Category: Corona Virus

Customers at this take-out window in Miami on March 20 were not practicing social distancing. Scott McIntyre/Bloomberg via Getty Images hide caption

Customers at this take-out window in Miami on March 20 were not practicing social distancing.

Within the past few weeks, the COVID-19 pandemic has derailed my plans and expectations for my first year of medical school. It has canceled trips and internships. It has moved classes and social interactions online, dissolving my community as I knew it.

As a healthy, 20-something, I know that if I contract COVID-19, I am less likely to die than older adults like my parents or those with preexisting conditions.

So why should teens and 20-somethings give up hanging out with friends? Why should we let a virus dictate our lives?

That kind of cavalier attitude is present among young people. My newsfeed has been rife with reports of young people at California beaches before widespread beach closures, and at neighborhood brunches and even "coronavirus parties" held in defiance of the guidelines for social distancing.

On a personal level, I know that some of my acquaintances still travel, passing through multiple airports on a pleasure trip. Others host gatherings or attend wine parties in each other's homes with an open invitation to all who can come.

Yet my social media is also filled with powerful calls to stay home and, if you must go out, to physically distance yourself from others.

Even young people with good intentions could be contributing to the spread of the virus. I know of people seeing different friends each day in small gatherings. They may figure there's no harm in an intimate get-together, but this practice is risky. All it takes is one unsuspecting person who's infected for spread to occur. From there, contagion is exponential.

I believe young people can change the course of the pandemic. We can try to forget about the pandemic and live as if we're in the relatively carefree past.

Or we can act as role models, leading the charge in supporting public health measures and act as role models.

Assuredly, everyone has an obligation to physically distance. I think, however, young people have a unique obligation in minimizing the spread of coronavirus.

Some of us are understandably hesitant to accept the challenges of social distancing measures. As a friend suggested, we are trying to salvage our lives during a pandemic that has canceled everything. We've lost our semester of campus life and milestones like graduation. We've given up our spring breaks and have no idea about summer. So we may feel like victims of these unfortunate times.

I do not believe that it is a useful way to view this new reality. Unquestionably, we have all lost something. But we stand to lose something much greater if we do not do our part in mitigating the pandemic.

First of all, our own health is at risk. Even though the danger of COVID-19 may be greater for older generations, many of us are becoming infected. Whether we get sick or remain asymptomatic, we are spreading the virus and contributing to a possible collapse of health-care systems. And some young patients are dying.

We also risk our moral character in how we chose to respond to the pandemic.

In the months I have been in medical school, I have had the privilege of learning about a profession at the front lines of this pandemic and the values and virtues embodied by health workers. Two fundamental virtues benevolence and justice can be embodied by us all.

How can our actions during this pandemic attest to our moral character? Social distancing is benevolent because it will benefit others and prevent avoidable harm. Fulfilling the needs of the elderly and those isolated people who are immunocompromised, undocumented or underinsured is just. And, what underlies these virtues is our shared responsibility in this public health emergency: to put the needs of others before our own.

I'd like to appeal to my peers: If there has ever been a time for altruism, for self-sacrifice, this is it. Our communities and countries need us in overcoming one of the biggest crises of our lives. This is an opportunity for us to rise to the occasion and lead the charge through small ways with a significant impact.

For the goal of flattening the curve preventing deaths and a health-care system collapse from a crush of patients we must physically distance ourselves. We need to limit our in-person contacts and instead log into quarantine apps to connect with friends or loved ones. We should follow public health guidelines because the data show it will reduce deaths and prevent us from getting sick.

If we expect health-care workers to help the sick and be at risk, then we should be prepared to do our part. Beyond just staying home, we can also join efforts to build solidarity from afar. Right now, some of our peers are calling those isolated, donating what they can or fundraising for non-profits that serve as social safety nets. What we do now is critical not only to our country and the lives of others but to our moral character as well.

Amal Cheema is an M.D. candidate at the Geisel School of Medicine, Dartmouth College, class of 2023.

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Opinion: Young People Can Lead the Charge in the War Against Coronavirus : Goats and Soda - NPR

When historiansmarkthe start of this nation's coronavirus nightmare, theywill cite Jan. 21, 2020, the date a Washington state man in his 30s who had visited Wuhan, China, was confirmed as the United States'first COVID-19 case.

Since then, this global crisis has mushroomed into a national defining moment with as yet untallied cultural and economic repercussions. No one questions whether we will be talking about this for generations.If there is debate, it is over the proper historical comparison.

Is this likethe 2008 financial crisis, 9/11, World War II? Or perhaps, as someeconomists predict and news that 3.3 million people applied for unemployment last week suggests,will this be remembered as a periodof deep loss and poverty, something likethe grim 1930swhen unemployment hit 25%.

This will be very economically disruptive and an analogy to the Great Depression is the closest to what we may face, says Stanford University economics professor Matthew Jackson. These huge events can have profound changes on the views and beliefs people have.

That we are in for difficult months and perhaps years ahead seems commonly accepted, as virus deaths mount, hospitals are overwhelmedand a decimated service-based economy spursa $2.2 trillion wartime-scale bailout package in Washington, D.C.

But if there is cause for optimism in these bleak times, historians, economists and writers say, it is born out of the fact that we as a nation can choose to seize this moment to create an even greater society better poised to protect its citizens from future crises.

In this Nov. 24, 1933 file photo, unemployed men wait outside the State Labor Bureau in New York. The epic hardship of the 1930s is the best-known depression in American history, and some economists are concerned the repercussions of the COVID-19 crisis could send the U.S. reeling back to those difficult times.(Photo: AP)

There are precedents for bold responses to watershed American events.

The Depression gave rise to the Social Security Act, which promised citizens financial safety in their later years. World War II drew women into the workforce and minorities into the military, leading to the equal and civil rights movements. And the 2008 financial meltdown gave rise to banking regulations and renewed scrutiny of illicit financial tools.

