King County: The county reported 239 new positive cases and 1 new deaths on July 16.
Washington: The state reported 44,313 cases and 1,427 deaths as of July 15. A total of 753,174 people have been tested and 5.9% of those tests have been positive.
United States: The CDC reports 3,483,832 cases and 136,938 deaths as of July 16.
Global: WHO reports 13,378,853 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 580,045 deaths as of July 16.
*Numbers update frequently, please follow links for most up-to-date numbers.
Research News
M.D. Alert (Reuters Health): COVID-19 tied to higher risk of barotrauma in ventilated patients
Featuring: Katherine Heller, Anesthesiology & Pain Medicine
“‘We do not know what might make COVID-19 patients more vulnerable to barotrauma compared to other infectious processes leading to severe lung injury,’ [Dr. Katherine Heller] said. ‘I would hope that all of these patients, irrespective of location, would have been ventilated in the ‘protective’ way that has been proven advantageous by the clinical evidence.’”
UW Medicine in the News
Herald & Review (AP): Race for a remedy: Unraveling the deadly new coronavirus
Featuring: Desiree Marshall, Pathology
“Autopsies reveal ‘what the virus is actually doing’ inside patient’s bodies, said Dr. Desiree Marshall, a pathologist at the University of Washington who recently examined the heart of a Seattle man who died from disease. ‘Each autopsy has the chance to tell us something new,’ she said. And those insights from the bodies of the dead could lead to more effective treatment of the living.”
The Washington Post: Global surge in coronavirus cases is being fed by the developing world — and the U.S.
Featuring: Ali Mokdad, IHME
“Worse may lie ahead, according to Ali Mokdad, director of Middle Eastern initiatives at the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation. Projections by his institute suggest there may be 160,000 deaths in the Middle East’s worst-affected countries by Nov. 1, including 62,000 in Iran and 50,000 in Saudi Arabia.”
Medical Health News: Tests show COVID-19 prevalence low in UW Medicine frontline
Featuring: John Lynch, Allergy & Infectious Diseases; Keith Jerome, Laboratory Medicine; Lisa Brandenburg, President
“‘The low overall rate of past infections in workers directly interacting with and caring for COVID-19 patients is a testament to our preparedness efforts and continued commitment to keeping employees safe,’ said UW Medicine’s Dr. John B. Lynch, medical director of Infection Prevention at Harborview Medical Center. ‘Our preventative measures included early access to testing, extensive personal protective equipment, and highly trained personnel in units specifically dedicated to COVID-19.’”
Newsy: Teachers, Doctors Wary Of Health Risks Of Reopening Schools
Featuring: Ali Mokdad, IHME
“Epidemiologist Ali Mokdad tells Newsy the makeup of local coronavirus cases and whether they’re increasing or decreasing should play the biggest role in how schools form their plans to start back up.
‘Unless you take care of the whole picture, you’re going to fail,’ Mokdad said.”
Spiegel International: The Changing Virus
Featuring: Trevor Bedford, Genome Sciences
“Since 2015, physicist Richard Neher from the Biozentrum at the University of Basel and U.S. biologist Trevor Bedford have been trying to better understand the course of epidemics. The experts have been tracking influenza, Zika and Ebola viruses for years with their online application called Nextstrain (Nextstrain.org). Since January 2020, the data researchers have also been looking into SARS-CoV-2.”
Tweet of the Week
