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Chancellor Rishi Sunak confirmed at the daily coronavirus press briefing that the prime minister remained in intensive care but his condition was “improving”.

He gave the update on the PM’s health before granting frontline charities an extra £750 million in funding so they can keep going through the coronavirus crisis.

The Chancellor of the Exchequer is the equivalent of the Finance Minister in other countries.

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Britain’s Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab stepped-in at Downing Street’s Coronavirus Briefing for Prime Minister Boris Johnson who was moved into ICU Monday evening as his COVID-19 symptoms worsened.

Mr. Raab provides an update on the PM’s condition and the government’s ongoing response to the C19 pandemic.

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As you may have seen in the previous video, Britain’s First Secretary Dominic Raab stood-in for PM Boris Johnson at Downing Street’s daily C19 briefing.

He said Johnson had asked him to deputize “where necessary”, but reiterated that the Prime Minister remains in-control.

However many questions are being raised about what would happen if he weren’t able to continue leading the economy.

This report from Reuters points out that, unlike some countries, Britain doesn’t have a formal succession plan should the PM become incapacitated.

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U.S. President Donald Trump singled out food workers across America for praise and thanks at the White House Coronavirus Task Force briefing on Monday.

The President Trump also thanked other critical infrastructure employees.

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New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) held a briefing in Albany on the state’s response to the coronavirus pandemic. The governor announced 779 New Yorkers had died the previous day, the highest single-day death toll for the state.

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White House Coronavirus Task Force Briefing

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U.S. President Donald Trump has announced that all uninsured people in the country will get free COVID-19 treatment using funds from the $2.2 trillion dollar economic package he signed into law last week.

At the daily Coronavirus Task Force briefing at the White House, the President said “I can so proudly announce that hospitals and health care providers treating uninsured coronavirus patients will be reimbursed by the federal government using funds from the economic relief package.”

When Mr, trump was asked how illegal immigrants fit into the plan, he deflected the question by saying “We’ll be talking about that at a different time.” He also said the administration would not re-open the Obamacare exchanges.

Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar said that any hospital that accepts federal funding “will be forbidden from balance billing the uninsured for the cost of their care.”

He also had advice for anyone who has lost their job because of the COVID-19 pandemic: “I would also like to remind people that if you have lost employer insurance coverage, you have insurance options that you should look into. You would be eligible for a special enrollment, back on the health care of exchanges, and depending on your states, you may be eligible for Medicaid.”

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The United States is banning exports of vital medical supplies such as N95 respirator masks, gowns and other protective equipment. Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau immediately said blocking the flow of equipment across the border would be a “mistake that could backfire”, pointing out that Canadian healthcare professionals go to work in COVID-19 hotspot Detroit every day. 

In making the announcement, U.S. President Donald Trump also left the door open for exports in certain cases, saying “But if somebody ordered – if Italy, if Spain – who has big problems – these are, countries with tremendous problems, France – if they have long-term orders and they are in there and they want to get certain things, I’d let them go out in certain instances because I think it’s only fair. They have problems that are proportionately or relatively bigger than our problems.”

The President also invoked the Korean War-era Defense Production Act to force 3M to ramp-up production of protective respirator masks after previously accusing them of price gouging, saying “it was a big surprise to many in government” that they were selling masks to higher bidding countries.

The comment produced backlash from European officials in the wake of reports of U.S. government representatives pushing aside buyers from other countries on a tarmac in China and paying double in cash for masks and other supplies the Chinese government was sending to France. The President this week also accepted an offer of supplies of 90 tons of medical equipment from Russian President Vladimir Putin.

3M officials denied the accusations and said they were working with the U.S. Attorney General and attorneys general in every state. They also said the company obtained approval from China to export to the U.S. 10 million N-95 respirators manufactured by 3M in China.

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As state governors across the United States receive medical supplies from the Strategic National Stockpile, many are complaining about receiving defective ventilators, and protective face masks full of dry rot with expiry dates of 2010.

California Governor Gavin Newsom tweeted that “LA received 170 broken ventilators from the national stockpile. Rather than complaining, we put them on a truck, drove them up overnight, and had  @Bloom_Energy get to work fixing them. 

Monday they’ll (sic) back in LA–fixed. That’s the spirit of CA.”

Alabama officials returned almost 6,000 masks that contained dry rot. Oregon officials also complained about receiving masks with flimsy elastic that could snap and put medical workers at risk of infection. They explained some of the equipment was purchased 10 years ago at the height of the H1N1 flu epidemic, and other supplies had been recalled by the U.S. Centers For Disease Control and Prevention.

Senator Cory Gardner of Colorado has called for an investigation into the supply and distribution of ventilators in the stockpile.

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The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has requested the immediate removal of all Zantac products and generic versions of the heartburn medication removed from sale in pharmacies and stores.

This follows months of investigations that discovered trace amounts of a contaminant called N-Nitrosodimethylamine (NDMA) in specific lots of ranitidine, the active drug in Zantac.

That contaminant has been classified as a “probable human carcinogen” by the World Health Organization.

In a press release, the FDA says it has determined that “the impurity in some ranitidine products increases over time and when stored at higher than room temperatures.”

The agency has advised people who are currently taking Zantac or any generic forms of ranitidine to stop and switch to other heartburn medications that don’t contain the drug.

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California Governor Gavin Newsom Coronavirus News Conference

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Canada’s Prime Minister Justin Trudeau To Recall Parliament

Calling it the “largest economic program in Canada’s history,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said today Parliament will be recalled to pass new legislation to deliver billions of dollars more in  emergency COVID-19 aid.

Saying “This must be a Team Canada effort”, he reached out to opposition parties to recall Parliament to push through expanded income support for Canadians and  a boost in wage subsidies for businesses.  

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The growing tally of COVID-19 cases, and an estimate by the Society of Critical Care Medicine that up to 960 thousand infected patients across the U.S. may require ventilators makes for a very scary scenario when you realize that there are only about 200 thousand machines in the country.

A doctor in Seattle thinks he has a quick and affordable solution.

Dr. Steven Quay is the Founder and CEO of biopharma company Atossa Therapuetics and has invented seven FDA-approved medicines. He’s seeking new approval for what he thinks can be a a one-two knockout combo for COVID-19 that would eliminate the need for patients to go on ventilators.

