Daily Archives: April 18, 2020

After a long period of uncertainty, a growing number of Americans can finally go to their doctor and get checked for past or present cases of COVID-19.

So far, just over 3.1 million Americans have been tested for the coronavirus. And with newly-developed COVID antibody blood tests that can measure a persons immune response to the disease, it may become possible to determine whether or not people have actually built up resistance to the coronavirus, which many expect will be the case as the immune system equips itself against future infections.

One of those blood tests recently went to Brandan Robertson, an author and the Lead Pastor of Missiongathering Christian Church in San Diego, California, who took the time to chat about the experience.

Heres our conversation, which weve lightly edited for clarity.

Futurism: Hey Brandan, thanks for taking the time to chat about your experience getting an antibody test for the coronavirus. Before we jump into anything too meaty, do you mind telling me what the timeline was like for you? For instance, where did you have to go, and were you able to get tested while you were sick? Or was this something that happened after the fact?

Brandan Robertson: In February, I was traveling in Europe right when coronavirus was starting to get bad over there. I came back, and a few weeks later started developing worrisome symptoms. Just a cough and some chest pressure. On about March 6, it got more severe. I started having a fever so I called my doctor. They did a phone call instead of having me come into the office. They said essentially that there werent very many tests and because I was young, they told me to stay home, quarantine for 14 days, and see if I got better.

I did that. I stayed in bed for two weeks. It was not terrible, it was like a bad cold. Really that was the end of it: Ive been going around for the past month, not really being sure if I had it or not but doing all the things youre supposed to do. Social distancing, masks, all that.

And it was last week, I got an email from my primary care provider that they had gotten a number of these antibody tests and that I could make an appointment. I scheduled one for the next day. They basically had me do a phone screening before I went in to make sure I wasnt displaying symptoms of coronavirus and not currently sick, then had me go into their office.

It felt a little sketchy in that I went to their office, and they said okay, go around to the back parking lot and go to the table there. I went to the parking lot, and there was a table there with two nurses who did the finger prick. Ten minutes later, they came back and told me I had been sick.

Sorry, wait, it was just a table?

It was definitely odd. I think it was meant to be a drive-up kind of thing, but I lived close enough that I just walked. There were a few people sitting in their cars. It was an interesting medical experience for sure.

The idea of a table in a back parking lot conjures the image of a slapdash operation. Did you still feel that things were handled well or like a proper medical procedure?

Yeah totally. When I got there, they had me sign consent forms, sanitized hands and put on gloves. And then it was just the quick prick of the finger, which took a minute. It was the best I could imagine for what drive-in medical care might look like.

How did those nurses describe your results? Theres been talk of immunity and potential immunity passports. Did they suggest at all that you were resistant to the coronavirus now?

The tests had the potential for three different results. Im going to describe this in a non-medical way so it may be a little inaccurate. One outcome was negative, that you didnt have it. One was that you had it, and you had an antibody in your system that suggests youre still fighting it to some degree, and the third is that you had it and have the antibodies that suggest you recovered.

They warned that the jurys not out in the complete accuracy of these tests, but they were fairly confident in the accuracy of the results. They mentioned there were no scientific results that immunity actually exists, but there was the potential I might be immune. But they said keep doing all the things youre doing, social distancing and masks, all that.

Not to go run free?

Unfortunately.

So ever since you got your results, have you been living differently at all? Have you felt comfortable going outside more, maybe, or are you still keeping put as much as before?

I have felt more comfortable, not because I think I have more immunity, but because Im quite confident now that Ive had it, I know what it was like for me, and how my body responds. If there is a little less fear, its because if I do get it again, if thats possible, it wont be as traumatic as what weve heard in the media, for me at least.

If these tests finally became more accessible, how do you think that would change society right now? Do you think people with positive results would act differently en masse?

I think on one hand, from all the reading that I think weve all been doing, I think testing is the obvious way to deal with this. What this test reveals for me is that significantly more people have probably had the virus than numbers show. But we havent gotten the test while we were sick, and well never really know until we start doing accurate antibody tests. And the other thing is my test still cost me $50 with insurance, which makes it prohibitive to lots of people.

If were going to get back to normal life, its going to require that we know these things. Especially if youre studying whether immunity is real or not. You cant study immunity if you dont know who had the virus.

