Coronavirus: Six Heartening Stories You may have Missed
martyb writes:
Coronavirus: Six heartening stories you may have missed:
It's been just over two weeks since the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the coronavirus outbreak, which first appeared in the Chinese city of Wuhan in late December, a global pandemic.
[...] Infections, the rates of which have accelerated since the outbreak began, have touched nearly every corner of the world and prompted unprecedented and widespread travel restrictions and business closures that threaten a global recession. At least three billion people, including India's 1.3 billion population, have been ordered to stay home.
Even as new cases in China have dropped dramatically, leading to the easing of many restrictions, places such as Italy, Spain, Iran, and the United States have become new hot spots for the virus, for which there is no vaccine or proven treatment.
[...] WHO launches global trial of possible treatments
The WHO launched a global trial to quickly assess the most promising treatments for the virus and the disease it causes. The organisation is currently looking at four drugs or drug combinations that were developed for other illnesses and are already approved for human use and could be made widely available.
[...] UK call for volunteers exceeds expectations
United Kingdom Prime Minister Boris Johnson on Tuesday night called for 250,000 volunteers to help deliver groceries and medicine to the most vulnerable citizens who have been ordered to self-isolate.
Within 24 hours, more than 400,000 people had signed up. That number soon rose to more than half a million, according to the BBC - larger than Britain's armed forces, which currently stand at just over 192,000.
[...] Air pollution drops
A silver lining of countries locking down across the planet, grinding transport and most industry to halt, has been a marked decline in air pollution.
Satellite imagery has shown pollution in China plummeting as large swaths of the country shut down at the height of the outbreak there.
The European Environment Agency (EEA) on Wednesday confirmed that the concentration of pollutants, in particular nitrogen dioxide, which is largely caused by road transport, recently massively declined in Europe "especially in major cities under lockdown measures".
[...] Italy coronavirus outbreak 'peak' may soon be reached
Italy has so far recorded more than 8,000 deaths and over 80,000 infections.
On Saturday, Italy recorded its highest daily death toll of 793 new fatalities from COVID-19.
However, since then the daily toll, while remaining high, has not surpassed that number. Daily new cases have also leveled off.
[...] US hospitals prepare to use blood plasma as treatment
[...] The US Food and Drug Administration said it is expediting approving the use of recovered patients' plasma to treat the newly infected.
When a person gets infected by a particular virus, the body starts making specially designed proteins called antibodies to fight the infection. After the person recovers, those antibodies float in survivors' blood - specifically in the plasma, the liquid part of blood - for months, even years.
Injecting the plasma into another infected patient could boost the body's ability to fight the infection, lessening the severity of the disease and freeing up hospital resources.
[...] Cuban doctors sent to help overwhelmed Italian health system
Cuba has dispatched a brigade of doctors and nurses to Italy to aid in the fight against coronavirus, following a request from the worst-affected Lombardy region.
[...] Cuba has sent its "armies of white robes" to disaster sites around the world since its 1959 revolution. However, the 52-strong brigade of medical personnel represents the first time Cuba has sent an emergency contingent to Italy, which has been brought to its knees by the pandemic, despite being one of the world's richest countries.
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