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"The harsh reality is that many patients
continue to experience lingering symptoms for weeks and months after being
diagnosed with and 'recovering' from COVID-19,"
Dr. Robert Glatter is an emergency
medicine physician at Lenox Hill Hospital in New York City, the early epicenter
of the U.S. pandemic.
U.S. sets record for new COVID cases third day in a row at nearly 69,000
July 10, 2020 / 7:33 PM
A total of
eight U.S. states - Alaska, Georgia, Idaho, Louisiana, Montana, Ohio, Utah and
Wisconsin - also reached records for single-day infections.
In Texas,
another hot zone, Governor Greg Abbott warned on Friday he may have to impose
new clampdowns if the state cannot stem its record-setting caseloads and
hospitalizations through masks and social distancing.
“If we don’t adopt this best practice it could lead to a shutdown of business,” the Republican governor told local KLBK-TV in Lubbock, adding it was the last thing he wanted.
California announced on Friday the state will release up to 8,000 inmates early from prisons to slow the spread of COVID-19 inside the facilities. At San Quentin State Prison, outside San Francisco, half of the facility’s roughly 3,300 prisoners have tested positive for the virus.
The Walt Disney Co. (DIS.N) said the theme parks in Orlando would open on Saturday to a limited number of guests who along with employees would be required to wear masks and undergo temperature checks. The park also cancelled parades, firework displays and events that typically draw crowds.
---- Roughly 19,000 people, including some theme park workers, have signed a petition asking Disney to delay the reopening. The union representing 750 Walt Disney World performers has filed a grievance against the company, claiming retaliation against members over a union demand that they be tested for COVID-19.
Other theme
parks opened in Orlando in June, including Comcast Corp’s Universal Studios
Orlando and SeaWorld Entertainment Inc’s SeaWorld.
Florida
remains one of the worst hotspots for the virus in the nation and is among a
handful of states where deaths are rising, based on a Reuters analysis of
fatalities in the last two weeks, compared with the prior two weeks.
---- This
month, Florida has repeatedly reported more new daily coronavirus cases than
any European country had at the height of their outbreaks. Florida Governor Ron
DeSantis, a Republican, angered some residents and medical experts by calling
the spike a “blip.”
On
Friday, DeSantis said that the state would receive more than 17,000 vials of
the antiviral drug remdesivir from the U.S. government, adding: “That’ll be
something that will hopefully help to improve patient outcomes.”
Gov. Greg Abbott warns if spread of COVID-19 doesn’t slow, “the next step would have to be a lockdown”
Abbott has repeated that
warning multiple times in local television interviews this week.
With Texas continuing to break records for new coronavirus deaths and hospitalizations this week, Gov. Greg Abbott reiterated Friday afternoon that things will continue to get worse. And if people keep flouting his new statewide mask mandate, he said, the next step could be another economic lockdown.
“Things will get worse, and let me explain why,” he told KLBK TV in Lubbock. “The deaths that we’re seeing announced today and yesterday — which are now over 100 — those are people who likely contracted COVID-19 in late May.
“The worst is yet to come as we work our way through that massive increase in people testing positive.”
Texans will also likely see an increase in cases next week, Abbott said, and people abiding by his face mask requirement might be the only thing standing between businesses remaining open and another shutdown.
“The public needs to understand this was a very tough decision for me to make,” Abbott told KLBK of his face mask mandate. “I made clear that I made this tough decision for one reason: It was our last best effort to slow the spread of COVID-19. If we do not slow the spread of COVID-19 … the next step would have to be a lockdown.”
Abbott has pushed that message repeatedly in television interviews this week. But he emphasized Friday that another shutdown was not imminent and he pointed to steps he has taken so far to scale back reopening in an effort to curb the spread of the coronavirus, including the mask order and a requirement that bars, once again, close their doors. He has also tightened restaurant capacity limits.
Texas reported 100 more coronavirus deaths on Thursday, another record.
COVID-19 symptoms persist for weeks after hospital discharge for most survivors
July 10, 2020 / 2:31 PM
Even a month after hospital discharge and
"recovery," a majority of patients who had survived severe COVID-19 were
still dealing with fatigue, shortness of breath and other symptoms, Italian
research shows.The study tracked outcomes for 143 hospitalized patients treated in April in Rome, at the height of the Italian COVID-19 pandemic.
They'd spent
an average of about two weeks under hospital care, and one-fifth had required
some form of respiratory support, said a team led by Dr. Angelo Carfi, of the
Policlinic Foundation University Agostino Gemelli, in Rome.