Listen, given your theological background, I have to ask: a lot of churches, especially those megachurches, have been getting flak recently for either continuing to hold services or arguing that they ought to be. Is this something that youve encountered in your own community or among your peers? Where do you land in that debate?

Ill be honest, the first week which was right when I came down with the virus in early March that we shut down our services, it was one of the hardest decisions. On one hand, our calling is to be a spiritual community for people and people need that in times of crisis. And on the practical side, were a small church. Knowing were not going to hold services means our finances are going to take a hit. I may have to lay off staff or not be able to pay bills.

I was actually very impressed by my colleagues, conservative and liberal, here in San Diego who said that the best way to love our neighbors is to be distant from them in this time. The bishop of San Diego ordered every episcopal church to shut down. We normally do a joint service, and we were planning to livestream just with four clergy from their church. And we werent able to do that.

Still, me and three colleagues meet on Sunday mornings and do a livestreamed service for our community. The few megachurches in the country who have far-right pastors, they get a lot of press but I dont think thats a big trend across the country.

Having been through the testing process, is there anything that you would want to say to people currently dealing with the uncertainties of staying quarantined and wondering whether or not theyre sick?

Whats been helpful for me is that as a church, weve been providing opportunities to connect digitally. So even elderly people who live by themselves can have some sense of normalcy in their lives and a chance to connect with others.

Ive also been getting out a lot. I take walks by my office. Nobodys there, of course, and its been good for me.

I think this big reset that were going through as a global society not to make light of it but its a bit of a gift. None of us could have imagined that the world would stop for a couple of months. So Ive been urging my community to use this time, even in the midst of the hardship, of the stress, to reset. To envision what life looks like on the other side of this.

Thats what keeps me hopeful. One: the excitement of seeing folks again, but also two: developing new habits. To make sure that life is better on the other side of this than before I went into it.

Hey, I really appreciate you sharing all of this today. Before I let you go, is there anything else you want to get through to people?

My understanding is COVID testing, at least for those who are sick, is more widely available now. People have this idea that its still not accessible. If youre sick, go get tested. I think thats just so essential. It will clear up your fears about whether you have the virus or not, and it will really help us flatten this curve and get us out of it.

Read more from the original source:
Here's What It's like to Get a COVID Antibody Test - Futurism

According to leaked information obtained by STAT, the antiviral drug remdesivirmay be an extremely effective treatment for severe cases of COVID-19.

In lab test conducted at the University of Chicago Medicine, 125 people who tested positive COVID-19, 113 of which had severe cases, were given daily infusions of the drug.

The best news is that most of our patients have already been discharged, which is great, Kathleen Mullane, the University of Chicago infectious disease specialist who supervised the study, said during a leaked video discussion for faculty membersobtained by STAT. Weve only had two patients perish.

The researchers also noted that fevers were quickly subsiding.

We have seen people come off ventilators a day after starting therapy, Mullane noted in the discussion. So, in that realm, overall our patients have done very well.

Its still far too early to draw any greater conclusions,experts say.

What we can say at this stage is that we look forward to data from ongoing studies becoming available, read a Thursday statement by Gilead, the maker of remdesivir.

Drawing any conclusions at this point is premature and scientifically unsound, the University of Chicago Medicine said in a statement, echoing the sentiment. Theres also no control group that was given a placebo, further undermining the validity of these early results.

Gilead is conducting a number of COVID-19 trials, some of which are collecting data from thousands of patients from across the globe.

Despite the caveats, remdesivir still looks promising as a treatment for severe COVID-19 cases.

The severely hit patients are at such high-risk of fatality, Eric Topol, director of the Scripps Research Translational Institute who was not involved in the trials, told STAT.

So if its true that many of the 113 patients were in this category and were discharged, its another positive signal that the drug has efficacy, he added.

But Topol noted that its too early to draw conclusions.

View original post here:
Leaked Research: This Drug May Be Saving COVID Patients' Lives - Futurism

Healthcare workers are finding that flipping COVID-19 patients onto their stomachs, or prone positioning, is an effective way to keep them alive in intensive care, according to CNN.

Were saving lives with this, one hundred percent, Mangala Narasimhan, regional director for critical care at Northwell Health in New York city, told CNN. Its such a simple thing to do, and weve seen remarkable improvement. We can see it for every single patient.

The idea is to help patients get much needed oxygen into their lungs by placing them on their front. In one instance, a patient at the Long Island Jewish hospital in Queens saw his oxygen saturation rate go from 85 to 98 percent once placed on his stomach, as CNN reports.

