A new analysis shows that parts of the country that had been spared the worst of the coronavirus pandemic are now tallying record-high cases of new infections. Since the start of June, 14 states and Puerto Rico have recorded their highest seven-day average of new coronavirus cases since the pandemic began, data tracked by the Washington Post shows: Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Florida, Kentucky, New Mexico, North Carolina, Mississippi, Oregon, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas and Utah. At the same time, new predictions from the University of Washington in Seattle show the U.S. coronavirus death toll could now hit 145,000 by August, NBC News reported Tuesday. If the prediction bears out, it would mean 30,000 more deaths would occur in the country in the next two months. As of Tuesday, nearly 111,000 COVID-19 deaths have been reported in this country. And in a confusing twist on the effort to understand how coronavirus spreads, a World Health Organization official said Monday that asymptomatic transmission of COVID-19 seems to be rare. Until now, experts believed that transmission by infected people who did not show any symptoms was a main driver of viral spread. “From the data we have, it still seems to be rare that an asymptomatic person actually transmits onward to a secondary individual,” Maria Van Kerkhove, the WHO’s technical lead for coronavirus response and head of…  read on >

The COVID-19 pandemic has had far-reaching effects, and a new study points to yet another: It may be keeping people from seeking emergency care for suicidal thoughts. The study, at one large Ohio health system, found that ER visits for suicidal ideation dropped by over 60% in the month after the state instituted its stay-at-home order. And that’s concerning, researchers said, because, if anything, this is a time when mental health needs are expected to be more acute than ever. “The question is: Where are these patients now?” said senior researcher Dr. Baruch Fertel of the Cleveland Clinic in Ohio. “Are they just brushing off their problems? Are they getting help through telemedicine instead?” Or, most worrisome, are some people going through with suicide instead of getting help? There is no way of knowing at this point, Fertel said, because figures are not available. “Unfortunately, we’ll only find out later, when we’re able to study suicide rates,” he said. The findings, published June 1 in the American Journal of Emergency Medicine, are the latest snapshot of how the COVID-19 pandemic has affected all aspects of medical care. U.S. studies have charted declines in everything from hospital admissions for heart attack, to organ transplants, to childhood vaccinations. In areas hard-hit by the disease, health systems were flooded, and non-urgent medical procedures put on hold. But even…  read on >

New York City finally reopened its economy on Monday after being the epicenter of the U.S. coronavirus pandemic for months, and a new study shows that stay-at-home orders may have been worth it, preventing nearly 60 million U.S. infections. The research, published in the Nature medical journal, examined how different social distancing policies and measures might have limited the spread of COVID-19, the Washington Post reported. A second study, from epidemiologists at Imperial College London and also published in Nature, found the shutdowns saved approximately 3.1 million lives in 11 European countries and dropped infection rates there by an average of 82 percent. In the first study, researchers at the University of California at Berkeley examined six countries — China, the United States, France, Italy, Iran and South Korea — and estimated how more than 1,700 different interventions, such as stay-at-home orders, business closings and travel bans, altered the spread of the virus. The report concluded that those six countries collectively managed to avert 62 million test-confirmed infections, which the researchers estimated would correspond to roughly 530 million total infections, the newspaper said. Surprisingly, school closures had no significant effect, although the authors said the issue requires further study, the Post reported. Meanwhile, New York City began to ease restrictions that had shut down schools, businesses and much of city life in March and April,…  read on >

An over-the-counter heartburn remedy is showing some potential as a symptom reliever for COVID-19, a small study finds. Famotidine, sold under the brand name Pepcid, appeared to improve symptoms in a group of 10 patients diagnosed with COVID-19, researchers reported online June 4 in the journal Gut. The patients’ self-reported symptoms began to feel better within a day or two of taking famotidine, the study authors said. “A clinical trial is now needed to formally test if famotidine works against COVID-19,” said lead researcher Dr. Tobias Janowitz, a medical oncologist and cancer researcher with Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory in New York. But don’t rush out to stock up on Pepcid just yet, warned Dr. Amesh Adalja, a senior scholar with the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security in Baltimore. “This is a very small study that was observational in nature,” Adalja said. “It is very hard to draw any conclusions from it.” A clinical trial in which Pepcid’s effectiveness is compared against a placebo is essential to prove that the medication works, since it is being used in mild to moderate cases of COVID-19, Adalja said. “These are mild cases and mild cases do get better over time, so these cases have to be compared to placebo in order to see if this was actually just the natural course of infection or the famotidine,” Adalja…  read on >

COVID-19 is taking a heavy toll on Americans’ mental health, a new nationwide survey shows. Overall, psychological distress more than tripled between 2018 and this spring — from 4% of U.S. adults in 2018 to 14% in April. Beth McGinty, an associate professor at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore, said the findings, from a survey of 1,500 adults, suggest the need to prepare for a wave of mental illness once the pandemic passes. “It is especially important to identify mental illness treatment needs and connect people to services, with a focus on groups with high psychological distress including young adults, adults in low-income households, and Hispanics,” McGinty said in a university news release. The survey used a scale to gauge feelings of emotional suffering as well as symptoms of anxiety and depression. It found that distress was especially acute among younger adults. Among 18- to 29-year-olds, 24% reported feelings of distress this spring, compared to 4% in 2018, researchers found. Lower-income households also were keenly feeling the impact of the pandemic. Distress rose from less than 8% in 2018 to 19% in homes with a yearly income of less than $35,000, the survey found. And 18% of Hispanics reported psychological distress in 2020, up from 4% in 2018. Among Americans age 55 and older, psychological distress nearly doubled between 2018 and…  read on >