Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Health Officials, Doctors Scramble To Counter Coronavirus Misinformation That's Spreading As Fast As Outbreak
The Associated Press: Medical Professionals Battle Virus Misinformation Online
Dr. Rose Marie Leslie, a family physician at the University of Minnesota, is fighting misleading and false information around a virus outbreak with the very tool used to spread much of it: social media. Leslie turned to TikTok, a platform popular with teens, to share her videos offering facts about the respiratory virus originating in China, which has so far sickened nearly 10,000 people. As of Friday, the videos had raked in more than 3 million views. (Dupuy, 1/31)
Los Angeles Times: Coronavirus Fears Prompt Hoaxes And Misinformation
Residents of an off-campus housing complex near USC got a scare Monday night in the form of an email. The message from the manager of the Lorenzo apartments stated that a tenant had contracted the new strain of coronavirus that’s caused 304 deaths in China. A unit on the seventh floor of the building was cordoned off with caution tape, and someone was loaded into an ambulance outside, said Frank Zhu, 20, a USC sophomore who lives at the complex. (Wigglesworth, 2/2)
The Washington Post: Kimchi, Cow Poop And Other Spurious Coronavirus Remedies
The new coronavirus has killed more than 300 people in China and infected thousands more. As the virus spreads and with no cure in sight, some people are looking to alternative remedies to protect them from infection or cure themselves if they’ve already contracted it. Here are some of the theories floating around. Some of these have been proposed by medical doctors, and some of them are just common sense. Others, not so much. As the ads say: If your symptoms persist or get worse, see your physician. (Fifield, 2/2)
The Hill: Social Media Struggles To Counter Coronavirus Misinformation
The world's top social media platforms are trying to push users toward fact-driven and reputable sources as sensationalist misinformation about the deadly coronavirus spreads online. But wild conspiracy theories and misleading advice about the coronavirus, which has infected almost 10,000 people in China so far, are continuing to spread largely unabated on platforms like Instagram, Twitter, TikTok and other networks with billions of users overall.And U.S. lawmakers, many of whom are working to publicize trustworthy information about the little-understood health epidemic, say they want the platforms to do more to stave off the wave of misinformation. (Birnbaum and Rodrigo, 2/1)
The Washington Post: Get A Grippe, America. The Flu Is A Much Bigger Threat Than Coronavirus, For Now.
The rapidly spreading virus has closed schools in Knoxville, Tenn., cut blood donations to dangerous levels in Cleveland and prompted limits on hospital visitors in Wilson, N.C. More ominously, it has infected as many as 26 million people in the United States in just four months, killing up to 25,000 so far. In other words, a difficult but not extraordinary flu season in the United States, the kind most people shrug off each winter or handle with rest, fluids and pain relievers if they contract the illness. But this year, a new coronavirus from China has focused attention on diseases that can sweep through an entire population, rattling the public despite the current magnitude of the threat. (Bernstein, 2/1)
NPR: No, You Won't Catch The New Coronavirus Via Packages Or Mail From China
In an era of online shopping and global shipping, some NPR listeners have written to us with this question: Am I at risk of catching the new coronavirus from a package I receive from China? Almost certainly no, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. (Aubrey, 2/3)
The Wall Street Journal: Experts Race To Figure Out How Contagious The Coronavirus Is
Public-health experts around the world have been crunching numbers about the advance of China’s dangerous new coronavirus to estimate how far and fast it could spread. Studies published in recent days say the new virus appears to be more contagious than seasonal flu and on par with the similar pathogen behind an outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome in 2002 and 2003. The new virus’ mortality rate, however, is far below that of SARS. (Deng and Page, 2/2)
Bloomberg: Coronavirus May Transmit Along Fecal-Oral Route, Xinhua Reports
The coronavirus that’s infected more than 14,000 people in two dozen countries may be transmitted through the digestive tract, Chinese state media reported. Virus genetic material was discovered in patient stool and rectal swabs, Xinhua said Sunday. The finding was made by scientists from the Renmin Hospital of Wuhan University and the Wuhan Institute of Virology of the Chinese Academy of Sciences after noting that some patients infected with the 2019-nCoV virus had diarrhea early in the disease, instead of a fever, which is more common, the report said. (Gale, 2/2)
Reuters: Gilead Working With China To Test Ebola Drug As New Coronavirus Treatment
Gilead Sciences Inc said on Friday it provided its experimental Ebola therapy for use in a small number of patients with the coronavirus that has killed over 200 so far in China and is working with the country's authorities to set up a study. The announcement comes a day after the World Health Organization declared the coronavirus epidemic a public health emergency of international concern. (2/1)
The Wall Street Journal: Gilead Sciences Offers Experimental Drug For Coronavirus Treatments, Testing
Health authorities have been searching for a treatment for China coronavirus infections, which lack an approved drug or vaccine. Several drugmakers have said they are trying to develop a vaccine, which could prevent but not treat infections. Researchers had been hoping to study whether Gilead’s remdesivir and other antivirals could work as treatments. (Walker, 1/31)
Bloomberg: Can Coronavirus Be Treated? Gilead Drug To Undergo Human Trials
Drugmakers such as GlaxoSmithKline Plc. as well as Chinese authorities are racing to crash develop vaccines and therapies to combat the new virus that’s more contagious than SARS and could cost the global economy four times more than the $40 billion sapped by the 2003 SARS outbreak. The decision to hold human trials for remdesivir shows it’s among the most promising therapies against the virus that so far has no specific treatments or vaccines. (2/3)
