Contagion Live News Network: Coronavirus Updates for March 24, 2020

Welcome to the Contagion Live News Network. I’m Grant Gallagher and this is the COVID-19 update for Tuesday, March 24th, 2020.

The total number of cases in the US has now passed 50,000, with about 600 deaths.

Around the world, there are over 409,000 cases. There have been over 18,000 reported deaths, but also at least 106,000 recoveries.

Indian prime minister Modi has announced a 3-week lockdown for the nation. With a population of 1.3 billion people, India is the world’s second most populous country and the world’s fifth largest economy.

Meanwhile, President Trump has signaled that measures in the United States will be reassessed in about 2 weeks. According to the president, he’d like to see people heading back to work by Easter.

In clinical news, the American Academy of Otolaryngology put out a statement which cited some anecdotal evidence that loss of smell may be a COVID-19 symptom in some patients.

In other clinical news, a new serological assay for SARS-CoV-2, the virus which causes COVID-19, was developed by a microbiology lab at the Icahn School of Medicine. I spoke with Dr. Florian Krammer about his laboratory’s work creating the assay, our Q&A is now available on Contagionlive.com

Dr. Jason Pogue also spoke with Contagion recently, sharing his thoughts on the results of a randomized clinical trial evaluating hydroxychloroquine and azithromycin for COVID 19 patients.

For other stories relevant to COVID-19, visit ContagionLive.com. To track the spread of infectious diseases in the United States and abroad, be sure to use the Contagion Outbreak Monitor.

For the Contagion Live News Network, I’m Grant Gallagher. Thanks for listening.