Category: Covid-19

Noting the mild winter on the East Coast, Sapi says, "We do have a bad year for the ticks."

Hikers, campers and anyone else eager for an escape could "just explode into the outdoors. And there may not be the same thoughtful approach" to preventing exposure, explains Dr. Sorana Segal-Maurer, director of the Dr. James J. Rahal, Jr. Division of Infectious Diseases at NewYork-Presbyterian Queens health care system.

"I'm a little nervous that their guard may be down just a slight bit," she adds.

Outdoor crowds were so big around Memorial Day weekend, that parks from southern California to North Carolina had to close early after hitting capacity.

Last year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced a rise in Lyme and other tick-borne diseases, with seven additional germs identified in the US in the last two decades, while the "lone star tick" expanded its footprint beyond the southeast to northern states and the Midwest.

But ignoring basic steps that reduce the risk of tick and vector-borne illnesses to focus solely on Covid-19 prevention is just one danger. Another is the possibility of confusing the symptoms if you start feeling sick.

Lyme disease and Covid-19: a tale of similar symptoms

Warning signs for tick-borne illnesses are "very similar to the severity that we've seen with Covid-19, which is that fever, the muscle aches, the headaches, the severe fatigue," says Dr. Segal-Maurer.

She believes a unique difference is that breathing problems are common in coronavirus patients, but not with those infected by tick diseases. Yet even that distinction is up for debate.

"Pulmonary involvement, even to a fatal degree, has been documented in a range of tick-borne infections," Dr. Steven Phillips of the Bay Area Lyme Foundation tells CNN. "Although serious pulmonary involvement with vector-borne infections is relatively uncommon, non-specific pulmonary complaints, such as shortness of breath, are extremely common."

Even if you follow the Covid-19 tips, heeding the advice to avoid bites is just as important. Dr. Segal-Maurer describes a "realistic" scenario if you're on a crammed hiking trail: "You're all going to be pushing into the vegetation ... you're going to be just a little bit off the path."

Ticks "hang off the very tip of the blade of grass or the leaf or the vegetation, and they have these little feelers that they ... sort of shake out there. So, the second you brush by, they latch on."

Last month, Pennsylvania Secretary of Health Dr. Rachel Levine announced an increase in emergency room visits over the past several months "related" to tick bites. "Some symptoms of Lyme disease, such as fever, chills and headache, are similar to symptoms of COVID-19," Dr. Levine said in a statement, reiterating what other experts say.

Head outside -- but responsibly

Dr. Segal-Maurer says health care professionals always need to ask patients about their travel and other activities. "You have to cover all your bases... we don't want to be Covid-blinded."

Patients, in turn, should also be asking about both possibilities.

And when it comes to guarding yourself from ticks, she says, "You need to use DEET. It's gotta be 30%. You need to watch where you hike. And then you need to do a body check when you get back inside."

Dr. Phillips prefers Permethrin, which he says is stronger, but "can only be sprayed on clothes, not skin, and should be allowed to dry overnight before wearing."

Other tips include putting on hats, light-colored clothing to make ticks easier to spot, placing socks over your pants and choosing long-sleeved shirts to block ticks from getting near your skin.

That, of course, is in addition to wearing a mask to fight coronavirus spread.

Yet even with the extra hassle for a safer summer getaway, Dr. Segal-Mauer encourages people to head outside this summer because she believes "it's been such a traumatic several months. I think the great outdoors is a very healing place."

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Why tick season could be worse in the summer of Covid-19 - CNN

COVID-19 in patients with rheumatic disease in Hubei province, China: a multicentre retrospective observational study  The Lancet

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COVID-19 in patients with rheumatic disease in Hubei province, China: a multicentre retrospective observational study - The Lancet

Passengers are tested for COVID-19 at Beirut International Airport on July 1. Anwar Amro/AFP via Getty Images hide caption

Passengers are tested for COVID-19 at Beirut International Airport on July 1.

I've been stranded in Kenya since March, trying to get a "repatriation" flight to return home to the United States. I was finally able to book a flight but I'm still not sure I'll be able to board at the scheduled departure time a week from Saturday. Not only are cancellations part of the new normal for international flights, but passengers in some countries need to present evidence they're likely not infected with the novel coronavirus before being allowed to board.