Assessed an
average of five weeks after discharge, few of these survivors could say that
their lives and health had returned to normal. In fact, "87.4 percent
reported persistence of at least one symptom," most typically fatigue (53
percent of patients) or a troubling shortness of breath (43 percent).
UK economy to slump over 10%, debts to surge: Moody's
July 10, 2020 / 10:20 AM
Moody’s said
the UK government’s latest 30 billion pound ($37.9 billion) stimulus package,
announced this week, would aid a gradual economic recovery but add further
pressure to the UK’s fiscal position.
“The UK’s
public debt ratio will likely rise by 24 percentage points of GDP or more
relative to 2019 levels,” a group of Moody’s analysts wrote in a note, taking
the debt to 109% of GDP this year.
“We forecast
a contraction of 10.1% in the UK’s GDP for this year, but expect a gradual
subsequent recovery on the back of the easing in lockdown measures, with growth
rebounding to 7.1% next year.”
Moody’s
rates Britain Aa2 with a negative outlook following a series of cuts since the
country voted to leave the European Union in mid-2016.
Later on
Friday, Fitch, another ratings agency, said it now expected Britain’s economy
to shrink by 9% this year, a bigger hit than its previous projection of a 7.8%
contraction, and the budget deficit would leap to as much as 17% of economic
output.
Fitch said
the government’s 30 billion pound stimulus package would probably only cost 21
billion pounds - largely because millions of furloughed workers were likely to
be sacked later this year, rather than their employers taking a 1,000 pound
government grant to reinstate them.
“The Virus Must Be Contained Before the Economy Can Recover”
In an interview, Clemens Fuest, one of
Germany’s top economists, discusses the impact of the coronavirus on
governments and business. He says bankruptcies are inevitable and that the
effects of the crisis will be with us for a long time to come.
Interview Conducted by Martin Hesse und Michael Sauga
DER SPIEGEL: Mr. Fuest, in recent
months, the state has intervened in everyday life and in the economy in an
unprecedented way - with rules on the public’s behavior, economic stimulus
programs and subsidies. Was it all necessary?
Fuest: By and large, the government has
acted correctly, both in the fight against the coronavirus and in terms of
economic policy. In a crisis like this, the markets don’t function properly, so
the state should intervene. However, it is equally important that politicians
find a way out of the emergency measures once the acute crisis passes. We have
to be careful and make sure that we do not fall into a state-controlled
economy.
DER SPIEGEL:
Do you see
that danger?
Fuest: Yes. I think there is too much talk
about public spending and too little about the necessary freedom for the
private sector. Our prosperity isn’t generated by the state, but by
entrepreneurs and workers. Things won’t be as smooth this time as they were
after the financial crisis, when the economy quickly regained momentum.
DER SPIEGEL:
When the
virus began spreading, the government froze large parts of the economy. Was the
lockdown excessive?
Fuest: No. Experience from previous
pandemics like the Spanish flu suggest that the economic damage will be smaller
if the disease is fought with determination. As long as the spread of the virus
continues, people reduce their economic activities on their own. They consume
and produce less because they are afraid of infection. The virus must be
contained before the economy can recover. The contradiction between health and
economic interests, which has been frequently discussed in the corona crisis,
doesn’t really exist.
DER SPIEGEL:
Nevertheless,
many companies have accumulated gigantic losses and now have to be rescued by
the state, through loans or direct equity investments. Are we facing a kind of
corona socialism?
Fuest: I hope not. It may be right for the
state to take a stake in certain companies to save them from bankruptcy. But
the government should then also impose conditions - that companies temporarily
can’t pay out dividends, for example. It would be wrong for the state to
interfere in operational business.
More
What's in a name? Banks count cost of loans in NMC collapse
July 10, 2020 / 7:11 AM
The loans
were granted on the strength of Shetty’s reputation as a billionaire and his
businesses, in particular, NMC Health, the Middle East-focused hospital group
he made his fortune from, according to court filings.
Borrowing on
the basis of reputation, known as “name lending”, and taking on a large
exposure to one person or entity is not unusual in the Gulf region despite
previous episodes going badly wrong, bankers and analysts told Reuters.
Shetty, an
Abu Dhabi-based Indian entrepreneur, was feted as the Gulf’s ultimate immigrant
success story and NMC Health, the United Arab Emirates’ largest private
hospital group, borrowed without having to provide collateral from dozens of
banks either headquartered or with bases in the region.
NMC’s
implosion this year amid allegations of fraud and the disclosure of more than
$4 billion in hidden debts has left some UAE banks and overseas lenders nursing
heavy losses and prompted legal battles to try and recover money owed.
