Category: Covid-19

Prime Minister Justin Trudeaus decision to tighten Canadas borders in an effort to flatline the number of COVID-19 cases in the country was met with mixed reaction from experts on Monday.

The prime minister announced that Canada will be closing its borders to foreign travellers, with the exceptions of air crews, diplomats, immediate family members of citizens and U.S. citizens.

Trudeau also said that air operators will ban anyone who is showing symptoms of the virus from getting on a plane.

Anna Banerji, director of global and Indigenous health at the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Toronto, told Global News that the move is not an over-reaction, but is warranted.

I think if you look, most of the cases are related to travel coming from certain parts of the world, Banerji said.

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Its really the people who have been travelling and coming back who are sick and have the potential to spread it to other people.

Four people in Canada have died of COVID-19, while provincial authorities reported 403 confirmed cases Monday afternoon, as well as 15 presumptive cases. Ten cases have been resolved.

Banerji said Canada doesnt have the outbreak that some European countries are dealing with, and curbing travel is a good way of lowering the chances.

Alison Thompson, a professor at the University of Torontos Dalla Lana School of Public Health, was less certain that such drastic travel limits would be effective.

Its generally not considered an effective way to manage the spread because its already here. Its a little bit like closing the barn door after the horse has escaped, Thompson said.

Thompson said officials could have other aims in mind, such as reassuring the public that they are willing to make drastic decisions for their safety.

It may be the optics of it that theyre going for, she said.

Theres been a lot of clamouring for this, so maybe its a way of showing that theyre being responsive to public concerns. But its not really aligned with what the WHO is recommending.

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Earlier this month, the World Health Organization said that large-scale travel bans are not recommended.

In late February, the organization recommended against travel bans except in very limited circumstances, saying they are ineffective in most situations and may divert resources from other interventions.

That hasnt stopped countries from imposing travel restrictions.

U.S. President Donald Trump announced sweeping restrictions on travel to the United States from Europe last week. The European Union also announced limits on non-essential travel Monday.

Days before announcing the sweeping travel restrictions, Canadian officials also casted doubt over their effectiveness.

Health Minister Patty Hajdu told reporters last week that viruses dont know borders.

What we have to remember is viruses dont know borders, she told reporters.

A border is not going to contain the virus. The borders are important measures though for making sure that people have important information about what to do when theyre in a particular country should they find themselves ill.

Hajdu added: Canadians think we can stop this at the border, but what we see is this is a global pandemic meaning that border measures are highly ineffective and in some cases can create harm.

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The health minister noted the example of Italy, which placed travel restrictions early on but is now dealing with one of the worst outbreaks in the world. As of Monday, Italy had more than 27,980 cases, with 2,158 deaths.

On Monday, Trudeau commented on Hajdus remarks from last week, saying that the governments opinion has changed.

In Canada, we based our decisions on public health recommendations that ensured that Canadas approach worked for many, many weeks and keeping a very slow spread of the virus in Canada, but through contact tracing and other measures, he said.

Weve now come to the point where the best advice from public health officials is that additional border member measures, on top of the social distancing measures that we are encouraging domestically, is the right combination to move forward.

While there is some disagreement on border closures, both Banerji and Thompson agreed that its vital for Canadians to monitor their health, practice social distancing and self-isolate if needed in an honest and effective manner.

Its impossible to police that, because there are so many people who are coming back from overseas. I think its really important for people to do that, I guess on an honour system, to do that to protect other people.

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Canadians have been asked to self-isolate for 14 days after returning from international travel. Those who are sick, or have a confirmed case of COVID-19, have also been told to isolate.

Thats really the most effective thing that we can do, Thompson said.

With files from The Canadian Press

2020 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.

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Canada tightens borders over coronavirus will it curb COVID-19s spread? - Global News

Juan Sanchez Ramirez and his wife are both doctors. Lately, conversations around the dinner table have revolved around questions of how theyd care for their 2-year-old daughter when coronavirus virus victims start streaming into hospitals, demanding long shifts and unpredictable hours from caregivers.

We dont have family in state, Sanchez Ramirez said. Obviously, we want to be at the hospitals doing what we can to help.

Ramirez is grateful that a group of University of Minnesota medical students, who are no longer physically attending classes due to the pandemic, have started to organize themselves to help medical providers when the expected coronavirus surge happens.

