Doctors across the world are offering preliminary but encouraging reports that the coronavirus may be losing steam and becoming less deadly: a behavior observed in at least one respiratory pandemic before, and a welcome sign for a world weary of nonstop COVID-19 fears.
Optimism over the coronavirus has been in short supply since January, when public health officials and politicians began publicly and repeatedly speculating that COVID-19 may be a semi-permanent fixture of global life for the foreseeable future, possibly for years.
The phrase "the new normal" has become an omnipresent part of American life, with medical experts such as Dr. Anthony Fauci speculating that Americans may never shake each other's hands again, and some officials imagining that "social distancing" may persist into 2022 if not beyond.
But numerous prominent doctors and scientists in the last few weeks and months have begun to question that narrative, pointing to evidence that suggests the coronavirus may, unexpectedly, be dying out on its own.
As the naysayers, detractors and liberal politicians smugly waited for what was predicted to be the worst jobless report since the Great Depression, the U.S. economy rebounded with a bang in May, producing an increase of 2.5 million jobs and sending the unemployment rate down to 13.3 percent, in spite of the numerous virus-related restrictions and shutdowns that continue to hamper businesses.
In the Household Survey, which better measures hirings by new businesses, the number of jobs, 3.8 million, was even more impressive.
America is not down for the count, by any means.
Economists surveyed by Dow Jones had expected a drop of more than 8 million jobs in May and an increase in the unemployment rate that would upped it to almost 20 percent.
Ninety-five percent of the country is currently under a stay-at-home order, thanks to the coronavirus pandemic. So for those in need of a check-up, or a prescription refill, or a quick look at some swelling around a child's eye, a virtual visit to the doctor may be the best option.
That may seem like a suboptimal substitute for a conventional doctor's appointment. But it's much safer in the midst of the pandemic when every trip to a public place could result in exposure to the coronavirus. Telemedicine isn't just quicker and more convenient than in-person care – it's actually every bit as effective.
That's among the findings of a study published April 14 in the Annals of Internal Medicine. Researchers reviewed more than 6,500 remote consultations and found that more than seven in 10 were completely appropriate for the patients screened. More than eight in 10 of those telehealth consults resulted in the avoidance of an in-person visit in the four months that followed.
From northern Alaska to islands off Florida—and countless places in between—telemedicine is saving, extending, and improving American lives. As we’ve witnessed the rapid spread of the coronavirus disease in recent weeks, we can see that mobile devices and health applications are playing a critical role in the public health response—from accessing public health information to swift and safe consulting with a health care provider.
Connecting patients with medical professionals instantaneously via mobile telehealth applications, whether across town or on the other side of the world, allows those affected by or exposed to the virus to receive proper medical care without potentially exposing others. In fact, in response to the coronavirus outbreak, President Trump just signed legislation allowing Medicare to expand the use of telemedicine in vulnerable areas – demonstrating just one of the many ways in which these developing technologies will facilitate rapid, efficient responses to the virus.
Advancements in telemedicine and mobile-health will be critical to containing and managing the corona virus outbreak; this virus is also bringing their broader benefits sharply into focus. In fact, telemedicine and mobile-health technology are supporting countless initiatives to improve access to health care and enhance patient outcomes.
In places like northern Alaska, accessible in winter only by dog sleds and seaplanes landing on ice, telemedicine is bringing emergency medical expertise to people for the first time.
And in ordinary communities, mobile technology can help elderly people get timely attention so they don’t have to be rushed to the emergency room by ambulance.
With the advent of 5G technology, remote surgery will become increasingly common, offering access to medical experts no matter where you live.
The latest recruits in the fight against COVID-19 are munching hay in a South Dakota barn. A biotech company has coaxed genetically modified cows to pump out human antibodies that subdue SARS-CoV-2, the pathogen causing the deadly disease, and it plans to start clinical trials of them this summer.
“This is promising,” says Amesh Adalja, an infectious disease physician at the Johns Hopkins University Center for Health Security. “We want to have as many countermeasures as we can.”
Since the pandemic began, the question of where the coronavirus came from has been one of the biggest puzzles. It almost certainly originated in bats, and a new study out this week — the most comprehensive analysis of coronaviruses in China — adds further weight to that theory.
But the lack of clarity around how the virus passed to people has meant that unsubstantiated theories — promoted by US President Donald Trump — that it escaped from a laboratory in China persist.
By contrast, most researchers say the more likely explanation, given what is known so far about this virus and others like it, is that bats passed it to an intermediate animal, which then spread it to people.
In mid-May, the World Health Assembly, the World Health Organization’s key decision-making body, passed a resolution that calls on the agency to work with other international organizations to identify the animal source.
But scientists say that the nature of the evidence required means it’s going to be hard to track down the animal source — and also difficult to completely rule out the facility in question, the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV), as the source
