Category: Covid-19

Governor Tom Wolf and Secretary of Health Dr. Rachel Levine today released a weekly status update detailing the states mitigation efforts based on the COVID-19 Early Warning Monitoring System Dashboard. Updates will be released each Monday beginning today.

The update includes the following:

The dashboard is designed to provide early warning signs of factors that affect the states mitigation efforts. The data available on the early warning monitoring dashboard includes week-over-week case differences, incidence rates, test percent-positivity, and rates of hospitalizations, ventilations and emergency room visits tied to COVID-19. This weeks update compares the period of August 14 August 20 to the previous seven days, August 7 August 13.

Our percent positivity decreased significantly this week, representing the fourth straight week that the percent positivity has decreased, Gov. Wolf said. This is a testament that our actions are working, but we still have more work to do. The virus is still circulating, and we must continue to wear masks, practice social distancing and avoid large gatherings to keep our numbers low, stop the spread and allow more freedom.

As of Thursday, August 20, the state has seen a seven-day case increase of 4,456; the previous seven-day increase was 5,598, indicating a 1,142-case decrease across the state over the past week.

The statewide percent-positivity went down to 3.4% from 4.0% last week. Counties with concerning percent-positivity include Perry (9.1%), Huntingdon (7.8%), Northumberland (7.3%), Indiana (7.1%), Union (5.9%), Susquehanna (5.7%), York (5.5%), Beaver (5.3%), and Blair (5.0%). Each of these counties bears watching as the state continues to monitor all available data.

Community TransmissionAs of Fridays data, Union County was the one county in the substantial level with several known sources of outbreaks fueling community transmission. The departments of Education and Health will speak with school district representatives in Union County to discuss the implications of this level of transmission.

For the week ending August 20, 21 counties were in the low level of transmission, 45 counties in the moderate level, with one with substantial transmission:

Business VisitsThe Department of Health is providing weekly data on the number of individuals who responded to case investigators that they spent time at business establishments (restaurants, bars, gym/fitness centers, salon/barbershops) and at mass gatherings 14 days prior to the onset of COVID-19 symptoms.

Of the 5,649 confirmed cases reported between August 9 and August 15, 45 percent (2,541) provided an answer to the question as to whether they spent time at a business establishment.

Of those who did provide an answer, 13 percent, or 320, answered yes, they visited a business establishment 14 days prior to onset of symptoms:

Of the 5,649 confirmed cases, 48 percent (2,710) answered the question as to whether they attended a mass gathering or other large event. Of the 48 percent, nearly 12 percent (326) answered yes to whether they attended a mass gathering or other large event 14 days prior to onset of symptoms.

Compared to data reported on August 14, this weeks data saw an increase in people who reported visiting a restaurant (50 percent vs. 47 percent), people who reported going to some other business (23 percent vs. 19 percent), and people going to a salon/barbershop (12 percent vs. 9 percent). Numbers went down for this weeks data for going to a bar (17 percent vs. 24 percent), going to a gym/fitness center (8 percent vs. 10 percent). The number of those who attended a mass gathering or other large event remained the same (nearly 12 percent).

Case investigator notes included frequent mentions of visits to bars and restaurants among positive cases. To better understand this emerging trend, on July 13 contact tracers began asking more specific questions on the types of businesses visited and if individuals attended a mass gathering, defined as more than 250 people in attendance outdoors or more than 25 indoors.

The numbers above highlight business settings and mass gatherings as possible sites for transmission. With less than half of those asked about what types of businesses they visited or if they attended a mass gathering responding to the question, the department is reminding Pennsylvanians that it is essential that people answer the phone when case investigators call and to provide full and complete information to these clinical professionals.

Travel RecommendationsAlso today, the Department of Health updated its travel recommendations, originally announced on July 2, to remove Arizona from the list of states recommended for domestic travelers returning from to quarantine for 14 days upon return to Pennsylvania. No new states were added.

It is important that people understand that this recommendation is in place to prevent the spread of COVID-19 in Pennsylvania. A concerning number of recent cases have been linked to travel, and if people are going to travel, we need them to take steps to protect themselves, their loved ones and their community, and that involves quarantining.