The students are offering to assist doctors, nurses and others with babysitting, dog-walking or chores like grocery shopping so they can focus on taking care of patients.

It will allow us not to have to miss work unless someone in the family is quarantined, Sanchez Ramirez said. It will allow us to be at the hospital, at the clinic, helping people.

University of Minnesota medical student Sruthi Shankar

Submitted photo

The University of Minnesota medical students are mostly too early in their education to have clinical experience that could help in actual medical treatment, said co-organizer Sruthi Shankar.

From what Ive seen coming out of other places like China and Italy, were just kind of hitting the front end of the storm, and its perhaps going to get more intense and stressful, Shankar said. We could see that people needed us, and we also are hungry to help. We want to be there because this is what we signed up for.

The medical students at the university are inspired by French medical students, and students on both coasts, who have taken similar steps, said co-organizer Sara Lederman, a second-year medical student.

Medical is so much more about what happens in the walls of a hospital, its helping every way you can, Lederman said. Its about service, and thats sort of the spirit that a lot of my peers came into medical school valuing.

In the first day after the plan launched Friday, dozens of students had already volunteered to help. At first, it was friends and acquaintances, but now Lederman doesnt know the students who are volunteering.

The online surveys the students are using allow volunteers to check boxes showing the services they can offer, like grocery shopping or babysitting. Lederman said some volunteers are suggesting more unique forms of support, including one person who said they were willing to just talk to people on the phone if theyre feeling lonely.

Its important to the medical students that they connect volunteers with medical providers in a way thats safest for everyone during this uncertain time of viral pandemic.

Having the impulse to help obviously is really beautiful and really exciting and really good, at the same time we want to make sure that its done in a way thats controlled, Lederman said. Thats the due diligence that needs to be done on the part of anyone who is organizing to help during these really scary times.

Medical providers are already adjusting their schedules and changing vacation plans to get ready for the expected surge in infections to hit hospitals, said Dr. Rene Crichlow, a family medicine physician and faculty member at the University of Minnesotas medical school.

The all-hands-on-deck approach is an attempt to build capacity at hospitals for the surge as the sickest and most severely-affected patients seek treatment, Crichlow said.

That kind of surge capacity is great for workforce, but its really challenging for family: the idea that well be doing more overnight calls, more frequent calls, longer calls, Crichlow said. You still need to feed your families, you still need to get groceries, you still need to be sure your kids, especially your younger kids, are well-cared for.

Medical providers will need help from the broader society to make sure their own families are taken care of as they care for members of other peoples families, Crichlow said.

The biggest thing is, were out there trying to care for the public, and its really, really heartening that there are people thinking about caring for the folks that are on the frontlines, Crichlow said. We talk about a surge capacity for the workforce, I feel like theyre a surge capacity for compassion.

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As health care workers prepare for COVID-19, medical students pitch in on the homefront - Minnesota Public Radio News

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THE LATEST: 41 test positive for COVID-19 in the state - WFSB

Ill. (KWQC) - There are now over 100 confirmed cases of COVID-19 in the state of Illinois.

Officials announced Monday that there are an additional 12 cases; bringing the state total to 105 in 15 counties in Illinois.

You can read the full statement below.

"The Illinois Department of Public Health today announced 12 new cases of coronavirus disease (COVID-19) across Illinois. Two additional counties are now reporting cases, Peoria and Will counties. Other locations with cases include Chicago and Champaign, Clinton, Cook, Cumberland, DuPage, Kane, Lake, McHenry, Sangamon, St. Clair, Whiteside, Winnebago, and Woodford counties.

We know there is a lot of concern as the number of cases and locations increase, said IDPH Director Dr. Ngozi Ezike. However, not everyone who has respiratory symptoms like cough and shortness of breath needs to be tested. Similarly, not everyone who is infected with novel coronavirus needs medical treatment. We want to make sure those at higher risk of severe illness are prioritized for testing and that they can receive the medical care they need. We ask those who have mild symptoms to stay home so the health care system is not overwhelmed.

Information so far suggests that most COVID-19 illness is mild. However, older people and people of all ages with severe chronic medical conditions, like heart disease, lung disease, and diabetes, seem to be at higher risk of developing serious illness. It is crucial that we limit contact with older people and those with certain health conditions.

Currently, IDPH is reporting 105 cases in 15 counties in Illinois. Cases have occurred in all age ranges and the number of cases that do not have a clear connection to travel or a known COVID-19 case is increasing.

