Pharmacist Michael Witte, left, gives Neal Browning a shot in the first-stage study of a potential coronavirus vaccine at the Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute in Seattle. Browning is the second patient to receive the shot in the study.(Ted S. Warren/AP)
Hancock: UK human trials for coronavirus vaccine to begin on Thursday video The Guardian
Updated April 23, 2020 06:37:18
With more than 115 coronavirus vaccines in development, one of the largest pandemic health innovation funding bodies has raised the alarm over equity of access if a vaccine finally arrives.
Jane Halton is the former head of the Australian Department of Health and the chair of the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovation (CEPI).
"We now have to think about issues around vaccine sovereignty," she told 7.30.
"How do we ensure that the vulnerable populations around the world will get access to a vaccine?"
The organisation is attempting to avoid what happened in 2009, when wealthy countries including Australia entered into contracts with big pharmaceutical companies, effectively monopolising the H1N1 swine flu vaccine at the expense of poorer nations.
"Everybody will want this vaccine, everybody will want to be vaccinated to reduce their risk," she said.
"So we have to negotiate this."
It echoes the concerns of Pulitzer Prize-winning science writer Laurie Garett.
"Without equity, pandemic battles will fail," he wrote.
"Viruses will simply recirculate, and perhaps undergo mutations or changes that render vaccines useless, passing through the unprotected populations of the planet."
CEPI is currently funding 10 vaccines for COVID-19 that Ms Halton said were not necessarily in the commercial interest of big pharmaceutical companies in recent years.
"A number of people were very worried that we weren't investing money in some potential disease causing pathogens, that no one was going to spend money on because there wasn't a commercial return." she said.
Some of these vaccine technologies were initially created to combat SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome), although an effective, safe vaccine was never fully approved.
"We were lucky with SARS, we dodged a bullet," Ms Halton said.
"And I think many of us would say that the countries who experienced SARS have responded more quickly than others; they remember.
"But we tried to develop vaccines for SARS. And in one particular case, there was a vaccine that looked very promising.
"Sadly, it turned out not to be safe."
According to CEPI, there are six candidates in clinical development right now.
Two in the USA (mRNA-1273 and INO-4800), three in China (Ad5-nCoV, LV-SMENP-DC and a Pathogen-specific aAPC) and one in the United Kingdom.
According to the British Secretary of Health, the UK trial is expected to begin human testing today.
The Oxford University project, a collaboration between the university's Jenner Institute and Oxford Vaccine Group, hopes to produce a million doses of the vaccine by September.
The world's biggest pharmaceutical company, Johnson and Johnson, announced it would begin clinical trials of its vaccine this September with the view to producing 1 billion doses by next year, according to Paul Kershaw, head of the company's Asia Pacific Medical Affairs.
"We're accustomed to developing vaccines over a period of five, seven or even more years," he told 7.30.
"And so doing this in 12 to 18 months is an extremely compressed timeframe.
"It's basically an inactivated virus that allows us to deliver antibodies, creating the presence of antibodies which will fight the virus in patients.
"It's a very safe vector. It's something that we have experience with.
"We've used it extensively already to mount a campaign against Ebola in Africa."
But the process is long and extremely expensive, and companies will look to be the first to market and recoup costs.
"That is the nature of drug development. It's a risky business," Mr Kershaw said.
"We can't wait to finish the clinical trials and then start developing on manufacturing and distributing the vaccine. What we need to do is both of those activities in parallel."
It is possible that multiple vaccines might succeed, much like the way flu shots have different brands or ingredients in each country.
"It's entirely possible that there will be a couple of vaccines, possibly using different technology," Ms Halton said.
Mr Kershaw agrees.
"There will likely be a number of vaccines that become available," he said.
"And that's all the better. We're playing a part."
Topics:chemicals-and-pharmaceuticals,health,covid-19,epidemics-and-pandemics,medical-research,vaccines-and-immunity,australia
First posted April 23, 2020 04:57:42
When he first told me this, I assumed I had either misheard or misunderstood. "Virtual dinners right?" I asked. "No" was the reply. These were the old-fashioned, in-person sort.
