WHO Finds ‘No Clear Benefit’ To Treating Covid With Convalescent Plasma

CNBC: WHO Strongly Advises Against Convalescent Plasma For Treating Covid Patients
The World Health Organization on Monday issued a strong recommendation against administering convalescent plasma to treat Covid-19 patients, citing research that shows no improvement in patients who received the treatment. In convalescent plasma therapy, blood plasma is donated by someone who has recovered from the virus and transferred into a patient battling the virus with the hope the donor’s antibodies help fight the infection. However, the WHO’s guideline development group found that “there was no clear benefit for critical outcomes such as mortality and mechanical ventilation for patients with non-severe, severe or critical illness, and significant resource requirements in terms of cost and time for administration.” (Kimball, 12/6)

In updates on the spread of the coronavirus —

The Washington Post: U.S. Coronavirus Cases Approach 50 Million 
The total number of reported coronavirus cases in the United States marched toward 50 million early Tuesday, as New York City imposed a vaccine mandate for all private employers, federal health authorities warned against travel to several European countries and more nations tightened restrictions on the unvaccinated. The omicron variant of the virus, which is possibly more contagious than the widespread delta variant, had been found in 19 U.S. states as of Monday — just five days after the first known case in the country emerged in California. That number reflected the potentially heightened transmissibility of the newest variant and an improved system for detecting it. (Jeong, Suliman, Bernstein, Sellers and Villegas, 12/7)

Billings Gazette: Montana COVID Deaths At Record Highs, Flu Season Concerning For Experts
COVID-19 related deaths continue to reach record levels as 130 more Montanans died in the last seven days. Montana has averaged 15 deaths per day over the last week with Nov. 30 bringing 33 deaths in a day. Yellowstone County leads the state with 461 COVID-related deaths since the start of the pandemic. Three more residents died over the weekend including a woman in her 70s who died Dec. 4, a woman in her 80s who died Dec. 5, and a man in his 60s who died Dec. 5. None were vaccinated. (Schabacker, 12/6)

USA Today: Court Orders Hospital To Allow Ivermectin Treatment In COVID-19 Case
A court order issued late Friday allowed a Pennsylvania man on a ventilator in a medically induced coma from COVID-19 to be treated with the controversial drug ivermectin. Keith Smith's wife, Darla, filed a lawsuit in York County Court last week asking a judge to compel the hospital to treat her husband with ivermectin, seeking an emergency injunction to force UPMC Memorial to administer the drug. Ivermectin is an anti-parasitic that is not part of the medical center’s COVID-19 protocols and is not approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for the treatment of the virus. (Tebor and Fernando, 12/7)

KHN: When The Surges Just Keep Coming: A View From The Covid Vortex 
Dr. Rais Vohra has impeccable timing. He stepped into his role as interim health officer of Fresno County just months before the start of the covid-19 pandemic. Almost immediately, he found himself navigating the treacherous tensions between public health messaging and a skeptical population in a hub of industrial agriculture that is also one of the most politically conservative regions of California. First came the anti-mask protests, amplified by vows from the county sheriff that her deputies would refuse to enforce the state’s mask mandate. Next was the vocal resentment of covid-related business restrictions. Cap that off with roiling distrust of the new covid vaccines and a large migrant farmworker population with long-standing challenges accessing health care. Little surprise, then, that as of Dec. 3, about 55% of Fresno County residents were fully vaccinated, nearly 10 percentage points lower than the statewide average. In some rural pockets of the county, fewer than 40% of residents are fully vaccinated. (Gold, 12/7)

In news about testing and tracing —

The Boston Globe: Coronavirus Levels In Boston-Area Waste Water Have Risen Dramatically In Recent Days
Coronavirus readings in Boston-area wastewater have seen a dramatic rise in recent days, reaching levels not seen since the height of the January surge. The increase in the wastewater levels continues a trend that began around mid-November, but the tests found that the seven-day averages of virus traces in the wastewater have risen particularly fast over the last week or so. Levels of coronavirus in wastewater coming from the northern and southern samples of the Massachusetts Water Resources Authority’s territory have both risen substantially, returning to levels last seen in mid-January. (Little Endara, 12/6)

Anchorage Daily News: A New Company Is Now Handling Anchorage’s Privatized COVID-19 Testing. What Changes Does That Bring?
A private company is now handling COVID-19 testing in Anchorage: Capstone Clinic, a Wasilla health care provider that’s evolved through the pandemic to become the state’s largest testing presence. The shift to Capstone from Visit Healthcare, the municipal testing contractor since July 2020, came suddenly this week with little public notice. (Hollander, 12/4)

The Washington Post: How To Find Covid Tests Abroad For New U.S. Flight Rules 
Per Centers for Disease Control and Prevention requirements, travelers must get a rapid antigen test or nucleic acid amplification test (NAAT), which includes polymerase chain reaction (PCR) tests. While the PCR lab test is considered the gold standard of coronavirus testing, it usually take a couple of days to process results so it won’t work for the updated U.S. testing window (unless you get a pricey rapid PCR test, which delivers results in about an hour). Rapid antigen tests tend to be the fastest and most affordable, with results available in as little as 15 minutes. (Compton, 12/6)

In other covid news —

Bloomberg: First-Ever Covid-Killing Steel Can Inactivate 99.8% Of The Virus
Researchers in Hong Kong said they have developed the world’s first stainless steel that kills the Covid-19 virus within hours, adding to the arsenal of products being created globally to curb the pathogen that triggered the worst pandemic of the past century. The newly-developed alloy can inactivate 99.75% of the SARS-CoV-2 virus within three hours and 99.99% within six hours, according to a study published Nov. 25 by a team of researchers at the University of Hong Kong. (Hong, 12/7)

CIDRAP: Hispanic Race, Diabetes, Poverty Tied To Higher Rates TB Plus COVID-19
Tuberculosis (TB) and COVID-19 were disproportionately diagnosed in close succession and more than twice as likely to lead to death among Californians who were Hispanic, had diabetes, or lived in areas of low health equity than those diagnosed as having TB before the pandemic, finds a study published late last week in JAMA Network Open. Researchers from California public health departments and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) examined state health surveillance records for residents diagnosed as having TB from Sep 3, 2019, to Dec 31, 2020, and COVID-19 up to Feb 2, 2021, and compared them with those diagnosed as having TB from Jan 1, 2017, to Dec 31, 2019, or COVID-19 alone until Feb 2, 2021. (12/6)

KHN: Data Science Proved What Pittsburgh’s Black Leaders Knew: Racial Disparities Compound Covid Risk
The ferocity of the covid-19 pandemic did what Black Pittsburgh — communities that make up a quarter of the city’s population — thought impossible. It shook the norms. Black researchers, medical professionals and allies knew that people of color, even before covid, experienced bias in public health policy. As the deadly virus emerged, data analysts from Carnegie Mellon and the University of Pittsburgh, foundation directors, epidemiologists and others pooled their talents to configure databases from unwieldy state data to chart covid cases. (Spolar, 12/7)