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CCDS - Critical Care Decontamination System - Uses Hydrogen Peroxide Vapor to Decontaminate N95 Respirators, and Other PPE

           

Battelle Memorial Institute's CCDS Critical Care Decontamination System uses a hydrogen peroxide vapor to decontaminate N95 respirators. The organization says that the process takes about 2½ and that masks can be cleaned and reused up to 20 times.Battelle Memorial Institute

nbcnews.com - by Didi Martinez, Brenda Breslauer and Stephanie Gosk - April 14, 2020

Late Monday, the Pentagon announced a $415 million contract to commission 60 decontamination systems that will allow millions of highly protective N95 face masks to be reused.

The system, which can process up to 80,000 masks per day, has been called a potential "game changer" for the front-line health care workers and first responders who rely on the masks, according to hospital officials concerned about a shortage of protective equipment to shield their staff from COVID-19.

But the story of how this system came to be is a testament to what can happen when a doctor and an engineer — who happen to be husband and wife — ask, "What if?"

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SEE IT: Simulation shows how cough can spread coronavirus in grocery stores

kron4.com - by: Alexa Mae Asperin - April 9, 2020

Researchers in Finland have released a shocking simulation that apparently shows how respiratory droplets from just one cough in a grocery store can linger in the air for “several minutes” and travel across two aisles, possibly infecting other shoppers nearby with coronavirus.

Aalto University, the Finnish Meteorological Institute, VTT Technical Research Centre of Finland and the University of Helsinki studied how aerosolized particles released from the respiratory tract when coughing, sneezing or even talking flow through the air.

Preliminary results indicate that tiny particles carrying the coronavirus can linger in the air for longer than originally thought, reinforcing the importance of completely avoiding crowded spaces, or at the very least following social distancing guidelines.

(CLICK HERE - READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

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'Painful lesson': how a military-style lockdown unfolded in Wuhan

           

FILE PHOTO: A man wearing a face mask walks next to barriers set up to block buildings from a street in Wuhan, Hubei province, the epicentre of China's coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak, March 29, 2020. REUTERS/Aly Song

reuters.com - by Cate Cadell, Yawen Chen - April 8, 2020

As the world grapples with the escalating coronavirus pandemic, China reopened the city of Wuhan on Wednesday, allowing its 11 million residents to leave for the first time in over two months, a milestone in its effort to combat the outbreak.

But while the operation to contain Wuhan’s coronavirus outbreak has been hailed as a success by China and many international health experts, it didn’t come easy.

Using virus case data, official reports and over a dozen interviews with officials, residents and scientists in Wuhan, Reuters has compiled a comprehensive account of how the military-style quarantine of the city unfolded.

(CLICK HERE - READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

 

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Coronavirus: low antibody levels raise questions about reinfection risk

           

Researchers in Shanghai found low levels of coronavirus antibodies in some people who had recently recovered from Covid-19. Photo: DPA

Scientists in Shanghai say some recovered patients show no signs of the neutralising proteins

Early-stage findings could have implications for vaccine development and herd immunity, they say

CLICK HERE - RESEARCH - medRxiv - Neutralizing antibody responses to SARS-CoV-2 in a COVID-19 recovered patient cohort and their implications - April 6, 2020

scmp.com - by Stephen Chen - April 7, 2020

Researchers in Shanghai hope to determine whether some recovered coronavirus patients have a higher risk of reinfection after finding surprisingly low levels of Covid-19 antibodies in a number of people discharged from hospital.

A team from Fudan University analysed blood samples from 175 patients discharged from the Shanghai Public Health Clinical Centre and found that nearly a third had unexpectedly low levels of antibodies.

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Contact Tracing - Instructions and Information Resources

An expanding list of instructions and information resources on contact tracing . . .

