‘2020 will be the darkest winter in modern history’

Dr Rick Bright, former Director of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), testified in a hearing at the US House of Representatives. Dr. Bright filed a whistleblower complaint shortly after being removed from his position at BARDA, alleging that he was removed in retaliation for conflicts regarding US government policies regarding medical countermeasures for COVID-19. In his opening statement, Dr. Bright forecasts that “2020 will be the darkest winter in modern history” and emphasizes the importance of basing policy and operational decisions on reliable scientific evidence.

Read here (CNN, May 13, 2020)

These are the ‘10 plain truths’ about the coronavirus pandemic, according to former CDC Director Dr. Tom Frieden

1. “It’s really bad” in New York City
2. It’s “just the beginning”
3. Data is a “very powerful weapon against this virus”
4. We need to “box the virus in”
5. We must find the balance
6. Protect the “frontline heroes”
7. Protect our most vulnerable people, too
8. Governments and private companies need to work together
9. We must not neglect non-Covid health issues
10. Preparedness is paramount

Read here (CNN, May 6, 2020)

See how a cough travels without a mask and with

A lab at Florida Atlantic University is simulating a human cough to understand how far and fast cough droplets can spread. The droplets travel as far as 12ft in 30 to 40 seconds.

View here (CNN, May 4, 2020)

French doctors say they found a Covid-19 patient from December

‘There's new evidence that the coronavirus may have been in France weeks earlier than was previously thought. Doctors at a Paris hospital say they've found evidence that one patient admitted in December was infected with Covid-19. If verified, this finding would show that the virus was already circulating in Europe at that time -- well before the first known cases were diagnosed in France or hotspot Italy.’

Read here (CNN, May 4, 2020)

Expert report predicts up to two more years of pandemic misery

‘The new coronavirus is likely to keep spreading for at least another 18 months to two years—until 60% to 70% of the population has been infected, a team of longstanding pandemic experts predicted in a report released Thursday. They recommended that the US prepare for a worst-case scenario that includes a second big wave of coronavirus infections in the fall and winter. Even in a best-case scenario, people will continue to die from the virus, they predicted.’

Read here (CNN, May 2, 2020)

FEMA prepares to send protective gear to nursing homes

‘The Federal Emergency Management Agency is preparing to send personal protective equipment to nursing homes, which have struggled to obtain gear weeks into the pandemic as the death toll climbs. A FEMA spokesperson told CNN the agency is preparing to coordinate shipments of PPE, like surgical masks, gowns and gloves, to nursing homes across the nation.

‘The move comes weeks into the coronavirus response and targets facilities hardest hit by the pandemic. Nursing homes have been particularly vulnerable to coronavirus in part because of the slice of the population they serve: elderly residents who, data suggests, may be at higher risk of the illness.’

Read here (CNN, April 29, 2020)

Seniors with Covid-19 show unusual symptoms, doctors say

‘Covid-19 is typically signaled by three symptoms: a fever, an insistent cough and shortness of breath. But older adults — the age group most at risk of severe complications or death from this condition ― may have none of these characteristics. Instead, seniors may seem “off” — not acting like themselves ― early on after being infected by the coronavirus. They may sleep more than usual or stop eating. They may seem unusually apathetic or confused, losing orientation to their surroundings. They may become dizzy and fall. Sometimes, seniors stop speaking or simply collapse.’

Read here (CNN, April 23, 2020)

China's post-lockdown monitoring rides on existing hi-tech finance and social media platforms

‘The Chinese government has enlisted the help of the country's two internet giants — Alibaba (BABA) and Tencent (TCEHY) — to host the health code systems on their popular smartphone apps. Alibaba's mobile payment app Alipay and Tencent's messaging app Wechat are both ubiquitous in China, each used by hundreds of millions of people. Placing the health codes on these platforms means easy access for many...

‘Within a week of its launch, the Alipay health codes were rolled out in more than 100 cities across the country, the state-run Xinhua news agency reported. By late February, more than 200 cities had adopted these QR codes, according to Alipay... Tencent's health code system had also expanded to more than 300 cities as of last month, according to the state-run Science and Technology Daily."

Read here (CNN, April 16, 2020)

Twelve lessons from countries that have ameliorated the effects of Covid-19

Taiwan, Iceland, South Korea and Germany, according to this CNN article, have succeeded so far in ameliorating the effects of Covid-19. There are 12 lessons to be learned from them:

Lesson #1: Be prepared
Lesson #2: Be quick
Lesson #3: Test, trace and quarantine
Lesson #4: Use data and tech
Lesson #5: Be aggressive
Lesson #6: Get the private sector involved 
Lesson #7: Act preventatively
Lesson #8: Use tech, but respect privacy
Lesson #9: You can drive-through test
Lesson #10: Learn from the past
Lesson #11: Test more as restrictions ease
Lesson #12: Build capacity at hospitals

Read here (CNN, April 16, 2020)

How ‘bureaucratic inertia and disinterest’, an ‘alphabet soup of overlapping authority’, ignoring early warnings and muddled decision-making delayed coronavirus testing in the US

‘...Over January and February, agencies within the Department of Health and Human Services not only failed to make early use of the hundreds of labs across the United States, they enforced regulatory roadblocks that prevented non-government labs from assisting, according to documents obtained by CNN, and interviews with 14 scientists and physicians at individual laboratories and national laboratory associations.

‘When the CDC stumbled out of the blocks in early February, releasing a flawed test that took it weeks to correct, labs across the country had been effectively sidelined. Many public health labs were waiting for the revised CDC tests, while commercial and clinical labs were barred from conducting their own tests unless they went through a complex, slow process of applying for their own "emergency use authorisation" from the US Food and Drug Administration.

‘As a result, the government squandered a critical month during which aggressive and widespread testing might greatly have reduced the speed and scale of the pandemic.’

Read here (CNN, April 9, 2020)

Face masks: Asia may have been right about coronavirus and face masks, and the rest of the world is coming around

‘Writing last month, Adrien Burch, an expert in microbiology at the University of California, Berkeley, noted that “despite hearing that face masks ‘don't work,’ you probably haven't seen any strong evidence to support that claim. That's because it doesn't exist…

‘In fact, there is evidence of the exact opposite: that masks help prevent viral infections like the current pandemic.

‘Burch pointed to a Cochrane Review -- a systemic analysis of published studies on a given topic -- which found strong evidence during the 2003 SARS epidemic in support of wearing masks. One study of community transmission in Beijing found that "consistently wearing a mask in public was associated with a 70% reduction in the risk of catching SARS.”’

Read here (CNN, April 1, 2020)

Nurses. Nurses. Nurses

“Among the nine countries with the highest number of Covid-19 cases, the country that has the highest nurse rate also has the lowest death rate from the disease. Germany has 13.2 nurses per 1,000 (echoing a trend for high nurse numbers throughout Northern Europe) far above the other heavily Covid-19 affected countries.

“This may be just another armchair epidemiologist observation of course. But higher numbers of nurses may reflect one of two beneficial factors (or both): first, that nurses, the backbone of hospital (and especially ICU) care, are essential to patient management and, ultimately, survival.

“The second is that the sort of hospital or country that knows the value of nurses also is a hospital or country that understands how to deliver effective health care and has likely made countless other unmeasured adjustments to improve quality.”

Read here (CNN, March 25, 2020)