Each time, he explained, the host's instructions were the same. For both dinners, he entered through the back gate of the property, so disapproving neighbors would not see him. He was told in advance that neither he, nor any other guests, could take any photographs or talk about the party.
The first dinner was hosted by a movie producer. A group of four listened to music and sat under heated lamps six feet apart in the garden where they were served dinner. According to the executive, none had been in contact with anyone who had suffered Covid-19 -- as far as they knew. All had been isolating.
At that dinner party, the food was prepared by a live-in chef, who was masked and gloved, and then served by the producer's wife.
At the second party, held over the weekend at the home of a Democrat political operative, one of the guests brought the food: "lamb to belatedly celebrate Easter." In attendance were an ambassador, a city councilman and a well-known lobbyist. The night was balmy and they all sat outside for hours.
"People did not want to leave," the media executive told me, speaking on the condition of anonymity, to avoid being Covid-shamed -- a new shorthand term for people behaving with apparent indifference to the safety of others. "But everyone had been cooped up for so long, there was much to discuss."
"That article made us all feel better, safer," says this person. "You can see why Boris Johnson or Prince Charles got Covid-19 since they were out at public events all the time. So, yes, we discussed that article and we felt a little bit reckless, but we also felt safe."
He added that the events were a boon for his mental health. "I just had to get out of the house," he said. "I feel like a camel in the desert in search of water. Washington is a cocktail town and social interaction is our oxygen."
The two dinners in Washington are not the only anecdotes I've heard of illicit gatherings that break the country's shelter-in-place restrictions and feature varying degrees of social distance.
I've been told by a source about an underground hair salon in Palm Beach, Florida, that never ceased operations, despite the state's restrictions, and which her elderly mother has insisted on patronizing.
I've also heard about the trio of real estate executives who get drunk together, rotating homes every night in a leafy suburb of Westchester.
And the AA group in Virginia Beach whose members sit in a circle in someone's garden, because, they say, virtual meetings are not sufficient to prevent some from falling off the wagon.
I even know elderly people in my native country, the United Kingdom, who've gone over to each other's gardens to sit six feet apart for a glass of wine. "I'd rather die than live without seeing people," one of them offered as justification.
Most of the people I talked to are middle class or affluent. It takes money to have a dining table in your backyard in Washington. And a lot of money to have a live-in chef.
Regardless, the breach of physical distancing rules is a behavioral trend that psychologists fear we are likely to see increasingly in the next few weeks, as state by state, the nation waits for an uneven legal reopening.
"I believe there will be increasing non-compliance that is simply due to human nature," says Leahy.
"Even when there's not a pandemic we, as a species, tend to make decisions that negatively affect our public health based on our immediate need, whether it's smoking, alcohol abuse, drug abuse, overeating, overspending... we are wired to look for immediate gratification. Remember, we were once scavengers. That's why this is very hard," says Leahy. "The difficulty that people have is in the uncertainty about how long they have to wait to get back to doing what they used to do."
But Leahy says the ultimate question for people to think about before they gather like the groups in Washington and elsewhere, is this: "What is more dangerous? Feeling anxious or risky behavior?"
Even for the AA group, the answer, Leahy says, is always risky behavior. "What I am saying to those people who gathered for whatever reason is: 'Which, ultimately would you regret more? That you didn't go to the AA meeting or the hair salon or the dinner? Or that you got Covid-19 or infected someone else with Covid-19 and that person died?'"
Meanwhile, he says to take solace in the government's phasing plans to reopen, and to remember this situation is not forever.
"Focus on what you CAN do and not what you can't. Many people can connect with friends, family, meetings."
"Remember, socially distanced does not have to mean socially disconnected."
In other words, you don't have to talk only to the microwave.
Philip Kahn is the oldest veteran in Nassau County, New York, according to his family, and had been fearful of another pandemic happening in his lifetime, his grandson, Warren Zysman, told CNN.