By putting them on their stomachs, were opening up parts of the lung that werent open before, Kathryn Hibbert, director of the medical ICU at Massachusetts General Hospital, told CNN.

A 2013 study published in The New England Journal of Medicine found that such a prone position helped lower mortality rates for patients with severe acute respiratory distress syndrome, a type of respiratory failure caused by inflammation in the lungs that patients with severe cases of COVID-19 are experiencing.

That study, however, only looked at patients who were on ventilators, meaning that its unclear what would happen to patients who werent as severely ill.

A more recent study, published in March and conducted at a hospital in Wuhan, China, the epicenter of the global pandemic, found that lying face down was in some cases more helpful than applying positive pressure in the lungs using ventilators in COVID-19 patients.

This study is the first description of the behavior of the lungs in patients with severe COVID-19 requiring mechanical ventilation and receiving positive pressure, Haibo Qiu, professor at the South East University School of Medicine in Nanjing, China, and co-author of the paper published in the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, said in a statement.

It indicates that some patients do not respond well to high positive pressure and respond better to prone positioning in bed (facing downward), Qiu concluded.

Despite the early successes, these trials are still limited in size and may not be generalizable to the larger population. Many patients also may not be physically able to spend all day at the hospital while on their stomachs.

Researchers in the US are now looking at the effects of turning patients who need extra oxygen but not necessarily a ventilator on their stomachs, as part of clinical trials.

More here:
Why Rolling Coronavirus Patients Onto Their Stomachs Is Saving Lives - Futurism

Cosmic Dance

A star orbiting the supermassive black hole at the center of the Milky Way has a bizarre orbit but also one that strongly supports Einsteins theories.

After monitoringthe star, dubbed S2, for 27 years straight, astronomers from the Max Planck Institute determined that it traces a distinct flower-like shape as it orbits, CNN reports. The fact that the star makes a rosette as it travels supports Einsteins theory of general relativity, which predicts that such a pairing would remain dynamic instead of fixed in a set, ellipse-shaped orbit.

S2s orbit around the black hole Sagittarius A* isnt the first evidence for the theory of general relativity but the research, published last month in the journal Astronomy & Astrophysics, strengthens the idea even further.

This famous effect first seen in the orbit of the planet Mercury around the Sun was the first evidence in favor of general relativity, Reinhard Genzel, director at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics, said in a press release. One hundred years later we have now detected the same effect in the motion of a star orbiting the compact radio source Sagittarius A* at the center of the Milky Way.

The decades of data have an added bonus it helps confirm scientists theories about the size and behavior of the black hole itself.

This observational breakthrough strengthens the evidence that Sagittarius A* must be a supermassive black hole of 4 million times the mass of the sun, Genzel added.

READ MORE: Astronomers saw a star dancing around a black hole. And it proves Einsteins theory was right [CNN]

More on general relativity: New Theory Could Solve Universes Biggest Paradox

Original post:
A Star Is Circling a Black Hole and Its Orbit Is Absolutely Nuts - Futurism

Lonely Homecoming

A team of three astronauts are set to return to Earth on Friday. When they do, theyll be rejoining a vastly different society than the one they left.

The trio Oleg Skrypochka of Russia and Americans Andrew Morgan and Jessica Meir have all been on the International Space Station since at least September, BBC News reports. Because theyve been in orbit since well before the coronavirus pandemic began, theyll be returning from the isolation of space and going straight into quarantine.

Its quite surreal to see it unfolding on Earth below, Meir said during a press conference.

Space agencies have been going to great lengths to prevent astronauts from catching the coronavirus. For instance, the trios replacements were placed in an extended pre-launch quarantine to guarantee that they werent sick before blasting off.

When the astronauts land at Kazakhstans Baikonur Cosmodrome spaceport on Friday, the team sent to retrieve them will have already been tested for COVID-19 after spending time in quarantine, BBC reports.

The astronauts had the bizarre experience of watching the pandemic unfold from the space, but once theyre back theyll still be just as isolated a change from the usual post-mission routine that has Meir concerned.

It will be difficult to not give hugs to family and friends after being up here for seven months, she told reporters. I think I will feel more isolated on Earth than here. Were busy with amazing pursuits and tasks and dont feel the isolation.

