The CDC also updated its guidelines for how
long people must self-isolate after testing positive for COVID-19.
Claire
Maldarelli July 27, 2020
As the dog days of summer
are upon us, cases of COVID-19 are still climbing in most states across the
country. Deborah Birx, the White House’s emergency response coordinator, told reporters in Frankfort, Kentucky yesterday that
federal health officials are advising any states with increasing COVID-19 cases
to close bars and limit indoor dining in restaurants. The novel coronavirus has
been found to spread via aerosol droplets, making the crowded indoor spaces
with limited ventilation highly risky for spread. Birx also noted that social
gatherings should be limited to 10 people in those states, and that everyone
should be wearing masks in public places where people cannot properly social
distance. Many areas around the country and world are seeing new outbreaks and
health officials are still debating the safest approach for schools to reopen
this fall. Further, drug companies are still pressing forward with their race
for an effective vaccine. Here’s the most important news of the week.
Moderna Therapeutics started a late-stage trial of its
coronavirus vaccine this week
The pharmaceutical company
Moderna Therapeutics, based in Cambridge, Massachusetts announced this week
that it has started phase three trials of its COVID-19 vaccine candidate. Phase
three is the last main phase of testing a vaccine to prove it's safe and
effective against the virus. The National Institutes of Health partnered with
Moderna on this venture.
This phase involves giving
the vaccine to 30,000 healthy people in 89 designated testing locations across
the country. The protocol is double blind, meaning that half the study’s
subjects will get the vaccine while the other half will receive a saltwater
placebo—and neither the participants nor the physicians involved will know who
is getting what.
The goal is to determine
whether the vaccine effectively prevents people from getting coronavirus. More
specifically, the researchers want to know if it stops people from getting the
virus at all, or if it just prevents the worst bouts of the disease. Another
question is if it’s like the flu shot, where you can just get it once and be
safe, or if you need multiple doses like Gardasil, which protects against
cervical cancer.
The vaccine contains a
synthetic segment of coronavirus’s genetic material called messenger RNA. When
it enters the body, our immune systems see it as an invader, generates an
immune response, and remembers how to attack it if the virus ever reappears.
If it proves successful,
this will be the first messenger RNA-based vaccine to gain FDA approval.
Messenger RNA-based vaccines are becoming increasingly popular in research
development. They involve producing only a synthetic component of the virus
rather than whole microbes or an attenuated or live virus; this makes them easier to produce on a massive scale.
Because this is an entirely novel virus, no one, except potentially those who
have gotten the virus already, is immune to SARS-CoV-2. To control the outbreak
both nationally and internationally, pharmaceutical companies need a vaccine
that can be easily produced in massive quantities. On Sunday, the drug company
announced it has received $472 million from the U.S. government to aid
in the development of its vaccine.
People
who test positive for COVID-19 can return to work after 10 days if they are
symptom-free, according to new guidelines from the CDC
Last Wednesday, the Centers
for Disease Control and Prevention updated its guidance on when people who tested
positive for COVID-19 can return to work. Taking into account the most
up-to-date evidence for how long the virus stays in the body, the CDC says that
people who have “mild to moderate” cases of the novel coronavirus can return to
work within ten days of when their symptoms started.
The CDC says studies show
that the concentrations of viable SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19)
particles decline rapidly after the onset of symptoms. In fact, studies show
the time people are most infectious and spread the disease most widely is in
the days prior to the onset of symptoms, partially because they might not know
they have the virus.
Previously, the United
States, as well as other countries like China, have relied on negative tests to
estimate when someone can leave isolation and return to work. But with better
data and the fact that test results in the US can often take weeks, this
protocol is far less practical. Some research even suggests that dead,
noninfectious, viral fragments may linger in people for a long time after a
person’s symptoms clear up but may trigger a positive test result.
Florida
has now surpassed New York state in total coronavirus cases
Once the U.S. epicenter for
coronavirus cases, New York state has been able to significantly lower
infection rates. As of Sunday, Florida has now surpassed New York in total
coronavirus cases, according to The New York Times. The state of
Florida now has at least 423,847 cases; New York state reached 416,000 reported
cases.
Florida has seen a rapid
increase in COVID-19 cases over the past few weeks, particularly among young
people. According to data from the Florida Department of Health, more than a
third of reported coronavirus cases are among people aged 15 to 34. Researchers
are worried this age bracket could shift in the coming weeks to older, more
at-risk, folks who make up a significant portion of the state’s population.
COVID-19
testing still takes too long to be truly useful
Proper testing is a key
component in controlling COVID-19 cases. But that testing must be done in a
timely fashion to make a difference. In an interview last week with CNN, Brett
Giroir, the assistant health secretary who oversees the government’s national
coronavirus testing response team, acknowledged that while testing levels have
been adequate in most places, turnaround times for results have been
lagging. As The New York Times points out, when
these turnaround times are too delayed, the results could be useless to the
individual who took the test and don’t contribute to the overall public health
response to the virus.
Part of the reason for
these delayed results could be due to a supply shortage. In particular, disposable, tiny
pipette tips are used during every testing procedure but are currently hard to
come by, as are the chemicals used to conduct the tests.
Coronavirus
cases continue to climb, both nationally and worldwide
In the past two weeks,
nearly twice as many countries have reported a significant jump in new
coronavirus cases. Early on in the pandemic only a handful of regions around
the world—Wuhan, China, Italy, Spain, New York, and Iran—experienced
significant outbreaks. Those areas started to level off in April after extreme
social distancing measures were put in place. However, as areas around the
world, including those that weren’t part of the initial outbreak, began to open
up their economy, outbreaks of COVID-19 started reappearing and in new areas.
In the United States that can be seen in regions in the southwest like Houston
and other parts of the south like Florida and South Carolina. Around the world,
countries like Brazil, Colombia, and South Africa are experiencing major spikes
in coronavirus cases for the first time. To see if your state or country is
experiencing an outbreak, check out this graphic.
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