The possible positive national reactions to the COVID-19 crisis which as of this writinghas infected more than 120,000 Americans and killed more than 2,000, out of a global tally of 680,000 sickened and more than 30,000 dead are myriad.

They could include a renewed appreciation of governments role in grappling with unprecedented crises, a remaking of manufacturing pipelines so they rely less on foreign suppliers,and a rekindled appreciation for friends and neighbors, experts say.

As tough as things look now, I do see us possibly demonstrating a sense that were all in this together, says Joseph Margulies,a law professor at Cornell University in New York and author of What Changed When Everything Changed: 9/11 and the Making of National Identity.

Margulies notes that in contrast to WWII, when Japanese-Americans were rounded up and interned, and the Red Scare, when those suspected ofCommunist leanings wereblacklisted, this debacle has governors from New York to California saying the same thing,'stay home,' and they mean everyone, not one group.

At the moment, most cultural observers note that the sharp political divide that existed before the virus arrived still persists.

Thats evident in everything from the squabbles that erupted as Congress debated the size and scope of the bailout, to the ongoing tension between President Donald Trumps desire to see the nation re-open for business next month and a range of health officials countering that the worst is yet to come if life is allowed to resume prematurely.

A mask-wearing man in the Philippines walks by an iconic poster from WWII America that depicts Rosie the Riveter, a fictional factory worker meant to inspired Americans of both sexes to pitch in to the war effort during the 1940s. Our coronavirus crisis could inspire the same kind of unified national effort at recovering from the epidemic, historians say.(Photo: Aaron Favila, AP)

But some semblance of a unified national direction will be critical to rebounding from this historic moment, given the as yet unknown shifts inthe way we shop, work, travel and learn, says Matthew Continetti, resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank.

Clearly, the cost of the virus in lives and resources will pale in comparison to the way life may change for us all, he says.Just like terrorism before it, this pandemic may present real challenges to civil liberties that well have to grapple with.

Continetti points out that at the core of the American ethos is freedom, which also can translate into a rejection of government-issued rules meant to ensure public safety. That could create problems if, say, the government were to echo moves by some Asians nations and track virus carriers via their cell phones and closed-circuit TV cameras.

I dont think most Americans are ready to embrace that, he says.

The coronavirus has robbed us all: Let yourself mourn the loss, experts say.

As this COVID-19 emergency eventually turns into a state of persistent vigilance, what could be on the horizon for us is in fact is a difficult push and pull. On the one side, a desire to return to our pre-virus lives at all costs; on the other, an acknowledgement thatnothing will evertruly be the same.

Continetti says what is coming next will represent a true paradigm shift, one in which a society long driven by the pursuit of happiness at all costs may have to rearrange its social and moral priorities.

Its a noble and frightening future were facing, he says. But it may also give us a newfound sense of national solidarity.

Volunteer Art Ponce is handed a box of sterile swabs and gloves from a donor at a Sacramento County collection site in Sacramento, California this week. The state was among the first to declare local and state-wide self-quarantining for residents in an effort to stem the tide of COVID-19 cases.(Photo: Rich Pedroncelli, AP)

A few things should happen rather quickly as a result of this seminal moment in our history, one that undeniably has parallels to the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918, says Rice University historian Douglas Brinkley.

Among them are a renewed appreciation for science, a rekindled admiration for doctors, and a funding bonanza for government health institutions such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a once mighty and now underfunded institution that by most accounts has been caught flat-footed by this pandemic.

In U.S. history, whatever rises to a level of national concern gets funding, and health should rise sky high, says Brinkley, noting that, in contrast, the impact of 9/11 was felt mostly in the northeast and Hurricane Katrina in the Deep South. Coronavirus is touching everyone, so what officials wont want to be prepared for the next outbreak?

Brinkley, who is working on a book about the environmental movement of the 1960s and 70s, is hopeful that another reaction to this historical turning point will be a more urgent focus on curbing climate change.

Many scientists believe that new viruses are bound to spread as global temperature rises lead to the migration of animals. There are suspicions COVID-19 may have jumped species from pangolins, an exotic scale-covered mammal that is illegally hunted in parts of Asia.

You cant wipe out rain forests in Brazil and not expect to have a health care payback,says Brinkley.

When will coronavirus end?What wartime and human kindness can tell us about what happens next

Another sober realization bound to hit Americans across the economic spectrum is how globally interconnected the economies of all nations have become.

That phone youre holding or the car youre driving may be designed or built in the U.S., but countless such products invariably have many parts made in countries whose manufacturing plants are now at risk as employees get sick as governments order shutdowns.

The virus will end, well have a vaccine in 12 to 18 months, but what will the world economy look like after 12 to 18 months of stagnation, let alone if the virus comes back, says Jerald Combs, professor emeritus of history at San Francisco State University and author of The History of American Foreign Policy from 1895.

Combs says that as the virus impacts supplier countries such as India and China, U.S. manufacturing ultimately will have to find new ways to make products or face economic hardships. Such adjustments could be required of American companies for years, given it remains unknown whether the current viral threat is an aberration ora preview of whats to come.

World War II had a huge impact on American society in so many ways, but they had one advantage over what were dealing with, says Combs. They knew at some point the war would end. We, on the other hand, are still not sure.

A tourist wears a mask to help avoid getting coronavirus as she stands next to the statue of former British Prime Minister Winston Churchill in Parliament Square in London, where Prime Minister Boris Johnson recently announced he has tested positive for COVID-19.(Photo: Matt Dunham, AP)

To get a sense of just how much this Defining Moment has us concerned, consider that author Erik Larson has received what he calls a surprising amount of messages from readers who have found a sense of solace in the pages of his new book, The Splendid and the Vile, which chronicles how Winston Churchill successfully led British resistance to the relentless Nazi onslaught of 1940.

