Covid news, good and bad

Good: “Death Rates Have Dropped for Seriously Ill Covid Patients”

Bad: “U.S. Reports 90,000 New Daily Cases, the Equivalent of More Than One Per Second”

Good: “Schools haven’t become COVID hotspots,” but bars and restaurants are

Bad: “Deaths usually lag behind cases by a few weeks” and cases are way up

Good: A potential new, rapid coronavirus breathalyzer test is being tested at the University of Miami

Bad: “States say they lack federal funds to distribute coronavirus vaccine”

Enroll to vaccinate

Hey, all: Just a reminder that, if you want to be able to administer the Covid-19 vaccine in Georgia when it becomes available, you must first enroll with the state. (Enrolling also helps the DPH plan for eventual vaccine distribution.)

Got questions? Need help? Ask away: DPH-COVID19Vaccine@dph.ga.gov!

A(nother) reason to give

Another great reason to give to the Georgia Pharmacy Foundation: You can double your impact.

This coming week only, November 1 through 7, the Georgia Pharmacy Foundation Board of Directors will match every donation — up to $4,000!

Take advantage of an easy way to grow your donation and make an even bigger impact. To have your donation matched, donate by November 7 at GPha.org/foundation2020.

Bacteria and colitis

First, from the University of Texas: If you feed your mouse a diet with a lot of sugar, you’ll get a fat mouse. But it seems you might also get a mouse with inflammatory bowel disease — specifically colitis.

The reason? Gut bacteria, of course. It seems that too much sugar means too much of a particular bacteria in the large intestine that damages the mucus layer. And if we learned anything from “The Penguins of Madagascar,” it’s “Without mucus your stomach would digest itself.”

Then, from the University of New South Wales: A newly discovered strain of the usually-in-the-mouth bacteria Campylobacter concisus — one carrying the pSma1 plasmid — has been linked to severe ulcerative colitis. “Linked” meaning it was found in a significant number of patients with this inflammatory bowel disease. Was it a cause or an effect of the disease? Say it with me: Further study is necessary.

Might as well face it, you’re allergic to cold

Wait, what? Yep, a Colorado man suffered anaphylactic shock from the cold air after stepping out of the shower.

Doctors diagnosed him with cold urticaria, an allergic reaction of the skin after exposure to cold temperatures, including cold air or cold water […] People can also develop symptoms after consuming cold food or drinks.

Six feet ain’t gonna help you

So we know Covid-19 can be spread via large droplets, like from people shouting or singing, but the question of aerosol transmission is up in the air. (Ha.) Aerosols, because they’re so small, won’t drop to the ground quickly (and won’t obey that six-feet-apart recommendation).

But can aerosols transmit Covid-19? Researchers at Virginia Tech turned to ferrets to find out, with a nifty apparatus that placed the infected ferret in a cage beneath a uninfected one, connected by ductwork that would not allow large droplets to travel up.

If COVID-19 transmission were only possible via large droplets, the researchers hypothesized that no indirect recipient ferrets should become infected, as the steel mesh, the duct’s right-angle turns, the one-meter distance between animals, and gravity should all work against large droplets rising to the top cage.

In less than two weeks, the top ferrets were infected. So there you have it.

“If I were someone who thought that large droplets were the way [that SARS-CoV-2 was transmitted] and if I were skeptical about aerosols, this study might make me rethink my assumptions.”

Medication … or Azerbaijani Village?

It’s that time again — time to play everyone’s favorite pharmaceutical game!

Five of these are novel drugs approved by the FDA in 2020. Five are villages in Azerbaijan. Do you know which is which?

1. Trodelvy
2. Medrese
3. Quzanli
4. Muradxan
5. Heyvali
6. Olinvyk
7. Tukysa
8. Monjuvi
9. Kalband
10. Gavreto

Answers here.