The first drug is an inhaled blood-thinner called nebulizer heparin which coats the protein found on the surface of the new coronavirus. The second is N-acetylcysteine (NAC), often used to prevent asthma attacks and treat overdoses from Tylenol/acetaminophen.

It breaks down the protein and prevents it from entering the lungs. Dr. Quay told DailyMail.com, “It’s like putting the key into the car to start it, but the key is covered with peanut butter. It can’t get in and it won’t start the car.

Since both drugs are already FDA-approved and reasonably priced, and the fact there have been 12 clinical trials involving over 780 patients with lung damage who improved after being treating with one or both of the drugs without needed ventilation, Dr. Quay is hoping to get it fast-tracked.

The new trial has been nicknamed the nebulized Heparin-N-acetylcysteine in COVID-19 Patients by Evaluation of pulmonary function, or the HOPE trial.

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One day after discount airline EasyJet grounded its entire fleet of 330 planes, British Airways has closed its full operation at Gatwick Airport in West Sussex and will be concentrating reduced service at Heathrow Airport outside London.

At the moment, there is no travel ban in the U.K. which many people see as stark contrast to the U.S. and E.U. which have shut their borders down.

Flights are still arriving in the U.K from COVID-19 hotspots such as Italy, Spain and the U.S. because British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who is currently infected with C-19, wanted to keep the borders open to allow stranded Brits to come home.

His Foreign Secretary Dominic Raab supports the move, but there is a rift in the Cabinet as Home Secretary Priti Patel wants the borders closed.

All of this has hit many airlines hard, particularly Norwegian – the third largest airline at Gatwick – which has temporarily laid off 90 percent of its workforce – about 7,300 people.

British Airways has posted the following message on its website:

“We’re currently experiencing extremely high call volumes. Please don’t call or message unless you’re travelling in the next 72 hours so we can help those needing urgent rebooking. If you have a question relating to the Coronavirus (COVID-19) please check the FAQs below or to find out more about our flexible booking options please visit our book with confidence section.”

The airline is also offering flexibility win re-bookings for customers: “To allow greater flexibility you can change the destination, date of travel, or both without being charged a change fee, on all new bookings made from Tuesday 3 March to Sunday 31 May 2020, or receive a voucher for any existing bookings that depart up to Sunday 31 May 2020. Find out more “.

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So many sectors within the Travel industry have been hit hard by the financial shockwaves emanating from the COVID-19 pandemic.

With more and more airlines grounding and international borders shutting down, the aftershocks are hitting people who rent out their homes on Airbnb.

Company CEO Brian Chesky has sent a letter to hosts saying Airbnb is allocating $250 million dollars to pay 25 % of their normal cancellation fees for reservations with check-in dates between March 14 and May 31.

The company had angered hosts when it previously announced that guests would receive a full refund for the cancellation of reservations made on or before March 14 for check-in between March 14 and April 14.

Jane Lahner Lee at Reuters.com reports that Airbnb is also creating a $10 million dollar relief fund for its Superhosts. Read more details about the available grants.

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President Trump White House Briefing

President Trump, along with members of the Coronavirus Task Force, briefed reporters on the federal government’s response to the coronavirus pandemic.

The president spoke of the efforts governors around the country are making to mitigate the spread of the virus.

He also discussed the medical equipment recently released to the states with about 10,000 ventilators being held back to accommodate needs during the surge of the pandemic.

The president stressed how the next two weeks for the country will be difficult, saying that it will be “a very, very painful two weeks.”

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New York Governor Cuomo Coronavirus News Conference

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New Mexico Announces Changes To Coronavirus Testing Criteria

New Mexico’s Health Secretary Kathy Kunkel announces new changes to testing criteria, which will include asymptomatic individuals – those living with family members who are positive, or who’ve had close contact in nursing homes or congregant settings.

As of today, there are 24 individuals hospitalized in New Mexico for COVID-19. This number may include individuals who tested positive for COVID-19 out of state but are currently hospitalized in New Mexico. This number does not include New Mexicans who tested positive for COVID-19 and may have been transferred to a hospital out of state.

As of today, there are 26 COVID-19 cases designated as having recovered by the New Mexico Department of Health.

The Department of Health has detected community spread and is investigating cases with no known exposure. The agency reports that given the infectious nature of the virus it is likely other residents are infected but yet to be tested or confirmed positive.

To that end, all New Mexicans have been instructed to stay home except for outings absolutely necessary for health, safety and welfare.

These additional restrictions have been enacted to aggressively minimize person-to-person contact and ensure spread is mitigated. All businesses except those deemed essential have been ordered to close.

New Mexicans are strongly urged to limit travel to only what is necessary for health, safety and welfare.

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The number of COVID-19 cases across the U.S. has surged past 100 thousand, and as the situation in New York City, considered the country’s epicenter of the pandemic, grows more dire, national, state and local officials are bracing for what’s expected to be an “acceleration phase’ of confirmed cases in growing hotspots.

Seattle, the first American hotspot, has the highest number of cases outside New York City, but there are growing concerns about worsening conditions in New Orleans, Boston and Chicago in the wake of Mardi Gras and students returning from Spring Break.

In fact, Louisiana has experienced the fastest growth of new cases worldwide, and in New Orleans, its huge convention center is being converted into a massive field hospital.

Cases are also spiking in Los Angeles which is expected to match the infection numbers in NYC sometime in the next five days.

The Army Corps of Engineers top brass are looking at potentially converting about 114 facilities across the U.S. into field hospitals – many to treat non-C19 patients to ease the burden on front-line hospitals.

In many cities, medical personnel have been taking to social media to complain about a lack of protective clothing and supplies, and to warn families that they may not be able to save their loved ones because they are running out of ventilators.

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Apple has launched a COVID-19 screening tool  website and app that allow users to screen themselves for symptoms of the coronavirus.

Developed in partnership with the CDC, FEMA, and the White House Coronavirus Task Force, Apple cautioned that it’s “designed to be a resource for individuals and does not replace instructions from healthcare providers or guidance from state and local health authorities.”

When you visit the website or download the app, the first thing you’re asked is whether you’re screening for yourself or someone else.