People must simply be getting lost in a time when you had this catastrophic threat to a nation and a charismatic leader pulling them through it, says Larson. Theres this heroic clarity to that time, Churchill defying Hitler and rallying the public saying were all in this together. I guess maybe people would like that now.

After years of research that brought him close to heart and mind of the legendary British prime minister, Larson is convinced Churchills message today for any nation facing the defining challenge that is the coronavirus threat would be inspirationally simple.

Says Larson: Hed have been quick to say that this is not the apocalypse, all our institutions will survive, our world will endure, and we will go forth when this is over.

Follow USA TODAY national correspondent Marco della Cava: @marcodellacava

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Life may change for us all: How we respond to the coronavirus crisis will reshape US history - USA TODAY

An epidemiologist answers the biggest questions she's getting about coronavirus. Wochit

Just one day after the U.S. surpassed100,000 confirmed coronavirus cases, the nation witnessed another grim figure: More than 2,000 COVID-19 patients have died.

Testing continues to expand across the nation, and the U.S. is seeing daily spikes in the number of reported cases. Nearly 500 coronavirus-related deaths were reported Saturday, up from 1,544 confirmed deaths24 hours earlier,according toJohns Hopkins University's data dashboard.

The death toll was 2,010 Saturday shortly after 6 p.m. ET. That number is expected to rise steadily in the coming days and weeks, and health officials say the number of cases is likely higher due to lack of testing. Nearly 18,000 new cases were reported on both Wednesday and Thursday, according to Johns Hopkins.

More than 120,000 cases have been reported in the U.S.

Cases have been reported in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, Guam and the U.S. Virgin Islands. New York has reported the most deaths, followed by Washington, New York and Louisiana, according to Johns Hopkins.

The basics on the coronavirus: What you need to know

Health care facilities are stretched thin, and states and cities across the country have instituted shelter-in-place and stay-at-home orders in an effort to curb the spread of COVID-19.

Around the globe, more than 30,000 people have died, and more than 657,000 have been confirmed to have COVID-19. More than 200 countries, areas and territories have reported cases, according to the World Health Organization.

Follow Grace Hauck on Twitter @grace_hauck.

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More than 2,000 coronavirus patients have died in US - USA TODAY

First and foremost: Early and persistent testing helps. And so does tracking people.

Take the countrys first recorded case. On Jan. 28, a man in Bavaria who works for a car parts company that has two plants in Wuhan, China, was confirmed to have the virus. Within two days, the authorities identified the person who had infected the patient, tracked his contacts and quarantined them. The company stopped travel to China and shut down its plant in Bavaria. The outbreak several other employees tested positive was effectively contained. Across the country, the pattern was repeated. Local health departments and federal authorities worked together to test, track and quarantine exposed citizens.

Germany has also been better at protecting its older residents, who are at much greater risk. States banned visits to the elderly, and policymakers issued urgent warnings to limit contact with older people. Many seem to have quarantined themselves. The results are clear: Patients over the age of 80 make up around 3 percent of the infected, though they account for 7 percent of the population. The median age for those infected is estimated to be 46; in Italy, its 63.

And many more young people in Germany have tested positive for the virus than in other countries. In part, thats attributable to the countrys more extensive testing. But theres also an element of chance and culture. Germany is a skiing nation around 14.5 million Germans go skiing every year and the Austrian and northern Italian Alps are popular locations. This year, after vacationers traveled to one of the centers of the European outbreak, Tyrol, they seemed to bring back the virus with them and spread it.

Closer to home, theres carnival. One of the most substantial early outbreaks occurred at one of the centers of carnival, which involves parades and parties, popular with the young. Hundreds of cases seem to be traceable to a couple who took part in festivities in the town of Langbroich. Both skiing and carnival may have affected the low average age of the first wave of confirmed cases, said Karl Lauterbach, a physician and a member of the Bundestag.

Both early testing and incubation of the virus among the young go part of the way in explaining why the countrys fatality rate is so comparatively low. Its how much and whom we test, Martin Strmer, a virologist who is the director of a lab that is running coronavirus testing in Frankfurt, told me. In general, countries that test less and reserve it for those already very ill, like Italy, have higher fatality rates.

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Germany Has Relatively Few Deaths From Coronavirus. Why? - The New York Times

Newborns and babies have so far seemed to be largely unaffected by the coronavirus, but three new studies suggest that the virus may reach the fetus in utero.

Even in these studies, the newborns seemed only mildly affected, if at all which is reassuring, experts said. And the studies are small and inconclusive on whether the virus does truly breach the placenta.

I dont look at this and think coronaviruses must cross across the placenta, said Dr. Carolyn Coyne of the University of Pittsburgh, who studies the placenta as a barrier to viruses. She was not involved in the new work.

Still, the studies merit concern, she said, because if the virus does get through the placental barrier, it may pose a risk to the fetus earlier in gestation, when the fetal brain is most vulnerable.

Pregnant women are often more susceptible to respiratory infections such as influenza and to having more complications for themselves and their babies as a result. Its still unclear whether pregnant women are more likely to contract the new coronavirus, said Dr. Christina Chambers, a perinatal epidemiologist at the University of California in San Diego.

We dont have any knowledge of that at all that is a complete open question at this point, she said. Its also unclear what effect the virus has on the fetus, she added.

The placenta usually blocks harmful viruses and bacteria from reaching the fetus. And it allows in helpful antibodies from the mother that can keep the fetus safe from any germs, before and after birth.

Still, a few viruses do get through to the fetus and can wreak havoc. The most recent example is Zika, which can cause microcephaly and profound neurological damage, especially if contracted in the first and second trimesters.

Neither the new coronavirus, nor its more familiar cousins, has seemed to belong to this more dangerous category. If so, we would be seeing higher levels of miscarriage and preterm delivery, Dr. Coyne said.

A study of nine infants in Wuhan, China, published in March in The Lancet, also concluded that the new coronavirus did not seem to cross from mother to fetus.

