New Covid-19 Info

13/04/2021

So, your social media feed is going to blow up today because the US has just paused the distribution of the J&J vaccine.

If you're wondering what's going on, this video is about the AstraZeneca vaccine, but it also explains some of the science behind why they likely paused the J&J vaccine today.

The second half of the video talks about how we understand risk with regards to this vaccine.

Less than 1 in 1,000,000 in the US so far have experienced this rare reaction. The reactions occurred in 6 women between the ages of 18-48, one woman passed away. The fact that we are catching these unusual cases and adjusting is a very good thing.

Questions? I probably won't know the answer but I can try to find it!

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23/12/2020

16/12/2020

10/11/2020

I'm sure you've heard some hubbub today about a coronavirus vaccine, here's the breakdown.

Almost everything the President tweeted about it today is not true...

🔸 The FDA has not yet approved this vaccine for emergency use.
🔸 The FDA did not announce the vaccine findings or have anything to do with it; Pfizer announced it today.
🔸 The research and development of this vaccine had ZERO funding from the US Government.
🔸 The development of this vaccine had nothing to do with Operation Warp Speed.

News about the vaccine...

🔹 The vaccine was developed by scientists in Germany with clinical trials from 44,000+ volunteers in Argentina, US, Brazil and Germany.
🔹 This vaccine is uses technology (messenger RNA) that had never been used in humans before.
🔹 One challenge is that this vaccine has to be kept at ultra cold temperatures (-80C) so it will be difficult to distribute.
🔹The results are still early and need at least several more months of safety trials.
🔹 The data has not been published and is currently under review.
🔹 GOOD NEWS: The research so far has been the gold standard of clinical trails (double-blind placebo controlled) and has shown a crazy high success rate (90%)!

So, good news is that there is potentially help on the way. However, it will still be many months before this vaccine is approved and widely available in the US and elsewhere.

09/11/2020

Most helpful article I've seen as we need to be indoors more through the winter.

As you're assessing what indoor activities to engage with in the months to come think:

👉 Distance, Mask, Duration, Ventilation 👈

Save the link and take some time to read and think through the implications of this article this week. I know the holidays will be tough if you take this data to heart, but let's get creative. This too, shall pass.

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09/06/2020

[GLOBAL]

A spokesperson from the WHO jumped the gun in a press briefing yesterday by saying that asymptomatic transmission is very rare. This was not based on published or verifiable data, but based on reports of limited asymptomatic transmission during contract tracing in a few countries.

Keep calm and carry on.

Maria Van Kerkhove says she accepts models show up to 40% of infections come from asymptomatic people

08/06/2020

[USA]

Calls to poison centers regarding exposures to cleaners and disinfectants have increased since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic.

An Internet panel survey identified gaps in knowledge about safe preparation, use, and storage of cleaners and disinfectants. Approximately one third of survey respondents engaged in nonrecommended high-risk practices with the intent of preventing SARS-CoV-2 transmission, including using bleach on food products, applying household cleaning and disinfectant products to skin, and inhaling or ingesting cleaners and disinfectants.

Public messaging should continue to emphasize evidence-based, safe cleaning and disinfection practices to prevent SARS-CoV-2 transmission in households, including hand hygiene and cleaning and disinfection of high-touch surfaces.

This report describes gaps in knowledge about safe preparation, use, and storage of cleaners and disinfectants identified by an internet panel survey.

07/06/2020

The Lancet, one of the world’s top medical journals, on Thursday retracted an influential study that raised alarms about the safety of the experimental Covid-19 treatments chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine amid scrutiny of the data underlying the paper.

Just over an hour later, the New England Journal of Medicine retracted a separate study, focused on blood pressure medications in Covid-19, that relied on data from the same company.

The retractions came at the request of the authors of the studies, published last month, who were not directly involved with the data collection and sources, the journals said.

The journals said the authors of the paper were unable to complete an independent audit of the data underpinning their analyses.

29/05/2020

[GLOBAL]

A team at the University of Edinburgh is working on catagorizing the research that has come out about Covid-19. Of all the PUBLISHED papers they have categorized so far 78% were NOT original research.

They have so far categorised 2181 publications, including 304 primary research papers, meaning that roughly only 14% of publications include primary research. The proportion of primary research papers that have been peer reviewed is 27%. Which means that only 3.7% of the papers they have categorized so far are primary (original) research that is peer reviewed.

This intial data indicates that the current standards for publication in normally reputable academic journals may not be as rigorous as in normal times.

https://www.bmj.com/content/369/bmj.m2045
Video summary: https://youtu.be/qoIkqdQb2R8

The rush to publish and report during the pandemic is compromising quality, worried experts tell Stephen Armstrong On 11 April Neel Shah, assistant professor of obstetrics, gynaecology, and reproductive biology at Harvard Medical School, published a grim assessment of the scientific research into co...

20/05/2020

[USA]

"To help states, tribes, localities, and territories, as well as businesses and community organizations operate as safely as possible during the COVID-19 pandemic, CDC released two new resources to aide in reopening."

https://www.cdc.gov/media/releases/2020/s0520-cdc-resources-open.html

CDC is closely monitoring an outbreak caused by a novel (new) coronavirus in Wuhan City, China.