In Kenya, that means going to a private laboratory chain within 72 hours of my scheduled departure time and undergoing a COVID-19 test, which will cost about 8,000 shillings about $80. The lab will provide documentation of my test results which I must present to airline staff at check-in.

As governments worldwide ease lockdown restrictions and lift bans on international travel, travelers will have lots of questions about how to proceed. Whether you are an expatriate hoping to return to your home country, a traveler with an urgent personal or business matter that requires an international trip or a tourist willing to consider a holiday in another country, here is what you need to know.

First: Flight schedules remain uncertain with frequent and last-minute cancellations and changes in departure dates and times, mainly because airlines can't fill enough seats on the plane to make it financially worth it. To make life less painful for passengers in these uncertain times, many airlines have dropped fees for changing flights and are even honoring unused but expired tickets.

Second: Some destinations have only opened their borders to travelers from select countries where there is a low or declining number of new COVID-19 cases. Those in countries such as the U.S., Brazil and Russia, where outbreaks are still surging, will not be permitted to enter any European country that has recently opened its borders, for instance. Cyprus will only allow incoming flights from about 35 mostly European countries, and Thailand will only allow in certain groups of foreigners such as students studying at Thai schools, those with valid work permits or spouses of Thai nationals.

Third: Many airlines and destination countries are now requiring passengers to undergo COVID-19 testing prior to boarding a flight and to provide a variety of paperwork proving they do not have the respiratory illness. Kenyan citizens returning home from India, for instance, are required to provide an electronic note from a physician confirming they have tested negative for the virus before they are allowed to fly. Those flying Kenya Airways have to arrange for a COVID-19 PCR test, which determines if a person is contagious within 72 hours of their flight and present negative test results to airline staff at check-in. Emirates airline has been conducting rapid COVID-19 blood tests at the airport, which take 10 minutes to return a result, for passengers flying through Dubai to destination countries that require documentation that you're COVID-19-free. Other airlines similarly require passengers to be tested between 2 to 7 days before their scheduled departure.

Dr. Lin Chen, an associate professor at Harvard Medical School and president of the International Society of Travel Medicine, says that requiring passengers to show proof of their virus-free status is, overall, a good step to help prevent the transmission of the disease both during the flight and once passengers reach their destination.

However, these new measures are not perfect. Prospective travelers may test negative for COVID-19 days before their flight but can still be exposed to the virus between the time they go for testing and the time they board.

Moreover, COVID-19 testing is not foolproof. Testing may not be done properly and even if it is, there can be false negatives which might allow contagious individuals to board a flight. Another consideration: Depending on your country of residence, it may be difficult to get tested if there is a shortage of testing centers, health-care staff or testing equipment. And in some countries, expats may not be eligible to receive care from public health services while private health insurance policies may not cover the cost of testing if the test is not considered medically necessary.

Apart from logistical challenges, the looming question remains: is it safe to travel?

Scientific studies and outbreak investigations have found that COVID-19 transmission in crowded, indoor spaces such as cruise ships, churches and factories can be explosive.

But according to Chen, transmission of COVID-19 between passengers on airplanes is rare.

On one January flight from China to Canada, 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. Similarly, on a flight from New York to Taipei, a passenger with COVID-19 also did not infect anyone else on board, according to Chen.

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention also asserts that the risk of getting an infectious disease on a flight is low while the United Nation's International Civil Aviation Organization states on its website that restricting international travel is not an effective means of containing outbreaks.

Yet despite these reassurances, there are documented cases of transmission of COVID-19 on an airplane. On a March 2 flight from London to Vietnam, a woman who was infected with the virus went on to infect at least 13 other passengers, according to Vietnam's Ministry of Health.

The IATA, International Civil Aviation Organization, World Health Organization, and the US Federal Aviation Association have all released guidelines for travel during the pandemic, and many airlines have adapted them and introduced protective measures to keep crew and passengers safe. For example, many airlines have stopped giving passengers reusable items such as blankets, magazines and headphones and have increased layover times and time between flights to allow for more thorough cleaning of the cabins. Most, if not all,airlines have also installed high efficiency particulate air, or HEPA, filtration systems which are better at cleaning the air than most systems used in hospital isolation rooms, Chen says. Airlines provide information about their air filtration systems on their websites.