But in two of the new studies, published yesterday in JAMA, doctors found antibodies in newborns that recognize the virus, suggesting that it does get through to the fetus.

Both studies found high levels of antibodies in the infants called immunoglobulin G, which are known to be ferried from mother to fetus through the placenta. But in three infants, the studies also found evidence of another type of antibody, called immunoglobulin M, that recognize the coronavirus. These antibodies are too large to move across the placenta.

In one of the studies, researchers found high IgM levels in an infant two hours after birth. IgM levels rise over days, so the finding argues against the newborn having been exposed to the virus during delivery.

The virus could potentially cross the placental barrier, maybe thats what were seeing, Dr. Coyne said.

A major shortcoming of the new studies, she said, is that the researchers did not test the placenta, cord blood or the amniotic fluid for the virus. Throat swabs of the newborns did not test positive for genetic material from the virus.

Their evidence for possible vertical transmission was still indirect, based on only serologic data, said Dr. Wei Zhang, an epidemiologist at Northwestern University who worked on the Lancet study. As such, he said, the data from the JAMA papers do not prove vertical transmission.

A third study, published yesterday in JAMA Pediatrics, also suggested the possibility of vertical transmission. In that study, three of 33 newborns born to women infected with the coronavirus showed mild signs of illness. The doctors said they could not rule out transfer of the virus from mother to fetus as the source.

Some answers may be forthcoming from studies now underway. Dr. Chambers said she and her colleagues have begun enrolling pregnant women with suspected or confirmed cases of coronavirus infection into a study that will track them through delivery and also follow their children up to 1 year of age. They also plan to test for the virus in breast milk.

Similar projects have also begun at the University of California, San Francisco, Harvard University and at the Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles.

Dr. Coyne said of the virus, Any damage that it would impart in utero may be difficult to know right now till we go through the full cycle of pregnancy and delivery.

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Shielding the Fetus From the Coronavirus - The New York Times

Where did the virus causing the current pandemic come from? How did it get to a food market in Wuhan, China, from where it is thought to have spilled over into humans? The answers to these questions are gradually being pieced together, and the story they tell makes for uncomfortable reading.

Lets start at the beginning. As of 17 March, we know that the Sars-CoV-2 virus (a member of the coronavirus family that causes the respiratory illness Covid-19) is the product of natural evolution. A study of its genetic sequence, conducted by infectious disease expert Kristian G Andersen of the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, California, and colleagues, rules out the possibility that it could have been manufactured in a lab or otherwise engineered. Puff go the conspiracy theories.

The next step is a little less certain, but it seems likely that the original animal reservoir for the virus was bats. Andersens team showed like the Chinese before them that the sequence of Sars-CoV-2 is similar to other coronaviruses that infect bats.

Since other bat coronaviruses have transited to humans via an intermediate animal host, it seems likely that this one did too. That animal was probably one that some Chinese people like to eat, and that is therefore sold in wet markets (those that sell fresh meat, fish, seafood and other produce). This animal may have been the scaly mammal called a pangolin. That cant be conclusively proved, but several groups have found sequence similarities between Sars-CoV-2 and other coronaviruses that infect pangolins.

If this is indeed the route the virus took to humans, it has two critical interfaces: one between us and the intermediate host, possibly a pangolin, and one between that host and bats. Most of the attention so far has been focused on the interface between humans and the intermediate host, with fingers of blame being pointed at Chinese wet markets and eating habits, but both interfaces were required for the pandemic to ignite. So where and how did the spillover from the bat to the pangolin or other wild or semi-wild intermediate host occur?

Our study does not directly shed light on the geographical origin of the virus, says Andersen. However, all the available evidence shows that it was inside China.

Case closed then, and President Trump is right to call Sars-CoV-2 the Chinese virus. Well, no, because if you want to understand why this pandemic happened now and not, say, 20 years ago since Chinese peoples taste for what we in the west consider exotic fare is not new you have to include a number of other factors. We can blame the object the virus, the cultural practice but causality extends out into the relationships between people and ecology, says evolutionary biologist Rob Wallace of the Agroecology and Rural Economics Research Corps in St Paul, Minnesota.

Starting in the 1990s, as part of its economic transformation, China ramped up its food production systems to industrial scale. One side effect of this, as anthropologists Lyle Fearnley and Christos Lynteris have documented, was that smallholding farmers were undercut and pushed out of the livestock industry. Searching for a new way to earn a living, some of them turned to farming wild species that had previously been eaten for subsistence only. Wild food was formalised as a sector, and was increasingly branded as a luxury product. But the smallholders werent only pushed out economically. As industrial farming concerns took up more and more land, these small-scale farmers were pushed out geographically too closer to uncultivable zones. Closer to the edge of the forest, that is, where bats and the viruses that infect them lurk. The density and frequency of contacts at that first interface increased, and hence, so did the risk of a spillover.

Its true, in other words, that an expanding human population pushing into previously undisturbed ecosystems has contributed to the increasing number of zoonoses human infections of animal origin in recent decades. That has been documented for Ebola and HIV, for example. But behind that shift has been another, in the way food is produced. Modern models of agribusiness are contributing to the emergence of zoonoses.

Take flu, a disease that is considered to have high pandemic potential, having caused an estimated 15 pandemics in the past 500 years. There is clearly a link between the emergence of highly pathogenic avian influenza viruses and intensified poultry production systems, says spatial epidemiologist Marius Gilbert of the Universit Libre de Bruxelles in Belgium.

The reasons, many of which were documented in Wallaces 2016 book Big Farms Make Big Flu, include the density with which chickens, turkeys or other poultry are packed into factory farms, and the fact that the birds in a given farm tend to be near genetic clones of one another having been selected over decades for desirable traits such as lean meat. If a virus gets introduced into such a flock, it can race through it without meeting any resistance in the form of genetic variants that prevent its spread. Both experimental manipulations and observations in the real world have demonstrated that this process can result in a ratcheting up of the viruss virulence. If it then spills over into humans, we are potentially in trouble.

