Covid Act Now Daily Download
By the numbers // 22:15 ET 20 October 2020
⬤ Active or imminent outbreak ⬤ At risk ⬤ Slow disease growth ⬤ On track to contain COVID
Cases: 8,232,285
+60,582 / 24h Deaths: 212,678
+832 / 24h Tests: 126,940,105
+906,932 / 24h Data derived from The COVID Tracking Project
The Day’s Top COVID StoriesNPR covers two new studies that show a drop in mortality for COVID patients. The studies, carried out in the U.S. and U.K., found about
a 20% drop in death rates for hospitalized patients across all ages, pre-existing conditions, and racial groups since the beginning of the pandemic. Researchers believe the drop in mortality comes from newly standardized treatment regimens, sufficient hospital capacity, and mask-wearing, which has been shown to cause less severe cases. The New York Times reports on Imperial College London’s controversial decision to begin deliberately infecting vaccine trial participants with COVID starting early next year. Their human challenge trial still requires approval from the
U.K.’s drug regulation agency, but would be the world’s first effort to study how vaccinated people respond to the virus. Researchers plan to compare the efficacy of vaccines by intentionally exposing volunteers, who will be healthy young adults, after they are vaccinated. While viewed as a moral imperative by many experts, the trial has been criticized due to widespread lack of understanding about COVID. - The Guardian explores how viral mutations may hinder the development of COVID treatments. As the virus mutates, scientists are concerned that future viral strains could grow resistant to vaccines and antibody
treatments. While it’s unlikely that a mutation would lead to full resistance against a vaccine, the presence of mutations means that scientists will likely have to keep developing new vaccines and COVID treatments as the virus changes.
New COVID Literature & StudiesA study finds that metrics such as COVID case fatality rate, case doubling time, and basic reproductive number were highly variable among different states in the US, especially early in the outbreak. The study finds that these variations are strongly associated with non-pharmaceutical governmental interventions such as social
distancing restrictions and restaurant closures. The researchers discuss how individual states can serve as small, natural experiments in how different demographic patterns and government responses can impact the course of an epidemic. Read the study. - A study performs COVID tests in more than 5,400 residents of skilled nursing facilities (SNFs) across 20 states, finding that 40% of cases were asymptomatic and 19% were pre-symptomatic. The high proportion of people without symptoms at the time of testing underscores the importance of universal testing, especially among vulnerable populations or in communal settings (such as SNFs). Read the study.
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⬤ ⬤ ⬤ ⬤*Key Indicators (How we determine risk levels)Daily New Cases: How many new cases are confirmed daily? Infection Rate: Is the number of infections going down? Test Positivity: Is COVID testing widespread enough to identify new cases? ICU Headroom: Do hospitals have capacity to treat a surge of COVID hospitalizations? Tracers Hired: Are we finding and isolating most new cases before COVID spreads?
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