Genetic structure of SARS-CoV-2 in Western Germany reflects clonal superspreading and multiple independent introduction events – MedRxiv


Coping in Quarantine

Quarantine coping skills on a roadside marquee in Austin Texas wins the internet this week.

It’s been raining in Maryland for days, and days. It’s May, where are the flowers? Our green house is at capacity with little pots of tomatoes, squash, cucumbers, eggplant, and whatever else I could find in seed form from Amazon. The local stores have been wiped out the desirable vegetable seeds, just a few lonley okra packets left. Does anyone really eat okra? It’s time for flowers, and according to the NYT, it’s not too late to grow some.