In a paper published in 2018, Gilberts group reviewed historical conversion events, as they call them when a not-very-pathogenic avian flu strain became much more dangerous, and found that most of them had occurred in commercial poultry systems, and more frequently in wealthy countries. Europe, Australia and the US had generated more of them than China.

That doesnt let China off the hook. Two highly pathogenic forms of avian flu H5N1 and H7N9 have emerged in that country in recent decades. Both infect humans, though not easily (yet). The first human cases of H7N9 were reported in 2013, and there were small annual outbreaks thereafter. But, says Gilbert, nothing was done until the virus turned out to be pathogenic for chickens as well. Then it became an important economic issue and China started to mass-vaccinate its poultry against H7N9, and that ended the transmission to humans.

China is one of the worlds major exporters of poultry, but its poultry industry is not wholly Chinese-owned. After the recession of 2008, for example, New York-based investment bank Goldman Sachs diversified its holdings and moved into Chinese poultry farms. So if China has its share of responsibility for spillover events, it isnt alone. That is why Wallace insists on talking about relational geographies rather than absolute geographies, when it comes to identifying the causes of disease. Or as he puts it: Follow the money.

Not everybody sees a straightforward link between factory farming and new and dangerous forms of flu. Michael Worobey, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Arizona, points out that before they were brought into factory farms, poultry were kept outside. The factory model may ramp up virulence, he says, but it probably protects a flock from being infected by a virus in the first place.

Still, Worobey doesnt doubt that farming and other human-animal interactions have shaped our disease ecology. His group collects the sequences of flu viruses from a range of animal hosts, including humans, and plots them on a family treeto try to understand how flu has evolved over time. Flu is constantly mutating thats the reason the seasonal flu vaccine has to be updated each year but it mutates at different rates in different hosts, which means that his flu family tree is informative both about the parentage and intermediate host of each strain and about the approximate timing of past spillover events.

Its possible though by no means certain that flu first became a disease of humans after the Chinese domesticated ducks about 4,000 years ago drawing that animal reservoir into human communities for the first time. But humans can also catch flu from, and give flu to, pigs another animal we have lived alongside for millennia. A few years ago, Worobey suggested controversially that birds might not always have been the main intermediate host for human flu viruses. Until about a century ago, he reported, people may have caught flu from horses. Around the time that motor vehicles supplanted horses as transport, poultry farming was expanding in the western hemisphere, and its possible, Worobey argued, that birds then took over as the main intermediate host of flu for humans.

Not everyone buys that scenario. Wendy Barclay, a virologist at Imperial College London, says that if horses were once the main intermediate host for flu, most avian viruses would contain the mammalian adaptation, and they dont. David Morens of the US National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases in Bethesda, Maryland, thinks that it is more likely that the horse was a temporary detour, and that the main intermediate host of flu for humans has always been birds especially wild ones. But all agree that humans have shaped these host-pathogen relationships, through our use of land and other animal species. And as Worobey points out, the sheer size of the human population today means that in the 21st century, we are doing so on an unprecedented scale. He estimates, for example, that domesticated ducks probably outnumber wild ones by now.

And were not just talking about birds. Gilbert believes a ratcheting up of viral virulence is happening in pig herds, too. Porcine reproductive and respiratory syndrome (PRRS), a disease of pigs that was first described in the US in the late 1980s, has since spread to herds across the worldand strains detected recently in China are more virulent than the early American ones. A 2015 study carried out by Martha Nelson of the US National Institutes of Health and colleagues mapped the genetic sequences of swine flu viruses and found that Europe and the US the largest global exporters of pigs are also the largest exporters of swine flu.

There have been claims on social media, sometimes posted by vegans, that if we ate less meat there would have been no Covid-19. Interestingly, some of these have been blocked by mainstream news organisations as partly false. But the claims are also partly true. Though the links they draw are too simplistic, the evidence is now strong that the way meat is produced and not just in China contributed to Covid-19.

It is clear that to prevent or at least slow the emergence of new zoonoses, as Fearnley and Lynteris have argued, Chinas wet markets will need to be better regulated. But we also need to look behind those markets, at how our food is produced globally.

Though it may not feel like it now, Wallace says, we have been lucky with Sars-CoV-2. It appears to be far less lethal that either H7N9 which kills around a third of those it infects or H5N1, which kills even more. This gives us an opportunity, he says, to question our lifestyle choices because chicken isnt cheap if it costs a million lives and vote for politicians who hold agribusiness to higher standards of ecological, social and epidemiological sustainability. Hopefully, he says, this will change our notions about agricultural production, land use and conservation.

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Is factory farming to blame for coronavirus? - The Guardian

China's national liquor offered bottles of their premium product as a reward to health-care workers who traveled to Wuhan to help fight coronavirus. But there was a catch. Zhang Peng/LightRocket via Getty Images hide caption

China's national liquor offered bottles of their premium product as a reward to health-care workers who traveled to Wuhan to help fight coronavirus. But there was a catch.

Pan-fried buns with beef filling, shrimp stir-fried with seasonal bamboo shoots, roasted chicken and seared scallops such dishes are on the menu for the Shanghai medical staff who recently returned from Wuhan in Hubei province, the epicenter of China's COVID-19 outbreak. To show its gratitude for the 1,649 now-quarantined workers, the city has cooked up a free 14-day meal plan for them.

In Hangzhou city in Zhejiang province, the city's Federation of Trade Unions is saying "thank you" by handing out 2,000 yuan ($280) cash to the families of 122 medics, who will also get paid leave to recuperate after "winning the battle of epidemic prevention and control."

Meanwhile, in Guizhou province, residents are wondering: Is a reward still a reward if the heroes have to pay for it?

