Contagion Live News Network: Coronavirus Updates for May 6, 2020

Hello, I’m Kevin Kunzmann, managing editor of Contagion. Here’s your update on our COVID-19 coverage for May 6, 2020.

A new study out of France indicates the virus had already arrived and spread there in December 2019, long before the perceived start in Wuhan, China.

A retrospective review of a man discharged from a hospital in Paris on December 29, 2019 showed his collected respiratory sample indeed tested positive for the virus—moving up France’s identification of the first known case by an entire month.

Surprisingly, the 42-year-old patient had no apparent link to China, was a longtime resident of France who worked as a fishmonger, and had last visited his native Algeria in August 2019. The patient had a history of asthma and type 2 diabetes, and came to the hospital’s emergency ward with symptoms including cough, headache, and fever. He was given antibiotics, responded favorably, and was discharged after 2 days.

New research from the Mount Sinai Informatics Center in New York shows that patients receiving anticoagulants reported a lower rate of in-hospital mortality due to coronavirus than infected patients who did not receive blood thinners.

Investigators, led by Dr. Valentin Fuster, Physician in Chief of Mount Sinai Hospital, assessed the health system’s patients treated for COVID-19 between March 14 and April 11. Anticoagulant-treated patients who also required mechanical ventilation reported decreased mortality rates compared to control.

The team advised physicians consider anticoagulant use for ER-admitted patients who are deemed at a greater bleeding risk.

Skin injuries among health care workers wearing personal protective equipment are highly prevalent and as much as half are going untreated, according to a new findings.

Investigators from China reviewed 4306 health care worker survey responses in order to understand the prevalence, characteristics, and preventative status of skin injuries caused by PPE among medical staff—.

As many as 80% of the workers reported that different skin injuries damaged their health and increased the risk of infection, with each worker averaging about 2.6 skin injuries each.

For Contagion, I’m Kevin Kunzmann. Thanks for tuning in.