COVID-19 Raises Risk for Women Who are Obese and Pregnant (UW Medicine Newsroom, quotes Kristina Adams Waldorf and Erica Lokken)

The novel coronavirus can severely affect pregnant women who are overweight or obese before becoming pregnant, new research suggests.

Published today by the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology, the findings show that women who contract the virus may have a higher incidence of preterm birth.

Global Health Professor Receives Grant to Develop Antigen-Based COVID-19 Test

With a new $765,120 grant, Global Health professor Paul Drain will lead a study to develop an antigen-based COVID-19 test – as well as evaluate PCR-based tests and immunological assays – to be used at the point of care. This grant, sponsored by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, is titled “Developing and Evaluating Point-of-Care Antigen and Immunoassays for COVID-19 and Cytokine Release Syndrome among people being screened for SARS-CoV-2 infection in Seattle”.

3 Steps to Help Prevent Another Animal-to-Human Virus Pandemic (Seattle Times, co-written by Peter Rabinowitz)

By Peter Rabinowitz and Greg Gray

Governments and individuals are taking unprecedented, often very austere actions to control the ongoing spread of the pandemic coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2). However, they are neglecting an extremely important question that could cause the loss of millions of more lives — how do we prevent the next zoonotic respiratory virus pandemic?

We have not yet identified the source of this virus. What if a new version emerges from the original animal source to cause a second wave of this pandemic?

Dispatch from a Brooklyn ER Nurse in the Time of COVID (By Mariel Boyarsky, MPH 2015)

By Mariel Boyarsky (MPH, 2015)

Mariel Boyarsky graduated from the University of Washington in 2015 with a Master of Public Health in Global Health. After completing nursing school, she began working at Kings County Hospital in Brooklyn, New York in 2019. This is Mariel's firsthand account of working in the hospital during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

Multisite Trial Early Data Suggests Remdesivir is Effective (UW Medicine Newsroom, Interview with Helen Chu)

Remdesivir, a non-specific antiviral drug that was originally tested against Ebola, has been shown to be effective against the new coronavirus in a preliminary data analysis, as reported by the National Institutes of Health. The UW School of Medicine was one of the sites in the National Institutes of Health trial. Dr.

Studies Show that COVID-19 Can Spread Quickly in Homeless Communities

Researchers have been studying COVID-19 in homeless communities, specifically in shelters with two or more confirmed cases in the weeks prior to their study. They found that in these shelters with clusters of cases, the proportion of positive tests was higher than in shelters with lower amounts of previously reported cases.

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