In the poverty-stricken province, Guizhou Liquor Exchange, a trading platform that promotes liquor trading, investment and storage, took the appreciation game in a questionable direction. It recently offered each of the 1,443 front-line medical workers back from Hubei the opportunity to buy up to six bottles of the nation's most sought-after liquor a locally produced, 106 proof Maotai liquor called Feitian at 1,499 yuan ($210) per bottle.

A bottle of Feitian could fetch from 2,000 yuan ($280) to 300,000 yuan ($42,200), depending on the year it was made and market demand.

Produced by the state-owned Kweichow Moutai Group in Guizhou, Maotai liquor is the Chinese answer to premium scotch. Known as China's national liquor, it's often served on official occasions and holiday dinner tables. In 1972, Chinese premier Zhou Enlai made a Maotai toast to then-President Richard Nixon, who was warned prior to the banquet not to drink it. (He did anyway.)

Although the Group sold 142,000 tons of liquor worth more than 100 billion yuan ($14 billion) in 2019, it's not enough for those thirsty for Maotai. Fake Maotai liquors are all over the market, retailing at similar price points. Some fans make pilgrimages to Maotai town, where each visitor is allowed to buy two bottles. On the Chinese e-commerce site Tmall, Feitian liquor is available each day, with a limit of two bottles per 180 days. It's snapped up in seconds.

While $2,106 for six might be a steal, consider the per capita disposable income of an urban resident in Guizhou: 20,397 yuan ($2,870) in 2019. That's one reason the offer has been derided as a crass publicity stunt.

"They [Guizhou Liquor Exchange] are shameless," said a commenter on Weibo, the Chinese equivalent of Twitter. "It's just a couple bottles of liquor. Can't they just give for free?"

"This is how you treat our heroes?" another opined.

"Do you think regular medical workers can afford it?" one asked.

Others think it's a good deal, especially given the resale market.

"Do you not know how expensive Maotai liquor is? Isn't this a reward?" one netizen asked.

"I think it's pretty good," another said. "They can make money by reselling these liquors."

As criticism became increasingly heated, the Guizhou government stepped in, asking Guizhou Liquor Exchange to immediately stop using the pandemic for marketing purposes.

The Exchange has not yet commented.

Continue reading here:

Coronavirus Heroes In China Get 'Thank You' Liquor But It's Not Free : Goats and Soda - NPR

Ansell and Michael Bryan live in Wellington, the harbor-side capital of New Zealand. For the next four weeks -- at least -- the couple won't be able to see each other in person.

"At first, we didn't really understand the rules -- we kind of thought, it will be fine, we'll be able to see each other once or twice a week," says 25-year-old Ansell, who has been with her boyfriend for five years. "And then it kind of dawned on us that that's probably not good."

Bryan invited her to stick out the lockdown in his flat, but another flatmate's girlfriend was already staying. Besides, she wanted to be at her own place -- and it was a bit small for him to stay with her.

So instead, the couple -- who met while working at a local pizza chain -- will spend the next few weeks chatting virtually, even though they live around 8 kilometers (5 miles) apart. They already text each other good morning and good night, but instead of in-person hang outs, their immediate future looks set to feature constant texting and watching Netflix shows together but apart.

"It's very tempting (to meet up), and it's frustrating because it's like, oh surely we could just meet up and hug," Ansell says. "But you can't -- that destroys the whole purpose of it."

As countries impose strict lockdown measures and travel restrictions to combat the coronavirus pandemic, couples all over the world are facing similar predicaments. While some -- like Ansell -- are choosing to stay apart, others have found coronavirus has brought them closer together.

The question of how couples should handle lockdowns is so widespread that it was even brought up at a press conference last week with Jenny Harries, the United Kingdom's deputy chief medical officer.

Together, apart

On the other side of the world in the United Kingdom, 21-year-old James Marsh and his girlfriend Kiera Leaper were due to celebrate their one-year anniversary on Monday.

Instead, the country went into lockdown.

The pair -- who study together at the University of Leeds -- had seen it coming. When it looked like the country could go into lockdown, the pair squeezed in one last hangout before Marsh retreated to his family home at the opposite end of the country from Leaper. The lockdown is set to continue for at least three weeks.

"We normally see each other every day, we stay with each other pretty much every night," Marsh said. "To go from that to this is obviously quite a big change.

"This will be the longest time we've gone without seeing each other since we've been officially together."

So far, the couple have FaceTimed every day, and spend time together with their friends on online video chat platform Houseparty. They're trying to keep busy -- Marsh with his course work, and Leaper with exercise.

But there are challenges. Marsh and many of his friends are in the final months of their three-year undergraduate degrees, and they're sad they won't get to celebrate together. "We'll just sort of go away with coronavirus being the memory of our third year," he said.

And while technology was helpful for keeping Marsh and his girlfriend connected, it wasn't the same as being in the same room, he said.

Even so, he thinks this time apart will strengthen their relationship.

"I think it's really important to be able to tackle stuff like this ... you can't always just rely on that person being there if you want to stick it out for the long haul," Marsh said.

"You might get a job that requires you to go away for work or stuff like that, and you can't have a dependency on that person in that case."

Secret love

Hemangay, a University of Delhi student, hasn't heard his boyfriend's voice for about a week.

The 19-year-old, who asked not to use his real name as he is not out to his parents, lives with his family in New Delhi, the capital of India. For the past few months, he's been dating his 22-year-old boyfriend -- in secret.

That means no one is allowed outside. Public transport is shut, so Hemangay wouldn't be able to make it to his boyfriend's house on the other side of Delhi, anyway.

And because Hemangay can't take walks, he hasn't been able to phone his boyfriend -- he's too worried that his parents would find out about their relationship if he calls him from the family home.

"I'm still a student, I'm not that independent that I can go out and survive my life on my own terms," he said. "Once I become independent, then maybe I can take that risk."

"Since I'm not out with my family, I just can't openly contact him or chat with him," he said. "It's really tough for us to communicate."