Social distancing measures, such as working from home when possible, limiting the amount of time spent in the community, and trying to avoid public transportation as much as possible, will help reduce the number of people who become sick at any given time and the possibility of exhausting our health care resources.

For information about how you, your school, workplace, and community can prepare, please visit Preventing COVID-19 Spread in Communities. For general questions about COVID-19, call the hotline at 1-800-889-3931 or email dph.sick@illinois.gov.

A list of local health departments can be found on the IDPH website."

Continued here:

Twelve new cases of COVID-19 announced in Illinois; bringing total to 105 - KWQC-TV6

The World Health Organization (WHO) finally declared the Covid-19 outbreak a pandemic on Mac 11 (2020).

In many countries, pandemic action plans were already activated before this, including in Malaysia.

Pandemics are usually declared for influenza A, and this is the first time that a pandemic has been declared for a coronavirus.

Since the SARS-CoV-2 virus is rather similar to influenza A(H1N1), which was declared a pandemic in 2009, Malaysia can tweak its National Influenza Pandemic Preparedness Plan (NIPPP) prepared in 2006 after the Nipah virus outbreak in 1999 so that it will suit the Covid-19 pandemic.

Compared to the rest of the world, where 114 countries and all continents except Antarctica, have reported cases, Malaysia is still in the early phase of the Covid-19 outbreak, with only 161 confirmed cases to date (as of Mac 13).

The public health measures of containment by Health Ministry have been effective so far.

However, if the number of cases continues on an upward trend, then the ministry will have to change its strategy, moving from containment to mitigation.

Containment is effective when there is little or no community spread, and the number of cases is low.

Public health measures during containment include rapid identification of cases, contact tracing, testing of samples, isolation of confirmed and suspected cases, and mobilisation of resources where needed.

In mitigation, the main objective is social distancing, avoiding large crowds, closing of schools, working from home and reducing unnecessary travel.

This is very disruptive of social life, and requires the cooperation and commitment of the public.

Plan activated

Although the situation in the country is still manageable, Malaysia started its pandemic preparedness plan well ahead of time and long before WHO decided to declare the outbreak a pandemic.

Several hospitals were identified to handle Covid-19 patients; a rapid RT-PCR (reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction) test on patients and contacts was developed, used and distributed to several government hospitals and medical laboratories; and management protocols were developed.

It is important that there are enough drugs and medication to treat the symptoms of severe Covid-19 patients, although there is no medical cure for the condition.

More ICU (intensive care unit) facilities will be needed if the cases soar, and we must be prepared for this eventuality.

As for frontline healthcare personnel, they must be provided with respiratory protection devices and protective clothing, including N95 masks, gloves, goggles and PPE (personal protection equipment).

The Government should also ensure that essential services are maintained during the pandemic.

The police force, armed forces, firefighters and those manning essential services such as electricity and water supply, should all be given proper protection as well.

We certainly do not want to see the country become chaotic and dysfunctional if these services should fail.

Individual action

In Malaysia, we still have time to start preparing ourselves in case the situation worsens and the ministry has to enforce mitigation measures.

By all means, stock up on non-perishable items to last for about two weeks, but let us avoid excessive hoarding of goods, which can cause a shortage of these goods and create panic in the community.

Those on regular prescription drugs for chronic diseases like diabetes, heart conditions, liver disease, kidney disease, cancer and chronic respiratory illnesses, should get additional supplies of their medication sufficient for an extra month.

And of course, stock up on face masks and hand sanitisers.

Families with elderly parents really need to pay special attention to precautions for this novel coronavirus.

Bear in mind that the death rate in the elderly is more than 10 times that in the normal population.

In Italy, 56.6% of patients who died are over 80 years old, with two-thirds of them having at least three pre-existing chronic conditions.

Of particular concern are those elderly people staying in nursing homes.

They may already have debilitating diseases and cannot afford to get infected with Covid-19.

The Government should come up with guidelines for these homes, and if necessary, restrict visitors.

We do not want to see a situation like in the Life Care Center in Kirkland, Seattle, United States, which has contributed to 19 of the Covid-19 deaths in the Washington state.

Despite the official declaration of a pandemic, our country has made contingency plans early on to tackle this global crisis.

If we all play our part individually and collectively, we will overcome this pandemic like we have done in the past.