Gov. Wolf continues to prioritize the health and safety of all Pennsylvanians through the COVID-19 pandemic. Pennsylvanians should continue to take actions to prevent the spread of COVID-19, regardless of in what county they live. This includes wearing a mask or face covering anytime they are in public. COVID-19 has been shown to spread easily in the air and contagious carriers can be asymptomatic.

View original post here:

Pennsylvania Shares Update on COVID-19 Early Warning Monitoring Dashboard, County Transmission Levels, Cases Traced to Businesses - pa.gov

Editors note: The Salt Lake Tribune is providing free access to critical stories about the coronavirus. Sign up for our Top Stories newsletter, sent to your inbox every weekday morning. To support journalism like this, please donate or become a subscriber.

Utahs rate of new coronavirus cases remained relatively low Monday but the state also charted the lowest number of new tests results reported since mid-April.

There were 249 new coronavirus cases reported on Monday, for a seven-day average of 350 new cases per day, according to the Utah Department of Health.

But there were only 1,518 test results reported since Sunday, the health department wrote in a news statement a fraction of the states capacity for about 9,000 tests per day, and the lowest number of new test results since April 15, when testing capacity had barely begun to stabilize after widespread shortages of testing chemicals and supplies.

Testing demand has been dropping since late July, state officials and hospital administrators have said; in mid-July, the state was reporting more than 7,000 new test results per day, on average.

UDOH spokesman Tom Hudachko said Monday that data on COVID-19 lab tests has been artificially low the last several days because of a delay in reporting results to the states Electronic Laboratory Reporting system.

In particular, one lab has been reporting its positive results, but not its negative ones, Hudachko said. UDOH is working with the lab to fix the problem and adjust the negative results.

Statewide, Utah's rate of positive tests have been above 5% since May 25, according to UDOH data.

Hospitalizations were down slightly on Monday, with 130 Utah patients admitted, UDOH reported. On average, 134 patients have been receiving treatment in Utah hospitals each day for the past week, continuing a consistent 12-day decline and well below the peak average of 211 patients hospitalized a little more than two weeks ago.

In total, 2,941 patients have been hospitalized in Utah for COVID-19, up 15 from Sunday.

Utahs death toll from the coronavirus stood at 390 on Monday, with five fatalities reported since Sunday:

Of 49,364 Utahns who have tested positive for COVID-19, 41,164 are considered recovered that is, they have survived for at least three weeks after being diagnosed.

Read more:

Another 249 COVID-19 cases in Utah, and five deaths as daily testing hits four-month low - Salt Lake Tribune

With the economy tanking, unemployment skyrocketing, schools slamming their doors and the Big Ten and PAC-12 conferences canceling fall football, America is a country looking for an answer to COVID-19 yesterday. And one might be availableif you can handle instant coffee rather than espresso.

The coffee analogy is one used byMichael Mina, assistant professor of epidemiology at theHarvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, and its meant to describe the functional difference between two approaches to rapid testing for the virus. In this case, easy and cheapinstant coffee, that ismay very well be better.

This is the most important potential tool that could exist today, Mina said in a recent interview. We pretty much have a different wayto stop community transmission in the absence of a vaccineand it is sitting right in front of us.

Daily or near-daily testing could be the key to opening our society, and that comes down to making the tests widely available and affordable. If you had the option to test yourself in the morning by spitting into a tube (or swabbing your nose) and waiting 15 minutes for the results, and if it cost you no more than a couple of dollars, wouldnt you jump at that chance?

Mina breaks down the existing tests into two camps. Espresso coffee tests are reverse transcriptase polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) tests or deluxe antigen tests, and several manufacturers, like Mesa Biotech, Quidel and Becton, Dickinson, have already been granted Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). These tests are highly sensitive, require a machine to churn out the results, and are expensiveanywhere from $30 to $150 per test. They also may have longer turnaround times; even Yale Universitys SalivaDirect, which just received EUA on August 15 and costs only about $10, must be submitted to and processed by a central laboratory.

