Editor’s Note: Find the latest COVID-19 news and guidance on Medscape’s Coronavirus Resource Center.
Here are the coronavirus stories that Medscape editors around the world think you need to know today:
Antibodies drop rapidly
Antibody levels in patients with mild COVID-19, the disease level that most people have, appear to drop by half in 36 days, new research suggests.
The results, published online in a letter to the editor of The New England Journal of Medicine“Put firm numbers on the drop in antibodies after an early infection,” said study author Otto Yang, MD, a professor of medicine at the University of California, Los Angeles. Medscape Medical News.
The rapidity of antibody drop at 5 weeks “is surprising compared to other infections,” he said.
Although the interpretation of the data comes with some caveats, the study indicates that “there is no reason for someone to be medically tested for antibodies at this time,” Yang said.
Using UV light to combat the spread of disease
A centuries-old approach to fending off infectious diseases involves the use of ultraviolet light, known as germicidal UV, administered in the correct dose to kill viruses, bacteria, and other microorganisms. “Although not perfect, it probably offers the best solution for direct air disinfection” in the current pandemic, said David Sliney, a Johns Hopkins University faculty member and longtime researcher on germicidal UV radiation. Kaiser Health News.
Research shows that about 90% of the particles in the air from a previous coronavirus (SARS-CoV-1) can be inactivated in about 16 seconds when exposed to a certain UV intensity. Other viruses, such as adenovirus, require a higher dose of UV.
However, UV rays can only go so far to prevent infection. People can still get sick from the larger, heavier drops expelled from coughs and sneezes, for example.
COVID-19 Extended Expansion Test Capability
Coronavirus may be spreading faster in the United States than laboratories can analyze it.
That, in turn, leads to a slower response time for results, which can hinder contact tracking efforts. States frustrated by the increasing response times of private laboratories for COVID-19 test results are struggling to find ways to salvage their testing programs, Kaiser Health News reports.
One company, LabCorp, is processing around 165,000 COVID-19 tests per day, compared to 20,000 per day in late March, and averaging 3-5 days to return the results to someone who is not in the hospital.
“We continue to increase capacity every week,” said Adam Schechter, CEO of LabCorp, on CNBC. Closing bell. “The problem is that the number of tests that are requested to be done each week is growing faster than the capacity we can develop.”
A 2-3 day response time is required to effectively trace and trace contacts and inform individuals that they may have been exposed to the coronavirus.
To that end, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) aims to facilitate COVID-19 tests that will cover 2% of the US population, about 6 million people each day, in December. That test rate would be eight to 10 times higher than the current daily rate, NIH Director Francis Collins, MD, and colleagues write in an article published online in the New England Journal of Medicine.
CDC: Infection Rates Probably Higher Than Reported
Between the end of March and mid-May, up to 10 times more coronavirus infections are likely to occur than the number of cases that have been reported, according to a new study by the Centers for Disease Control and Response Team COVID-19 Disease Prevention.
The researchers studied blood samples from more than 16,000 people at 10 locations: San Francisco, Connecticut, South Florida, Louisiana, Minneapolis-St. Paul-St. Cloud, Missouri, New York, Philadelphia, Utah, and Western Washington. They estimated that the number of infections ranged from 6 to 24 times the number of reported cases.
“More than 10 times as many SARS-CoV-2 infections are likely to occur than the number of reported cases of COVID-19; however, most people at each site probably did not have detectable SARS-CoV-2 antibodies “the authors reported in JAMA Internal Medicine.
No virus found in patients’ injured kidneys
Although acute kidney injury is seen in a substantial minority of patients with severe COVID-19, no evidence of the presence of SARS-CoV-2 was found in kidney biopsies of a small series of such patients, according to the researchers.
“Kidney injury occurs in more than a third of patients hospitalized with COVID-19, and several catalysts have been postulated,” said Purva Sharma, MD. Reuters Health News . “Our kidney biopsy research shows that COVID-19 virus kidney injury occurs due to complications of the disease and is not due to direct viral kidney infection.”
Sharma, from the Zucker School of Medicine in Hofstra / Northwell, Great Neck, New York, and colleagues performed kidney biopsies of 10 patients (mean age, 65 years) with clinical characteristics of acute kidney injury. Most had a history of type 2 diabetes or hypertension, or both.
“Direct viral infection is not the main cause of acute kidney injury in our patients with active COVID-19,” the researchers reported in the Journal of the American Society of Nephrology.
Don’t wait for the first vaccines until 2021
The researchers are making “good progress” in developing COVID-19 vaccines, with a handful in phase 3 trials, but their first use cannot be expected until early 2021, said an expert from the World Organization for the Health.
The WHO is working to ensure an equitable distribution of the vaccines, but in the meantime it is key to suppressing the spread of the virus, said Mike Ryan, head of the WHO’s emergency program.
“Realistically, it will be the first part of next year before we start to see people get vaccinated,” he said during a public event on social media.
In Memory
As front-line healthcare workers care for patients with COVID-19, they commit to doing difficult and strenuous work and are also at risk of infection. More than 1800 worldwide have died.
Medscape has released a commemorative list to commemorate them. We will continue to update this list as necessary. Please help us ensure this list is complete by submitting names with an age, profession or specialty and location using this form.
If you want to share other experiences, stories or concerns related to the pandemic, join the conversation here.
Jake Remaly is a journalist at Medscape Medical News and MDedge. He has covered healthcare and medicine for over 5 years. He can be contacted at [email protected].
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