After you click your answer, a warning screen appears instructing anyone with constant chest pain or pressure, extreme difficulty breathing, severe and constant dizziness or lightheadedness, slurred speech or difficulty waking up to immediately call 911.

If you aren’t experiencing any of those symptoms, you’ll continue to a questionnaire that asks about symptoms, travel, preexisting conditions and contact with other people.

After you submit your answers, the tool shows recommendations from the CDC on how to proceed, including guidance on social distancing and self-isolation, how to monitor symptoms at home, whether to get tested and when to seek advice from a medical professional.

Apple says the screening tool does not require signing in with an Apple ID, and the company says “individual responses will not be sent to Apple or any government organization.”

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The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has given emergency use authorization (EUA) to Abbott Laboratories for the fastest available molecular point-of-care test for detecting the COVID-19 Coronavirus.

Abbott says its “ID Now” unit can deliver positive results in as quickly as five minutes, and negative results in 13 minutes.

The company says it’s ramping up production to deliver 50 thousand “ID Now” tests per day, starting next week.

Because the unit is about the size of a small toaster, it can be used in a variety of locations outside hospitals, such as doctors’ offices and urgent care clinics.

Abbott plans to use “ID Now” in conjunction with another system that received emergency use authorization last week to produce about five million tests in April.

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President Trump White House Briefing

U.S. President Donald Trump said, “Today, we reached a historic milestone in our war against the coronavirus. Over 1 million Americans have now been tested.”

The President also used the briefing in the White House Rose Garden to show off a new testing kit that can provide positive results in five minutes. (Described in detail in the Tests tab of our C19 Rx Case Logs section.)

Mr. Trump also announced that the U.S. would be sending approximately “$100 million dollars worth of things, of surgical and medick and hospital things” to Italy, Spain and France.

This despite an earlier call with U.S. governors who complained they can’t get medical supplies because the federal government has been buying them up.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo expands on this developing “bidding war” in the briefing video that follows this one.

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New York Governor Cuomo Coronavirus News Conference

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California Governor Newsom Coronavirus News Conference

A state-by-state forecast from researchers at the University of Washington’s medical school estimates the COVID-19 pandemic will create peak demand on California’s health care resources on April 26, and the state will see more than 4,300 deaths from the infection well into August, but the state will be likely able to meet the need for hospital beds.

California Governor Gavin Newsom says the state has been preparing for a surge that will require a two-thirds increase in hospital system capacity, and the state’s own modeling points to a peak in the second half of May.

With over 5,700 confirmed C19 cases in California, and 135 deaths, Gov. Newsom called on retired or jobless health care professionals to help boost the state’s response.

Referring to it as an “all hands on deck situation”, Newsom said “If you have a background in health care, we need your help,” asking interested individuals to visit healthcorps.ca.gov.

Those who want to sign up must meet the following qualifications:

• Be 18 years or older
• Be eligible to work in the U.S.
• Have a valid driver’s license or passport and a social security card
• Have a valid California license for clinical practice or be a medical or nursing student
• Have no negative licensure or certification actions (for licensed or certified professionals)

Volunteers will be paid and receive malpractice insurance coverage. Newsom said officials are currently working out the budget, which will come from federal and state funding.

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U.S. President Donald Trump has exercised his authority under the Defense Production Act to require General Motors to “act, perform, and prioritize contracts or orders for the number of ventilators” deemed necessary by the health and human services secretary amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

The Defense Production Act, (DPA) was first enacted by President Harry Truman in 1950 after North Korea invaded South Korea, setting off what would become a three year conflict. The invocation of the DPA was meant to ensure the U.S. forces had the military equipment and supplies they needed. 

The law authorizes the president to require companies to sign contracts or fill orders for products needed for the nation’s defense. It also lets the president make sure price gouging doesn’t occur and gives the president freedom to incentivize the expanded production, with loans and purchase commitments, for instance.

Used periodically during the Cold War to increase production of defense supplies, Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton both used it in 2001 to ensure shippers delivered natural gas equipment and electrical equipment to California, during its energy crisis. 

Two years later, Bush invoked it to prioritize the shipment of GPS receivers to British forces in Iraq. President Barack Obama invoked the DPA to fast-track development of high-tech defense products.

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James Dyson, the British billionaire inventor known for revolutionary vacuums, hair dryers and air purifiers, has designed a new ventilator in 10 days.

It was prompted that long ago by a phone call from UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson whose government has ordered 10 thousand units to support the National Health Service (NHS) to cope with the increasing numbers of COVID-19 patients.

Dyson says the new device can be manufactured quickly, efficiently and at volume. In a letter to employees, he wrote “A ventilator supports a patient who is no longer able to maintain their own airways, but sadly there is currently a significant shortage, both in the UK and other countries around the world.”

He continued “The core challenge was how to design and deliver a new, sophisticated medical product in volume and in an extremely short space of time,” he added. “The race is now on to get it into production.”

Dyson also wrote that the company would donate 5,000 units to the international efforts to treat the pandemic.

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The government of Canada has issued a domestic travel ban on planes and trains for anyone showing symptoms of the COVID-19 virus.

Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau announced the restrictions come into effect at noon ET on Monday, March 30.

Trudeau said “It will be important for operators of airlines and trains to ensure that people who are exhibiting symptoms do not board those trains. It will be a Transport Canada rule that will be enforced, but at the same time, we’re telling people stay home if it’s not absolutely essential for you to travel.”

The Public Health Agency of Canada is providing guidance to airlines and rail companies about conducting health checks on passengers boarding flights and trains within Canada or departing from Canada.

On the same day, the Prime Minister’s wife announced that she has recovered from COVID-19 after being infected with the virus on a trip to the UK in early March.

Sophie Grégoire Trudeau wrote on Facebook “I am feeling so much better and have received the all clear from my physician and Ottawa Public Health. From the bottom of my heart, I want to say thank you to everyone who reached out to me with their well wishes. And to everyone who is suffering right now, I send you all my love.”

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With over 15 million Americans filing for unemployment benefits in the last three weeks, states’ Departments of Labor are being overwhelmed in a different way from hospitals and healthcare facilities.

While the urgent list on the healthcare front includes ventilators and PPE’s (Personal Protective Equipment such as masks and gloves, the urgent list for those trying to process those jobless claims includes older computer programmers.