Chen says that passengers can further protect themselves by following all the anti-virus guidelines they would follow outside of the plane including wearing a mask, washing hands and practicing social distancing as much as possible. In addition, Dr. Chen recommends passengers avoid crowded areas of the airport, carry hand wipes, sanitize or avoid "high-touch" areas and bring their own food.

In addition, says Chen, travelers should research the current COVID-19 situation in their prospective destination country and the country's capacity to test and treat people with the viral illness. She also suggests finding out if the destination country has policies requiring people to wear masks in public or encouraging hand-washing and practicing social distancing while on public transit, grocery stores and other public-gathering places. Prospective travelers can find this information on national and international health agency websites including the World Health Organization and CDC and from health ministries, immigration offices and embassies in destination countries.

And then there are questions, if travel is optional, that only you can answer."For tourism or adventure travel, the individual traveler has to consider their own personal risk and whether they tolerate that potential risk of getting infected and whether they might bring it home to their family or community especially if they have older family members who are more susceptible to severe disease," Chen says.

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The New Normal For International Air Travel In The COVID-19 Era : Goats and Soda - NPR

Since then, similar scenes have played out across Latin America, which has seen an explosive spread of the coronavirus. In Guayaquil, Ecuador's largest city, coffins were fashioned from cardboard boxes as bodies were left uncollected. In the Chilean capital Santiago, public hospitals were overwhelmed as lockdown was eased too soon.

The head of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), Dr. Carissa Etienne, said this week: "The region of the America is clearly the current epicenter of the Covid-19 pandemic."

There are many reasons for Covid-19's outsize impact on Latin America: high levels of inequality, the vast "gray" economy of informal workers, a lack of sanitation in crowded urban slums, as well as slow and uneven responses by governments.

Alejandro Gaviria, a former Colombian health minister, told CNN: "Latin America is very heterogeneous. In some cities, health infrastructure is similar to what you find in developed countries; in rural areas, infrastructure is poor in general. It is like having Europe and Africa in the same continent."

Latin American states have had dramatically different experiences with Covid-19. Uruguay, which has a well-funded public health system, embarked on an aggressive tracking and testing program when the pandemic arrived. Despite a change of government in the middle of the crisis, it has had a consistent policy on lockdown. Nearly 20% of the population downloaded a government app with guidance on the virus.

Paraguay, which is much poorer than Uruguay, appears to have benefited from an early lockdown. It also enforced quarantine measures for people entering the country from Brazil, the epicenter of infections in Latin America.

Crowded living conditions in poorer urban areas, where basic hygiene and social distancing are next to impossible, threaten the region with a growing tide of infections. As Dr. Marcos Espinal, chief of the Department of Communicable Diseases and Health Analysis at PAHO, told CNN: "In the barrios of Lima it's going to be very difficult to do social distancing."

Espinal noted that in some countries only a third of the population have a fridge, meaning people must shop daily.

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Gaviria says there are many differences between countries, "but most people have access to some type of care. In Colombia, for example, coverage is close to 100%."

Quality is a different issue, though, he says -- a point echoed by Espinal at PAHO. All but five or six governments fall well short of the WHO target of spending 6% of GDP on health, he says. Peru, for example, spends 3.3%.

Some Amazon towns in Brazil are more than 500 kilometers from the nearest ICU bed. In 2016, there were fewer than three beds per 100,000 inhabitants in some northern states in Brazil, but more than 20 beds per 100,000 in the wealthier south-east. The PAHO has warned that the region won't overcome the virus unless it improves care for marginalized communities, such as indigenous peoples in the Amazon. CNN reported a surge of infections this week among the Xavante people in the north-east of the Brazilian state of Mato Grosso.

Coronavirus is just one of multiple health crises in Latin America. Studies shown that poorer people in the region have higher levels of diabetes, obesity, hypertension and heart disease, all of which make them more vulnerable to Covid-19. This is especially problematic in Mexico and Brazil.

Fabiana Ribeiro, a Brazilian researcher currently at the University of Luxembourg, told CNN that a recent study showed the lowest survival rates were for rural patients of 68 and older, and for patients who were Black, illiterate or had previous conditions such as heart disease and diabetes.