In sharp contrast lie the instant coffee rapid paper antigen tests, including those made by E25Bio and Sherlock Biosciences, and one under development by 3M and MIT. These are fast, simple to use, at-home tests, and some are really inexpensive: about $1 to $5 per test. They are called lateral flow assays, but manifestly they are paper-strip tests that have an antibody embedded on filter paper. If a saliva sample has coronavirus present, the antibody will bind that viral antigen, turning the test positive, much like a pregnancy test works. Though the tests have much lower sensitivity than PCR tests overall, one advantage they have is that they do not detect leftover, inactive viral RNA particles, which may be present days to weeks after a person is infectious.

Heres the key: What is more important than a perfect test is one that turns positive during the time period in which an individual can spread the virus to othersand thats, purportedly, what these cheap tests do well. Generally, disease transmission in COVID-19 is believed to begin earlyseveral days before one becomes symptomatic. Viral load levels peak early and then they gradually decline, with an individual unlikely to be infectious approximately eight to 10 days after showing symptoms.

Though efficacy needs to be better proven, these antigen tests are efficient at detecting virus at high viral loads. When they are used frequently during this period of infectivity, Mina believes their sensitivity and performance would far exceed that of a single PCR test. At any rate, Mina and his colleagues have demonstrated in their statistical models that public health surveillance depends much more on frequency of testing and rapid reporting of results than it does on the comparative sensitivity of the tests themselves.

If everyone made use of such an affordable alternative, we could very quickly get this pandemic under control. A positive COVID-19 test would mean the individual stays home; a negative test would mean he/she goes to work, or school or practice, or to shop or dine. Under this approach, the prevalence of the virus in the community would drop considerablyand contact tracing wouldnt be needed, because everyone would already be doing the testing.

Like almost everything connected with our effort to control COVID-19, the research related to this rapid-test system is not perfect. Mina and his colleagues acknowledged several important limitations to their study, among them potential manufacturer variations in testing characteristics, improper clinical sampling, possible assumptions made related to viral kinetics and perhaps an erroneous belief that everybody would participate in such a plan.

But the bigger problem may be finding the tests at all. Why havent we seen them in the drug stores? The answer is that the FDA is holding developers of these tests, like E25Bio, to the same high sensitivity standards as those required for molecular grade diagnostics. Without being granted an EUA, the companies are not manufacturing the tests. Mina and others argue that a paradigm shift is needed, so that rapid antigen tests are recognized as a public health tool," which when combined with frequent use, will identify infectious individuals.

It will likely take placing the full weight of the federal government (or someone of influence, like Bill Gates) behind these companies in order to shore things up, further vet the tests accuracy during the window of infectivity, solve regulatory issues and rapidly ramp up production, so that 50 million to 150 million tests could be performed by Americans each day. Given how low-tech the strips are, such mass production should be feasible.

This type of frequent, low-cost surveillance testingof peopleat homeespecially while theyre asymptomaticwould go a long way toward helping contain our current outbreak.This could bethe key we have all been looking for to unlock our front doors and get back to businessor pleasure.

Dark Roast Instant, anyone? Im buying.

Read more here:

'Instant Coffee' COVID-19 Tests Could Be the Answer to Reopening the US - Scientific American

TheWest Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources (DHHR) reportsas of 10:00 a.m., on August 22, 2020, there have been 391,683 total confirmatory laboratory results receivedfor COVID-19, with 9,185 total cases and 176 deaths.

DHHR has confirmed the deaths of an 84-year old female from Logan County, an86-year old female from Logan County, a 78-year old female from Logan County, a72-year old male from Cabell County, a 79-year old female from Logan County,and an 85-year old female from Logan County. As we continue the fight against thispandemic, we are devastated by the loss of more West Virginians, said Bill J.Crouch, DHHR Cabinet Secretary. The families of these residents have ourdeepest sympathies.

CASESPER COUNTY: Barbour (33), Berkeley (764), Boone(127), Braxton (9), Brooke (83), Cabell (486), Calhoun (8), Clay (19),Doddridge (6), Fayette (187), Gilmer (18), Grant (133), Greenbrier (99),Hampshire (91), Hancock (116), Hardy (63), Harrison (252), Jackson (188),Jefferson (318), Kanawha (1,194), Lewis (32), Lincoln (115), Logan (431),Marion (207), Marshall (135), Mason (82), McDowell (66), Mercer (272), Mineral(129), Mingo (208), Monongalia (1,040), Monroe (57), Morgan (37), Nicholas(40), Ohio (286), Pendleton (48), Pleasants (14), Pocahontas (42), Preston(134), Putnam (244), Raleigh (320), Randolph (219), Ritchie (3), Roane (23),Summers (18), Taylor (98), Tucker (11), Tyler (15), Upshur (40), Wayne (226),Webster (7), Wetzel (45), Wirt (7), Wood (289), Wyoming (51).