New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy has issued a call for volunteers who know how to code a half-century-old language called COBOL (Common Business Oriented Language) used primarily with mainframe computer systems.

Many other states are facing the same urgent need as are most federal departments with aging computer infrastructure.

COBOL hasn’t been taught in U.S. universities since the 80s, yet a 2017 Reuters report found there are an estimated 220 billion lines of COBOL in use today.

On average, the majority of COBOL programmers are most likely to be between 45 to 55 years-old.

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The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved the use of what it calls “COVID-19 convalescent plasma” for patients with life-threatening forms of the illness.

The serum is derived from the donated blood of COVID-19 survivors who have built up antibodies to the new coronavirus.

The move comes after promising results in China where doctors began using the protocol last month.

It will take time to build-up plasma supplies across the country, as the medical community awaits FDA approval to use the treatment for frontline responders at risk from repeated exposure to infected patients.

Officials caution there is no guarantee of success, and scientists in China who gave 15 out of 30 COVID-19 patients hydroxychloroquine say 13 of them tested negative a week later, but so did 14 who only received supportive care. The study is considered too small for conclusive results.

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After being late to implement mandatory stay-at-home and social distancing measures because of it’s “herd immunity” philosophy, the government of the Netherlands is now dealing with over 20 thousand COVID-19 infections.

It’s public health authority, RIVM (Rijksinstituut voor Volksgezondheid en Milieu – which translates as National Institute for Public Health and the Environment) has revealed that about 40% of nursing homes in the country are infected with coronavirus.

DutchNews.nl reports that RIVM infectious diseases chief Jaap van Dissel briefed Dutch MPs on Wednesday morning that coronavirus cases have been identified in at least 900 of the Netherlands’ 2,500 nursing homes.

The country has seen 2,248 deaths to-date from COVID-19 infections.

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Researchers in China are warning of a possible new mutation of the coronavirus that causes COVID-19 disease and say it could infect people for almost two months.

Previously, researchers found patients who survived the virus stop being infectious after an average of 20 days. The longest previous case was 37 days.

But now military researchers in China have found a middle-aged man who tested positive for 49 days and needed to be treated with a plasma transfusion from recovered patients.

Despite having only mild symptoms, the man had infected lesions on his lungs which cleared up after treatment in the hospital.

The researchers fear that this could mean a new mild sub-type has mutated from the coronavirus which could be harder to eliminate as other “chronic” patients who would not be treated because of mild or non-showing symptoms could continue to spread the infection.

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Music legend Dollar Parton is hoping to provide “comfort and reassurance to coping kids and families during the shelter-in-place mandates” during the COVID-19 pandemic.

How? By launching a weekly series in which she reads a children’s book to an online audience at bedtime.

“Goodnight With Dolly” will be streamed on youTube and elsewhere starting today (Thursday, April 2) at 7pm EDT, although the YouTube channel says the premiere will be at 16:00 (4pm).

The musician and philanthropist, known better as “the Book Lady” to most youngsters, will be reading books from her Imagination Library project, and the first book in the series is The Little Engine That Could by Watty Piper.

The Dolly Parton Foundation’s Imagination Library has delivered more than 130 million free books to children since it began in Tennessee in 1995, earning special recognition from the Library of Congress.

Dolly has also pledged $1 million dollars to coronavirus research being done at Vanderbilt University in Nashville. That’s the same amount she gifted to the Monroe Carell Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt in gratitude for the cancer care her niece received there over two decades ago.

That same year, Dolly came to the rescue of families after wildfires ravaged parts of her home town of Pigeon Forge and Gatlinburg Tennessee by setting up the “My People Fund” and donating $1,000 a month for the next 5 months to each family who had lost a primary residence in the fire. When she arrived to deliver on her promise she surprised the families with a bonus $5,000 each for a total of $10,000 to each family.

She also created the “Mountain Tough” organization to provide ongoing support for the fire victims over the next three years and pledged to fund it with $3 million dollars.

Said Dolly in her usual self-deprecating way, “It makes me feel humble. I don’t put myself on any kind of pedestal for doing this because it’s the right thing to do. I’m a Smoky Mountain girl, and I’ve been blessed in my life to become a celebrity. And when you’re in a position to help, you should help.”

Dolly, you make us all feel humble and grateful to have you in your lives! God bless you!

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For all the misery and death tobacco plants have wreaked upon humans since they were first cultivated for smoking, they may now find absolution as miracle plants in the fight against COVID-19 infection.

British American Tobacco, the maker of cigarette brands Benson & Hedges, Dunhill, Kucky Strike and Rothman’s, says it is developing a potential vaccine for coronavirus using tobacco plants.

The company says “The vaccine in development uses BAT’s proprietary, fast-growing tobacco plant technology which has several advantages over conventional vaccine production technology:

• It is potentially safer given that tobacco plants can’t host pathogens which cause human disease.
•  
• The vaccine formulation KBP is developing remains stable at room temperature, unlike conventional vaccines which often require refrigeration.
•  
• It has the potential to deliver an effective immune response in a single dose.
•  
• It is faster because the elements of the vaccine accumulate in tobacco plants much more quickly – 6 weeks in tobacco plants versus several months using conventional methods.

That means, if all goes well and the company gets support from government agencies and what it calls “the right partners” it could produce between one million and three million doses of vaccine beginning in June.

The London-listed company says its US biotech subsidiary, Kentucky BioProcessing (KBP), has moved to pre-clinical testing and that it will work on the vaccine on a not-for-profit basis.

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Bill Lapschies has survived a few things in his lifetime, like the Spanish Flu of 1918 and World War II.

He now has the distinction, at 104 years of age, of being the oldest known survivor of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The war veteran was one of the first two residents of the Edward C. Allworth Veterans’ Home in Lebanon, Oregon to test positive for the new coronavirus infection.

He has since recovered. The other man, in his 90s, did not and has since died.

The virus spread among 16 people at the home to date. Of those, two died, two are in serious condition, three are stable and eight have recovered.

Born in Salem, Oregon in 1916, Mr. Lapschies was put into isolation with other residents who were suspected of developing symptoms. His were relatively mild, and he never developed respiratory problems.

On April 1, family and friends gathered to celebrate his 104th birthday.