---- UK’s Financial Conduct Authority told NMC in late February that it has commenced a formal enforcement investigation against the company, formerly a member of Britain’s prestigious FTSE 100 index, while the UK’s accounting regulator has opened an investigation into EY’s audit of NMC Health.
EY has said
it will cooperate with the review and declined further comment.
NMC’s
financial irregularities came to light when short-seller Muddy Waters
questioned its financial statement late last year. NMC initially said that
Muddy Waters’ report was “false and misleading”.
“We thought
they understated their debt by at least several hundred million dollars, and
that cash balances were overstated. But 4 billion dollars of undisclosed debt,
nobody can find a rug big enough to cover that up, and that’s why it went the
way it went,” said Muddy Waters’ founder Carson Block.
“Catch and Kill” Air Filter Kills Coronavirus
A research team at the University of Houston (UH) collaborated with their colleagues to
design a “catch and kill” air filter that has the ability to trap the virus
that causes COVID-19 and kills it immediately.
Zhifeng Ren,
who is the director of the Texas Center for Superconductivity at UH, worked
with Monzer Hourani, CEO of Medistar—a Houston-based medical real estate
development firm—and other scientists to develop the filter, which has been
reported in a paper recently published in Materials Today Physics.
According to
the team, virus tests carried out at the Galveston National Laboratory
identified 99.8% of the novel SARS-CoV-2, the virus that is responsible for
causing COVID-19, was destroyed in a single pass via a filter created from
commercially available nickel foam that was heated to 200 °C, or around 392 °F.
It also
killed 99.9% of the anthrax spores during tests performed at the national lab,
which is operated by the University of Texas Medical Branch.
This filter
could be useful in airports and in airplanes, in office buildings, schools and
cruise ships to stop the spread of COVID-19. Its ability to help control the spread of the
virus could be very useful for society.
Zhifeng Ren, MD, Study Co-Corresponding Author and
Anderson Chair Professor of Physics, University of Houston
According to Ren, the executives of
Medistar are also developing a desktop model that can purify the air in an
office worker’s closest surroundings.
The team was
aware of the fact that the virus can stay in the air for around three hours,
implying a filter that could eliminate it rapidly was a practical plan. Since
the businesses are about to reopen, it was crucial to control the spread of the
virus in air-conditioned spaces.
Furthermore,
Medistar knew the virus is not capable of surviving temperatures above 70 °C,
and around 158 °F. Therefore, the team decided to use a heated filter.
Since the filter temperature was far hotter—around 200 °C—they could kill
the virus almost immediately.
Ren
recommended the use of nickel foam as it satisfied various essential needs: it
is flexible, enables airflow, and is porous and electrically
conductive, making it easy to heat.
However,
nickel foam has low resistivity, making it harder to increase it to a
sufficient temperature that would rapidly kill the virus. The team resolved
that issue by folding the foam and linking several compartments with electrical
wires to raise the resistance and increase the temperature to as high as
250 °C.
More
Research is coalescing around the idea that coronavirus antibodies may last just a few months
awoodward@businessinsider.com (Aylin
Woodward)
July 9, 2020
·
We don't know how long coronavirus antibodies last.
·
Recent research from Spain
suggests they may disappear in some patients in a matter of weeks.
·
Other studies suggest antibodies
last a few months.
·
Here's what we do know so far
about the life span of coronavirus antibodies and what it means for immunity and potential vaccines.
Among the many lingering questions about the coronavirus, one of the most crucial is: How long do antibodies last?
With some diseases, like measles and hepatitis A, infection is a one-and-done deal. Once you get sick and recover, you're immune for life.
"For human coronaviruses, that's not the case," Florian Krammer, a vaccinologist at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, told Business Insider. "You can get repeatedly infected once your immunity goes down."
Increasingly, research is starting to coalesce around an unfortunate picture of COVID-19 immunity: People who develop antibodies might not keep them for very long.
Last month, a study showed that antibodies may last only two to three months. Then research published Monday suggested that antibodies could last only three to five weeks in some patients.
Such findings have implications for vaccine development, since the efficacy of a vaccine hinges on the idea that a dose of weakened or dead virus can prompt your body to generate antibodies that protect you from future infection. If those antibodies are fleeting, a vaccine's protection would be fleeting too.
Short-lived antibodies also diminish hopes of achieving widespread or permanent herd immunity.
In the
great Covid -19 drug fight, who are you going to believe? Self serving statements
from Gilead promoting remdesivir, or peer revived research from the Henry Ford
Healthcare System in Detroit? Remdesivir is supposedly going to cost 4,200 a
dose.