Pleasenote that delays may be experienced with the reporting of information from thelocal health department to DHHR. As case surveillance continues at the localhealth department level, it may reveal that those tested in a certain countymay not be a resident of that county, or even the state as an individual inquestion may have crossed the state border to be tested.Such is the case of Cabell,Upshur, and Wyoming counties in this report.

Pleasevisit the dashboard located at http://www.coronavirus.wv.gov for more information.

Read the original here:

COVID-19 Daily Update 8-22-2020 - West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources

We're making coronavirus coverage available without a subscription as a public service. But we depend on reader support to do this work. Please consider joining others in supporting local journalism in Alaska for just $3.23 a week.

The Alaska Department of Health and Social Services on Friday reported 73 new coronavirus infections in Alaska, including three cases involving nonresidents.

The state on Friday also reported the 30th person to die with COVID-19. The Yukon-Kuskokwim Health Corp. on Thursday already announced the death, which involved a Y-K Delta resident in their 50s. Alaska has one of the lowest death rates per capita in the country.

There have been 5,403 known infections in Alaska, involving residents and nonresidents, since the pandemic arrived in March, according to the states COVID-19 dashboard.

The active case count for residents, which tracks the number of infectious people, had been steadily rising but dropped for the first time since June, moving from 3,163 to 3,142 in Fridays report.

Since March, 191 Alaska residents and four nonresidents have been hospitalized with COVID-19.

Forty-one people were hospitalized with COVID-19 around the state as of Friday, a slight decrease from Thursday. Five more hospitalized patients were being tested for the coronavirus.

Of the new cases reported, it wasnt clear how many were showing symptoms of the virus when they tested positive.

Twenty-seven of the new resident cases involved Anchorage residents, plus one in Chugiak and three in Eagle River.

Thirty-nine other cases were reported among residents around the state: four in Soldotna, one in Valdez, nine in Fairbanks, one in Big Lake, one in Palmer, three in Wasilla, one in Nome, seven in Kotzebue, one in Juneau, and one in Sitka.

Among smaller communities, there were three cases in the Valdez-Cordova Census Area, four in Yukon-Koyukuk Census Area, two in Nome Census Area, and one in North Slope Borough.

There were also three nonresident cases: one in Valdez, one in Juneau, and one in an unspecified region of the state.

The states testing positivity rate reported Friday was 1.91% over a seven-day rolling average.

[Because of a high volume of comments requiring moderation, we are temporarily disabling comments on many of our articles so editors can focus on the coronavirus crisis and other coverage. We invite you to write a letter to the editor or reach out directly if youd like to communicate with us about a particular article. Thanks.]

Read more:

Tracking COVID-19 in Alaska: 73 new cases Friday as active infections drop for first time in weeks - Anchorage Daily News

Governor Andrew M. Cuomo today announced a new record-high number of COVID-19 test results98,880were reported to New York State yesterday. The governor also announced that hospitalizations dropped below 500 for the first time, to 490, the lowest number since March 16. The number of ICU patients dropped to 119, the lowest number since March 15. The rate of positive tests0.72 percentwas below 1 percent for the 14th straight day. No deaths were reported in New York City yesterday. The number of new cases, percentage of tests that were positive and many other helpful data points are always available at forward.ny.gov.

"Part of the reason we were able to tame the beast in New York is because of our aggressive testing strategy. When the federal administration fell down, New York stepped up - and yesterday we raised the bar even higher with nearly 100,000 tests reported in a single day," Governor Cuomo said. "We've been reopening for 14 weeks and our infection rate has actually done down - the positive test rate has been below 1 percent the past 14 days and the number of hospitalizations dropped below 500 for the first time since March 16. This is proof positive that when you have the virus under control, more testing does not equal more positives. But my message to New Yorkers remains the same: this is not over, we have tobe smart, wear a mask, socially distance and be New York Tough!"

