Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Novel Coronavirus Is Mutating More Slowly Than Some Of Its Peers, So What Does That Really Mean?
The New York Times: How Coronavirus Mutates And Spreads
The coronavirus is an oily membrane packed with genetic instructions to make millions of copies of itself. The instructions are encoded in 30,000 “letters” of RNA — a, c, g and u — which the infected cell reads and translates into many kinds of virus proteins. (Corum and Zimmer, 4/30)
The Washington Post: Studies Leave Question Of ‘Airborne’ Coronavirus Transmission Unanswered
A growing number of studies, including one published this week in the journal Nature, have found evidence that the coronavirus can remain suspended in the air in aerosol particles. That raises anew the question of whether and to what extent the virus can be transmitted as an aerosol — although the evidence is far from conclusive and no such infections have been documented. (Achenbach and Johnson, 4/29)
CIDRAP: Studies Find Men More Prone To COVID-19 Death
Men are more than twice as likely to die of COVID-19 than women, regardless of age, according to a study today in Frontiers in Public Health. Also, older men with underlying diseases are more vulnerable than their female counterparts to COVID-19 infection and poor outcomes, a small retrospective study published yesterday in PLOS Pathogens has found. (Van Beusekom, 4/29)
ABC News: Some Children With COVID-19 Are Experiencing Symptoms Similar To Kawasaki Disease
In less than 24 hours, Children's National Hospital in Washington, D.C., has admitted several children with COVID-19 who are also experiencing a constellation of symptoms that resemble "Kawasaki disease," a rare inflammatory syndrome typically affecting children under the age of 5. A representative from Children's National Hospital said the children exhibited “Kawasaki-like characteristics," joining a growing number of hospitals in the U.S. and U.K. that have reported similar cases. (Kagan and Taghipour, 4/29)
The Wall Street Journal: Doctors Investigate Link Between Rare Childhood Disease And Covid-19
Doctors in Italy and the U.K. have raised the alarm over a small but growing number of children displaying symptoms of a rare blood-vessel disease that may be linked to Covid-19. In both countries, doctors have alerted their colleagues to look out for symptoms associated with Kawasaki disease, an inflammatory condition that typically affects young children. Symptoms include stomach pain, skin rashes and a high fever. The disease is rarely life-threatening, but can cause lasting heart problems if untreated. (Stancati and Douglas, 4/29)
The Washington Post: Dogs Are Being Trained To Sniff Out Coronavirus Cases
As some states move to reopen after weeks of shutdowns, infectious disease experts say the prevention of future coronavirus outbreaks will require scaling up testing and identifying asymptomatic carriers. Eight Labrador retrievers — and their powerful noses — have been enlisted to help. The dogs are the first trainees in a University of Pennsylvania research project to determine whether canines can detect an odor associated with the virus that causes the disease covid-19. (Brulliard, 4/29)
WBUR: Doctors Link COVID-19 To Potentially Deadly Blood Clots And Strokes
Mocco and his colleagues thought it was time to sound the alarm. So they published a letter Tuesday in The New England Journal of Medicine describing five patients in their 30s and 40s who did not have the typical risk factors, but did have the SARS-CoV-2 virus. The letter was the latest evidence of a phenomenon doctors have been reporting since the early days of the pandemic in China. COVID-19 seems to produce blood clots — a lot of them. And this has been especially well documented in intensive care units. (Hamilton, 4/29)
