154 CMAAO CORONA FACTS and MYTH Round the globe

154 CMAAO CORONA FACTS and MYTH Round the globe

Dr K Aggarwal

President CMAAO

With inputs from Dr Monica Vasudev

976: Good news: So far, no documented outbreak of COVID-19 in the U.S. has been traced to a dental office notes the American Dental Association.

977: July 6 by Annals of Internal Medicine: For the SARS-CoV-2 IgG assay, sensitivity and specificity were 0.976 and 0.988  respectively, when the test was performed at least 14 days after symptom onset. For tests done earlier, however, sensitivity was lower. IgG levels remained high during follow-up, up to 58 days. Levels of antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 were related to the risk for acute respiratory distress syndrome, with an increase of 62% for every twofold increase in IgG. Among the 11,066 patients who received a NAAT, 457 had repeatedly negative results. In serum samples obtained from 18 of these patients, six who were COVID-19 case-patients and 12 who were non-COVID-19 controls, five of six in the former group and none of 12 in the latter group had antibodies detected (P=0.001). The authors concluded that antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 can indicate infection when measured 14 or more days after symptom onset, are associated with clinical severity, and can provide diagnostic support when patients have negative results on NAAT but COVID-19 is still suspected.

978: An inexpensive two-drug regimen of sofosbuvir plus daclatasvir taken for 14 days significantly reduced time to recovery from COVID-19 and improved survival in people hospitalized with sever e disease, research from an open-label Iranian study led by Andrew Hill, PhD, from the University of Liverpool, United Kingdom shows.

979: A recent study of two hospitals in Wuhan, China, found that the highest aerosol concentration was in a bathroom, although it noted that it was a temporary, single-toilet room with no ventilation. The study also found that sanitization and ventilation effectively limited the virus’s concentration in aerosols. Another recent study that analyzed samples from patients hospitalized with COVID-19 found that attempts to isolate the virus from stool samples were never successful, and that existing fragments were not infectious.

The flush is a one-time event, and any direct plume is from a person’s own feces; if the virus was present, that person would already be infected. Our own fecal plume poses no risk to us,

980: If an unmasked interaction within six feet lasts under 15 minutes and doesn’t include coughing or sneezing, the transmission risk is still low.

981: Music might be playing, causing people to lean in and speak to each other.

982: Alcohol can make people relax and forget about distancing, and when there’s singing, breaths are forcibly ejected into the air. In many of these settings, masks might not be required and might not be worn, further encouraging the spread.

983: And before you leave, use your foot, elbow (if possible), or a paper towel to open the door, and once outside, spray your hands with a sanitizer.

984:  -- Bodies stressed by severe COVID-19 could produce abnormally high blood sugar levels, even in people without diagnosed diabetes. And that appears tied to a doubling of the odds of dying from COVID-19, Chinese researchers report. High blood sugar (glucose) levels, measured at the time of admission to the hospital, were also linked to more severe disease and complications, according to researchers led by Dr. Yang Jin, of the Union Hospital and Tongji Medical College, in Wuhan, China. Wuhan was the originating epicenter of the global pandemic of COVID-19. [ July 10 in the journal Diabetologia.

985:  Even if the virus were to land on food that you ate, there’s no evidence that swallowing the virus leads to infection. It needs to be transmitted to the respiratory system – into the nose, sinuses or lungs.