Do not leave it entirely to the Government to handle this crisis.

Be prepared to make personal sacrifices, change our lifestyle, exercise social responsibility and be inconvenienced.

The conquest of this pandemic will make it all worthwhile!

Emeritus Professor Datuk Dr Lam Sai Kit is an Academy of Sciences Malaysia senior fellow and Universiti Malaya research consultant. For more information, email starhealth@thestar.com.my. The information provided is for educational purposes only and should not be considered as medical advice. The Star does not give any warranty on accuracy, completeness, functionality, usefulness or other assurances as to the content appearing in this column. The Star disclaims all responsibility for any losses, damage to property or personal injury suffered directly or indirectly from reliance on such information.

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Covid-19: Malaysia's pandemic action plan activated for the coronavirus - The Star Online

A sign encourages people working out at a YMCA to maintain a healthy environment amid concerns of ... [+] the coronavirus,

In the U.S., there have been more than 3,200 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and over 60 deaths, according to estimates from Johns Hopkins University. Limited initial availability of diagnostic tests mean that the numbers are likely far higher than that.

So how bad might the COVID-19 outbreak get in the United States, and what measures are needed to contain it? We reviewed statements from government health officials and surveyed infectious disease experts to forecast the coming weeks. Heres what we found.

A lack of testing makes it impossible to estimate how many people in the U.S. might become infected.

Right now, there simply isnt enough data to make a realistic prediction of how many people in the U.S. might eventually contract the new coronavirus. I do not know and cannot even guess, Dr. Stanley Perlman, a microbiologist whose lab at the University of Iowa specializes in studying coronaviruses, told Forbes. One reason that data isnt enough is that not enough people in the U.S. have been tested for the disease. While other countries, such as South Korea, enacted systems to test a wide swathe of the public, the mechanisms for doing so dont exist in the U.S.. Were not set up for that, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) Director Dr. Tony Fauci said in Congressional testimony earlier in March. Do I think we should be? Yes. But were not.

Another point to consider, adds Dr. Andrew Pekosz, a virologist at Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health (JHU-SPH), is that the United States is a big country. But unlike China, U.S. outbreaks began at multiple times and places as people traveled from different exposed areas, spreading the disease through communities at different rates. As a result, he notes, Washingtons outbreak is several weeks ahead of outbreaks in Boston and New York Citys, which are in turn ahead of cities like Baltimore. We need to be prepared at the local level to respond to the situation and realize that different parts of the country will have peaks at different times.

The rate of infection appears to have peaked in countries like China and South Korea, but experts urge caution.

Countries where the COVID-19 coronavirus spread early, such as China and South Korea, are still seeing increases in the number of confirmed cases, according to the latest statistics from the World Health Organization, but the rate of infection appears to be decreasing. Epidemiologists are encouraged, but warn against being too optimistic as people limit contact with others, avoiding gatherings and working from home.

We dont yet know whether we will see transmission surge again when people return to normal life, says Dr. Steffanie Strathdee, Associate Dean of Global Health Sciences at UCSD and author of The Perfect Predator. We also dont know if people can become re-infected, or if people who appear to have recovered can still shed the virus, infecting others even though they are well.

Its also difficult to say how a leveling off of infections in China and South Korea translates for the U.S., given that the American response to the outbreak is markedly different from those two countries, Perlman adds.

Seniors are particularly at risk from COVID-19, but so are others.

The elderly is probably the population most at-risk of death, with the mortality rate for COVID-19 patients over 80 being estimated to be 15%. But other factors can increase risk, including compromised immune systems, heart disease, high blood pressure and respiratory issues. Obesity and smoking are other risk factors that I expect will increase the risk of serious complications, so its a good time to act on those New Year's resolutions, says Strathdee.

Social distancing should help slow disease spread, but there are nuances to the right approach.

Every expert we spoke to said that social distancing is a key to both slowing down rates of infection and preventing hospitals and doctors from being overwhelmed. Limiting large gatherings such as sporting events, theme parks and cruises are pretty easy calls. Other types of social distancing can involve more nuance, and their effectiveness might might depend on other circumstances.

Closing schools, says Dr. Rupali Limaye, a scientist at JHU-SPH, is one such example. If parents have to work and cant take care of their children, that may lead them to finding alternative child care that might not be ideal, increasing the risks of exposure to the disease in other ways.