The winter months in the southern hemisphere bring other sicknesses, including flu and pneumonia. Francesco Rocca, president of the International Red Cross, said this week that Latin America's health emergency could worsen "with the arrival of the southern winter, the flu season in South America, and especially the hurricane season in the Caribbean."

Some governments -- Chile for example -- have warned private providers that they may take over beds as public hospitals buckle under the strain. Gaviria notes that in Colombia the government now controls access to ICU beds in both the private and public sectors -- "and decide where each new patient should go. They want to avoid rationing based on type of insurance or financial considerations."

The Pan American Health Organization has said that in the coming months robust testing and tracing programs will be critical. There are a few promising signs -- such as the mobile teams in Costa Rica checking on infections and quarantine. And in much of the region there is already a large network of labs established to test for flu that are being mobilized.

But testing capacity is hugely variable across the region. As of June 29, Chile had done nearly 5,800 tests per 100,000 population, according to the PAHO. Panama had done just under 3,000. But Brazil had done 230 -- and Guatemala 45.

"In Nicaragua, we don't even know how many tests are being done," says Espinal.

The impact of coronavirus in Latin America is likely to leave deep scars. The World Bank believes that more than 50 million people will see their incomes fall below the $5.50 a day poverty line. Some economists fear the economic damage may be on a par with the "lost decade" of the 1980s.

In the midst of a deep recession that may shrink the region's economy by one-tenth this year, the necessary investment in public health may not materialize. Espinal thinks that would be a big mistake. "There's no way," he told CNN, "countries can justify continuing investing at the same level even if the economy suffers."

Alejandro Gaviria, Colombia's former health minister and now rector of the University of the Andes, is apprehensive about what the rest of 2020 will bring. "Three problems overlap," he says, "a growing pandemic, a social devastation and an increasing fatigue with lockdowns. New lockdowns will only be possible with strict and repressive enforcement measures."

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Latin America sees half of all new Covid-19 infections as health systems flounder - CNN

TheWest Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources (DHHR)reports as of 5:00 p.m., on July 2, 2020, there have been 178,238 total confirmatory laboratory results receivedfor COVID-19, with 3,053 total cases and 93 deaths.

In alignment with updated definitions fromthe Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the dashboard includes probablecases which are individuals that have symptoms and either serologic (antibody)or epidemiologic (e.g., a link to a confirmed case) evidence of disease, but noconfirmatory test.

CASES PER COUNTY (Case confirmed by lab test/Probable case):Barbour(15/0), Berkeley (443/18), Boone (20/0), Braxton (3/0), Brooke (8/1), Cabell(136/6), Calhoun (2/0), Clay (10/0), Fayette (67/0), Gilmer (13/0), Grant(15/1), Greenbrier (60/0), Hampshire (42/0), Hancock (20/3), Hardy (44/1),Harrison (66/0), Jackson (143/0), Jefferson (229/5), Kanawha (324/9), Lewis (19/1),Lincoln (8/0), Logan (25/0), Marion (60/3), Marshall (40/1), Mason (19/0),McDowell (6/0), Mercer (45/0), Mineral (55/2), Mingo (19/3), Monongalia(179/14), Monroe (13/1), Morgan (19/1), Nicholas (11/1), Ohio (99/1), Pendleton(12/1), Pleasants (4/1), Pocahontas (27/1), Preston (67/15), Putnam (59/1),Raleigh (53/1), Randolph (161/1), Ritchie (2/0), Roane (11/0), Summers (2/0),Taylor (15/1), Tucker (6/0), Tyler (4/0), Upshur (20/1), Wayne (114/1), Wetzel(10/0), Wirt (4/0), Wood (94/8), Wyoming (7/0).

As case surveillance continues at thelocal health department level, it may reveal that those tested in a certaincounty may not be a resident of that county, or even the state as an individualin question may have crossed the state border to be tested.Such is the case of Boone, Greenbrier, and Mingo counties in this report.

Please visit thedashboard at http://www.coronavirus.wv.gov for more information.