The veteran is among a growing list of centenarian survivors of the new coronavirus – including a 103 year-old woman in China, a 103 year-old woman in Iran, and a 102 year-old woman in Italy.

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In an Exclusive, Newsweek is reporting the U.S. military has activated its never-before-used federal response to combat the COVID-19 pandemic in the country.

William M. Arkin writes “While being hit with coronavirus at rates equivalent to the civilian population, the U.S. military has activated its “defense support of civil authorities” apparatus, establishing liaisons in all 50 states, activating units and command posts, and moving forces to provide medical, transportation, logistics, and communications support in New York and Washington states.”

The Joint Task Force-Civil Support response has never before been activated on a nationwide scale, despite being formulated in 1999 , and implements homeland defense, and civil support contingency plans under the dual commands of Lt. General Laura Richardson, the commander of Army North, and governors in each state. 

The response is made up of various commands, including the two hospital ships that have been deployed to New York and Los Angeles.

Read the full report at Newsweek, which also addresses unfounded rumors that National Guard troops were being deployed to support a nationwide quarantine, as well as Army North specifying that military forces “will not directly participate in civilian law enforcement activities.”

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The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved the use of what it calls “COVID-19 convalescent plasma” for patients with life-threatening forms of the illness.

The serum is derived from the donated blood of COVID-19 survivors who have built up antibodies to the new coronavirus.

The move comes after promising results in China where doctors began using the protocol last month.

It will take time to build-up plasma supplies across the country, as the medical community awaits FDA approval to use the treatment for frontline responders at risk from repeated exposure to infected patients.

Officials caution there is no guarantee of success, and scientists in China who gave 15 out of 30 COVID-19 patients hydroxychloroquine say 13 of them tested negative a week later, but so did 14 who only received supportive care. The study is considered too small for conclusive results.

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Holiday travelers in many countries are getting stuck between a rock and hotels because of the C19 pandemic.

If you are stuck at home because of a government-mandated quarantine, what are your chances of getting your money back from a hotel or holiday park where you have made an advance booking?

That’s an issue travelers, consumer groups and lawyers are wrestling with the relevant legal questions in the Netherlands where some businesses are seeing 95% cancellations.

The outcome depends on who is doing the cancelling.

if a hotel or holiday park cancels your stay then you do have the right to your money back.

if the consumer is cancelling, then the terms of the booking are key.

DutchNews.nl spoke with lawyer Martijn Zwennes of Spuistraat 10 Advocaten in Amsterdam who says “If you are cancelling, then it is your own problem: the hotel is still there and it has the room. But we recommend that you do see if both parties can come up with a solution in a reasonable manner, because this is an exceptional situation.” He adds that if you made a non-changeable booking and want to claim on your travel insurance, you might also be unlucky: many travel insurance policies will not cover the coronavirus lockdown because it is such an extreme event.

Needless to say, this is making consumers very angry and frustrated.

Senay Bozias has done a great article on the challenges facing both consumers and businesses on this front.

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With hospitals across the U.S. running low or running out of available ventilators, as well as last-resort drug supplies, the prospect of making hard choices about who gets treated and who doesn’t is raising real fears among disability rights groups.

So much so, that several have filed civil rights complaints with the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Office for Civil Rights. They claim that plans or proposals to ration ventilator access in Alabama and Washington State will discriminate against disabled Americans, violating their rights and putting their lives at risk.

Ivanova Smith, who has an intellectual disability, is one of the people making a complaint. She told NPR, “There’s been a long history of people with intellectual, development mental disabilities having our medical care denied.”

“Because we’re not seen as valuable,” she said. “We’re not seen as productive or needed. When that’s not true.”

Alabama’s Emergency Operations Plan , also a subject of a complaint, focuses on managing access to ventilators during an event that the governor deems a public health crisis.

The protocol lists several health conditions for which providers should “not offer mechanical ventilator support,” including heart failure, respiratory failure and metastatic cancer. It also says “persons with severe mental retardation, advanced dementia or severe traumatic brain injury may be poor candidates for ventilator support.”

The complaint by the Alabama Disabilities Advocacy Program and The ARC of the United States claims this policy discriminates against people with intellectual and cognitive disabilities in violation of federal laws, including the Americans with Disabilities Act.

James Tucker, director of the Alabama Disabilities Advocacy Program, said in a press release, “In this time of crisis, we cannot devalue the lives of others in our community based on their disabilities. It’s morally wrong, and it violates the law.”

Health officials say the trigger for rationing care, or invoking what are known as “crisis standards,” will be when there are more COVID-19 patients than ventilators.

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The debate over the Constitutional “right to bear arms” is testy enough at the best of times. Put a Presidential election year together with a nationwide pandemic and you’ve got a tinderbox ready to blow.

With over 200 million Americans under “lockdown” orders, and businesses ordered to close unless deemed “essential”, where does that leave gun stores?

Ask gun shop owners and they say “of course they should be considered essential ” because people want to protect themselves and their families in case overwhelmed hospitals and supermarkets create public anarchy.

Ask gun control advocates and they say that only puts communities at greater risk because of potentially incomplete background checks, as well as the “wingnut” factor as they cite the case of a man in Georgia who was arrested for allegedly pulling a gun on two women wearing surgical masks at a post office. His excuse? He thought they were infected with the COVID-19 virus.

Even the states can’t agree. NPR compiled the following list:

In Pennsylvania, Gov. Tom Wolf allowed gun shops to open with new social distancing rules at the urging of some justices on the state’s high court.

The Los Angeles County sheriff has twice ordered gun shops to close. His initial decision was followed by an outcry and an opinion from the county’s top lawyers that gun retailers could keep their doors open during the pandemic. Asked who was right, Gov. Gavin Newsom said it was up to local sheriffs.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton said Friday that purchasing and possession of firearms during the pandemic is indeed essential.

Washington state is shuttering gun shops by not listing firearm retailers on its list of essential operations.

In New Orleans, the mayor issued an emergency proclamation that allows for the suspension of “alcoholic beverages, firearms and explosives” if deemed necessary.

Meanwhile, in other parts of the country, the question awaits the outcome of legal battles.

Lawyers with the New Jersey Second Amendment Society filed a federal lawsuit this week against the state’s governor for not classifying gun retailers as essential.

NPR’s Bobby Allyn has done a great examination of the debate.

