Free Republic

The idea is as simple as it is apparently repulsive: allow human challenge trials (HCTs) under which “low risk” and healthy young adult volunteers in double-blind studies would be given trial vaccines (or a placebo) and then intentionally exposed to the novel coronavirus. This would accelerate the assessment of the trial vaccine’s safety and efficacy and more generally expand our understanding of this virus in a controlled setting. According to the World Health Organization (WHO), more than 70 vaccines are currently under development, five of which are already moving to clinical trials. Notwithstanding these Herculean efforts, the earliest we can...

One of the less helpful aspects of our current quandary is the shrill argument between two closed-minded camps. One condemns those who wish to open up the economy as science-defying ghouls who care nothing for human life. The other depicts the stay-at-homes as economic saboteurs willing to destroy the national economy in the name of unobtainable safety. Neither reckons with the indispensable bridge -- the testing problem. Whatever mayors, governors, or presidents might say, we cannot restart the economy as long as people are too frightened to resume working, shopping, and socializing. An NPR/Marist poll found that 65 percent of...

The Wuhan coronavirus pandemic’s effects have been felt. The world economy has ground to a halt, 26 million Americans are unemployed, and the economy contracted by nearly 5 percent in the first quarter of 2020. Stay-at-home orders were issued to curb the spread and prevent hospitals from being overrun. The good news is that the curve has flattened, even in New York City, ground zero for the US-based outbreak. For most of the country, they can start looking to roadmaps to re-opening, which should occur as soon and as safely as possible. There will be setbacks, however, since we still...

During the questioning a Yahoo reporter asked President Trump why the US is lagging behind other countries in testing for the coronavirus. Dr. Birx told the reporter that the US testing is similar to the European countries who are suffering from the ongoing pandemic.Then later in the presser Dr. Birx interrupted the president to correct the Yahoo reporter.This was BRUTAL! Dr. Birx: To the Yahoo reporter I just want to make clear that South Korea’s testing was 11 per 100,000 and we’re at 17 per 100,000.That’s when President Trump jumped in: Are you going to apologize, Yahoo? That’s why you’re...

"In May, we are going to be doing more testing in this country," Admiral Brett Giroir promised at Monday's coronavirus task force briefing in the Rose Garden. States with the least amount of testing will double the overall amount per capita that South Korea has done in four months, he said. That includes 20 million swabs scattered among the states. ABC's Jonathan Karl asked the task force about a promise they made on March 13 that the government would be drastically increasing drive up testing sites. By his count, he said, only 69 of those test sites had been set...

The next battleground in the fight to stop the coronavirus could be your living room. Starting today, health experts will visit randomly selected homes in Fulton and DeKalb counties to conduct antibody surveys. It’s a partnership with the Georgia Department of Public Health and Atlanta-based Center for Disease Control and Prevention. The agencies will have teams visit randomly selected homes starting Tuesday through May 4. People will be asked to answer questions and provide a blood sample for antibodies tests. Only homes that are selected can participate and the survey and samples are strictly voluntary. “We encourage everyone who is...

SAFELY OPENING UP AMERICA AGAIN: President Donald J. Trump and his Administration are taking steps to ensure States have the testing system required to reopen our Nation. President Trump is releasing his Administration’s blueprint for State testing plans and rapid response programs. This follows the release of President Trump’s Opening Up America Again guidelines on April 16, 2020. The blueprint describes the roles and responsibilities, as well as core objectives, for the robust State testing plans and rapid response programs needed by States to safely reopen.To meet the country’s testing needs, the blueprint describes a partnership between Federal, State,...

FDA regulations block usage of a feature in Apple Watches that would help millions of users monitor their blood-oxygen levels. [Many Samsung cell phones have this capability, which is important for COVID-19.] Millions of Americans own an Apple Watch, which commands roughly a 50 percent share of the smartwatch market. Among its many features, the Apple Watch can take your pulse. It also contains hardware to measure your blood-oxygen levels, and it has been doing so since the watch was released—but the hardware is not operable by the watch’s wearer, who thus cannot obtain the results. Under current FDA regulation,...

There is simply no other way to state this. Nearly everything we’ve been told about models, rates of infection, deaths, and recoveries was inaccurate. I’m not here to argue that it was malfeasance or ignorance — both are unacceptable. But the one thing that Governor Andrew Cuomo’s stunning announcement made clear on Thursday is that there are some pretty shocking — and what should be — reassuring truths. Cuomo announced that antibody testing in New York state, which only began four days previous, was already demonstrating that at minimum 13.9% of New Yorkers, had COVID-19 late stage antibodies. The implication...

