Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Neurologists Baffled By Length Of Time Some Patients Are Taking To Wake Up After Ventilators
The Washington Post: Some Covid-19 Patients Experience Prolonged Comas After Being Taken Off Ventilators
After five days on a ventilator because of covid-19, Susham “Rita” Singh seemed to have turned a corner. Around midnight on April 8, doctors at Houston Methodist Hospital turned off the sedative drip that had kept the previously healthy 65-year-old in a medically induced coma. “The expectation is that you should start waking up after six hours, 12 hours or a day,” said her daughter, Silky Singh Pahlajani, a neurologist in New York City. “But it was six-and-a-half days before she started … opening her eyes. I thought she had suffered a massive stroke. “Her brain MRI was normal, which was great, but then the question became: What’s going on?” (Hurley, 6/7)
CIDRAP: Autopsies Show Brain Damage In COVID-19 Patients
A study yesterday in The Lancet presents the clinical findings of autopsies conducted on six German patients (four men and two women, aged 58 to 82 years) who died from COVID-19 in April. All six had evidence of extensive brain pathologies at the time of death. Each patient had severe viral pneumonia caused by COVID-19 and required mechanical intubation or extracorporeal membrane oxygenation. (6/5)
ABC News: Satellite Data Suggests Coronavirus May Have Hit China Earlier: Researchers
Dramatic spikes in auto traffic around major hospitals in Wuhan last fall suggest the novel coronavirus may have been present and spreading through central China long before the outbreak was first reported to the world, according to a new Harvard Medical School study. Using techniques similar to those employed by intelligence agencies, the research team behind the study analyzed commercial satellite imagery and "observed a dramatic increase in hospital traffic outside five major Wuhan hospitals beginning late summer and early fall 2019," according to Dr. John Brownstein, the Harvard Medical professor who led the research. (Folmer and Margolin, 6/8)
Stat: Experts Question Use Of Repeated Covid-19 Tests After A Patient Recovers
The very premature infant was born via cesarean section and quickly whisked away to the neonatal intensive care unit before his mother could even lay eyes on him. Over the next eight weeks, the only time she saw her baby was when the NICU staff sent photos, or when a nurse FaceTimed her while the baby was being bathed. The young mother, who gave birth at Montreal’s Sainte-Justine Hospital, tested positive for Covid-19 when her baby was born. For 55 days afterward, she repeatedly tested positive for the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Because she did, the hospital would not allow her to return after she was discharged meaning she could not hold or nurse her baby for the first two months of his life. (Branswell, 6/8)