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Two-thirds of Australia’s more than 3580 COVID-19 cases have been linked to overseas travel, prompting the government to invoke a mandatory 14 day quarantine for returning travelers in state-funded hotel rooms.

And just to make sure they stay in their rooms, the doors will be guarded by police, soldiers and private security guards. Any travelers who manage to give security the slip will face fines and jail time.

Businesses will also face fines, as high as $9900 in Victoria, if they flout mass gathering restrictions.

9News Australia provides this overview of the new regulations.

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As the U.K. surpasses 17,000 cases of COVID-19 infection, with the death toll in the country rising by 260 in a single day, work continues on an emergency coronavirus field hospital.

The ExCel London Centre is being refitted to transform the exhibition facility into the NHS Nightingale hospital.

Hundreds of cubicles have been installed to house 4,000 new beds along with ventilators, oxygen and additional equipment that is vital for treating people infected with the virus.

When it opens next week, the mega-hospital will be headed by veteran nurse Deidre Barr, 62,  who is coming out of retirement for the assignment.

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The heir to the British throne, Prince Charles, has tested positive for COVID-19 infection. 

The 71 year-old Prince of Wales is said to have a “mild form” of the virus and is self-isolating at his home on the Balmoral estate in Scotland with his wife Camilla, the Duchess of Cornwall.

She has not shown any symptoms of infection and has tested negative for the virus.

Immediate concern shifted to his parents Queen Elizabeth and Prince Philip, both in their 90s, who both moved to isolate at Windsor Castle last week from Buckingham Palace and Sandringham, respectively. This after a worker at the Palace tested positive for COVID-19 last week.

Charles last met with the Queen on March 12, and met hundreds of people since March 9 during the Commonwealth Day celebrations, including Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

On the 10th he attended the WaterAid summit in London and met with Prince Albert of Monaco who has also tested positive for the virus.

*UPDATE: Concerns have increased for the Queen, as she had her last audience with Prime Minister Johnson on March 11th, the day before her last meeting with Prince Charles, both of whom have since tested positive for C19.

Buckingham Palace has advised that the Queen “remains in good health, and is following all the appropriate advice with regards to her welfare.”

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As infection and death rates from C19 continue to rise around the world, more stories are emerging of patients being refused treatment and then subsequently dying of the disease.

A 17 year-old boy in Los Angeles with no pre-existing health conditions, who had developed respiratory problems, died after being turned away from an urgent care facility.

The reason? He didn’t have health insurance and his family was told to take him to a public hospital. The boy went into cardiac arrest on the way, and died  six hours later.

Overseas, 36-year-old Kayla Williams died at her flat in south London of suspected Covid-19 a day after calling 999 and being told to look after herself at home.

The mother of three, died a day after paramedics were called to her home in Peckham, and her husband was told she was not a priority.

This may be a harbinger of things to come as test kits become more available and confirmed C19 cases are expected to spike in the coming weeks. With hospitals in many countries reporting a shortage of ventilators, there is a fear doctors will have to make tough decisions about who will get treatment and who won’t based on severity of symptoms and age, as well as the availability of both medicine and equipment.

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ProPublica, a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power has exposed unusual and fraudulent prescribing activity as doctors stockpile unproven COVID-19 drugs.

A nationwide shortage of two drugs prescribed for patients with lupus and rheumatoid arthritis, is being driven in part by doctors inappropriately prescribing the medicines for family, friends and themselves.

Several states states have moved to restrict prescribing of the drugs as some lupus patients report difficulty getting refills.

Garth Reynolds, executive director of the Illinois Pharmacists Association called the doctors’ actions “disgraceful and completely selfish”.

Read the full report at ProPublica.

UPDATE: Medical regulators in Canada suspect some doctors in the country have also been stockpiling drugs by writing prescriptions for family and friends.

As “CBC Investigates” reports, they can be sanctioned if they’re found out.

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After NYC Mayor Bill de Blasio calls his city ” the epicenter” of the U.S. COVID-19 outbreak, Dr. Deborah Birx, the White House pandemic response coordinator, warns people who’ve recently left NYC to self-quarantine for two weeks, even if they don’t show any symptoms.

The mayor predicts that half of the city’s 8.6 million residents will become infected, and that people ‘need to be ready’ for New York staying in lockdown until the end of May.

The same day, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo announced he is keeping all schools across the state closed for another two weeks, until April 15. 

Speaking at a press conference at the Javits Center where a field hospital holding 1,000 beds has been set up, Cuomo rallied a crowd of National Guard troops and called open them to “kick coronavirus’ ass before it peaks in 21 days”.

There are now more than 44,000 cases of the virus in New York state including 25,573 in New York City.

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For the first time in their history, the Olympic Games have been postponed because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The three times they have been previously cancelled, the world was at war.

For host city Tokyo, potential, losses on top of the estimated #30 billion (£25.4 billion) costs to date could reach an estimated 640.8 billion yen ($5.7 billion/£4.9 billion).

That includes the costs of maintaining all Olympic facilities for another year, renegotiating contracts for a wide range of logistics services as well as lost income from the over 600 thousand tourists expected to travel to Tokyo for the Olympic Games and Paralympic Games.

Tom Hamilton, a Senior Writer at ESPN has done a great article on the fiscal and logistical nightmare this creates.

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The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has given emergency use authorization (EUA) to Abbott Laboratories for the fastest available molecular point-of-care test for detecting the COVID-19 Coronavirus.

Abbott says its “ID Now” unit can deliver positive results in as quickly as five minutes, and negative results in 13 minutes.

The company says it’s ramping up production to deliver 50 thousand “ID Now” tests per day, starting next week.

Because the unit is about the size of a small toaster, it can be used in a variety of locations outside hospitals, such as doctors’ offices and urgent care clinics.

Abbott plans to use “ID Now” in conjunction with another system that received emergency use authorization last week to produce about five million tests in April.

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Apple has launched a COVID-19 screening tool  website and app that allow users to screen themselves for symptoms of the coronavirus.

Developed in partnership with the CDC, FEMA, and the White House Coronavirus Task Force, Apple cautioned that it’s “designed to be a resource for individuals and does not replace instructions from healthcare providers or guidance from state and local health authorities.”

When you visit the website or download the app, the first thing you’re asked is whether you’re screening for yourself or someone else.

