Updates
United And American Airlines Tell 32,000 Employees They're Now On Furlough-NPR
United Airlines and American Airlines have sent furlough notices to a total of more than 32,000 employees, saying they can't afford to have them on payroll after Thursday - the expiration date for the federal CARES Act Payroll Support Program. NPR, … Continue Reading
September 30, 2020
One Number Could Help Reveal How Infectious A COVID-19 Patient Is. Should Test Results Include It?-Science Magazine
Ever since the coronavirus pandemic began, battles have raged over testing: Which tests should be given, to whom, and how often? Now, epidemiologists and public health experts are opening a new debate. They say testing centers should report not just whether a person is positive, but also a number known as the cycle threshold (CT) value, which indicates how much virus an infected person harbors. Science Magazine, … Continue Reading
September 30, 2020
Africa CDC Launches Vaccine Perception Survey-Devex
Data collectors are spreading out through five African nations to conduct a survey for four weeks to see how people feel about a COVID-19 vaccine, according to John Nkengasong, director of the Africa Centres for Disease Control and Prevention. Devex, … Continue Reading
September 30, 2020
Pelosi, Mnuchin To Resume COVID-19 Relief Talks As Democrats Mull New Bill-Reuters
U.S. House of Representative Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she was due to resume talks on COVID-19 relief with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin on Wednesday, as Democratic lawmakers prepared to move forward with a $2.2 trillion bill if no deal is reached. Reuters, … Continue Reading
September 30, 2020
Regeneron’s Covid-19 Antibody May Help Non-Hospitalized Patients Recover Faster, Early Data Show-STAT
New data from the biotechnology firm Regeneron seem likely to add to the excitement about drugs called monoclonal antibodies as treatments for Covid-19, but experts caution more data will be needed to know how potentially beneficial the medicines are. STAT, … Continue Reading
September 30, 2020
Juggling Financial Stress And Caregiving, Parents Are 'Very Not OK' In The Pandemic-NPR
Back in early spring, Khristan Yates worked as a quality assurance analyst at a marketing company and loved her job. "I had one of the best jobs of my career," recalls Yates, 31, a resident of Chicago. Yates is among the 60% of households with children across the country that have lost jobs, or businesses, or have had wages reduced during the pandemic, according to a poll released Wednesday by NPR, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. NPR, … Continue Reading
September 29, 2020
Lessons From AIDS For The COVID-19 Pandemic-Scientific American
We are now engaged in another deadly episode in the historic battle of man versus microbe. These battles have shaped the course of human evolution and of history. We have seen the face of our adversary, in this case a tiny virus.” I spoke these words in testimony before a U.S. Senate subcommittee on September 26, 1985. I was talking about HIV, but I could say the same thing today about the coronavirus we are facing. Like all viruses, coronaviruses are expert code crackers. SARS-CoV-2 has … Continue Reading
September 29, 2020
Botswana Extends Emergency Measures To Combat Virus-The Associated Press
Botswana has extended its state of emergency for a further six months to combat the spread of COVID-19. The southern African country will maintain several restrictions, including limits to international travelers and tourism, in contrast to neighboring South Africa and Zimbabwe, which are opening up their economies. The Associated Press, … Continue Reading
September 29, 2020
Meatpackers Deny Workers Benefits For COVID-19 Deaths, Illnesses-Reuters
Saul Sanchez died in April, one of six workers with fatal COVID-19 infections at meatpacker JBS USA’s slaughterhouse in Greeley, Colorado, the site of one of the earliest and deadliest coronavirus outbreaks at a U.S. meatpacking plant. JBS, the world’s largest meatpacker, denied the family’s application for workers’ compensation benefits, along with those filed by the families of two other Greeley workers who died of COVID-19, said lawyers handling the three claims. Reuters, … Continue Reading
September 29, 2020
As Insurers Move This Week To Stop Waiving Telehealth Copays, Patients May Have To Pay More For Virtual Care-STAT
Starting Oct. 1, several private health insurers will no longer fully pay for virtual visits under certain circumstances — effectively reinstituting costs for patients reliant on the virtual care that has been heralded as a lifeline at a time when Covid-19 is still killing more than 700 Americans each day. STAT, … Continue Reading
September 29, 2020
COVID-19 Deaths Top 1 Million Worldwide. How These 5 Nations Are Driving The Pandemic-NPR
