This week’s collection of some of the most recent scientific studies on the coronavirus and efforts to find cures and vaccines for COVID-19 compares the morbidity of this disease with seasonal flu, warning of the dangers of co -connected to the places we live and proving that canines can help. with virus detection.
COVID-19 far more deadly than seasonal flu
COVID-19 is three times more deadly than seasonal flu, according to researchers in France who compared 89,530 hospitalized patients with COVID-19 early this year with 45,819 hospitalized flu patients between December 2018 and February 2019.
The death rate was 16.9% against 5.8%, which is “particularly notable given that the 2018-2019 flu season was the worst in the last five years in France in terms of the number of deaths , “Dr. Catherine Quantin, from Dijon University Hospital, said in a press release.
More patients with COVID-19 landed in intensive care units (16.3% versus 10.8%) and the average ICU stay was nearly twice as long (15 days vs. eight days), her team in Anal Medicine said. Lancet. COVID-19 patients were also more likely to require mechanical ventilation and lung failure.
In another study published Wednesday in the BMJ, U.S. researchers found that people who were hospitalized for COVID-19 carried higher risks for organ failure and death, and increased use of health facilities, by comparison. to people who were in hospital for the flu.
Infectious risks are higher in narrow halls
A person with unexplained coronavirus infection walks briskly down a narrow corridor leaving a long stream of virus-filled bolts sliding behind you, a new computer simulation suggests. Even if social distance guidelines are followed, it may still be dangerous to follow someone down a narrow corridor, researchers advised in a report published in Physics of Fluids.
“The release of COVID-19 is heavily influenced by airflow,” said co-author Xiaolei Yang of the Chinese Academy of Sciences in Beijing. “A small change in airflow can dramatically change the pattern of virus spread,” he said.
Such changes can be caused by a small difference in corridor width, walking distance, internal architectural structure, temperature, humidity or other factors. Staying 6 feet (1.83 meters) behind the person in front of you is not “enough for narrow passages, and wearing a face mask is recommended even if you can’t see people around,” he said. e.
In addition, the viral droplets on the back of a walker tend to progress at waist height, so short children are exposed to a higher risk than adults, he said. “When you’re with a baby, you may want to hold on to it or your arms.”
Dogs can sniff out COVID-19
Trained dogs can identify people with COVID-19, even those without symptoms, according to researchers.
In the preliminary study published in PLoS One, dogs sniffing swab samples of armpit sleep were able to tell which samples came from COVID-19 patients and which were from people who tested negative for the new coronavirus. That study was conducted in March.
Recently, the researchers have confirmed the findings in additional experiments, said study director Dominique Grandjean of Alfort Medical School in France. Dogs can identify individuals with 85% to 100% accuracy and eliminate diseases with 92% to 99% accuracy, Grandjean said.
“It takes a tenth of a second for a trained dog to say ‘yes’ or ‘no,'” he said. Training requires three to eight weeks depending on whether the dog is already trained to smell. Dogs detected by COVID-19 have already been used at airports in the United Arab Emiratos, Grandjean said.
COVID-19 can perform a self-defense system
Antibodies have a right to attack bacteria, but patients with COVID-19 are very ill with so-called autoantibodies that incorrectly attack not only their own bones and organs but even proteins. viral fights made by the immune system, a new study shows.
Scientists studied 194 COVID-19 patients, including 55 with severe infection, as well as a control group of 30 people without the virus. In the sickest patients, they found a high frequency of autoantibodies generated by the immune system causing injuries to the central nervous system, blood vessels and connective tissue such as cartilage, ligaments and tendons. They also found a high frequency of autoantibodies that inhibit substances involved in the functioning of the immune system itself, including cytokines and other “immunomodulatory” proteins.
The “remarkable level of autoantibody reactivities” in these patients indicates that these antibodies are mistakenly targeted as “sexual side” of COVID-19. The report was posted on medRxiv ahead of a peer review.