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COVID-19 Daily Update 7-2-2020 - 5 PM - West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources

(WETM) Chemung County Executive Christopher Moss says that summer travel is definitely having an effect on the increase in COVID-19 cases in the Southern Tier.

COVID-19 cases in the Southern Tier reached its highest mark since May 27 with 21 new cases between the eight counties in a single day.

Sixteen of those new cases were reported in Broome County where 47 new cases have been confirmed since June 20. Only two new cases were reported between Chemung, Steuben, and Schuyler.

Were keeping a close eye on the numbers and watching for clusters or spikes with a commonality. The increase in positives across the country for states that arentimposing the same types of precautions New York State hasis definitely having an effect on our numbers due to Summer travel. Weve also seen a substantial increase in local complaints involving mask and social distancing violations across the Chemung County.

Seventy-three new cases have been reported in the region over the last seven days.

The number of new cases per 100K in the Southern Tier has also more than doubled in recent days, matching the levels reported in early June.

Comparatively, the Southern Tier remains one of the best regions in the Empire State with the second-lowest percentage of positive tests per day on a 7 day rolling average and for new cases per 100K, also on a rolling average. The regions Gross New Hospitalizations per 100K is the best in New York.

As a whole, New York State reported 726 new cases, surging the total number of known cases in the state over 396,000. Eleven more deaths were also reported by the Governors office, brining the state death toll to 24,896.

On a positive note, the number of hospitalizations, new patients admitted, and intubations decreased in the state with only 190 ICU patients, two more than yesterday.

New Yorkers bent the curve of this deadly virus by being smart and taking proper precautions throughout this pandemic, and thats reflected in yesterdays low hospitalizations and rate of positive tests,Governor Cuomo said.However, our actions today determine our numbers tomorrow, and as we move through this holiday weekend, I strongly urge everyone to closely follow state guidance on safe practices and local governments to enforce that guidance. Being New York tough means being New York smart: wear a mask, wash your hands and practice social distancing.

Todays data is summarized briefly below:

Of the 62,403 tests conducted in New York State yesterday, 726, or 1.16 percent, were positive. Each regions percentage of positive tests over the last three days is as follows:

The Governor also confirmed 726 additional cases of novel coronavirus, bringing the statewide total to 396,598 confirmed cases in New York State. Of the 396,598 total individuals who tested positive for the virus, the geographic breakdown is as follows:

The Southern Tier remains in phase four of the Governors reopening plan.

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Southern Tier reports 21 new cases of COVID-19, most in a single day since May 27 - WETM - MyTwinTiers.com

(KTIV) -- There were 508 new, confirmed COVID-19 cases Saturday,according to the state's dashboard,which brings the state's total number of cases to 30,938

No additional deaths were reported within this time frame, leaving the state's death toll at 721 as of Saturday.

There were also 201 more recoveries reported for a total of 24,585.

As of Friday, the total number of hospitalizations in Iowa is 134, which is 12 less than Friday. Of those hospitalizations, 40 were in the ICU.

In Iowa, 6,169 new tests were given for a total of more than 328,128 people that have been tested for COVID-19.

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Iowa reports 508 additional COVID-19 cases, 201 more recoveries and no new deaths - KTIV

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WJHL) The Tennessee Department of Health reported 49,768 confirmed cases and 372 probable cases of COVID-19 in the state on Saturday, an increase of 1,428 total cases since Friday.

The health department also announced 612 confirmed deaths, 2,860 hospitalizations, and 30,043 recoveries. More than 878,000 coronavirus tests have been administered.

On Friday,TDH reported48,344 confirmed cases and 608 confirmed deaths.

Twenty-eight new cases were reported in our area: 12 in Greene County, 7 in Washington County, 8 in Sullivan County, 1 in Hawkins County, 1 in Carter County, and 5 in Johnson County.

TDH reported 20 new recoveries in our area.

There are now 128 active cases in Northeast Tennessee, up from 120 on Thursday based on TDH data.

The following data was reported for local counties:

Carter 57 cases / 1 death / 46 recoveriesGreene 101 cases / 2 deaths / 69 recoveriesHawkins 56 cases / 2 deaths / 42 recoveriesJohnson 44 cases / 29 recoveriesSullivan 116 cases / 2 deaths / 83 recoveriesUnicoi 55 cases / 53 recoveriesWashington 149 cases / 115 recoveries

Active cases by county:

Carter 10Greene 30Hawkins 12Johnson 15Sullivan 31Unicoi 2Washington 34

Continuing coverageof the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic.

