The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has granted an emergency use authorization (EUA) for a rapid COVID-19 test developed by Abbott Laboratories. This is the first antigen test that can be read from a testing card, similar to a home pregnancy test. The test costs $5, and results take about 15 minutes. “This new COVID-19 antigen [...]
Late Monday the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) changed technical language on its website on who should get a COVID-19 test, a move that has baffled public health officials. “If you have been in close contact (within 6 feet) of a person with a COVID-19 infection for at least 15 minutes but do not have [...]
Mainly fueled by ongoing surges in the Americas and India, the global COVID-19 total passed 24 million today amid ongoing efforts by containment countries to blunt the impact of flare-ups. It only took 2 days for the global total to rise from 23 million cases to 24 million. The pandemic total today reached 24,000,302 cases, and [...]
Abstract: SARS-CoV-2 has caused a severe, ongoing outbreak of COVID-19 in Massachusetts with 111,070 confirmed cases and 8,433 deaths as of August 1, 2020. To investigate the introduction, spread, and epidemiology of COVID-19 in the Boston area, we sequenced and analyzed 772 complete SARS-CoV-2 genomes from the region, including nearly all confirmed cases within the [...]
The Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) has declared the end of a 25-month outbreak of measles that claimed the lives of more than 7,000 children aged under five. The outbreak was countered by vaccination on a massive scale, in which millions of children and infants were immunised. “For the past month, we are able to say [...]
Background The ongoing COVID-19 pandemic is a global threat. Identification of markers for symptom onset and disease progression is a pressing issue. We described the clinical features of people infected on board the Diamond Princess cruise ship who were diagnosed with asymptomatic severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection or mild or severe COVID-19, on admission to [...]
Introduction Choir singing has been suspended in many countries during the Covid-19 pandemic due to incidental reports of disease transmission (Hamner 2020). The mode of transmission has been attributed to exhaled droplets, but with the exception of a study on tuberculosis from 1968, there is presently almost no scientific evidence of increased particle emissions from singing [...]
Three new studies describe the link between obesity and elevated risk of COVID-19 infection and poor outcomes. The first study, published yesterday in Diabetes Care, shows that predominantly black hospitalized COVID-19 patients with metabolic syndrome (a combination of obesity, high blood pressure, diabetes, and/or abnormal cholesterol levels that increases the risk of cardiovascular disease) were nearly five times [...]
In the latest global COVID-19 developments, scientists from two more countries reported instances of patients reinfected with the virus, and health officials from the highly restricted Palestinian territory of Gaza reported its first local infections. The global total today reached 23,736,101 cases, and 815,248 people have died from their infections, according to the Johns Hopkins online dashboard. [...]
Most patients requiring hospitalization for COVID-19 had symptoms—particularly fatigue and shortness of breath—for a mean of 111 days after returning home, according to a research letter published yesterday in the Journal of Infection. Researchers administered a phone questionnaire to 120 COVID-19 patients hospitalized from Mar 15 to Apr 14 at University of Paris–affiliated Beaujon Hospital. Ninety-six patients had been [...]
