Coronavirus Public Health Update: April 13

Coronavirus (COVID-19) Public Health Update for April 13th, 2020.

• There are currently at least 558,999 cases and 22,154 deaths in the United States, as reported by Johns Hopkins. There are over 1.8 million cases and over 116,000 deaths worldwide.
• Dr. Birx announced Friday that the United States has started to level the curve.
• Dr. Fauci said parts of the country could have a “rolling reentry” as early as next month. The strategy to open the economy would be dependent on widespread testing availability and the ability to track and trace cases.
• NIH began a serosurvey to study to quantify undetected cases of coronavirus infection with antibody testing.
• Surgeon General Jerome Adams spoke to statistics showing COVID-19 may disproportionately affect Americans of color. He said people of color “are socially predisposed to coronavirus exposure and to have a higher incidence of diseases that put you at risk for severe complications of coronavirus.”
• The below chart shows the number of new cases reported per day in the US.

The below chart shows epidemic curves for COVID-19 in select countries based on total deaths.

The below chart shows epidemic curves for COVID-19 in select states based on total deaths.

A Morgan Stanley report lays out a projected timeline and milestones for a return to work in the US which shows opening the economy is highly dependent on the success of mitigation efforts followed by widespread testing, therapeutics, and ultimately a vaccine.

Good News

Testing:

• CMS announced antibody testing would be available at no cost to patients.
• NIH began recruiting for a new study to quantify undetected cases of COVID-19. In this “serosurvey,” researchers will collect and analyze blood samples from as many as 10,000 volunteers to provide critical data for epidemiological models, helping to illuminate the extent to which the virus has spread undetected in the United States. People interested in joining this study should contact clinicalstudiesunit@nih.gov. Clinical trial information HERE; press release HERE.
• CDC provided a weekly summary of key indicators, including public health surveillance indicators, adapted to track the COVID-19 pandemic in the U.S. The percentage of lab tests returning positive results is 14.6% — an increase over the previous week.
• More than 2.1 million people in the United States have been tested for COVID-19.
• Dr. Birx pointed out that “in the areas where we had an outbreak, these large metros, Louisiana, Denver, Detroit, Chicago, New York, New Jersey, by per capita, we’ve done more tests than any other place in the world. That was intentional.”

Treatments and Vaccines:

• President Trump announced that, through the FDA’s Coronavirus Treatment Acceleration Program (CTAP), 19 therapies and treatments are now being tested, and 26 more are in active planning for clinical trials.
• Gilead released the results from a cohort of analysis of 53 patients hospitalized with severe complications of COVID-19 that were treated with remdesivir under compassionate use. The majority of patients demonstrated clinical improvement and no new safety signals were identified. Study HERE; press release HERE.
• Pfizer’s lead coronavirus antiviral drug could enter clinical trials in “just a few months.”
• Glaxo and Vir entered a $250 million agreement to target COVID-19 and combine their experience with gene-editing technology Crispr.

Vaccines:

• The World Health Organization said 70 coronavirus vaccines are in development, including 3 in human trials.
• BioNTech and Pfizer plan to jointly conduct clinical trials for COVID-19 vaccine candidates across multiple sites and intend to initiate the first clinical trial as early as the end of this month.
• Inovio began the first human test of its experimental coronavirus vaccine and could have initial immune response and safety data by late summer.

Health Care Workforce:

• CMS temporarily suspended a number of rules so that health care practitioners can be hired quickly and perform work to the fullest extent of their licenses, including that doctors can directly care for patients at rural hospitals, across state lines if necessary, without having to be physically present, nurse practitioners may perform some medical exams on Medicare patients at skilled nursing facilities, and more.
• CMS has delivered more than $51 billion in accelerated/advance payment program requests. A fact sheet for providers on requesting an advance payment is available HERE.
• The first $30 billion to health care providers from CARES has been administered in grants. Providers accepting the grants are required to attest they will not surprise bill COVID-19 patients.

PPE:

• FDA has now authorized two companies to supply machines to sterilize N95 masks. The new approval will support decontamination of approximately 750,000 N95 respirators per day in the United States.
• FEMA’s Project Air Bridge has brought in 28 flights containing PPE to the United States with an additional 28 flights scheduled. Project Air Bridge flights have brought in nearly 300 million pieces of personal protective equipment from and around the globe.”