The coronavirus pandemic has now killed at least 1 million people worldwide. That's according to a tally maintained by Johns Hopkins University. This sobering milestone was reached just nine months after the first reported fatality in China last January. And public health experts believe the actual toll - the recorded deaths plus the unrecorded deaths - is much higher. What's more, in the five worst-off countries, the trend line remains worrisome. Here's how they line up — and why Argentina … Continue Reading
September 28, 2020
Campus Life Sans Covid: A Few Colleges Write The Playbook For Pandemic Success-Politico
Several universities have resumed in-person classes and invited students back to live on or near campus this semester while logging few infections, even as other institutions struggle to halt outbreaks or rely on virtual education. These early case studies hint at a potential path to recovery for a bruised higher education industry, as the virus continues to spread across the country and the death toll rises. Politico, … Continue Reading
September 28, 2020
Positive COVID-19 Test Rates Top 25% In Some U.S. Midwest States-Reuters
The number of tests coming back positive for COVID-19 is topping 25% in several states in the U.S. Midwest as cases and hospitalizations also surge in the region, according to a Reuters analysis. North Dakota’s positive test rate has averaged 30% over the past seven days compared with 6% the prior week. The positivity rate has risen to 26% in South Dakota, up from 17% the previous week, according to the analysis using testing data from The COVID Tracking Project. Reuters, … Continue Reading
September 28, 2020
How Will COVID-19 Change Global Development? 5 Experts Weigh In-Devex
The unprecedented crisis has cast a long shadow and disrupted ongoing development efforts, which were already falling short of what was necessary to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres told Devex the world now faces two potential scenarios: one in which wealthy nations step up to provide additional financing for the global south, particularly through debt relief and ensuring access to a vaccine, or one in which the world’s poorer countries are … Continue Reading
September 28, 2020
New Document Reveals Scope And Structure Of Operation Warp Speed And Underscores Vast Military Involvement-STAT
When President Trump unveiled Operation Warp Speed in May, he declared that it was “unlike anything our country has seen since the Manhattan Project.” The initiative — to accelerate the development of Covid-19 vaccines and therapeutics — lacks the scale, and the degree of secrecy, of the effort to build the atomic bomb. But Operation Warp Speed is largely an abstraction in Washington, with little known about who works there other than its top leaders, or how it operates. STAT, … Continue Reading
September 28, 2020
Food Insecurity In The U.S. By The Numbers-NPR
With COVID-19 continuing to spread, and millions of Americans still out of work, one of the nation's most urgent problems has only grown worse: hunger.In communities across the country, the lines at food pantries are stretching longer and longer, and there's no clear end in sight. NPR, … Continue Reading
September 25, 2020
Hidden Immune Weakness Found In 14% Of Gravely Ill COVID-19 Patients-Science Magazine
From the first months of the COVID-19 pandemic, scientists baffled by the disease’s ferocity have wondered whether the body’s vanguard virus fighter, a molecular messenger called type I interferon, is missing in action in some severe cases. Two papers published online in Science this week confirm that suspicion. They reveal that in a significant minority of patients with serious COVID-19, the interferon response has been crippled by genetic flaws or by rogue antibodies that attack interferon … Continue Reading
September 25, 2020
Virus Disrupting Rio's Carnival For First Time In A Century-The Associated Press
A cloud of uncertainty that has hung over Rio de Janeiro throughout the coronavirus pandemic has been lifted, but gloom remains — the annual Carnival parade of flamboyant samba schools won’t be held in February. And while the decision is being characterized as a postponement of the event, no new date has been set. The Associated Press, … Continue Reading
September 25, 2020
AstraZeneca Gets Partial Immunity In Low-Cost EU Vaccine Deal-Reuters
European governments will pay claims above an agreed limit against AstraZeneca over side-effects from its potential COVID-19 vaccine, under different terms to a deal struck with Sanofi, an EU official told Reuters. Reuters, … Continue Reading
September 25, 2020
Pharmacies Are Bracing For A Surge In Demand For Flu Shots Amid The Covid-19 Pandemic-STAT
With flu season fast approaching, and the Covid-19 pandemic raging on, hospitals and pharmacies across the country are stockpiling far more flu vaccines than normal, anticipating a surge in demand. The drug store chain Rite Aid has purchased 40% more influenza vaccines than other years to meet an expected uptick in demand. STAT, … Continue Reading