"It was something he brought up quite frequently," Zysman said. "I would have conversations with him, he would say to me, 'I told you history repeats itself, 100 years is not that long of a period of time.'"
Kahn and his twin brother, Samuel, were born on December 5, 1919. His brother died weeks later, his grandson said.
The 1918 influenza pandemic, caused by a virus previously known as the "Spanish flu," killed and estimate of more than 50 million people globally and about 675,000 in the United States, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. As of April 22, there are more than 46,000 Covid-19 deaths in the United States and about 19,000 deaths in New York State, according to Johns Hopkins University's tally.
Kahn was a sergeant in the US Army Air Force during WWII, Zysman said, and acted as an engineer and co-pilot, keeping war planes fueled. He received two Bronze Battle Stars for his service in WWII, his grandson said. After the war, he worked as an electrical foreman to help build the World Trade Center, Zysman said. In Long Island, Kahn lived on his own and walked one to two miles a day, Zysman said.
He was very aware of what was happening with coronavirus since he watched the news all the time, and in the last days before his death on April 17, Kahn experienced coughing and respiratory symptoms of the virus, his grandson said.
Kahn knew that there was a possibility that he could have contracted the coronavirus.
"He talked about his brother a lot in the last few days," Zysman said. The 100-year-old veteran received a coronavirus test, but his family did not get the results until after Kahn passed away.
"He had always wanted a large military funeral, but we weren't able to provide that to him," Zysman said.
The cemetery arranged for two people in the armed forces to perform a military ceremony, and a man whose father was a Marine during WWII played the bugle at Kahn's funeral from a distance, Kahn's grandson said.
"He volunteered because the Air Force protected the Marines by providing cover for them and he felt it was a honor to do this for my grandpa," Zysman said.
Sampson Lester Friedman, Khan's friend who served with him during WWII in the Army Air Force, attended the funeral and gave a tribute to Kahn, which Zysman recorded on video and provided to CNN.
"[There was] something about him that was very very special," Friedman said at the funeral. "On our airplane, he was an engineer, and he was the hardest working guy aboard that airplane."
Over the century that followed his brother's death, Kahn kept the memory of his brother alive.
"Pretty much every holiday, every event, he would also bring up his brother Samuel," Zysman said. "It clearly made a hole in his heart that he never got to meet his twin, and that his twin died a few weeks after birth."
Do you feel lost and anxious about the coronavirus crisis and the murky future that rises in its wake? You are not alone.
At the moment, the most urgent and important thing you can do is stay home (if you have the privilege to do so), wash your hands, become teachers for your children and wait it out.
But there is a reckoning coming. We can all feel it.
The number of dead and infected in this country rises every day. A staggering 46,000-plus people have already died, in about two months no less. We have not even tackled the first wave of this virus and we are already being warned that the second wave could be even worse.
The director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Robert Redfield, told The Washington Post this week, Theres a possibility that the assault of the virus on our nation next winter will actually be even more difficult than the one we just went through.
That would mean a second, worse wave would overlap the election. How do we conduct a legitimate election or a reliable census in the middle of a pandemic?
So far, there is no approved medical treatment for the virus and no vaccine. Social distancing is the only tool we have, and yet we know that we cant maintain it indefinitely.
Money has to be earned, rent has to be paid, food has to be put on the table. Housing volatility and food insecurity are also dangerous and deadly.
What happens when the rent comes due, even after having been deferred during the early days of the crisis? Where are the most vulnerable supposed to find that money? What happens if a wave of post-virus evictions and foreclosures sweep the housing market?
What happens if small businesses are forced to close en masse? What becomes of all those workers? What happens to their families?
Sure, eventually, other businesses will likely rise where those fell, but it will not be an immediate one-for-one switchover. There will be pain, and it will be sustained.
Furthermore, what happens to the educational system when schools finally open? What about the lost time that students have suffered? What about all the students who didnt have the technology to fully participate digitally? What about all those trapped in households where existential stresses have led to abuse and negligent behavior has disincentivized logging on? How will all that time and lost momentum be recaptured?