CDC/CFCF - General illustration of Contact Tracing based off of CDC-material.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contact_tracing#/media/File:Contact-tracing_adapted.svg

CDC - MMWR - Evaluation of the Effectiveness of Surveillance and Containment Measures for the First 100 Patients with COVID-19 in Singapore — January 2–February 29, 2020 - Published March 13, 2020
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/69/wr/mm6911e1.htm

WHO - Contact Tracing
https://www.who.int/features/qa/contact-tracing/en/

ECDC (European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control) - Contact tracing: Public health management of persons, including healthcare workers, having had contact with COVID-19 cases in the European Union – first update - March 31, 2020
https://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/publications-data/contact-tracing-public-health-management-persons-including-healthcare-workers

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“Genius” Doctor Turns One Ventilator Into Nine Using DIY Tips From YouTube Video

In just ten minutes, Gauthier used extra tubing to multiply the number of patients that could be ventilated.

themindunleashed.com - by Elias Marat - March 23, 2020

As health care facilities across the globe continue to grapple with a general shortage of supplies to help them with the devastating coronavirus pandemic, one doctor in Canada has managed to use a bit of creativity, ingenuity, and an idea inspired by YouTube to help future patients.

Dr. Alain Gaithier, an anesthetist at the Perth and Smiths Falls District Hospital in Ontario, was worried about the possibility that his rural hospital’s one ventilator would hardly be able to carry the load that the CoViD-19 outbreak could entail.

So Gauthier, who has a Ph. D. in respiratory mechanics, borrowed an idea conceived by American doctors Greg Neyman and Charlene Babcock in 2006 to double the capacity of a single ventilator.

(CLICK HERE - READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

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Coronavirus: Deaconess Asks Public to Sew CDC-Compliant Face Masks for Staff

           

Screenshot from a YouTube video on how to make a medical face mask. (Photo: Screen capture from YouTube)

courierpress.com - by Thomas B. Langhorne - March 18, 2020

Citing shortages, Deaconess Health System, including Henderson's Methodist Health, has asked the public to sew face masks for staff fighting coronavirus.

"This does follow CDC protocols that you can find on their website that if all other supplies are not available, that handmade masks that meet certain criteria are acceptable," Deaconess spokeswoman Becca Scott said.

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CLICK HERE - CDC - Strategies for Optimizing the Supply of Facemasks

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White House Takes New Line After Dire Report on Death Toll

           

President Donald Trump at a Monday news conference on the Covid-19 pandemic.  Doug Mills / The New York Times

nytimes.com - by Sheri Fink - March 17, 2020

Sweeping new federal recommendations announced on Monday for Americans to sharply limit their activities appeared to draw on a dire scientific report warning that, without action by the government and individuals to slow the spread of coronavirus and suppress new cases, 2.2 million people in the United States could die.

To curb the epidemic, there would need to be dramatic restrictions on work, school and social gatherings for periods of time until a vaccine was available, which could take 18 months, according to the report, compiled by British researchers. They cautioned that such steps carried enormous costs that could also affect people’s health, but concluded they were “the only viable strategy at the current time.”

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Coronavirus Testing: Georgia Researchers Develop 2-Hour Test

           

Image/Phil Jones, Senior Photographer, Augusta University

outbreaknews.com - March 20, 2020

The Georgia Esoteric and Molecular Laboratory at the Medical College of Georgia Department of Pathology has developed a novel, accurate coronavirus test that can tell patients if they are infected within about two hours instead of waiting typically days to hear from remote testing facilities.

(CLICK HERE - READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

 

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CDC - People at Risk for Serious Illness from COVID-19

                                         

cdc.gov

Older adults and people who have severe chronic medical conditions like heart, lung or kidney disease seem to be at higher risk for more serious COVID-19 illness. Early data suggest older people are twice as likely to have serious COVID-19 illness.  This may be because:

    As people age, their immune systems change, making it harder for their body to fight off diseases and infection.
    Many older adults are also more likely to have underlying health conditions that make it harder to cope with and recover from illness.

If a COVID-19 outbreak happens in your community, it could last for a long time. Depending on the severity of the outbreak, public health officials may recommend community actions to reduce exposures to COVID-19. These actions can slow the spread and reduce the impact of disease.

If you are at increased risk for COVID-19 complications due to age or because you have a severe underlying medical condition, it is especially important for you to take actions to reduce your risk of exposure.

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