20/05/2020

[GLOBAL]

New good news: Reinfection unlikely. Some form of immunity is likely (degree and duration still unknown).

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The 290 patients in Korea who were thought to have been reinfected tested positive because of dead cell remnants that influenced the tests. This was identified three weeks ago and contacts have been traced and monitored with no new infections, indicating that this group was also not contagious. It also appears that this group produced antibodies that will provide some form of immunity, the degree and duration of which is still unknown.

https://www.sciencenews.org/article/coronavirus-covid19-reinfection-immune-response

Announcement from Korea CDC: https://www.cdc.go.kr/board/board.es?mid=a30402000000&bid=0030

Another summary: https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/498516-covid-patients-testing-positive-for-second-infection-not-contagious-study

People who recover from COVID-19 but later test positive again for the coronavirus don’t carry infectious virus, a study finds.

19/05/2020

[USA]

The first human trials of a vaccine from Moderna in two doses in 8 patients has produced a positive response in producing COVID-19 antibodies. Approval to begin phase II of trails has been given.

This is a positive first step, but scientists are still trying to understand what level of antibodies will ultimately prove protective against the novel coronavirus, and how long that protection will last.

Moderna Inc's experimental COVID-19 vaccine, the first to be tested in the United States, produced protective antibodies in a small group of healthy volunteers, according to very early data released by the biotech company on Monday.

14/05/2020

[USA]

Good new news.

*A new antibody test is highly accurate at determining whether people have been infected with the novel coronavirus, according to a study published on Friday in The Journal of Clinical Microbiology.
*Researchers at the University of Washington School of Medicine found the test, manufactured by Abbott Laboratories, had a specificity rate of 99.9% and a sensitivity rate of 100%, suggesting little chance of incorrectly diagnosing a healthy person as having been infected and virtually no chance of a false negative readout.
*Abbott's test has received emergency use authorization from the FDA and the company has already shipped more than 10 million of the tests to hospitals and labs.

https://jcm.asm.org/content/early/2020/05/07/JCM.00941-20

Coronavirus disease-19 (COVID19), the novel respiratory illness caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), is associated with severe morbidity and mortality. The rollout of diagnostic testing in the United States was slow, leading to numerous cases that were not tested f...

13/05/2020

[GLOBAL]

*There's a new outcome developing in children exposed to Covid-19 in multiple countries. It is called PIMS, which stands for pediatric inflammatory multisystem syndrome associated with Covid-19.

*PIMS is statistically rare and is very treatable. Children with multiple exposures to covid-19 are more susceptible.

*Earlier in the pandemic PIMS was misdiagnosed as Kawasaki disease as it is very similar.

*Parents should keep an eye out for persistent high fever and contact their doctor. Other co-existing symptoms include-- Abdominal pain without another explanation, Both eyes appearing pink or red, Enlarged lymph node (“gland”) on one side of the neck, Fe.ver for seven or more days in an infant, for which no other explanation is identified, Red, cracked lips or red tongue that looks like a strawberry, Rash, Swollen hands and feet, which might also be red

https://www.chla.org/blog/health-and-safety-tips/pediatric-inflammatory-multisystem-syndrome-pims-what-parents-should

From the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, children were a population left relatively untouched by the novel coronavirus. If infected, children often had few symptoms unless an underlying condition compromised their health. It was believed that children could have the disease without suffering fro...

11/05/2020

[USA]

FDA has approved the first antigen test for Covid-19. Test results come in quickly (10 mins) and are faily reliable for positive results, but can often have false negatives so patients receiving negative results may need to be retested.

The agency announced approval for the diagnostic method on Saturday. Cheaper and easier to administer than genetic tests for the virus, it could potentially expand to daily testing of millions.

06/05/2020

[USA]
5/5/2020 -- New Info About Antibody Tests & FDA

*The FDA has come out with new standards for antibody tests because a number of fake or low accuracy tests have been flooding the market.

*The FDA implies at the end of the update that antibody tests should only be used with doctor supervision or as part of a study or other situation where the results can be properly interpreted by experts.

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QUOTES
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"We unfortunately see unscrupulous actors marketing fraudulent test kits and using the pandemic as an opportunity to take advantage of Americans’ anxiety. Some test developers have falsely claimed their serological tests are FDA approved or authorized. Others have falsely claimed that their tests can diagnose COVID-19 or that they are for at-home testing, which would fall outside of the policies outlined in our March 16 guidance, as well as the updated guidance. Also, since that time, the FDA has become aware that a concerning number of commercial serology tests are being promoted inappropriately, including for diagnostic use, or are performing poorly based on an independent evaluation by the NIH."

"Under this revised policy, the FDA has outlined the following expectations for antibody test developers:

----Commercial manufacturers will submit EUA requests, with their validation data, within 10 business days from the date they notified the FDA of their validation testing OR from the date of this policy, whichever is later.
----Furthermore, the FDA has provided specific performance threshold recommendations for specificity and sensitivity for all serology test developers."

"That is why antibody tests should only be used as part of a well-conceived testing plan and why the results should always be interpreted by appropriate experts."

FDA has issued an update to a policy from March 16, 2020 on antibody tests for COVID-19.