On a similar note, Dr. Tom Inglesby, director of JHUs Center for Health Security, noted in a March 9 Twitter thread that while social distancing measures should be encouraged, lockdowns by force to contain COVID-19 are counterproductive. [T]he impact of forcible lockdown of city, state, region could cause people to lose confidence in govt, make provision of health care harder, cause major econ hardship, or be life threatening to some who lose access to food, medicine, clinic access, home care, he tweeted.

Imposing travel restrictions will do very little to limit the spread of COVID-19.

President Trump announced a 30-day travel ban from the European Union earlier this month, which was later extended to include the United Kingdom and Ireland. While theres some evidence that early travel restrictions against China may have slowed down the outbreak, most experts agree that new restrictions will not have an impact now. At this point, person to person transmission in communities is the biggest concern.

I think this policy was too late, too little, Limaye says. This would have been more useful if it had been implemented before the virus made it to the U.S.

Rather than worry about travel, experts suggest that government officials focus their attention on slowing the spread of disease locally. The example of other countries shows that strong public health efforts can be successful, says Pekosz, meaning that the U.S. still has a chance to curb the epidemic.

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How Bad Will The COVID-19 Coronavirus Epidemic Get In The U.S.? Health Experts Weigh In - Forbes

As the world grappled with the COVID-19 coronavirus disease pandemic in early 2020, people around the globe began to consider the dread possibility that COVID-19 might not only be more infectious and have a much higher mortality rate than the seasonal flu, but that at least some persons who survived it might become reinfected rather than developing an immunity to it.

A few reports have trickled in from around the world suggesting that someone who had COVID-19 recovered and then fell ill with it again, such as the following account from China:

Mr. Wang, a resident of Xuzhou, in Jiangsu province, appeared to have emerged victorious from a monthlong battle with the illness.

Three days later, though, Wang tested positive for the coronavirus again. He was re-hospitalized and his neighbors were locked down once more. His current condition is unknown.

Wang, whose full name has not been disclosed for privacy reasons, is one of more than 100 reported cases of Chinese patients who have been released from hospitals as survivors of the new coronavirus only to test positive for it a second time in the bewildering math of this mysterious illness.

However, at this juncture its difficult to determine whether such reports document that fully recovered COVID-19 patients truly became infected anew, or whether those persons may have relapsed or not completely recovered from their first bout of the illness. Problems with diagnostic testing techniques have been raised as one possibility to explain why some patients might have retested positive for COVID-19 after seemingly recovering:

[Such cases] are raising questions in China about the reliability of diagnostic tests, the possibility of reinfection and whether patients are wrongly designated as recovered and released too early from hospitals.

Scientists in and outside China agree that reinfection is a highly unlikely explanation for the patients who retest positive. They say testing errors are more likely to blame either false negatives that resulted in patients being discharged too early, or false positives when they retested and were taken back into hospital.

Those errors could be attributed to contaminated test samples, human error while taking swabs, or an oversensitive nucleic acid test that detects strands of virus.

The Los Angeles Times quoted Dr. Keiji Fukuda, director of Hong Kong Universitys School of Public Health, as saying that COVID-19 reinfection was unlikely and that false positives in testing procedures were a more likely possibility:

If you get an infection, your immune system is revved up against that virus, he said. To get reinfected again when youre in that situation would be quite unusual unless your immune system was not functioning right.

Whats more likely is that people are being released from hospitals while still carrying dormant fragments of the disease that are not infectious but resemble the virus when put through a nucleic acid test, he said.

The test may be positive, but the infection is not there, he said

Dr. Clifford Lane, deputy director for Clinical Research and Special Projects at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, was also quoted as suggesting that the real issue was with inaccuracies in testing patients who had not fully recovered rather than with reinfection:

Another possibility is that the level of virus fell below the threshold that tests could detect but then resurfaced, [Lane] said.

So it looks like [some patients] cleared the virus and then the virus came back, Lane said. But they never really cleared it and they had a more prolonged course of infection.

Lane was one of only two U.S. experts in a World Health Organization delegation that visited China in February. He said Chinese experts told the visitors that there were no examples of people who became reinfected.

A coronavirus infections going into a dormant stage and then re-emerging was another possibility for explaining the appearance of reinfection suggested by Dr. Philip M. Tierno, Clinical Professor of Microbiology and Pathology at at New York University: Once you have the infection, it could remain dormant with minimal symptoms. And then you can get an exacerbation if it finds its way into the lungs.