Beyond that, how will the crisis reshape higher education? Some institutions will undoubtedly be forced to close. More precisely, as a recent McKinsey and Company report put it: Historically black colleges and universities (H.B.C.U.s) are anchor institutions, sites of cultural identity, talent incubators, and regional economic engines. But the Covid-19 pandemic is likely to significantly and quickly hobble them.
Then, there are the quality of life questions. One of the great tragedies of this virus, one that receives less discussion because it can sound trivial in the face of so much death and suffering, is how will the very nature of human, communal interaction be altered?
I personally dont think these discussions are small or trivial or inconsequential at all. Culture and custom nurture and anchor us. Without them, we feel lost, we are lost.
How will we celebrate a life or mourn a death with no gatherings or funerals? A friend of mine in New York just lost her elderly father to the virus. For the funeral, the guests were limited to 10 people, they had to essentially dress their elderly mother in a hazmat suit to keep her safe, and there were no speakers at the funeral. (They feared speaking was an easy way to spread the virus.) Instead, people read verses and sang songs via Zoom.
What happens when we are no longer marking lifes milestones a graduation, a promotion, a wedding in person with the people we love?
How will the congregational energy of restaurants, bars and nightlife be altered and transformed? Will there be a further ostracizing of the elderly, for their own good?
What will happen to the handshake and the hug?
There are so many worrisome questions about what a post-virus world and post-virus America will look like.
Rocio Wu is a venture partner at F-Prime Capital who focuses on early-stage investments in software/applied AI, fintech and frontier tech investments.More posts by this contributor
While some U.S. investors might have taken comfort from Chinas rebound, we still find ourselves in the early innings of this period of uncertainty.
Some epidemiologists have estimated that COVID-19 cases will peak in April, but PitchBook reports that dealmaking was down -26% in March, compared to Februarys weekly average. The decline is likely to continue in coming weeks many of the deals that closed last month were initiated before the pandemic, and there is a lag between when deals are made and when they are announced.
However, theres still hope. A recent report concluded that because valuations are lower and theres less competition for deals, the best-performing vintages tend to be those that invest at the nadir of a downturn and into the early stage of recovery. There are countless examples from the 2008 recession, including many highly valued VC-backed businesses such as WhatsApp, Venmo, Groupon, Uber, Slack and Square. Other early-stage VCs seem to have arrived at a similar conclusion.
Also, early-stage investing seems more resilient. During the last recession, angel and seed activity increased 34% as interest in the stage boomed during a period of prolonged growth.
Furthermore, there is still capital to be deployed in categories that interested investors before the pandemic, which may set the new order in a post-COVID-19 world. According to data provider Preqin Ltd., VC dry powder rose for a seventh consecutive year to roughly $276 billionin 2019, and another $21 billionwere raised last quarter. And looking at the deals on the early-stage side that were made year to date, especially in March, the vertical categories that garnered the most funding were enterprise SaaS, fintech, life sciences, healthcare IT, edtech and cybersecurity.
Image Credits: PitchBook
That said, if VCs have the capital to deploy and are able to overcome the obstacle of having never met in person, here are six investment trends that could emerge when the pandemic is over.
BROWN COUNTY, Wis. (WBAY) -
The state now has 4,845 COVID-19 patients and 246 deaths, 4 more deaths than reported Tuesday. Almost 50,000 people who were tested were negative.
The higher number of positive tests coincided with more tests being processed. The state received 1,886 test results in 24 hours, compared to about 1,300 to 1,500 tests each day this week. Almost 12% of tests that came back in the past day were positive, compared to 9% of tests the day before.
A county-by-county breakdown and more demographic information appear below.
Brown County outbreak
Brown County Public Health reported 93 new positive tests in the past 24 hours, while Oneida Nation reported 1 new case, bringing the county total to 416 patients.
Brown County Public Health says 147 of the COVID-19 cases have been linked to an outbreak at the JBS beef facility in Green Bay.
