Solving COVID: June 3, 2020

1. Human testing starts for medicine 'specifically designed to attack' coronavirus

Eli Lilly and Company has started human testing in trials for a COVID-19 antibody treatment. The company says this is the "first potential new medicine specifically designed to attack" the coronavirus. "Ultimately, what we would hope is that this would be an effective treatment that would provide very strongly neutralizing antibodies to lower the virus and help patients recover," Mark Mulligan, who is working on the study, told Stat News. The company also wants to determine whether the drug can be used for prevention, which The Wall Street Journal notes is an "approach that could serve as a bridge toward curbing the pandemic until a successful vaccine is developed." If the treatment works, "we want to be ready to deliver it to patients as quickly as possible, with the goal of having several hundred thousand doses available by the end of the year," president of Lilly Research Laboratories Daniel Skovronsky said in a statement. The study will focus on determining the drug's safety in patients hospitalized with COVID-19, and the company is expecting results by the end of June; it then aims to test among non-hospitalized patients.

Eli Lilly Stat News

2. Experimental test uses nanoparticles to detect COVID-19 in 10 minutes

Researchers at the University of Maryland School of Medicine have developed an experimental test that could detect the coronavirus in someone as early as their first day of infection. The test looks for the virus in saliva or a nasal swab sample, and if RNA material specific to the virus is present, gold nanoparticles in the test turn the purple test reagent blue. Results take only about 10 minutes, the researchers report in the journal ACS Nano. "Many of the diagnostic tests currently on the market cannot detect the virus until several days after infection," lead researcher Dipanjan Pan said in a statement. "For this reason, they have a significant rate of false negative results." If the test lives up to its promise in clinical trials, it could be a relatively inexpensive and user-friendly way to monitor nursing homes, college campuses, child-care centers, and offices for COVID-19 infections. "The innovative approach provides results without the need for a sophisticated laboratory facility," study co-author Matthew Frieman said in a statement. Pan has created a company to develop the test commercially and is applying for emergency use authorization from the Food and Drug Administration.

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University of Maryland ACS Nano

3. Fauci 'cautiously optimistic' amid search for coronavirus vaccine

As the search for a coronavirus vaccine continues, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, is feeling "cautiously" optimistic that several vaccine candidates will be shown to be effective in "a reasonable period of time," he told The Wall Street Journal. While all potential vaccines are still undergoing trials, Fauci says America should have 100 million doses of one possible vaccine — from biotech company Moderna — by the end of 2020, with the idea being that "if it does work, it can be deployed quickly," CNN reports. Some experts have cast doubt on that incredibly tight timeline, and Fauci says a major unanswered question is how long any eventual vaccine might protect a person from the coronavirus. "Is it going to be a year, two years, or even maybe, unfortunately, six months or less?" If it provides protection for a fairly short period, he said this might lead to a "secondary problem" in trying to get enough doses out. Despite his optimism, Fauci also cautioned this week that there's "never a guarantee, ever, that you're going to get an effective vaccine."

CNN The Wall Street Journal

4. Wastewater can be an efficient early warning sign for coronavirus outbreaks

Testing wastewater for coronavirus' genetic material could be even more effective at spotting new outbreaks and resurgences than deploying individual swab tests, Stat News reports. COVID-19 can be detected in wastewater as early as two weeks before a person begins to show symptoms, so the water's analysis can help a city better understand how many of its residents are getting sick, and then deploy a quick response. Wastewater facilities around the country have been sending samples to labs, and the analysis indicates that far more people have had COVID-19 than have been tested for it. The U.S. is waiting for a lab-to-lab comparison before rolling out a uniform nationwide sewage testing regimen, but Finland, Germany, and the Netherlands have already launched national programs of their own. This all may prove key as states move to reopen, as wastewater could show if COVID-19 is spiking again before patients start to arrive in hospitals.

Stat News

5. Global study affirms masks significantly reduce COVID-19 infection risk

A review of 172 studies from 16 countries confirmed previous anecdotal assumptions about steps we can take to prevent coronavirus transmission, finding that wearing a face mask and maintaining physical distance significantly reduces the risk of spreading COVID-19. The first-of-its-kind study found the risk of transmitting the virus without a mask or respirator is 17.4 percent, but with a mask that falls to just 3.1 percent. Keeping a distance of less than 1 meter (3.3 feet) and no other protective measure carried a transmission risk of 12.8 percent, cut to 2.6 percent when the distance was more than 1 meter and even lower at 2 meters (6.6. feet). There was also a sharp cut in risk with eye protection. "On average, staying 1 meter away from other people appears to reduce your chance of catching COVID-19 by 80 percent," Oxford University's Trish Greenhalgh, who wasn't involved in the study, tells CNN. "Wearing a mask or face covering appears to reduce your risk by up to 85 percent. And wearing goggles or a face shield seems to reduce it by up to 78 percent."

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