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TDH: 49,768 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Tennessee; 28 new cases in NE TN - WJHL-TV News Channel 11

Studies of remdesivir the most promising drug shown to treat COVID-19 so far will soon enter a new phase of research, even before analysis is completed on the current phase of study.

It's a sign that work to find the right combination of drugs to treat the coronavirus has accelerated as cases are surging in many U.S. states.

Full coverage of the coronavirus outbreak

"It's very intense work, a nonstop process," said Dr. Andre Kalil, the principal investigator for the ongoing remdesivir trial, which is sponsored by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.

In May, his research team published data that showed the drug reduced patients' time in the hospital by about four days, from 15, on average, to 11.

It did not appear to lower deaths from COVID-19, though. It is clear that remdesivir will not be enough on its own any comprehensive treatment for the coronavirus will require a cocktail of medicines.

This past week, Kalil and his colleagues finished enrolling more than 1,000 patients to test the effect of combining remdesivir, an antiviral, with a pill called baricitinib, an anti-inflammatory, used to treat rheumatoid arthritis.

Preliminary findings from that phase of the study are expected within the month. While researchers work to analyze those results, they will simultaneously move forward with a separate round of studies, testing the impact of remdesivir plus another medication.

Kalil, who is also an infectious disease expert at the University of Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha, declined to disclose the name of the drug before the study launches. However, Gilead Sciences, the maker of remdesivir, previously said it will be tested in combination with another rheumatoid arthritis drug called tocilizumab, sold as Actemra.

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Kalil told NBC News that an effective COVID-19 drug combination may eventually include three or four medications, targeting not only the virus itself, but also the immune system's hyperinflammatory response to the infection.

Another key therapeutic is convalescent plasma. Demand for the antibody-rich blood product from COVID-19 patients who have recovered has been high, with an estimated 25,000 patients already transfused in the United States, Gary Disbrow, acting director of the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA), told a Senate Appropriations subcommittee during a hearing Thursday.

That included as many as 1,000 COVID-19 patients in a single day this past week, said Dr. Arturo Casadevall, chair of Johns Hopkins' department of molecular microbiology and immunology. He also serves as the lead investigator for two studies on convalescent plasma at Johns Hopkins.

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That research so far, he said, has shown convalescent plasma to be safe. Doctors have reported anecdotal success, but clinical trials to determine whether convalescent plasma is indeed effective are ongoing. Early indicators "are encouraging," Casadevall said.

As part of Operation Warp Speed, the U.S. government is building a cache of the plasma, which can be frozen and stored for up to a year.

"We are investing in a collection of convalescent plasma," Disbrow told the Senate subcommittee. He added there is also investment in neutralizing monoclonal antibodies, which are virus-fighting antibodies produced in a lab, and hyperimmune globulin, which is a concentrated form of antibodies.

"BARDA is involved in discussions with American Red Cross and America's Blood Centers about the possibility of ramping up collection of COVID-19 convalescent plasma," a Department of Health and Human Services spokesperson wrote in an email. "Although there are no set numbers on how much convalescent plasma should or could be collected, BARDA and these blood collection organizations have discussed collecting enough plasma not only to meet the immediate needs of hospitalized patients and collect for the production of hyperimmune globulin products but also potentially to create an inventory or stockpile of frozen convalescent plasma if there is sufficient supply."

"There is a need for plasma in this country. If you have had COVID, please donate."

Monoclonal antibody treatments are unlikely to be available until this fall, according to Casadevall. For now, people who have recovered from COVID-19 are encouraged to donate their plasma to help others.

"There is a need for plasma in this country. If you have had COVID, please donate," he said.

Meanwhile, clinical trial results from the University of Oxford in England have suggested a common steroid called dexamethasone can reduce deaths among the sickest patients by a third. The findings from the Recovery trial were published on a preprint server called medRxiv, and have not been peer-reviewed.

Scientists are also working to produce remdesivir in a more user-friendly form. It's currently administered through an IV, but Gilead Sciences has begun studying an inhaled version of the drug.