It's the first time we've received numbers showing the scope of the outbreak at the meatpacking facility located on Lime Kiln Road. The county had previously described it as a "cluster" of cases.
The cases are both in employees and people who have had contact with employees.
All 147 cases were confirmed before on-site employee testing started this week. The federal government responded to Green Bay to help with testing and contact tracing related to the JBS outbreak.
The health department was not able to provide a number of hospitalizations linked to this particular outbreak.
JBS has closed plants in Worthington, Minnesota and Greeley, Colorado after outbreaks there. The Green Bay facility remains open. Brown County Public Health says the USDA and OSHA will make a determination if the plant should close.
Public Health Strategist Claire Paprocki said Brown County's overall positive cases jumped to 410 Wednesday. That's 93 more than Tuesday's total.
Paprocki says the county has linked 39 positive cases to American Foods Group in Green Bay.
Nineteen cases have been linked to sausage maker Salm Partners in Denmark.
More than half of the cases in Brown County are now linked to food plants.
Public Health has been partnering with the food plants on protective barriers, staggering lunch breaks and increasing on-site inspection.
JBS Raises
On April 20, JBS workers started receiving an extra $4/hour, according to the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union. That includes the 1,000 employees at the JBS plant in Green Bay.
The union said all JBS workers will have access to masks, gloves and face shields. The company was installing plexiglass shields in areas "where social distancing is not possible."
The pay raise and enhanced protections are scheduled to last through May 30. That agreement was made between the union and JBS.
Brown County Health
Brown County now has more cases than any other county except Milwaukee. It surpassed Dane County, which has twice Brown County's population. For comparison, Milwaukee added 70 new cases Tuesday to Green Bay's 93, though that could be a sign of more aggressive testing for the coronavirus during Brown County's outbreak.
Paprocki released some information about the second person to die of COVID-19 related illness in the county. The patient was a 56-year-old woman who lived in the 54311 ZIP Code. That's eastern Green Bay/Bellevue. The woman's name was not released. It is not clear if she worked at any of the local facilities where there have been outbreaks.
Brown County Public Health is stressing the importance of social distancing. "Stay home. Don't go to church. Only leave for essential services. Don't go to your neighbor's bonfire," says Paprocki.
Paprocki says 34 people who contracted the virus are out of isolation. That's up by four from Tuesday.
Cases county by countyCounties with additional cases and/or deaths are indicated in bold text
WisconsinAdams - 4 cases (1 death)Ashland - 2 casesBarron - 6 casesBayfield - 3 cases (1 death)Brown - 402 cases (2 deaths)Buffalo - 4 cases (1 death)Burnett - 0 casesCalumet - 6 casesChippewa - 20 casesClark - 18 cases (1 death)Columbia - 27 cases (1 death)Crawford - 3 casesDane - 386 cases (19 deaths)Dodge - 20 cases (1 death)Door - 9 cases (1 death)Douglas - 8 casesDunn - 9 casesEau Claire - 23 casesFlorence - 2 casesFond du Lac - 65 cases (3 deaths)Forest - 0 casesGrant - 25 cases (3 deaths)Green - 9 casesGreen Lake - 1 caseIowa - 7 casesIron - 2 cases (1 death)Jackson - 12 cases (1 death)Jefferson - 35 casesJuneau - 11 cases (1 death)Kenosha - 278 cases (6 deaths)Kewaunee - 8 cases (1 death)La Crosse - 25 casesLafayette - 4 casesLanglade - 0 casesLincoln - 0 casesManitowoc - 7 casesMarathon - 17 cases (1 death)Marinette - 6 cases (1 death)Marquette - 3 cases (1 death)Menominee - 1 caseMilwaukee - 2,304 cases (142 deaths)Monroe - 13 casesOconto - 5 casesOneida - 6 casesOutagamie - 37 cases (2 deaths)Ozaukee - 80 cases (9 deaths)Pepin - 0 casesPierce - 8 casesPolk - 4 casesPortage - 4 casesPrice - 1 caseRacine - 198 cases (10 deaths)Richland - 9 cases (1 death)Rock - 86 cases (4 deaths)Rusk - 4 casesSauk - 36 cases (3 deaths)Sawyer - 2 casesShawano - 6 casesSheboygan - 44 cases (2 deaths)St. Croix - 12 casesTaylor - 0 casesTrempealeau - 1 caseVernon - 0 casesVilas - 4 casesWalworth - 94 cases (7 deaths)Washburn - 1 caseWashington - 88 cases (4 deaths)Waukesha - 278 cases (13 deaths)Waupaca - 5 cases (1 death)Waushara - 2 casesWinnebago - 43 cases (1 death)Wood - 2 cases