Yesterday, the State Liquor Authority and State Police Task Force visited 1,618 establishments in New York City and Long Island and observed 11 establishments that were not in compliance with state requirements. A county breakdown of yesterday's observed violations is below:

Today's data is summarized briefly below:

Of the 98,880 test results reported to New York State yesterday, 709, or 0.72 percent, were positive. Each region's percentage of positive test results reported over the last three days is as follows:

REGION

TUESDAY

WEDNESDAY

THURSDAY

Capital Region

0.5%

0.6%

0.7%

CentralNew York

0.7%

0.3%

0.8%

Finger Lakes

0.6%

0.4%

0.3%

Long Island

0.9%

0.8%

0.7%

Mid-Hudson

0.7%

0.8%

0.9%

Mohawk Valley

0.4%

0.3%

0.8%

New York City

0.8%

0.8%

0.7%

North Country

0.1%

1.2%

0.2%

Southern Tier

0.6%

0.6%

0.5%

WesternNew York

1.4%

1.0%

1.6%

The Governor also confirmed 709 additional cases of novel coronavirus, bringing the statewide total to 428,512 confirmed cases in New York State. Of the 428,512 total individuals who tested positive for the virus, the geographic breakdown is as follows:

County

Total Positive

New Positive

Albany

2,691

7

Allegany

84

3

Broome

1,211

15

Cattaraugus

174

0

Cayuga

164

0

Chautauqua

278

3

Chemung

193

0

Chenango

222

3

Clinton

136

1

Columbia

561

1

Cortland

98

0

Delaware

109

0

Dutchess

4,734

More here:

Governor Cuomo Announces New Record-High Number of COVID-19 Tests Reported and Lowest Hospitalizations Since March 16 - ny.gov

A flight attendant adjusts protective glasses. There has been little documentation about COVID-19 transmission on planes. Valentyn Ogirenko/Reuters hide caption

A flight attendant adjusts protective glasses. There has been little documentation about COVID-19 transmission on planes.

Each week, we answer "frequently asked questions" about life during the coronavirus crisis. If you have a question you'd like us to consider for a future post, email us at goatsandsoda@npr.org with the subject line: "Weekly Coronavirus Questions."

Air travel has seldom looked the way it does right now.

International aviation is operating just 2% to 4% of its normal number of flights.

And plane tickets are selling for dirt-cheap like a famed $6 ride from Newark, N.J., to Fort Myers, Fla., earlier this year.

The economics of aviation has certainly changed.

So has the nature of air travel. A new spate of rules and techniques from mask requirements (now enacted by all major airlines) to symptom-screens for signs of the novel coronavirus has emerged quickly. Airlines are attempting to reassure disease-fearing potential passengers, who may be understandably nervous at the idea of being trapped indoors in close proximity to many people for hours on end.

And there's reason to be nervous. A new study published this week discovered two likely transmissions of COVID-19 on a four-hour-plus flight from Tel Aviv, Israel, to Frankfurt, Germany, carrying 102 passengers. The study followed a 24-member tourist group, who, seven days earlier, had contact with a hotel manager who was later diagnosed with COVID-19. Seven of those tourists tested positive for the virus upon arriving in Frankfurt as did two passengers who were seated within two rows of one of the tourists.

Which brings us to our frequently asked questions for the week. How risky is air travel during a pandemic? And if it is risky, why aren't we hearing about more cases where passengers were infected on a flight?

Or to put it another way: Could the headline of one CNN article, published on Thursday, be right: "The odds of catching Covid-19 on an airplane are slimmer than you think, scientists say."

The truth is, there are no easy answers.

One report in early August by the International Air Travel Association Medical Advisory Group explained that "relatively little research has been published on in-flight transmission of COVID-19."

That's because it's tricky for health authorities to determine what COVID-19 transmission looks like on planes. It's logistically complicated. And there's no clear method for doing so.

Abraar Karan, a Harvard Medical School physician, says tracking flight transmission is challenging since it requires coordination between health departments in multiple states or countries as well as credible knowledge that a patient was infected on the flight specifically (as opposed to before or immediately afterward.) So while it might be possible to trace a local case of the virus in a small town to one individual, it's much harder to do the same for flights.

