An informed guide to the global outbreak, with the latest developments and expert advice about prevention and treatment. |
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Convalescent plasma, as it’s known, comes from blood taken from people who are recovering from Covid-19. The blood is spun down to remove red and white blood cells, leaving a pale yellow liquid that contains antibodies. That serum can be injected into a patient early in an infection to help them fight the virus. |
While the treatment is considered safe, scientists can’t say for sure whether it works because there haven’t been many clinical trials with control groups. Setting up those studies has been difficult, because sick people are generally unwilling to sign up for a trial in which they might get a placebo. |
Among the limited studies that have been done, researchers found that the treatment showed the best results among patients under 80 years old and not on a ventilator, who received plasma with a high level of antibodies within three days of diagnosis. |
President Trump had been pushing for expanded use of the treatment over the concerns of top government scientists who argued that the data was too weak. Our colleague Donald G. McNeil Jr. told The Daily that Mr. Trump’s approach might end up doing more harm than good. |
“It’s exactly what happened with hydroxychloroquine,” he said. “It was talked up so much that people wanted it. And so it became hard to do the clinical trials in which they got a 50 percent chance of getting a placebo, because they didn’t want it. They’d heard the president say, ‘It’s a miracle drug,’ so they insisted on it.” |
Hydroxychloroquine was later found to be dangerous, and an emergency authorization for the drug heralded by Mr. Trump was later rescinded. |
Misrepresenting data. At a news conference Sunday announcing the emergency approval, President Trump and two of his top health officials misstated the effectiveness of the treatment. Public health officials and scientists have called for a correction. |
Alarm bells ring off the U.S. mainland |
Early in the pandemic, U.S. islands in the Caribbean and the Pacific averted the crisis that had swept over parts of the mainland thanks to fast action and easily sealed borders. But now, after relaxed restrictions and slow contact tracing, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Hawaii, Guam and Puerto Rico have emerged as the latest American hot spots. |
After an early lockdown, the U.S. Virgin Islands began welcoming tourists again on June 1. But the situation has shifted rapidly: Cases spiked to 224 per 100,000 residents over the past week — the highest per-capita increase of any state or territory in the country. To tamp down the virus, the authorities are stopping tourism for a month, shuttering nonessential businesses and imposing stay-at-home orders. |
Mounting cases in Puerto Rico, which issued the first U.S. lockdown in March, have prompted a curfew and a shutdown of the Senate, where several top officials have fallen ill. People who don’t wear masks can be confined, and a new stay-at-home order on Sundays was announced to limit socializing. |
In Guam, where the infection rate has grown rapidly, the island’s harshest lockdown yet has faced growing criticism from residents, who can be fined $1,000 for violating it. Hawaii has also come under fire for its restrictions, which allow restaurants and gyms to remain open while hiking trails and parks have closed. |
 | | By The New York Times | Sources: Johns Hopkins University and World Bank |
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- A surge in cases has pushed Spain’s per-capita caseload far above its European neighbors, and even above the United States’ in recent days. Officials say thousands of troops may be deployed to track local outbreaks.
- South Korea is closing schools in the Seoul metropolitan area and returning to online classes as it faces a fast-spreading outbreak.
- A sweeping lockdown of the Xinjiang region in China has continued even with its outbreak seemingly under control, prompting residents to lash out after more than a month of restrictions.
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What else we’re following |
- Colleges are increasingly coming down hard on students who violate virus safety rules, and they are pressuring fraternities and sororities to stop holding events that violate bans on partying.
- The rise of the flu and other seasonal respiratory infections this fall could further overwhelm U.S. testing efforts, making it easier for the coronavirus to spread unnoticed.
- Democrats are more reluctant to send their children to school than Republicans are, and are more worried about their families becoming infected, according to a new survey for The New York Times.
- Scientists found that a conference in Boston in late February triggered a gigantic spread of the virus, infecting of tens of thousands of people around the world.
- Some patients have developed long-term medical issues from Covid-19, putting stress on U.S. insurance coverage and an already strained health system, The Wall Street Journal reports.
- To lure people back to restaurants, the British government has been footing half the bill, up to 10 pounds ($13) per person, on Mondays, Tuesdays and Wednesdays.
- Working remotely from another state during the pandemic? You may be in for a hefty tax bill.
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My wife, two young daughters and I live in Queens, and the lockdown has coincided with an enormous crop of plums in a tree in our backyard this summer. With a lot of time at home, we donated more than 20 pounds of plums to local food pantries, invited friends and neighbors for socially distanced plum-picking, and made plum jam, plum cake, granita, syrup and plum-infused gin. — Erik Bierbauer, Jackson Heights, Queens |
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