Michigan's Upper PeninsulaAlger - 0 casesBaraga - 0 casesChippewa - 1 caseDelta - 12 cases (2 deaths)Dickinson - 3 cases (2 deaths)Gogebic - 4 cases (1 death)Houghton - 2 casesIron - 0 casesKeweenaw - 0 casesLuce - 1 casesMackinac - 5 casesMarquette - 35 cases (6 deaths)Menominee - 1 casesOntonagon - 0 casesSchoolcraft - 3 cases
Officials with the City of Appleton say they have confirmed their 14th case of COVID-19.
City officials announced two new cases Thursday morning.
They say there are currently seven people in isolation, and six who have had COVID-19 have been released.
City officials say one person has passed away from the virus.
Demographics
Currently there are 355 patients hospitalized for COVID-19, including 139 in intensive care. That's a slight increase in the percentage of patients in ICU. Another 229 hospitalized patients are awaiting test results.
At least 1,302 COVID-19 patients were hospitalized during their treatment, or 27% of the total patients. Another 2,685 patients, or 55%, were never hospitalized. Those numbers number may be higher, because hospitalization status is unknown in 18% of cases.
Wisconsin's hospitals have 11,620 beds occupied and 4,019 beds available.
Recovery
The state does not report the number of patients who are recovered, saying there's no standard for measuring recovery. The CDC says health care workers can return to work if they go 72 hours without a fever without fever-reducing medication and it's been at least 7 days since the onset of symptoms; and preferably, they're retested for COVID-19 and get two consecutive negative test results from nasal swabs at least 24 hours apart. Michigan Public Health, for comparison, considers a patient recovered if they're alive 30 days after the onset of symptoms.
Symptoms and Prevention
Brown County Public Health strongly emphasized the need to maintain physical distance, saying its recent surge is the result of people spreading the virus by close contact. It says people are safer in their homes and should reduce contact with people outside of their household, even relatives.
People of all ages can get sick from the coronavirus. It's a new virus, and nobody has natural immunity to it. The CDC says symptoms may appear between 2 and 14 days after contact with an infected person, but studies find 1 in 4 people carrying (and potentially spreading) the virus may have no symptoms.
Symptoms include a fever, cough, and shortness of breath. Emergency signs include pain and pressure in the chest, confusion, trouble breathing, and bluish lips or face.
"The virus is found in droplets from the throat and nose. When someone coughs or sneezes, other people near them can breathe in those droplets. The virus can also spread when someone touches an object with the virus on it. If that person touches their mouth, face, or eyes, the virus can make them sick," says DHS.
Older people and those with underlying health conditions (heart disease, diabetes, lung disease) are considered at high risk, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Precautions are also needed around people with developing or weakened immune systems, including young children, pregnant women and certain medical patients.
To help prevent the spread of the virus:
Dr. Anthony Fauci, a member of President Trump's coronavirus task force, directs the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which had convened the panel of experts. Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images hide caption
Dr. Anthony Fauci, a member of President Trump's coronavirus task force, directs the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which had convened the panel of experts.
A panel of experts convened by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases recommends against doctors using a combination of hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin for the treatment of COVID-19 patients because of potential toxicities.
"The combination of hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin was associated with QTc prolongation in patients with COVID-19," the panel said.