After you click your answer, a warning screen appears instructing anyone with constant chest pain or pressure, extreme difficulty breathing, severe and constant dizziness or lightheadedness, slurred speech or difficulty waking up to immediately call 911.

If you aren’t experiencing any of those symptoms, you’ll continue to a questionnaire that asks about symptoms, travel, preexisting conditions and contact with other people.

After you submit your answers, the tool shows recommendations from the CDC on how to proceed, including guidance on social distancing and self-isolation, how to monitor symptoms at home, whether to get tested and when to seek advice from a medical professional.

Apple says the screening tool does not require signing in with an Apple ID, and the company says “individual responses will not be sent to Apple or any government organization.”

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Earlier in March, President Trump said Google had 1,700 engineers working on a new website that would help Americans determine whether to seek testing for COVID-19.

That came as something of a surprise to Google, who like Dr. Michael Fauci had to do a bit of an . . .”ahem, not quite.”

Google quickly clarified that an affiliated company, Verily, was indeed at work on the project, but on a limited scale. The website is now functional in “select counties” in California.

Perhaps in an effort to make up some credibility for themselves and the President, Google quickly launched a very basic national website that provides users with information and alerts about the coronavirus.

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The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has approved the use of what it calls “COVID-19 convalescent plasma” for patients with life-threatening forms of the illness.

The serum is derived from the donated blood of COVID-19 survivors who have built up antibodies to the new coronavirus.

The move comes after promising results in China where doctors began using the protocol last month.

It will take time to build-up plasma supplies across the country, as the medical community awaits FDA approval to use the treatment for frontline responders at risk from repeated exposure to infected patients.

Officials caution there is no guarantee of success.

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James Dyson, the British billionaire inventor known for revolutionary vacuums, hair dryers and air purifiers, has designed a new ventilator in 10 days.

It was prompted that long ago by a phone call from UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson whose government has ordered 10 thousand units to support the National Health Service (NHS) to cope with the increasing numbers of COVID-19 patients.

Dyson says the new device can be manufactured quickly, efficiently and at volume. In a letter to employees, he wrote “A ventilator supports a patient who is no longer able to maintain their own airways, but sadly there is currently a significant shortage, both in the UK and other countries around the world.”

He continued “The core challenge was how to design and deliver a new, sophisticated medical product in volume and in an extremely short space of time,” he added. “The race is now on to get it into production.”

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Dyson also wrote that the company would donate 5,000 units to the international efforts to treat the pandemic.

U.S. President Donald Trump has exercised his authority under the Defense Production Act to require General Motors to “act, perform, and prioritize contracts or orders for the number of ventilators” deemed necessary by the health and human services secretary amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.

The Defense Production Act, (DPA) was first enacted by President Harry Truman in 1950 after North Korea invaded South Korea, setting off what would become a three year conflict. The invocation of the DPA was meant to ensure the U.S. forces had the military equipment and supplies they needed. 

The law authorizes the president to require companies to sign contracts or fill orders for products needed for the nation’s defense. It also lets the president make sure price gouging doesn’t occur and gives the president freedom to incentivize the expanded production, with loans and purchase commitments, for instance.

Used periodically during the Cold War to increase production of defense supplies, Presidents George W. Bush and Bill Clinton both used it in 2001 to ensure shippers delivered natural gas equipment and electrical equipment to California, during its energy crisis. 

Two years later, Bush invoked it to prioritize the shipment of GPS receivers to British forces in Iraq. President Barack Obama invoked the DPA to fast-track development of high-tech defense products.

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An experimental drug being fast-tracked for HIV and breast cancer patients is showing potential in treating COVID-19 patients.

Leronlimab was given to seven critically-ill C19 patients in New York. Two of them went from ventilators in the ICU to a regular hospital room within days.

All but one of the patients are said to be improving.

The drug works by calming inflammation caused by the body’s immune response to infection. If the immune response is too strong and the inflammation gets out of control, a patient develops pneumonia as fluid starts to fill the “breathing branches” of alveoli in the lungs.

This leads to respiratory distress syndrome, a condition that requires a ventilator, and one that is killing HIV and COVID-19 patients.

CytoDyn, the company that’s developed Leronlimab, is preparing to treat another 75 patients with mild or moderate coronavirus infection, and if they show the same improvements as the first set of patients, it could get fast-tracked FDA approval for emergency use very quickly.

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As researchers in a number of countries race to develop a vaccine, drugs approved for other conditions are making news as potential treatments for patients with the newest coronavirus.

At an earlier stage in the outbreak, Remdesivir, a drug approved to treat Ebola, was showing promising treatment results, but because of potential side-effects such as liver toxicity, it requires further clinical study before being used on the frontlines of treating COVID-19.

The drug had been developed to treat Ebola, and entered a clinical trial in February after anecdotal results from the first patients treated with it for COVID-19.

All three patients treated with remdesivir recovered, but they also reported significant gastrointestinal symptoms. Investigators also noticed elevated liver enzyme levels in their blood samples.

Andrew Joseph at statnews.com has done an excellent in-depth chronicle of the long and winding clinical journey Gilead Sciences is traveling with this drug that is raising as many concerns as it is raising hopes.

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In the wake of the excitement surrounding Remdesivir, another drug – Chloroquine – approved for treating malaria, lupus and severe rheumatoid arthritis, was being hailed as a “miracle drug” after a number of COVID-19 patients in critical condition said it made the difference between life and death.

However, this drug is also not without serious side-effects, including liver toxicity. Officials in Nigeria report three cases of chloroquine poisoning after people overdosed on the drug.

Some doctors and individuals have been reporting successful treatment outcomes when using a combination of the less-toxic hydroxychloroquine and the antibiotic Azithromycin.

The Trump administration has taken measures to allow critically-ill COVID-19 patients to have access to these as-yet unproven therapies.

*UPDATE: Chloroquine Phospate Death

Arizona man (61) dies, and his wife (68) is in critical condition after ingesting a chloroquine phosphate aquarium product that the wife had used to treat parasites in her Koi fish.

Within 20 minutes of each mixing a teaspoon of the product with soda because they feared COVID-19 infection, the woman began vomiting and the husband had trouble breathing, and both were rushed to a hospital.

