Health
The German engineering company Bosch has developed a rapid Covid-19 test that fulfills the requirements of the World Health Organization (WHO) and has an accuracy of over 95 percent. The rapid test can be used on-site by medical personal not trained for the laboratory and only needs a "Bosch Vivalytic analyzer" device. It takes less than two and a half hours to get the test results after the sample is taken.
The billionaire company founder James Dyson has announced that the company managed to design a new ventilator system in 10 days, after receiving an order from the government of the United Kingdom. The company aims to produce 10,000 of the new ventilators for the UK and is planning on donating an additional 5,000 ventilators towards the international fight against the coronavirus by the end of April.
A man from the Italian city Rimini, who was born in 1919 during the Spanish flu pandemic, has recovered from the coronavirus. The deputy mayor of the town, Gloria Lisi, has announced that the man is back with his family after being tested positive for Covid-19 and admitted to the hospital in the last week.
On Wednesday, Greta Thunberg stated on her Instagram account that she believed she had gotten infected with the Coronavirus while travelling through Europe. Both Thunberg and her father experienced symptoms related to the virus – fatigue, coughing and a sore throat.
According to Thunberg, they have been isolating themselves in their home in Sweden upon their return. "I have [...] not been tested for COVID-19, but it’s extremely likely that I’ve had it, given the combined symptoms and circumstances.", so Thunberg in her Instagram post.
In an effort to test every citizen in Iceland, authorities claim that they had tested a higher proportion of the citizens than anywhere else in the world. Instead of testing only people with symptoms, Iceland tests everyone. So far they have tested 10,300 people of a total population of 364,000. “Early results from deCode Genetics indicate that a low proportion of the general population has contracted the virus and that about half of those who tested positive are non-symptomatic, the other half displays very moderate cold-like symptoms.” Thorolfur Guðnason, Iceland’s chief epidemiologist said.
The Sawai Man Singh Hospital (or SMS hospital) in Jaipur has started a trial run to deliver food and small items into the isolated part of the hospital with a robot. This could reduce the number of times that hospital staff would need to help the coronavirus patients, freeing up capacity to "serve other departments as required", said professor Banerjee, a senior doctor at the hospital.
According to the Global Times, an English-language Chinese news paper, a man died of Hantavirus in the Chinese Yunnan province. The corresponding tweet made by the newspaper, tagged #Hantavirus, gained a high number of retweets and comments due to the fear of a pandemic parallel to COVID-19. According to the CDC these fears are unnecessary since the Hantavirus can only be transmitted directly from rodents and cannot be transmitted from one person to another.
The wave of responses came within hours of the government's plea for an 'army' of 250,000 volunteers to support paid staff. They will help to deliver important supplies, transport patients and make phone calls to check on those isolated alone.
During a routine police check at a nightclub, the man was caught violating his mandatory 14-day self-isolation after he had returned from Southeast Asia. He got the maximum fine of 1 million Taiwanese Dollar which translates to around $33,000 US Dollar.
In order to help fight the coronavirus the company has announced that it'll donate "millions of masks for health professionals in the US and Europe", CEO Tim Cook announced in a tweet. Vice President Mike Pence also confirmed the donation during a White House briefing and specified the number of donated masks to the US as 2 million.
Facing a shortage of ventilators in the fight against the coronavirus, the Italian company Isinnova developed a 3D printable valve that can be attached to a commercially available snorkeling mask from Decathlon. The sports equipment company cooperated with Isinnova by releasing the CAD drawing of the mask, which enabled the development. The company released the plans and instructions on their website for free for non-commercial purposes.
While it took three months between the first reported case of the coronavirus and reaching 100,000 reported cases, only 12 days have been needed to reach over 200,000 reported cases, according to the World Health Organization. In addition over 9,000 people worldwide have died so far from the coronavirus.
In a press release, the Volkswagen Group has announced that it'll donate around 200,000 FFP-2 and FFP-3 protective masks. The donation is coordinated with Jens Spahn, the German Federal Minister of Health. In addition to this Wolfsburg, the hometown of the Volkswagen Group will receive medical material donations from the company.
According to the World Health Organization, just 60 days after the gene was first sequenced, over 20 vaccines are under development worldwide. Dr. Maria Van Kerkhove said at a press conference that "The acceleration of this process is really truly dramatic in terms of what we’re able to do, building on work that started with SARS, that started with MERS and now is being used for COVID-19" and that the first vaccines are already in clinical trials. Even though the process is done in record time, it will take several more months to develop and then produce.