QTc prolongation increases the risk of sudden cardiac death.
The recommendation against their combined use would seem to fly in the face of comments made by President Trump suggesting the combination might be helpful. On March 21, for example, the president described them in a tweet as having a "real chance to be one of the biggest game changers in the history of medicine."
He has repeatedly touted the use of the drugs during televised coronavirus task force briefings.
"I think it's not a bad idea to do it, but that's up to the doctors," Trump said March 31 before adding the caveat, "It's going to have to be proven. It's very early."
On April 5, though, without any more evidence of efficacy, he went further:
"What do you have to lose? And a lot of people are saying that when and are taking it if you're a doctor, a nurse, a first responder, a medical person going into hospitals, they say taking it before the fact is good. But what do you have to lose? They say, 'Take it.' I'm not looking at it one way or the other, but we want to get out of this. If it does work, it would be a shame if we didn't do it early.But we have some very good signs.So that's hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin."
As for using the use of hydroxychloroquine or chloroquine alone, the panel said there was "insufficient clinical data to recommend either for or against." It reached the same conclusion about the drug remdesivir.
The expert panel, convened by the NIH Institute that Dr. Anthony Fauci directs, produced a set of guidelines for doctors to use in treating COVID-19 patients. The panelists come from a variety of health care disciplines. For the most part, the guidelines are agnostic about the use of experimental medications, pointing out that strong scientific evidence is lacking to make a firm conclusion one way or the other.
But occasionally, there are recommendations explicitly against certain therapies. For example, the panel recommended against using Lopinavir/ritonavir or other HIV protease inhibitors because of negative clinical trial data. It also recommended against using interferon because it seemed to make patients with SARS and MERS worse. Those diseases are caused by a coronavirus related to the one causing COVID-19.
"It's all based on the data," said panel member Dr. Susan Swindells, a professor in the department of internal medicine at the University of Nebraska College of Medine. "We just plowed through everything that was, and apart from supportive care, there wasn't anything that was working terribly well."
The panel also concluded that there was insufficient evidence to recommend any kind of treatment either to prevent infection with the coronavirus or to prevent the progression of symptoms in those who are already infectious. That recommendation could change based on clinical trials presently underway.
Both hydroxychloroquine and convalescent serum are being studied for the possible use for prophylaxis, but the results from those trials are not available. Many of the recommendations aren't terribly surprising. Persons who test positive for the coronavirus but don't have symptoms should self-isolate for seven days after their first positive test.
Patients with mild symptoms should be monitored closely, because more serious symptoms can come on rapidly. Patients with moderate symptoms will likely need hospitalization and supportive therapy. People with severe disease may need oxygen through a cannula, or tube; patients in critical condition may need to be place on a respirator.
The plan is to update the guidelines frequently as new results become available. Swindells said there could be an update about the recommendations regarding remdesivir in the coming week or so.
Twitter has updated its COVID-19 policies to require users remove tweets making unverified claims that incite people to action and cause widespread panic, social unrest or large-scale disorder.
The changes come as COVID-19 misinformation has spread across social media that has incited people to act rashly. For example, people have set British 5G towers on fire because of conspiracy theories that falsely link the spread of COVID-19 to the rollout of 5G which is probably why Twitter specifically mentions that tweets inciting people to damage 5G infrastructure are included in the new guidance.
Were prioritizing the removal of COVID-19 content when it has a call to action that could potentially cause harm, a Twitter spokesperson said to TechCrunch. However, it seems the company wont remove every tweet. As weve said previously, we will not take enforcement action on every Tweet that contains incomplete or disputed information about COVID-19, the statement continues.
Twitter has also removed over 2,230 tweets with misleading and potentially harmful content since introducing updated policies regarding COVID-19 content on March 18th, the company said today. Those policies stated that Twitter would require people to remove tweets that included content that could increase the chance of someone contracting or transmitting COVID-19.
Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Microsoft, Reddit, Twitter, and YouTube announced that they had jointly made a pledge to fight coronavirus-related misinformation on March 16th.