The Associated Press also offered the possibility that mutations in the virus might conceivably make it different enough to reinfect persons who had acquired immunity to an earlier version:

Scientists at the at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center in Seattle say the 30,000-letter genetic code of the virus changes by one letter every 15 days. Its not known how many of these changes would be needed for the virus to seem different enough to the immune system of someone who had a previous version of it for it to cause a fresh infection.

Dr. Anthony S. Fauci, the Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases who is for many Americans the most familiar source for information on the coronavirus disease (due to his numerous appearances at government press conferences and cable television news reports), told Congress that he felt it was unlikely anyone could become reinfected by the virus: We havent formally proved it, but if this acts like any other virus, once you recover, you wont get reinfected.

While this topic is an area that requires additional study, medical professionals still caution that The things to worry about are at the other end of the illness that the primary focus should still be on limiting the outbreak by trying to ensure that symptomatic and undiagnosed persons are not exposing themselves to, and potentially infecting, others.

Originally posted here:

Can People Who Recover from COVID-19 Become Reinfected? - Snopes.com

A newborn in London has tested positive for the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, just minutes after being born to a mother who was also infected with the virus, according to news reports.

Days prior to giving birth, the woman was admitted to a hospital for symptoms of pneumonia, finding out she had tested positive for the virus that causes COVID-19 only after her baby was born at North Middlesex hospital in Enfield, in north London, The Guardian reported.

According to The Sun, the baby was being treated at the hospital, while the mother had been transferred to an infectious-diseases hospital.

It is not known when the child contracted the disease. "We can't say it happened while the baby was still in the womb," Dr. William Schaffner, a professor of Preventive Medicine and Infectious Diseases at the Vanderbilt University School of Medicine, told Live Science. The baby could have also contracted the virus during, or immediately after, birth, Schaffner said.

Some infections pass from a mother to her baby through the mother's placenta, while the fetus is still developing in the womb, or from bodily fluids during delivery. For instance, the Zika virus which is in another family of viruses from this coronavirus can pass to newborns both in the womb and during delivery, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). When passed to a baby in the womb, the Zika virus can cause microcephaly and other severe brain defects, the CDC said.

"That was a terrible phenomenon that happened with Zika," Schaffner said.

The first known newborn who tested positive for SARS-CoV-2 did so within 36 hours of birth. In that case, it also wasn't clear whether transmission happened in the womb.

Following that news, researchers analyzed samples from nine women who came down with COVID-19 when they were 36 to 39 weeks pregnant, and were admitted to a hospital in Wuhan, China, where the outbreak began. All of the women delivered via C-section. To find out if and perhaps when the virus could be transmitted, the team looked at samples of amniotic fluid, umbilical cord blood, breast milk and samples from the newborn's throat.

None of those samples tested positive for the coronavirus, and both the mothers and babies survived, according to that study, published Feb. 12 in the journal The Lancet. In those cases, at least, the virus didn't appear to pass between a mother and her developing fetus.

Right now, the bigger question is how the baby will fare.

"Does the baby become sick?" Schaffner asked. "Does the baby also develop pneumonia?"

Children infected with this coronavirus are mostly showing mild symptoms. But there isn't enough data yet to say whether babies would fall into this category.

"Newborns are particularly vulnerable, and they may be exceptions to that general rule since they are so vulnerable," Schaffner said.

As the coronavirus spreads across the globe, everyday life is being transformed with social-distancing measures, school closures, event cancellations, and in some cases, entire city lockdowns.

Though pregnant women tend to be at a higher risk of catching some respiratory infections and developing more severe symptoms from those infections, that doesn't seem to be the case for the coronavirus, according to a report published at the end of February by the World Health Organization-China Joint Mission on Coronavirus Disease 2019. Of 147 pregnant women with either confirmed or suspected cases of COVID-19, only 8% had a severe form of the disease and just 1% were in critical condition, according to that report.

Originally published on Live Science.

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Newborn tests positive for COVID-19 in London - Livescience.com

In 2011, two scientists at Cambridge University in the UK devised a clever way to measure and model the spread of the fluan app called FluPhone that used Bluetooth and other wireless signals as a proxy for interactions between people, and asked users to report flu-like symptoms.

