Last updated April 22, 2020 at 12:16 pm
As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to develop here and around the globe, stay informed with our regular update of the situation.
Why This Matters: Stay informed, stay safe.
The Numbers
Global
Confirmed cases: 2,561,044
Confirmed deaths: 176,984
Source: Johns Hopkins University (10:30 am AEST 22 April 2020)
Australia
Confirmed cases: 6547
Confirmed deaths: 67
ACT: 103 cases, 3 deaths
NSW: 2926 cases, 26 deaths
NT: 28 cases, 0 deaths
Queensland: 1015 cases, 6 deaths
SA: 435 cases, 4 deaths
Tasmania: 180 cases, 7 deaths
Victoria: 1319 cases, 14 deaths
WA: 541 cases, 7 deaths
Source: Johns Hopkins University (10:30 am ACST 22 April 2020)
Science
The hunt for COVID-19 treatments has spawned unprecedented speed in research, so an article considering the balance between scientific integrity and public confidence is timely.
The “Viewpoint” article, published in JAMA online, concludes that “the regulatory and research communities owe it to patients, families, and clinicians to quickly learn what treatments are effective”, that it’s “important to optimise treatments that already exist, including supportive critical care” and that most importantly “it is critical to protect the integrity of and resulting public trust in the scientific and regulatory agencies and their advice and decisions”.
Also: How is the COVID-19 treated, and does the coronavirus cause lasting damage?
Open-access publisher Frontiers has developed an AI tool to help funders identify specialists to peer-review proposals for emergency COVID-19 research.
The publisher’s in-house technology team has exploited the AI technology they use to review research articles when they are submitted to any one of its 79 scientific journals. The Coronavirus Reviewer Recommender suggests experts based on keywords or thorough semantic analysis of text.
Under normal circumstances, the review process for research funding typically takes place by committee and can take a matter of months. However, since the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak, experts have become less available, and the urgency of this situation commands a tighter timeframe.
Data
A new study from a team at Oxford University, UK, suggests how demography can assist efforts to mitigate the death rate from COVID-19 pandemic.
The study has been published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
The research team calculated the expected number of deaths for various countries based on age distribution within the population, and assuming an infection prevalence of 10% and the age-specific mortality known in Italy as of 30 March 2020.
Also: The bar necessities: 5 ways to understand coronavirus graphs
More than 23% of Italy’s population is over age 65, making it one of the oldest populations in the world. It had a high overall case fatality rate of 10.6%.
In their modelled scenario, the authors calculated more than 300,000 expected fatalities for Italy. In South Korea, where only 4.5% of cases have occurred in people age 80 years or older, expected fatalities were fewer than 180,000. The authors also considered Brazil and Nigeria, which have similar populations but different age distributions.
According to the study authors, results suggest that disease mitigation policies – such as social distancing – should consider both age distribution within the population and intergenerational social contacts.
Share Index
Words have power, and this is one of those times when knowing what people mean is essential. Nobel Laureate Peter Doherty’s regular “Setting it Straight” online column this week tackles the business and arcane language of immunology.
How is the world going to organise and coordinate population-level testing for the coronavirus? It’s not going to be for want of effort from biotech entrepreneurs, big funders and various others.
Wondering what you can do to help frontline medical workers? The story of retired British army captain Tom Moore, a WWII veteran, has gone around the world but it’s worth repeating.
The 99-year-old – he turns 100 on 30 April – set out early this month to walk 100 lengths of his garden to raise £1000 for Britain’s National Health Service. The idea was he’d finish in time for his birthday, but he hit the 100-lengths goal on 16 April – by which time his fundraising total was off the scale and world news.
Currently the total Moore’s raised is north of £25 million and there’s talk of Spitfire flybys on his birthday and Downing Street-level recognition for his effort.
The big-and-getting-bigger question: how are you getting along with your lockdown buddies – family, lovers, housemates etc? If they’re getting on your nerves it’s a good idea to have a strategy.
Favourite recent long read: a New York Times article considering the year ahead in America. What will the next 12 months bring in your part of the world?