Hydroxychloroquine costs a little over a
dollar a pill. Money wouldn’t be behind the relentless attack on hydroxychloroquine
would it?
Gilead says remdesivir reduced risk of death in COVID-19 patients, more studies needed
July 10, 2020 / 1:56 PM
(Reuters) - Gilead Sciences Inc (GILD.O)
said on Friday additional data from a late-stage study showed its antiviral
remdesivir reduced the risk of death and significantly improved the conditions
of severely ill COVID-19 patients.
The company,
which had initially released the data from the trial in April, said the finding
requires confirmation in clinical trials.
Remdesivir
has been at the forefront of the battle against COVID-19 after the
intravenously administered medicine helped shorten hospital recovery times in a
clinical trial.
Several
countries have approved the use of the treatment in severe patients but there
are concerns over supply of the drug, which is also being tested as an inhaled
version.
Gilead said
it analyzed data from 312 patients treated in a late-stage study and a separate
real-world retrospective cohort of 818 patients with similar characteristics
and disease severity as in the study.
---- Dr. Susan Olender from Columbia
University Irving Medical Center said in the Gilead statement that the analysis
draws from a real-world setting and serves as an important adjunct to clinical
trial data even as it is not as vigorous as a randomized controlled trial.
---- Gilead also said the rates and likelihood of recovery were lower in patients who received hydroxychloroquine as well as remdesivir compared with patients treated with remdesivir who did not receive hydroxychloroquine.
Gilead’s
shares rose 2% to $76.21 in early trading.
Treatment with Hydroxychloroquine Cut Death Rate Significantly in COVID-19 Patients, Henry Ford Health System Study Shows
July 02, 2020
DETROIT –
Treatment with hydroxychloroquine cut the death rate significantly in sick
patients hospitalized with COVID-19 – and without heart-related side-effects,
according to a new
study published by Henry Ford Health
System. In a large-scale retrospective analysis of 2,541 patients hospitalized between March 10 and May 2, 2020 across the system’s six hospitals, the study found 13% of those treated with hydroxychloroquine alone died compared to 26.4% not treated with hydroxychloroquine. None of the patients had documented serious heart abnormalities; however, patients were monitored for a heart condition routinely pointed to as a reason to avoid the drug as a treatment for COVID-19.
The study was published today in the International Journal of Infectious Diseases, the peer-reviewed, open-access online publication of the International Society of Infectious Diseases (ISID.org).
Patients treated with hydroxychloroquine at Henry Ford met specific protocol criteria as outlined by the hospital system’s Division of Infectious Diseases. The vast majority received the drug soon after admission; 82% within 24 hours and 91% within 48 hours of admission. All patients in the study were 18 or over with a median age of 64 years; 51% were men and 56% African American.
“The findings have been highly analyzed and peer-reviewed,” said Dr. Marcus Zervos, division head of Infectious Disease for Henry Ford Health System, who co-authored the study with Henry Ford epidemiologist Samia Arshad. “We attribute our findings that differ from other studies to early treatment, and part of a combination of interventions that were done in supportive care of patients, including careful cardiac monitoring. Our dosing also differed from other studies not showing a benefit of the drug. And other studies are either not peer reviewed, have limited numbers of patients, different patient populations or other differences from our patients.”
Zervos said the potential for a surge in the fall or sooner, and infections continuing worldwide, show an urgency to identifying inexpensive and effective therapies and preventions.
“We’re glad to add to the scientific knowledge base on the role and how best to use therapies as we work around the world to provide insight,” he said. “Considered in the context of current studies on the use of hydroxychloroquine for COVID-19, our results suggest that the drug may have an important role to play in reducing COVID-19 mortality.”
----“Our analysis shows that using hydroxychloroquine helped saves lives,” said neurosurgeon Dr. Steven Kalkanis, CEO, Henry Ford Medical Group and Senior Vice President and Chief Academic Officer of Henry Ford Health System. “As doctors and scientists, we look to the data for insight. And the data here is clear that there was benefit to using the drug as a treatment for sick, hospitalized patients.”
More
Some useful Covid links.
Johns Hopkins Coronavirus
resource centre
Rt Covid-19
Covid19info.live
Heinichen Dresden Concerto in F Seibel 233
The Monthly Coppock Indicators finished June
DJIA: 25,813 -2 Down. NASDAQ: 10,059 +196
Up. SP500: 3,100 +75 Down.
The NASDAQ has remained up. The S&P and the DJIA still remain down
despite the best efforts of the Fed to get them to go higher. The Dow has now
gone negative.
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