If youd had lunch with someone who later got sick, FluPhone would let you know. Besides slowing the spread of the flu, the app promised to help health authorities monitor and model the spread of influenza. FluApp made headlines and the front page of the BBC website at the time. But in the end fewer than 1 percent of people in Cambridge signed up to use it.

As the deadly Covid-19 respiratory virus stalks the US, some techies suggest using smartphones to track and report transmissions. The idea raises many questions, including how well such a system would actually work, whether it might sow unnecessary alarm or confusion, and whether such tools might enable unwanted corporate or government surveillance.

The creators of FluPhone, Jon Crowcroft and Eiko Yoneki, certainly believe an app like theirs could help fight the coronavirus.

The health protection agencies could use it to populate anonymized map data, which might help reduce transmission, Crowcroft says. He says an app would also help researchers learn how long the virus survives on a surface, what fraction of the population are asymptomatic carriers, and where to target critical medical resources.

Read all of our coronavirus coverage here.

Inspired by the way China and South Korea apparently used smartphones to slow the spread of Covid-19, some US technologists have begun working on tracking apps. An open source project called CoEpi sprang up in February to develop an app with similar functionality to FluPhone. Ramesh Raskar, a professor at the MIT Media Lab, and colleagues are developing an app that would let people log their movements, and compare them with those of known coronavirus patients, using redacted data supplied by the state or national public health departments. Over time, users would be asked whether they are infected, providing a way to identify potential transmissions in a similar way to FluPhone. The team released a prototype for testing on Friday.

Raskar has been rallying other researchers and tech executives to the effort, and he has been in contact with the World Health Organization, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the US Department of Health and Human Services. They are giving us guidance on what will work, he says, although none has yet endorsed the idea.

Stefan Germann, CEO of the Botnar Foundation, a Swiss organization focused on health and child welfare, has been advising Raskar. He says the proposed app has strong potential but should be tested in a single sandbox city first. It is important to respond fast, but not to rush efforts, he says.

Others suggest similar technology be added to smartphones by default. An open letter signed by several dozen prominent technologists, executives, and clinicians, posted on Tuesday, called on the tech industry to do more to combat the coronavirus. Among other things, the group recommended that Apple and Google update their smartphone software to make it possible to track contact between people, providing users grant permission. Apple and Google did not return requests for comment.

If such a feature could be built before SARS-CoV-2 is ubiquitous, it could prevent many people from being exposed, the letter suggests. In the longer term, such infrastructure could allow future disease epidemics to be more reliably contained, and make large scale contact tracing of the sort that has worked in China and [South] Korea, feasible everywhere.

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Phones Could Track the Spread of Covid-19. Is It a Good Idea? - WIRED

News Release

Sunday, March 15, 2020

NIH informed its staff early this morning that it has its first known case of an NIH staff member who has tested positive for COVID-19, the disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus. NIH has reported the case to state and local public health officials. While this is an unfortunate development, it is not surprising, and NIH expects that there will be more cases of infection among NIH staff.

The individual works for the National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases but is not involved in patient care. The individual is quarantined at home and doing well. Importantly, the individual was asymptomatic while at work, which is believed to lower the risk of transmission. After developing symptoms, the individual took the appropriate action, stayed home and called the NIH Occupational Medical Service (OMS), which is managing potential COVID-19 infection among NIH staff. OMS arranged testing, and the result was positive.NIH commends the infected individual for following the NIH guidance, which has allowed us to take swift action.

OMS and the NIH Clinical Center Hospital Epidemiology Service have identified staff who work in close proximity to this individual and may have been exposed. Those individuals have been contacted and will be screened for symptoms as soon as possible and asked to self-quarantine at home if their exposure constitutes a significant risk of infection according to Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) guidelines. OMS will monitor them closely for infection.

NIH will handle each case with the utmost respect to privacy while also informing potentially affected staff and taking swift measures to mitigate spread of the virus. NIH is reminding staff to follow the CDC guidance about COVID-19 toprevent illnessand recognizesymptoms.

About the National Institutes of Health (NIH):NIH, the nation's medical research agency, includes 27 Institutes and Centers and is a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. NIH is the primary federal agency conducting and supporting basic, clinical, and translational medical research, and is investigating the causes, treatments, and cures for both common and rare diseases. For more information about NIH and its programs, visit http://www.nih.gov.

NIHTurning Discovery Into Health

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NIH Reports First Known Employee with COVID-19 Infection - National Institutes of Health