Coronavirus Tidbits #38 4/24/20
Quick links
News Diagnostics Drugs Devices Epidemiology/Infection control Tips Politics Feel good du jour Comic relief Perspective/Poem Bits of beauty
Announcements:
First, there is now a Resources Page here for the most commonly asked questions I’m getting.
Tidbits will likely be a bit shorter and a little less frequent for the next little bit. I have been immersed in it and I need to spend a little more time on self-care, which for me means seeing the spring flowers emerge and digging in the dirt.
Happy to continue to answer your questions/concerns as best I can, so don’t be shy about that.
News
Today’s WTF? Watch this embarrassment.
The President inquires about injecting disinfectant? pic.twitter.com/75kGQkD0h7
— Acyn Torabi (@Acyn) April 23, 2020
Or read it:
Trump just mused about whether disinfectant injections could treat coronavirus. Really.
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Federal appeals court stops earlier order, says Texas doesn’t have to give inmates hand sanitizer or face masks for now
https://www.texastribune.org/2020/04/22/texas-prisoners-hand-sanitizer-appeal/
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A mysterious blood-clotting complication is killing coronavirus patients
even those on standard anti-coagulants are getting clots.
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Disparities: Navaho Indians also have disproportionately high deaths from COVID-19
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Full fields, empty fridges
Huge problem as farmers are plowing under fields of produce and pouring millions of gallons of milk down the drain while there are rising levels of hunger across the country….many logistical problems to overcome.
Diagnostics:
still an incredible, negligent lack of testing.
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New study suggests saliva can be as effective as nasopharyngeal swabs for detection of #coronavirus; allowing self-collection that can reduce direct provider-patient interactions, lowering the risk to healthcare system and demand on testing supply chain
Drugs:
New data on Gilead’s remdesivir, released by accident, show no benefit for coronavirus patients.
unlike earlier data from Gilead…
More on dashed hopes here:
Not only was there no improvement in survival in this study, but “Remdesivir was stopped early in 18 (11.6%) patients because of adverse effects, compared with 4 (5.1%) in the control group.”
Devices:
Epidemiology/Infection control:
Israel now allowing families brief visits with dying relatives in hospitals. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/20/world/middleeast/israel-hospitals-relatives-dying.html
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COVID-19: Number of children infected far more extensive than reported-USF Study
for each child who requires intensive care for COVID-19, there are 2,381 children infected with the virus. Children younger than 2 accounted for 30 percent of the cases. Projections: before the end of 2020, 50,000 children with severe illness will need to be hospitalized, with 5,400 of them critically ill and requiring mechanical ventilation.
Tips, general reading for public:
StayAtHome
Wash your hands.
Rinse and repeat.
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Resource: NewsGuard: Shining a light on #COVID19 misinformation. – FREE during COVID-19
@StevenBrill & the @NewsGuardRating team. Find out who are the Super-Spreaders of misinformation. https://www.newsguardtech.com/covid-19-resources/
Politics:
19 people who voted in person or worked at polling locations IN Wisconsin have since tested positive for the virus.
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Trump admin emails pushing to “flood NY and NJ” with chloroquine, to the horror of some career health officials
Big scoop from @KatherineEban
Feel good du jour:
Look at these mesmerizing videos from Johannes Stotter and Demotivateur
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=1253512574817657
More of his body art at https://www.johannesstoetterart.com/Videos/
Comic relief:
EXCLUSIVE PHOTOS OF BIG POPPA BEFORE AND AFTER QUARANTINE https://t.co/bg6pax8OxE pic.twitter.com/dZNGIV3hL0
— David Mack (@davidmackau) April 22, 2020
Perspective/Poem
An ER Doctor’s Diary Of Three Brutal Weeks Fighting COVID-19
https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/jasonhill/coronavirus-covid-19-er-doctor-diary-new-york-hospital – Jason Hill
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The Language of “Recovery” in the Age of COVID-19
A really beautifully written brief piece by Mark Senak in Eye on FDA about how we think of COVID “recovery.” The writer compares it to the adjustments brought about by AIDS.
http://eyeonfda.com/2020/04/
“My point is this. Recovery experiences that are so life-changing is very subjective. It is not a blanket return to normal. Something you quickly learn going through this sort of thing is that it is not a crisis that comes and goes, it is bigger than a crisis. Tectonic plates shift. Things re-order. Recovery implies an ability to forget about what has happened and to move on. But in fact, when the magnitude of what you go through is so large, expansive and pervasive, you don’t forget, you learn to live with it. Or you don’t. It became a mantra of mine in those days. You don’t forget this, you learn to live with it. And that takes work.
And so in the context of today’s pandemic, what we are going through – economically, politically and personally – invites a sort of examination of our strengths on a very subjective level. A promise of “recovery” in the traditional sense is perhaps setting ourselves up for failure…And forty years from now, it may well be those who discarded the notion of “recovery” in favor of concentrating on the ability to adapt who have a perspective that helped them survive.”
Bits of beauty:
