What happens when the virus spreads...
The toll keeps growing; scientists make progress on treatments and vaccines, and the United States still has no national strategy or coordinated approach.
Brace yourselves: President Trump resumes coronavirus briefings at 5:00 PM EDT Tuesday, with a focus on treatments and vaccines, according to the president. From a public health perspective, this is concerning both because of the president’s history with regard to both facts and COVID-19 and because the public messaging right now ought to be focused on mitigation of new infections. With the virus running uncontrolled in most of the United States, preventing new infections must be the top priority. This means keeping the focus on face coverings, avoiding being within six feet of anyone you don’t live with (especially indoors) and maintaining impeccable hand hygiene.
Way more than three top stories today. Will group them to simplify your reading.
Preventing COVID-19 infections
Kids as vectors for disease: While most young people infected with COVID-19 appear to either not get sick or only mildly ill, children do spread the disease. A large study in South Korea confirms that transmission of disease within households remains one of the biggest risks and finds that kids 10 and older are much more likely to spread COVID-19 than those under 10. The researchers think this may be because the 10+ set is more likely to be playing with others, but their data does not confirm this.
Testing remains one of the biggest obstacles to pinpointing where new clusters of COVID-19 occur. While community spread is so widespread in some places, detecting new clusters in locations where infection rates remain low requires testing to detect infection and identify those who have the virus so that they can self-isolate and their contacts can be informed. However, as the number of infections soars, contact tracing becomes nearly impossible, which means the virust will keep spreading in the community.
To speed test results, the FDA has authorized one of the major testing laboratories to process four tests at the same time. If there is a positive result, then individual tests of the four samples will be done.
Treatment and vaccines
Treatment news: A large study confirms that dexamethasone helps reduce COVID-19 deaths among patients on ventilators or other respiratory support, and two more studies show the anti-malaria drug hydroxychloroquine is not effective for COVID-19.
Vaccine development: More encouraging reports of early human trials, this time of a vaccine candidate under study by AstraZeneca and the University of Oxford. The Phase 1/2 study, published in The Lancet, found that the experimental vaccine triggered the desired immune response in all of the people given the vaccine, without severe adverse events. The study did not evaluate whether this immune response protects against COVID-19. This is one of many vaccine candidates now in human trial.
Law and politics
Worker safety: The University of Maryland faces a lawsuit charging that it has not provided dormitory cleaning crews sufficient protection from COVID-19 risks. Disputes like this are emerging throughout the nation and are a significant issue snagging the latest coronavirus relief legislation in Congress, where Senate leaders want to protect employers from COVID-19 safety claims. The president previously set aside many worker safety regulations for the COVID-19 emergency.
The president’s counter-messaging on coronavirus cannot be ignored, because his false statements distract media from reporting on the facts of the epidemic and up to about 1/3rd of Americans believe what he says. Kaiser Health News has a good roundup of articles that dissect Mr. Trump’s FoxNews interview that aired on Sunday. Despite Chris Wallace’s best efforts at fact-checking the president in real time, the president managed to convey many astounding claims. I hope that media covering the new White House briefings consider this before deciding to cover them live. Note also that the White House blocked the director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention from testifying in Congress, apparently in reaction to Dr. Redfield’s urging last week for more people to wear face coverings.
Veteran communicator Doug Levy shows how to apply best practices from 30+ years of experience to the latest health emergency, including
checklists and worksheets to help both public and private sector communicators and
guidance on effective communications in an era of "alternate facts"
issues to consider when contacting customers, employees and other audiences.
Applying the Communications Golden Hour(R) framework to health emergencies, this book shows how to focus on what matters most when urgent information must get out fast.
Order from your favorite local bookseller, Barnes & Noble, or Amazon today for fast delivery. (BN.com and Amazon have fastest turnaround on orders. E-book version also available via BN.com and most independent bookstores. The e-book on Amazon is a truncated special edition.