So for the next few weeks at least, one of the only ways they can communicate is messaging over WhatsApp. It's a far cry from their normal lives, when they would meet up almost every day after university. Hemangay last saw his boyfriend two weeks ago, before the measures -- and they had no idea what was to come. "That is the worst part about this, that I didn't know this would be the last time," he said.

Hemangay is dreading the next few weeks of separation, but he knows there's nothing he can do.

"I have never felt so helpless in my entire life," he said.

Love in a time of uncertainty

April was meant to be the light at the end of the tunnel for Isobel Ewing, 30, who has been in a long distance relationship with her boyfriend.

Ewing, a broadcast journalist, moved to Budapest, Hungary in mid-January. She had been looking forward to April, when she would see her boyfriend of almost two years, Sam Smoothy, for the first time in months. A professional skier, Smoothy had been in North America for a few months, and had planned to come and spend time with her in Hungary.

But coronavirus has thwarted those plans.

That meant Smoothy was forced to go back to New Zealand instead of Hungary -- and their plans were on hold.

Now, Smoothy is in New Zealand, self-isolating at Ewing's family holiday home. Ewing needs to stay in Budapest for work. She works from her Budapest apartment, and goes for runs in the hills and alongside the Danube River. They don't know when they'll be able to see each other again.

"With long distance you get used to being apart," Ewing said. "But it's so key to have that time together to look forward to. And then to just have that plucked out from under us ... I'm kind of still processing it."

Moving faster

For three years, Anika, 32, has wanted to marry her partner, but things outside their control kept getting in the way.

Finally, the New Delhi-based couple set their dates. They would register their marriage in court on March 20, hold a big dance party on April 10 with 400 people, and then have the wedding ceremony on April 12.

Then the coronavirus outbreak happened.

As the Indian government began taking more measures -- including suspending all tourist visas -- the couple grew more worried about their wedding. Anika, who asked not to use her real name for privacy reasons, started thinking of a plan B.

As the situation evolved, their wedding plans kept changing. Finally, with only days to spare, they decided they would get married on March 20, and hold a small ceremony after the court proceedings.

"That entire week was pretty traumatic," she said, adding that they ended up uninviting guests to keep numbers down to 30 or so people for social distancing purposes. "We were sending last minute messages just apologizing to people."

In the end, it was a sweet, intimate wedding, Anika says. There were nods to the crisis unfolding outside -- the couple updated their wedding hashtag to #loveinthetimeofcorona, and kept sanitizing and fumigating the space.

"Sometimes it's destiny," she said. "At that time yes, you feel stressed and disappointed. But now in retrospect, I think it was perfect."

Even though it wasn't the wedding they had dreamed of, Anika and her husband didn't want to postpone it. In India, it's not culturally acceptable for couples to live together before marrying. Now, the pair have gone straight into life together -- under lockdown.

"We had been seeing each other for a really long time, we'd been planning this wedding for a really long time," she said.

"We didn't want to postpone it again. What if something else went wrong? What if nothing changes? We wanted to start our lives together -- we didn't want to wait."

Read the rest here:

Love under lockdown: The couples pushed together and kept apart by coronavirus - CNN

The Food and Drug Administration has approved a molecular test that can diagnose novel coronavirus infections within a matter of minutes.

The test, created by Abbott Laboratories, is highly portable and can be used in a wide variety of settings, from hospital emergency rooms to urgent care clinics to physicians offices. The company says it expects to start shipping the kit out to health care providers next week, and that it will be able to deliver 50,000 tests a day by April 1.

Abbotts coronavirus test will be run on its ID NOW platform, which is already used for rapidly diagnosing patients who are sick with things like influenza and strep throat. The test looks for fragments of the coronavirus genome in samples picked up through a throat or nose swab. It can deliver positive results in as little as five minutes, and negative results within 13 minutes. Its about the size of a toaster, and weighs less than 7 pounds.

With rapid testing on ID NOW, healthcare providers can perform molecular point-of-care testing outside the traditional four walls of a hospital in outbreak hotspots, said Abbott president and COO Robert Ford.

If distributed effectively, the test could help expand national testing capacity, better allowing public health experts to understand which populations are most at risk of infection, and helping state and federal officials better plan response strategies.

Such a test would also dramatically reduce testing backlog currently, many Americans who are able to access testing face long wait times. In fact, test results can take over a week, a delay that endangers particularly high-risk individuals. For these reasons, Eric Feigl-Ding, an epidemiologist and health economist at the Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health, called the new test a game changer in dealing with the outbreak. The Abbot Lab test will give fast point of care immediately, and hopefully more accurately than old test, he tweeted on Friday.

The Abbott test also has the potential to play a significant role in accelerating the speed at which health care providers make crucial decisions about identifying and isolating people infected with coronavirus.

This is really going to provide a tremendous opportunity for front-line caregivers, those having to diagnose a lot of infections, to close the gap with our testing, John Frels, vice president of research and development at Abbott Diagnostics, told Bloomberg News. A clinic will be able to turn that result around quickly, while the patient is waiting.

Currently, the wait time is much longer than the Abbott test allows for. Quest Diagnostics and LabCorp, two major private companies, say that on average they deliver results in four to five days. Many reports suggest it can take a week or more to get test results back.

That waiting time poses a particularly serious problem for high-risk patients who may need to stop treatment for other health problems to isolate. For example, a cancer patient in Ohio reported waiting over a week to get results back on a coronavirus test and his doctors were forced to pause his cancer care while waiting for those results.

Shortening wait times for tests is also a crucial tool for policymakers and public health officials quicker diagnoses should help the government and health care system have a more accurate assessment of how many cases are actually popping up in real time and assist them in understanding whether measures to prevent Covid-19s spread are working.

