COVID-19 Update: Wednesday, October 21st

Fraudulent cures, Remedisver, cat covid, and immunity.

1. The FDA is reporting there are more companies selling fraudulent COVID cures. You can find a list here and/or report companies if you encounter this: https://www.fda.gov/consumers/health-fraud-scams/fraudulent-coronavirus-disease-2019-covid-19-products

2. The WHO released findings that Remedisver doesn’t improve outcomes from hospitalized patients. The study involved over 11k patients from 405 hospitals and 30 countries. Practitioners are expressing surprise at the findings as it doesn’t seem to reflect what they are seeing anecdotally. You can find the study here: https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/939289 In contrast, the NIH also released a study showing that Remedisver does work, you can find that one here: https://www.nih.gov/news-events/nih-research-matters/final-report-confirms-remdesivir-benefits-covid-19 So stay tuned as further studies are done.

3. A cat in Pennsylvania has tested positive for and died from respiratory distress caused by COVID. The cat was 16 years old and its owners were also positive for COVID. This is the first COVID-cat fatality in the US.

4. A study at the University of Arizona College of Medicine found that some people will experience immunity to COVID for up to 7 months. Six thousand people participated in the study. The study was not designed to determine this but instead was designed to help improve antibody testing – so results need to be taken with that perspective in mind. They were looking for detectable antibodies in people who had had COVID and seeking to improve the testing capabilities to accurately detect these. As part of that process, they noticed that some people had detectable antibodies up to 7 months after infection with 5 months seeming to be the “sweet spot”. So right now, what we know is that you can be immune anywhere from 1 month to 7 months and that seems to depend on a host of factors. You can read the study here: https://www.cell.com/immunity/fulltext/S1074-7613(20)30445-3

FINAL THOUGHTS: Yesterday in a 9 pm meeting, my final meeting at the end of a 15-hour workday, we were preparing to end things, and someone asked one last question. I groaned a little in my soul because I was exhausted and more than ready to end the workday – it has been a very long week. The answer to the question was long but somewhere along the way the speaker said, “really, it’s all about people” and that was what I needed to hear. It is so easy in the chaos of our days and all the “to do” items we are checking off our lists each day to lose track of what matters. People are what matters. People are why I do what I do and more than likely, people are why you do what you do. Opinions change, positions change, sources of frustration change, tasks change, but when it all boils down, it is people that matter. Spend your time, energy, and efforts on building up and loving people because we are all short on time, energy, and effort – so don’t waste it on things that don’t matter.