Coronavirus Disease COVID 19 News and Research

Latest Coronavirus Disease COVID 19 News and Research

Public health precautions to lower airborne transmission of COVID-19 virus

Researchers are urging health authorities to immediately recognize the role of airborne transmission of COVID-19 virus droplets from an infected person beyond 1.5m in order to stem the disease’s spread.

16 Apr 2020

N.Y. leads the nation in COVID-19 tests, but the effort still lags behind demand

This jampacked city, with its high-rises, brownstones and cheek-by-jowl single-family homes, is a ripe environment for the novel coronavirus that has killed more than 11,000 residents. That density also complicates a key strategy for alleviating the epidemic: testing.

16 Apr 2020

Study investigates how people's habits, behaviors are affected by the coronavirus

By launching a new survey, researchers at CTF, Service Research Center at Karlstad University, want to investigate how people's habits, behaviors and experiences are changed and affected by the coronavirus.

16 Apr 2020

Jails and prisons spring thousands to prevent coronavirus outbreaks

Terry Smith, a 65-year-old Vietnam veteran with PTSD, multiple health issues and a history of homelessness, spent nearly three years in San Francisco County Jail awaiting trial on a burglary charge. The final several weeks were served in the full flush of a burgeoning viral pandemic.

16 Apr 2020

Coronavirus nurses ask an Ebola veteran: Is it OK to be afraid?

Martha Phillips knows exactly how it feels to suddenly find oneself up close to — and unprotected from — a deadly virus.

16 Apr 2020

Canadian Coalition Fosters Collaboration in Fight Against COVID-19

A group of Canadian biotech companies are joining forces in the war on COVID-19 with an open-source model using next-generation antidotes known as nanobodies1.

From SignalChem Biotech Inc. 16 Apr 2020

Horizon Discovery offers rapid access to CHOSOURCE platform for development of COVID-19 therapies

Horizon Discovery Group plc, a global leader in the application of gene editing and gene modulation for cell line engineering, today announced special commercial licensing terms to facilitate rapid access to its cGMP-compliant CHOSOURCE platform for the development or production of therapeutic proteins, diagnostic assay components or vaccines relating to COVID-19.

16 Apr 2020

NICE guidelines strongly encourage COPD patients to quit smoking for COVID-19

Rapid guidelines just published by NICE on the treatment of patients with Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease ‘strongly encourage’ patients to quit smoking.

16 Apr 2020

FDA grants Emergency Use Authorization to Ortho’s COVID-19 total antibody test

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today announced it granted Emergency Use Authorization to Ortho Clinical Diagnostics' total antibody assay for COVID-19—the VITROS Immunodiagnostic Products Anti-SARS-CoV-2 Total Reagent Pack and Calibrators.

From Ortho-Clinical Diagnostics, Inc. 16 Apr 2020

Dynata launches free, interactive Global COVID-19 Symptom Map

Dynata, the world's largest first-party data and insights platform, today introduced a free, interactive Global COVID-19 Symptom Map that helps identify potential "hot spots" for COVID-19 cases using self-reported data of common symptom combinations associated with COVID-19.

16 Apr 2020

Screening blood samples for COVID-19 using artificial intelligence

A promising new study published in the preprint online journal medRxiv in April 2020 shows the potential of artificial intelligence (AI) for developing a patient classifier that can separate patients likely to be negative for COVID-19 from among a pool of suspected patients visiting an emergency room (ER).

15 Apr 2020

European Commission issues guidelines on coronavirus testing methodologies

Today, as part of the European Roadmap towards lifting coronavirus containment measures, the Commission is presenting guidelines on coronavirus testing methodologies.

15 Apr 2020

Remdesivir drug stops novel coronavirus from replicating

Scientists from the University of Alberta have published findings that the antiviral drug remdesivir prevents replication of the severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) by inhibiting RNA replication. The study, published in April 2020 in the Journal of Biological Chemistry, follows on the heels of earlier reports from the same lab in February, showing the drug's effectiveness against the related Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) virus.

15 Apr 2020

Anosmia (loss of smell) confirmed as a clinical feature of COVID-19

Earlier last month, the association of ear, nose, and throat (ENT) specialists in the UK issued a public statement advising patients with a sudden loss of smell or taste to get tested for COVID-19. They cited not only their own observations but those from numerous other ENT consultants the world around. A review of multiple papers on the sinus and nasal symptoms and signs related to the diagnosis of COVID-19, published in April 2020, in the journal Laryngoscope Investigative Otolaryngology, reiterates this finding.

15 Apr 2020

Coronavirus able to survive near boiling point of water, study shows

A startling paper by a team of French scientists published in the preprint journal bioRxiv in April 2020 suggests that the novel coronavirus is capable of surviving at high temperatures. This could mean that laboratory technicians handling the virus are at danger of infection.

15 Apr 2020

Unexpected benefit of COVID-19 lockdowns on the environment and health

The pandemic spreading over the world has affected over 185 countries and territories so far, with over 2 million cases and 134,354 deaths. In response, many countries and regions have enforced lockdowns, in addition to the almost universal recommendations for social distancing. One of the most significant impacts has been the effect on economic activity the world over.

15 Apr 2020

Australian researchers split ventilators for COVID-19

Australian researchers have found that in cases of “extreme emergencies,” a single ventilator could be used between multiple patients of COVID-19 who require ventilator support. These ventilators could be split between the critically ill patients with not only COVID-19 but also other respiratory illnesses, the team of Australian researchers found. The study titled, “'Ventilator splitting with differential driving pressures using commodity hospital equipment,” was published in the latest issue of the journal Anaesthesia.

15 Apr 2020

COVID-19 modeling shows that social distancing is a must, must, must

A new study shows that using mathematical modeling and accounting for several factors such as age distribution and density of the population, a clearer picture of COVID-19 infection in a population could be gained. The study titled, "Level of under-reporting including under-diagnosis before the first peak of COVID-19 in various countries: Preliminary Retrospective Results Based on Wavelets and Deterministic Modeling," is published as an accepted manuscript in the journal Infection Control & Hospital Epidemiology.

15 Apr 2020

New coronavirus possibly circulated within humans before COVID-19 pandemic

Genetic variation analysis and the evidence of recombination events point towards the conclusion that severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) might have circulated cryptically among humans for years, as reported by a recent paper on a preprint server bioRxiv.

15 Apr 2020

ACE2 genetic variants may influence coronavirus disease progression

Researchers in British Columbia have identified a set of gene variants that are likely to influence disease progression from severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection to COVID-19 disease.

15 Apr 2020