That said, there are numbers and case studies available and those findings do seem to paint a reassuring picture for flying. Specialists in air travel and disease agree with this reassuring, albeit preliminary, perspective.

That's the view of Lin Chen, an infectious disease doctor and president of the International Society of Travel Medicine and director of the Harvard-affiliated Mount Auburn Hospital Travel Medicine Center. She says a review of the available data, though varied, shows that the overall rate of infection from air travel is "very, very low."

She points to one January flight from China to Canada, when a passenger with a symptomatic case of COVID-19 did not infect any of the 350 passengers on board, according to a brief report by Canadian researchers. And on a flight from New York to Taipei, Taiwan, a passenger with COVID-19 also did not infect anyone else on board, according to Chen.

Researchers have theories for why that's the case, but again, Chen emphasizes we don't really know for sure. Maybe it's masks and symptom-checking. Or the deliberate underbooking many airlines are doing to restore confidence in flying. Or the really insanely efficient ventilation systems.

"Planes have good ventilation systems [in the form of] HEPA filters, with 15 [to] 20 [air] changes per hour, far more than most workplaces," Karan says. An "air change" means air in the cabin is sucked out and replaced with filtered and/or new air.

Then again, there are caveats that complicate the data picture.

"Testing may have been suboptimal in January [to] March, and we may have missed some cases that were acquired in-flight," Chen says.

Or perhaps the low numbers just reflect low air traffic, which has been stunted by the virus. Karan explains that the overall number of passengers has been relatively low compared with usual levels, so it's possible the chance of transmission is lower just by "sheer numbers." When he took a flight last month, he didn't see a single person in the security line.

If passenger volume swells and airlines add back flights, Chen says we may expect to see more cases as more exposures occur and especially as access to testing improves.

Then again, Chen stresses that the changing behaviors of travelers and airlines could keep numbers down.

"Travelers may be more careful now, and precautions have been updated, so travelers may take more precautions now compared to the January-March period," she says.

In other words, she says: "It's hard to predict" what will happen vis-a-vis COVID-19 transmission on flights in the months ahead.

Beyond this there is also a broader consideration to make: Regardless of the in-flight risk of getting infected yourself, some reports, such as this one in Time, have pointed out that just by moving people from one location to another, air travel is likely contributing to the spread of the virus.

For that reason, experts stress that if you do travel, you should be disciplined about taking adequate precautions before and while flying wearing masks, hand washing, maintaining social distance and avoiding high-touch points, among other standard-issue pandemic rules.

And keep in mind that long road trips also carry risks. You can read more about deciding to travel in an earlier FAQ.

In any case, as health experts continue to process information and roll out new rules for air travel, one thing is clear: People want to fly. So much so, in fact, that some enterprising excursionists have begun to take virtual-reality flights ... to nowhere. Though at $62, the First Airlines voyage, featuring a full-flight simulation (including safety precautions and a four-course meal) might not cost you as much as a bona fide, pandemic-priced first-class ticket.

Pranav Baskar is a freelance journalist and U.S. national born in Mumbai.

See the rest here:

What Do We Know About Transmission Of COVID-19 On Planes? : Goats and Soda - NPR

A plant extract trumpeted this week as a cure for Covid-19 by the leader of a pillow company is untested and potentially dangerous, scientists say.

Mike Lindell, the chief executive of My Pillow and a big donor to President Trump, told Axios that the president was enthusiastic about the drug, called oleandrin, when he heard about it at a White House meeting last month.

This thing works its the miracle of all time, Mr. Lindell, who has a financial stake in the company that makes the compound and sits on its board, said in an interview with CNNs Anderson Cooper on Tuesday. When CBS asked Mr. Trump about oleandrin for Covid-19, Mr. Trump said, Well look at it.

The unsubstantiated claims alarmed scientists. No studies have shown that oleandrin is safe or effective as a coronavirus treatment. Its unclear what dose the purported treatment would have, but ingesting even a tiny bit of the toxic shrub the compound comes from could kill you, experts say.

Dont mess with this plant, said Cassandra Leah Quave, a medical ethnobotanist at Emory University.