The WHO has announced that it recommends using the term "physical distancing" over "social distancing". People should stay at home, but keep in contact with friends and family.
According to an analysis by the Kaiser Health Foundation, more than half of US counties are not equipped with ICU beds. In the highly endangered group of citizens 60 and above, around 4.5 million live in counties that have hospitals but no ICU and an additional 2.7 million reside in counties with no hospital at all. Even in the top 10% counties for ICU bed count there might be as many as 450 older people per bed. While the United States have more than three times the amount of beds as Italy, this doesn't say much about the amount of ventilators available and the distribution over all counties.
In a video published on March 18th, the insides of a Bergamo hospital are shown. The cameraperson is walking around and shows multiple people attached to venting machines in rooms, but also in the hallway between rooms and a doctor in full protection gear.
Following the coronavirus outbreak, more and more people in different European countries are voluntarily staying at home or forced due to movement restrictions. With this comes a higher internet usage throughout the whole continent. After talks between Thierry Breton, the European Commissioner for Internal Market and Services, and the Netflix CEO Reed Hastings, the streaming service has announced that it would reduce the data consumption by 25% by lowering the picture quality and therefore "preserve the smooth functioning of the internet during the Covid-19 crisis".
The new status as "essential tier 2 workers" has been given to jobs like store clerks and stockers in Minnesota and Vermont. With the spread of the coronavirus, these jobs are vital to the food supply chain. As a direct consequence, the workers now receive free child care.
In a CNN interview Scott Steiner, the CEO of Phoebe Putney Health System, said that while the N95 masks normally cost 58 cents per piece, they are now priced at $7 per mask by a company out of Mexico that has one million of them in stock. Even though the prices are twelve times higher than normal the company is "probably going to take them at $7 each because we are that desperate", Steiner said.
According to Dr Owen Tsang Tak-yin, director of Infectious Disease Centre at Princess Margaret Hospital, Hong Kong, follow-up appointments of COVID-19 patients after recovery revealed that some patients showed a reduction in lung function of around 20 to 30 percent. Long-term outcome was still unclear and patients could do cardiovascular exercise to increase their lung function.
Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson have transferred from the hospital to their home in Queensland, Australia and will stay in self-quarantine there. Both had been diagnosed positive with the coronavirus.
A flu drug named favipiravir, developed by a subsidiary of the Japanese company Fujifilm, appears to be effective as a treatment for the coronavirus. According to Zhang Xinmin, an official from the Chinese science and technology ministry, “It has a high degree of safety and is clearly effective in treatment". The drug has been tested in clinical trials ni Wuhan and Shenzhen. In total 340 patients have been treated with it and on average been tested negative for the virus only four days after being tested positive. In addition, the lung condition of 91% of the patients had improved. This is 29% higher than for patients without the flu drug.
According to Associated Press the first COVID-19 vaccine was tested at the Kaiser Permanente research facility in Seattle, Washington. The vaccine was developed by the biotechnology company Moderna Therapeutics and contains a harmless part of the COVID-19 viral genome. The NHS-funded trial was fast-tracked, skipping animal experiments. According to the researchers, results may take many months.
The yearly musical contest has been canceled following the spread of the coronavirus. The final was scheduled for May 16th in Rotterdam after the country's win in 2019.
The Sahlgrenska University Hospital in Gothenburg has gotten an unexpected gift from IKEA. In one of the stores, 50,000 face masks have been found that were bought during the bird flu outbreak. After finding them stocked away in a warehouse the management agreed to donate them to Sweden's biggest hospital.
Multiple supermarkets and grocery chains have announced that they'll implement special shopping hours for elderly people, which are especially at risk when being infected by the coronavirus.
The Ministry of Health has announced that all private health providers and their hospitals will be put under public control in order to combat the spread of the coronavirus more efficiently. In addition, companies that are able to produce medical equipment are requested to get in touch with the government and all fourth-year medical students are asked to help the medical services.
Following the spread of the coronavirus and rising death tolls, President Macron has announced that France will go on a complete lockdown starting March 17, noon. Residents must stay at home with the only exception being the commute to and from work, going grocery shopping and doctor visits. People not abiding the regulations will face punishments. Together with this, the second round of local elections has been postponed and the borders to other countries have been closed.
In a Twitter video, he said that he got tested because he was exposed to a person that tested positive and says that he has no symptoms far. He went into self-isolation together with his wife Sabrina which hasn't been tested yet.