This nation was totally shut down for ONE reason. That is what we were told at the time. That reason was to "flatten the curve", meaning to enable time for our medical capabilities to catch up with the need for treatment. There is ample evidence that even in our worst hit area of New York City that this in fact has been accomplished. The USS Comfort, provided as an overflow hospital option to the city in the heat of the battle, has been sent packing and according to New York is no longer needed.Across the country, hospitals have plenty of...

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) on Tuesday announced that is authorizing the first coronavirus test that allows patients to collect samples at home themselves. The FDA said the emergency authorization would make coronavirus testing easier and smoother by allowing some patients to collect their test samples without having to leave home. The patients, after using the nasal swab, would then mail the sample to LabCorp, the company that makes the test, to be tested. “With this action, there is now a convenient and reliable option for patient sample collection from the comfort and safety of their home,” FDA Commissioner...

Researchers and clinicians who have ‘experimented’ with random mass testing for COVID-19 have made some pretty amazing – and amazingly depressing – discoveries. Yesterday, we shared a report about one sweeping antibody testing regime set up by researchers in Santa Clara County in California. The study found that the estimated level of novel coronavirus penetration in the county was “50-80% higher” than what had been recorded. If that isn’t enough to terrify every day trader who ratcheted up their exposure heading into the weekend, a news story about another surprising discovery – this time on the East Coast – has...

White House officials said Friday that states have enough COVID-19 tests to proceed to phase one of the Trump administration’s plan to restart the economy. Vice President Mike Pence told reporters at a briefing of the White House Coronavirus Task Force that “our best scientists and health experts assess that states today have enough tests to implement the criteria of phase one if they choose to do so.” Pence’s remarks come as the administration faces pressure to increase testing capacity, seen as key to faster lifting of lockdowns. Meanwhile, protests have erupted across the country amid record job losses and...

Rome (AFP) - Testing is being held up as the world's best bet for ending the economically crippling -- and emotionally draining -- coronavirus lockdown. But some doctors at the Italian epicentre of the health crisis doubt that countries can test their way out of confinement. "It is a nonsense," Milan's Polytechnic Institute professor Davide Manca said. "Conceptually, I am sceptical." The reason for Manca's scepticism is plain to see in the math. Milan's Lombardy region has 10 million people and 11,142 officially registered COVID-19 deaths. The economically vibrant area the size of Belgium has been under one of the...

The Briarcliff Skilled Nursing Center in Carthage is now reporting two deaths related to COVID-19, as well as seven residents and five staff members who have tested positive, in an update Tuesday on their website. The facility has had 28 people tested for coronavirus. Five residents tested negative. The facility said eight residents and one employee had pending tests.

Ninety-one people in South Korea believed to have been cured of COVID-19 have tested positive again, according to Korea Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Experts are trying to figure how this could have happened, and a few theories seem to be sticking. Dr. Janette Nesheiwat, medical director of CityMD and a Fox News contributor, chalks many of those potential reinfections up to human error. It's possible, she explained on Monday's "Outnumbered," that the medical workers who administered the original tests did not take enough specimens in their swabs, potentially resulting in false negatives. David Kelvin, a professor of microbiology...

A quick 5-minute coronavirus test made by Abbott Laboratories and introduced with considerable fanfare by President Donald Trump in a Rose Garden news conference this week is giving state and local health officials very little added capacity to perform speedy tests needed to control the COVID-19 pandemic. “That’s a whole new ballgame,” Trump said. “I want to thank Abbott Labs for the incredible work they’ve done. They’ve been working around-the-clock.” Yet a document circulated among officials at the Department of Health and Human Services and the Federal Emergency Management Agency this week shows that state and local public health labs...

The most widespread testing so far shows that COVID-19 has a fatality rate of 0.004%. That’s lower than the flu. Should we start shutting everything down, every year, because of the flu? Iceland has tested 10% of its population for COVID-19, by far the largest percentage of any country.And it has discovered that the fatality rate is 0.004%.That’s lower than the flu.Should we start shutting everything down, every year, because of the flu?

... “Our choice is not whether we intervene or whether we go back to the normal economy,” says Emil Verner, an economist at MIT’s Sloan School who has recently looked at the flu pandemic of 1918 for insights into today’s outbreak. “Our choice is whether we intervene—and the economy will be really bad now and will be better in the future—versus doing nothing and the pandemic goes out of control and really destroys the economy.” Overall, Verner and his coauthors found that the 1918 pandemic reduced national manufacturing output in the US by 18%; but cities that implemented restrictions earlier...

Providers and public health officials hope that more COVID-19 testing will help contain spread of the disease. But efforts to get tests done faster and results quicker are hindered by how many tests can be quickly deployed and how accurate they prove to be.Three decentralized tests for SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, have been granted Emergency Use Authorization from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration in the past 10 days. Decentralized molecular tests are meant to bring lab-quality test results while the patient is with the provider so that they can guide treatment decisions. These tests, and any accompanying equipment,...