Oleandrin is derived from Nerium oleander, a lovely, flowering Mediterranean shrub that is popular with landscapers and responsible for many cases of accidental poisoning. Oleandrin is the chemical that makes the plant deadly, Dr. Quave wrote in an article in The Conversation.

Ingesting any part of the plant or even eating a snail that previously munched on some of its leaves can cause an irregular heart beat and kill humans and animals, she and other doctors and scientists said.

Its not uncommon for plants even poisonous ones to generate interest as treatments for disease. Robert Harrod, a professor at Southern Methodist University, has studied oleandrins potential to fight a type of leukemia, for example. Although Dr. Harrod said that using oleandrin to treat the coronavirus was not yet more than an intriguing idea, hes rooting for it to work.

The U.S. Army Medical Research Institute of Infectious Diseases conducted a lab test in May to determine if oleandrin could stop coronavirus infection in cells. The results were inconclusive, and the agency opted to discontinue this line of research, according to Lori Salvatore, a spokeswoman for the Armys Medical Research and Development Command.

Another cell study, which has not yet been published by a scientific journal, involved two employees of Phoenix Biotechnology, a San-Antonio based company that Mr. Lindell has a stake in. According to its website. the company has spent the last 20 years exploring the health benefits of oleandrin.

The study found that oleandrin could block the coronavirus in monkey cells in a test tube. But these so-called in-vitro experiments do not tell us much, according to scientists, one of whom conducted the study.

The testing of antivirals on cells is only the first step, and promising results must be followed up with animal testing, Scott Weaver, a virologist at University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, and one of studys authors, said in a statement. There are many drugs like this one that look promising during initial in vitro testing, but then fail later for a variety of reasons.

That cell study also raises questions about the drugs safety, said Dr. Melissa Halliday Gittinger, a toxicologist at the Georgia Poison Center and a professor at Emory University School of Medicine. An oleander dose as small as 0.02 micrograms per milliliter can be fatal. The paper does not offer a suggested dose for people, but some of the lab tests on cells involved concentrations that were substantially higher.

In his interview with Mr. Cooper on CNN, Mr. Lindell repeatedly stated that oleandrin was shown to be safe in a study of 1,000 people. But that is misleading: No known study examining the safety of oleandrin as a treatment for coronavirus or anything else has ever been conducted in such a large group.

Pressed on what Mr. Lindell might have been talking about, Andrew Whitney, vice chairman and director of Phoenix Biotechnology, said that Mr. Lindell misspoke. A company provided 1,000 cancer patients in Honduras with a drug containing oleandrin on a compassionate basis, he said. It was not a controlled study.

Mr. Whitney, who was also present at the White House pitch meeting, said he is nonetheless convinced that oleandrin can safely treat coronavirus because two early clinical trials, both of which used Phoenix Biotechnologys compound, found that it could safely treat cancer patients. These studies, however, were small, each involving around 50 people, and did not prove the drugs effectiveness.

Still, Mr. Whitney said he is 100 percent sure that oleandrin is effective at treating the coronavirus because of compelling data in people. He said it was too soon to elaborate, but confirmed that he was referring to a study run by Dr. Kim Dunn, an internist in private practice in Houston.

Updated August 17, 2020

That study was not a rigorously controlled clinical trial. In an interview, Dr. Dunn said that Phoenix Biotechnology provided about 200 samples of an extremely low-dose supplement of oleandrin to give to roughly 80 people who were either infected with the coronavirus or live with infected people. Undergraduate students studying medicine were asked to evaluate its impact on volunteers immune systems with the help of mentors at the Schull Institute in Houston, she said.

I dont know yet what they found, Dr. Dunn said, adding that no side effects had been identified so far.

Possibly. And thats part of why the compound has become a hot topic this week.

Mr. Whitney said that he hopes that Phoenix Biotechnology will be able to test the drug among people infected with coronavirus in hospitals. But hes also looking into selling the extract as an over-the-counter dietary supplement. Vitamins, weight-loss pills, melatonin and other dietary supplements are not required to go through the drug testing review process of the Food and Drug Administration to be sold.