That "could potentially allow for easier administration outside the hospital, at earlier stages of disease," Gilead CEO Daniel O'Day wrote in a letter on the company's website. "That could have significant implications in helping to stem the tide of the pandemic."

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What is the best way to treat COVID-19? Remdesivir and plasma are promising, but other drugs are needed. - NBC News

Freedom from Covid-19.

"It feels amazing," Avery told CNN. "After knowing what all I've been through, it's still kind of hard to wrap my mind around. But I'm very thankful and grateful that I'm still here."

Avery, who turns 24 on July 4, recently returned home after spending 76 days in a Kansas hospital -- many of them sedated and on a ventilator -- battling the novel coronavirus.

"I'm going to be at home, safe and sound with my family," said Avery, a barber from Kansas City, Missouri, when asked how he would celebrate his birthday and Independence Day. "There will be plenty of other birthdays, I'm sure, down the line where I can make up for this one."

"You're just as at risk as anybody else," Avery said. "You can be the healthiest person on Earth, and you still risk your life every time you carelessly go out here and act like it's not real."

"It's very real," he said. "I was almost taken away from my family."

'It felt like someone was choking me'

By the time Avery arrived at Menorah Medical Center in Overland Park, Kansas, on April 6, he says he had what felt like every Covid-19 symptom, including chills, high fever and body aches. But what worried him most was his shortness of breath.

"Even if I was to take a deep breath it felt like someone was choking me," he said.

"I was definitely thinking that something bad was about to happen," Avery said. "I immediately thought of my son. I immediately thought of my family."

Avery says he remembers very little of what came next. Once he arrived at the hospital, Avery remembers getting out of his car and into a wheelchair. He has a faint memory of being wheeled into the intensive care unit.

"I don't want to say I started to panic," he said, "but I was definitely scared. That's not a normal patient room. That's where you're critically ill."

Before getting sick, Avery had taken precautions to ensure his family's safety amid a lockdown, like making sure there was enough food.

"But I can't say that I took it as serious as I needed to," he said. "I didn't think it was as serious as it is."

'Older people were getting this virus'

"My take on it was that older people were getting this virus and they were more susceptible as far as getting really sick from it," Willetta Avery said.

"To hear my son was going through this was very, very terrifying," she said, adding that things "got real" when she learned her son needed a ventilator.

"And not knowing much about ventilators ... it scared me to know that he was going to have to be on one of those," she said. "That's when the seriousness of his illness just kind of slapped me in the face."

Willetta Avery remembers getting a call from the hospital at 4:30 a.m. on April 11.

"They were basically telling us Shakell was maxed out on ventilation support, that there was not much else they could do," she said.

The hospital finally allowed her to see her son.

"It was as if I would be seeing him for the last time," she said.

Avery's doctors at Menorah Medical Center collaborated with physicians at Research Medical Center in Kansas City -- both are part of the HCA Healthcare system -- to treat him with convalescent plasma.

'I beat Covid-19'

After Shakell came to, he still had trouble fighting the virus.

"Being independent, you're used to doing everything on your own," he said.

But he needed help getting up and going to the bathroom. He couldn't speak or walk. He also struggled with depression in the hospital, particularly when his family would come visit him at a tent the hospital set up outside his window.

"It was a great moment at the time being, but as soon as they left I went right back down," he said. "It was really tough being away from my girlfriend. It was tough being away from my son, my mom, my siblings."

Avery eventually started to improve and he came off the ventilator. He started physical therapy and was sent to a full rehabilitation center, where he was discharged late last month.

Shakell returned to Menorah Medical Center with his family on Tuesday to thank staff for helping him.

"I was more than grateful," Avery said. "I could have said 'thank you' an infinite amount of times, and it wouldn't have matched the intensity of how grateful I was."

Avery has a message for young people, and he says that he wants to be "as blunt as possible."

"Every time you carelessly step out your door -- no mask or no empathy for anyone else's life -- you're counting your days," he said.

"My advice would simply be to try not to be selfish, but as selfless as possible," he said. "Because you're not just hurting yourself."

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A 24-year-old Covid-19 survivor is celebrating a different kind of independence this July Fourth - CNN