Testing in the US is well behind the countrys international peers. In the past week, the number of coronavirus tests conducted in the US surpassed the number of tests done in Italy and South Korea two countries that dealt with serious outbreaks and have been testing aggressively for the virus. But according to the New York Times, the US still lags behind both countries in terms of tests per capita: While South Korea has conducted about 700 tests per 100,000 people, and Italy about 600 tests per 100,000 people, the US has done fewer than 200 tests per 100,000 people.

Even with that low rate of testing, the US has more confirmed cases of coronavirus than any other country in the world, a fact some experts believe means the country has a number of unconfirmed cases that faster testing could help reveal.

According to the Times report, published Thursday, about 65,000 coronavirus tests are being performed a day in the US, but experts say that 150,000 tests are needed a day to identify and separate infected patients quickly and Abbotts test would go a long way toward helping the US reach that number.

See the rest here:

FDA approves a coronavirus test that can give results in 5 minutes - Vox.com

Doctors have drawn up plans to infuse British coronavirus patients and their carers with blood plasma harvested from hyperimmune people who have recovered from the infection in an attempt to save lives.

The experimental treatment will be directed at patients who are admitted to hospital with pneumonia caused by the virus in the hope that it reduces the number who end up on ventilators in intensive care units (ICUs).

Those in close contact with Covid-19 patients, such as NHS staff and family members, are also in line to be offered the treatment in an effort to stem the spread of the illness and further reduce pressure on the health service.

The procedure relies on the fact that people who have recovered from Covid-19 have antibodies in their blood plasma that maintain a defence against the infection. The aim is to identify those who are hyperimmune to the virus and invite them to donate blood for the treatment.

So-called convalescent plasma would be given to patients and their contacts in a number of clinical trials that are under consideration with medical funding bodies.

Prof David Tappin, a senior research fellow at the University of Glasgow, has applied to the National Institute for Health Research to run two clinical trials with convalescent plasma.

Start-up will need to be faster than is normal, with most other trials usually taking months or years to get approvals and to begin, he said.

The World Health Organization is recommending that people take simple precautions to reduce exposure to and transmission of the coronavirus, for which there is no specific cure or vaccine.

The UN agencyadvisespeople to:

Many countries are now enforcing or recommending curfews or lockdowns. Check with your local authorities for up-to-date information about the situation in your area.

In the UK, NHS advice is that anyone with symptoms shouldstay at home for at least 7 days.

If you live with other people,they should stay at home for at least 14 days, to avoid spreading the infection outside the home.

The trials will look for evidence that convalescent plasma can reduce infections in carers so they can continue their work, prevent patients deteriorating to the point that they require ventilation in ICUs, and improve the condition of those who are already severely ill, to reduce deaths and free up the much-needed ventilators, he said.

Trials need to be undertaken, otherwise we will not know if this intervention is effective and worthwhile, Tappin said. It may not be a silver bullet, or it may work for instance to stem the development of Covid-19 infection in contacts such as healthcare workers and their families, but not perhaps be as effective to treat severely ill patients being ventilated.

Prof Robert Lechler, the president of the Academy of Medical Sciences and executive director of Kings Health Partners, comprising Kings College London and three major London hospitals, said the group intended to conduct parallel trials of convalescent plasma.

NHS Blood and Transplant has already begun work to identify potential donors, a spokesperson said.

Plasma from patients who have recovered from Covid-19 will contain antibodies that their immune systems have produced in fighting the virus. That plasma can be transfused to very poorly patients whose own immune systems are struggling to develop their own antibodies. The plasma transfusion is therefore intended to provide the poorly patient with antibodies from a recovered patient to help their body fight the Covid-19 virus.

Symptoms are defined by the NHS as either:

NHS advice is that anyone with symptoms shouldstay at home for at least 7 days.

If you live with other people,they should stay at home for at least 14 days, to avoid spreading the infection outside the home.

After 14 days, anyone you live with who does not have symptoms can return to their normal routine. But, if anyone in your home gets symptoms, they should stay at home for 7 days from the day their symptoms start.Even if it means they're at home for longer than 14 days.

If you live with someone who is 70 or over, has a long-term condition, is pregnant or has a weakened immune system, try to find somewhere else for them to stay for 14 days.

If you have to stay at home together, try to keep away from each other as much as possible.

After 7 days, if you no longer have a high temperature you can return to your normal routine.

If you still have a high temperature, stay at home until your temperature returns to normal.

If you still have a cough after 7 days, but your temperature is normal, you do not need to continue staying at home. A cough can last for several weeks after the infection has gone.

Staying at home means you should:

You can use your garden, if you have one. You can also leave the house to exercise but stay at least 2 metres away from other people.

If you have symptoms of coronavirus, use theNHS 111 coronavirus serviceto find out what to do.

Source:NHS Englandon 23 March 2020

The blood products will be screened to ensure they are safe to transfuse.

The UK effort has been fuelled by a grassroots collaboration in the US in which 100 laboratories have joined forces to produce convalescent plasma for patients pouring into hospitals across the country. After receiving approval from the Food and Drug Administration, doctors in the US are now able to give plasma to patients under compassionate use rules.

Prof Arturo Casadevall, an infectious disease specialist at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, who is involved in the US effort, said infusions of antibodies may be more effective if they are given early on to wipe out the virus before it causes serious damage. Potentially, he said, an infusion of convalescent plasma could protect people from the virus for several weeks.

On Friday, Chinese researchers reported that convalescent plasma appeared to help Covid-19 patients on ventilation, but the study involved only five patients.

Casadevall has shared the US procedures with Tappin and Lechler to help them develop the procedure in the UK. I said, the best thing you can do is try and establish a network in the UK because ultimately all this is going to have to be done locally, he said.

If you look at history, this has a good chance of working. But it is a new virus and with a new virus you dont know until you know. The Chinese have been using it and they are reporting good results, but it needs to be tested. This is not a panacea or a miracle cure; its something to try and put in place to see if we can help stem the epidemic, he said. I think you are going to need it in the UK.

See more here:

Coronavirus survivors blood plasma could be used to fight infection - The Guardian