If Phoenix Biotechnology sold the product over the counter, it would be prohibited from labeling oleandrin as a cure for Covid. But scientists still worry that people will believe it works, especially given the companys connections to the Trump administration.

Mr. Lindell is not only the face of My Pillow but also the honorary chairman of Trumps re-election bid in Minnesota. At a Rose Garden event in March, Mr. Trump introduced him as a friend. (Boy, do you sell those pillows, the president said.) And Mr. Lindell said on CNN that he was friends with Dr. Ben Carson, the secretary of housing and urban development and a member of the White House Coronavirus Task Force. Dr. Carson also was at the oleandrin pitch meeting at the White House in July and is enthusiastic about the drug, according to Axios.

This is not the first time that Mr. Lindell has been criticized for exaggerating the scientific merit of a product. His company has claimed that its pillows could treat insomnia and sleep apnea. At one point, the company said in an ad that its pillows had been tested in a randomized and placebo-controlled study. Clinical sleep study proves: 78% showed improvement in sleep!

After a lawsuit by California prosecutors and investigation by Truthinadvertising.org, the company stopped making those claims. As it turned out, the study did not use a placebo control and had not been scientifically reviewed. There was no evidence that Mr. Lindells pillows could treat sleep disorders.

When asked about this suit on CNN, Mr. Lindell said: I have been attacked with frivolous lawsuits that I had to settle because I backed the greatest president this country has ever seen in history.

Here is the original post:

Oleandrin, Covid-19 Treatment Pitched to Trump, Could Be Dangerous - The New York Times

"As your member of Congress, I wanted to inform you that, very unfortunately, I tested positive for COVID-19," Meuser said in a statement.

"Because of this, I will not be present or voting today on H.R. 8015. I will, however, submit for the record that I would have voted 'NAY,'" he said.

The House on Saturday evening is set to vote on a bill allocating $25 billion to the USPS and banning operational changes that have slowed mail service around the country.

Meuser said that he has been "following all CDC health and safety guidelines, and will be taking all necessary actions, including postponing upcoming public events and working from home in quarantine until I receive a negative test result."

CNN's Caroline Kelly, Chandelis Duster and Phil Mattingly contributed to this report.

View post:

Pennsylvania congressman tests positive for Covid-19, won't vote on USPS funding - CNN

The virtual Democratic National Convention this week saw a number of speakers with Georgia roots. Former President Jimmy Carter and former first lady Rosalynn Carter endorsed former Vice President Joe Biden, who accepted the nomination Thursday in a hope-driven 24-minute speech.

Biden must be our next president, said the 95-year-old Carter, Americas longest-living former president. Joe has the experience, character and decency to restore Americas greatness.

Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms spoke Thursday before Biden. She spoke of civil rights legends, like longtime Congressman John Lewis who died last month and received a tribute at the DNC. Bottoms said all those involved in the movement were vital. And for America to change, all its citizens have to vote.

Other well-known Georgians to speak at the event included former gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, state Rep. Sam Park and Sally Yates, the first woman to serve as U.S. attorney for the Northern district of Georgia in Atlanta. She was fired by President Donald Trump after she refused to enforce his January 2017 travel ban on seven predominantly Muslim countries.

Virtual delegates

The streamed convention hosted delegates virtually, not on the convention floor as we are so used to seeing. Samuel Parker Short is a delegate representing Georgias 6th District at the Democratic National Convention. The teenager spoke with WABE about his experience.

More bad COVID-19 news in Georgia

Georgia has the highest rate of new coronavirus cases in the country, according to a new White House report, which was first reported by the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.

Gov. Brian Kemp is pushing back on that report. Kemp insists the state has made progress in slowing the spread of the coronavirus, but public health experts say those gains could easily disappear.

Gentrification during a pandemic in Atlanta

The COVID-19 economy has changed our world so very much. Theres a fear the pandemic could cause many to lose housing in the coming months. As people deal with unemployment, theyre struggling to pay rent and face the threat of eviction. In Atlanta, there are other forces causing displacement already, forces like new development and rising rents, which havent slowed during the pandemic.

Go here to read the rest:

WABE's Week In Review: Georgia Shows Up At DNC, And COVID-19 Continues To Plague The State | 90.1 FM WABE - WABE 90.1 FM