This comes after U.S. President Donald Trump had incorrectly stated that the Food and Drug Administration had fast-tracked approval of chloroquine and hydroxychloroquine, with the epilogue,”If things don’t go as planned, it’s not going to kill anybody.”

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A Phase 1 clinical trial on healthy humans of a potential vaccine for the SARS CoV-2 virus that causes COVID-19 disease began rolling out today on two fronts.

Pennsylvania biotech firm Inovio, which has received funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and CEPI (The Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations), is enrolling up to 40 people in Philadelphia at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, and in Kansas City, MO at the Center for Pharmaceutical Research.

If you’re in these areas and want to enroll as a participant you can Contact The Research Team. You can also call the Kansas City office at 816-943-0770.

The Phase 1 study will see the vaccine candidate, called INO-4800, given to the participants in two doses, four weeks apart.  The initial immune responses and safety data from the study are expected by late summer.

This has been a fast-track rapid response effort with a remarkable timeline of ten weeks from funding to provision of the vaccine, and distribution to the trial centers.

VGXI, Inc., a wholly-owned Texas-based subsidiary of Seoul, South Korea-based GeneOne Life Science, and INOVIO’s manufacturing partner for the last 13 years, enabled the expedited manufacture, testing, and release of the INO-4800 plasmid clinical product. The U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) has also funded INOVIO’s collaborator Ology Bioservices to manufacture additional doses of INO-4800.

INOVIO plans to have one million doses of the vaccine available by year-end for additional trials and emergency use, pending appropriate regulatory guidance and funding.

How is the vaccine supposed to work?

That’s explained in the following INOVIA video, made in 2017, long before the COVID-19 pandemic, but based on the same proprietary DNA delivery protocol developed during the company’s vaccine efforts for HPV (Human Papilloma Virus, Zika, Lassa fever, Ebola, HIV and coronaviruses associated with MERS (Middle East Respiratory Syndrome). 

On smartphones, you can scroll down to view it. On tablets (in landscape orientation, and desktop monitors, you can view it in the column to the right.

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What’s unique about the INO-4800 vaccine candidate that INOVIO has begun testing in healthy humans in a Phase 1 Clinical Trial?

Well, two things. First, is the medicine itself.

As the company explains, “DNA medicines are composed of optimized DNA plasmids, which are small circles of double-stranded DNA that are synthesized or reorganized by a computer sequencing technology and designed to produce a specific immune response in the body.”

Second, is getting it to where it needs to go in the body.

As further explained, “INOVIO is the first and only company to have clinically demonstrated that a DNA medicine can be delivered directly into cells in the body via a proprietary smart device to produce a robust and tolerable immune response.

INOVIO’s DNA medicines deliver optimized plasmids directly into cells intramuscularly or intradermally using INOVIO’s proprietary hand-held smart device called CELLECTRA®.

CELLECTRA® uses a brief electrical pulse to open small pores in the cell reversibly to allow the plasmids to enter, overcoming a key limitation of other DNA and mRNA approaches.

Once inside the cell, the plasmids are used by the cell’s own machinery to generate specific coded antigens, which then stimulate an immune response. Administration with the CELLECTRA device ensures that the DNA medicine is delivered directly into the body’s cells, where it can go to work immediately mounting an immune response.

With more than 2,000 patients receiving INOVIO investigational DNA medicines in more than 6,000 applications across a range of clinical trials, INOVIO has a strong track record of rapidly generating DNA medicine candidates to meet urgent global health needs.”

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Despite researchers and the government in the U.K. finding that blood antibody tests “haven’t performed well” and “wouldn’t meet the criteria for a good test”, the U.S.  Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has begun rolling out just such a test for people who don’t show any symptoms of the new coronavirus.

The difference from current swab tests that take a sample from the nose or throat looking for genetic presence of the virus, is that these tests require a blood draw and can only be analyzed to hunt for antibodies in certified labs.

These serology tests can determine if people have been previously infected with the coronavirus and have built up antibodies to it. The results will provide data in tracking how the virus has spread  and how its affected different people.

Three groups will be targeted, with the first being people in hotspots such as New York City, Florida, Louisiana and Michigan who were not diagnosed with the virus.

The second will be people in lower-affected areas, and the third will be healthcare workers.

British researchers and health officials have said the antibody tests were not accurate enough on people who had only had mild illnesses, and none were good enough for public use.

However, Dr. Anthony Fauci, the leading infectious disease expert on the White House Coronavirus Task Force, has stated he’s optimistic about the antibody tests and told The Daily Show’s Trevor Noah recently “If this virus acts like every other virus that we know, once you get infected, get better, clear the virus, then you’ll have immunity that will protect you against re-infection.”

That, of course, remains to be seen.

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Here is a transcript for blind and visually-impaired users of the onscreen text titles used in this video supplied by Moderna.

The video consists of animated illustrations explaining how the company creates synthetic components from the genetic coding of the COVID-19 virus and injects them into the body enabling patients to essential make their own vaccine.

Onscreen Text:

(Moderna logo animation at beginning and end of video.) About mRNA-1273, Moderna’s Potential Vaccine Against COVID-19.

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The first human clinical trial for a COVID-19 coronavirus vaccine has been underway in Seattle since mid-March, and is now being expanded to Atlanta.

The trial aims to enroll a total of 45 participants across the two cities at Kaiser Permanente Washington Health Research Institute (KPWHRI) in Seattle, and Emory University and the Hope Clinic in Decatur, Georgia to “ensure efficient enrollment”.

Participants will receive two shots of the experimental vaccine approximately one month apart and will be followed for approximately one year.

Adults in the Atlanta area who are interested in joining this study should contact [email protected] (for the Hope Clinic in Decatur) or [email protected] (for the Emory campus in Atlanta). 

One of the first vaccine production projects to receive funding from CEPI, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations in Oslo, Norway, the clinical trial is a partnership between Moderna, a biotech research company based in Cambridge Massachusetts, and scientists at the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases.  NIAID Director, Dr. Anthony Fauci, is the man you’ve often seen and heard as part of the White House Coronavirus Task Force briefings.

If you watched the video above, you will have learned that the approach uses Messenger RNA, written as mRNA, which plays a fundamental role in human biology. It  delivers the instructions stored in DNA to make the proteins required in every living cell.