READ MORE: Coronavirus: Space crew to return to very different Earth [BBC News]

More on quarantine: Surviving Isolation: A Lesson From 5 Astronauts

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Astronauts Who Launched Before Pandemic Are Starting to Come Home - Futurism

Textbook NASA

NASAhasnt abandoned its Curiosity Mars amid the coronavirus pandemic instead, theyve transitioned to controlling Curiosity from their home offices after NASA instructed its employees to work remotely, according to a NASA update.

Its classic, textbook NASA, said science operations team chief Carrie Bridge. Were presented with a problem and we figure out how to make things work. Mars isnt standing still for us; were still exploring.

Two days after desks emptied out at NASAs Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Southern California last month, the Curiosity rover sprang into action, executing commands lined up by its human masters back on Earth. Its task: drilling a rock sample at a location called Edinburgh.

Its operators new home-based HQs are now decked out with headsets, monitors, and plenty of other equipment, allowing them to remotely control a robot on a different planet.

What didnt make the move however, is special 3D goggles that rapidly shift between the left and the right eye to view 3D images taken on the Red Planet.

Tasks take about an hour or two longer than they normally would. The rest is business as usual just online.

Were usually all in one room, sharing screens, images and data, said Alicia Allbaugh, who leads the team in NASA statement. People are talking in small groups and to each other from across the room.

READ MORE: NASAs Curiosity Keeps Rolling As Team Operates Rover From Home [NASA]

More on Curiosity: Scientists: NASA Rover Has Found Evidence of Ancient Life on Mars

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NASA Employees Are Running the Mars Curiosity Rover From Home - Futurism

New York governor Andrew Cuomo said today that he will issue an executive order requiring all New Yorkers to wear a mouth and nose covering in public when they are not able to maintain a social distance of six feet or less, CNN reports.

If you are going to be in a situation, in public, where you come into contact with other people in a situation that is not socially distanced you must have a mask or a cloth covering nose and mouth, Cuomo said during a press conference in Albany, as quoted by CNBC.

Its a impactful move by the governor of the most populous city in the United States, which has been hammered by the coronavirus outbreak by tens of thousands of deaths.

Therell be a three day notice period so New Yorkers can figure out a way to cover their noses and mouths. For now, there wont be any penalties for not wearing a mask. But Cuomo hopes New Yorkers take notice.

If youre going to get on public transit, youre going to get on a bus, youre going to get on a subway, youre going to stand on a subway platform, youre going to walk in a neighborhood that is busy, youre going to be on a sidewalk, youre going to pass other people on a sidewalk, youre not going to be able to maintain social distancing, you must wear a mask, Cuomo said during a Wednesday briefing, as quoted by CNN.

New York currently is the state with the most coronavirus cases. According to the latest numbers, there have been just shy of 8,000 deaths in New York City alone. There are currently more than 600,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19 nationwide, with more than 24,000 deaths.

Where were going, its not a reopening in that were going to reopen what was. Were going to a different place, Cuomo said.

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All New Yorkers Will be Required to Wear Masks in Public - Futurism

Gassy Core

By probing a gigantic, distant exoplanet, astronomers have a rare opportunity to better understand our solar systems gas giants like Jupiter and Saturn.

Thats because the exoplanet, TOI-849b, appears to be the exposed core of a similar gas giant, Space.com reports. An international team of astronomers suspects that either the gassy outer layers of the exoplanet were somehow blown away or never formed in the first place providing a rare opportunity to peek under the hood.

What astronomers have gleaned thus far is that the exoplanet is about a big as Neptune but has 40 times the mass of the entire Earth, Space.com reports. It also orbits its starblazingly fast, whipping around in a complete revolution every 18.4 hours.

But what they dont know is what happened to its outer layers. In that regard their research, shared online last month and recently accepted for publication in the journal Nature, remains speculative.

The most obvious explanation for why only the core of TOI-849b remains: its atmosphere was incinerated away from its close proximity to a star, Space.com reports. Its also possible TOI-849b collided with another exoplanet while it was whipping around in its obscenely-fast orbit.

Or maybe it was just a late bloomer. If it formed after most of its solar system had already done so, its possible there just wasnt enough raw material left to make a fully-formed gas giant, meaning it was only ever just a giant core.

READ MORE: Weird alien planet may be core of stripped-down gas giant [Space.com]

More on gas giants: NASA Data Shows Something Leaking Out of Uranus

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Bizarre Exoplanet Might Be a Gas Giant That Lost its Gas - Futurism