A few updates for this pandemic Monday: a study suggests that there are six "types" of COVID infections, UCSF has a paper about everything doctors have learned so far about treating COVID-19, and the Bay Area added over 700 new cases today.
San Francisco is up to 6,022 cases, and the Bay Area has hit 49,000. The number of confirmed cases in the Bay Area hit 49,000 on Monday, and may be up slightly above that once all counties have reported their weekend numbers. That is at least 700 new cases that were added in the last 24 hours, but that total is down significantly from 900 to 1,000 new cases that were added daily last week. Let's hope the trend holds. San Francisco added 90 new cases, and hospitalizations were down slightly at 117, with 36 patients in ICU beds. So far, only two new deaths were recorded on Monday. [SFist]
UCSF has released a new article that spells out, in layman's terms, what doctors at the university's hospitals have learned about COVID-19 to date. The most common mode of early infection comes when coronavirus particles find ACE2 receptors in the nose and throat, and there is evidence to suggest that because testosterone causes the body to produce more ACE2 receptors, this is why severe infections are somewhat more prevalent in men — and why children tend to be infected less often and less severely. Also, doctors increasingly understand this virus as not just being a respiratory one, but one that effects the entire vascular system, beginning with the lungs. Also, the prevalence of asymptomatic cases could be huge — likely 50 to 80 precent according to UCSF professor of medicine Monica Ghandi.
A separate new study points to identifiable clusters of symptoms among patients that doctors and nurses now say can be used to predict disease outcomes. The six symptom clusters break down into groups of less and more severe, with some of the worst outcomes experienced by patients who present a combination of headache, loss of smell, loss of appetite, cough, fever, hoarseness, sore throat, chest pain, fatigue, confusion, muscle pain, shortness of breath, diarrhea, and abdominal pain. [CBS News]
San Mateo County has managed to stay off the state's watch list, despite looking like it might join the other eight counties in the Bay Area on the list. Malls and gyms remain open in the county, due to steady or declining case numbers and hospitalizations. [Chronicle]
A nine-year-old girl who died of COVID-19 in Gainsville, Florida ten days ago had no underlying health conditions. Doctors did not initially test her for the coronavirus despite her having a fever. She was sent home diagnosed with a urinary tract infection, but within a few days, after going to take a nap, the girl stopped breathing and died. [ABC7]
