Data Snapshot
UW Medicine Hospitals:
King County: The county reported 29 new positive cases and 2 new deaths on May 29.
Washington: The state reported 21,071 cases and 1,111 deaths as of May 28. A total of 348,233 people have been tested and 6.1% of those tests have been positive.
United States: The CDC reports 1,719,827 cases and 101,711 deaths as of May 29.
Global: WHO reports 5,704,736 confirmed COVID-19 cases and 357,736 deaths as of May 29.
*Numbers update frequently, please follow links for most up-to-date numbers.
UW Medicine in the News
Live Science: How COVID-19 might affect a pregnant woman’s placenta
Featuring: Kristina Adams Waldorf, MD, FACOG, Obstetrics and Gynecology
A small new study found signs of damage to the placenta in pregnant women with COVID-19, but it’s far too early to say whether this damage actually affects birth outcomes. Most women with the novel coronavirus who had these abnormalities gave birth to healthy babies at full-term.
KIRO 7: Inslee loosens restrictions on religious services statewide:
Featuring: Paul Pottinger, MD, DTM&H, Allergy & Infectious Diseases
Gov. Jay Inslee announced Wednesday that Washington would be easing restrictions on religious gatherings as the state moves forward with its reopening plan.
Medical Xpress: Seattle researchers building ‘biobank’ of patients’ blood to unlock the mysteries of the new coronavirus
Featuring: Mark Wurfel, MD, PhD, Medicine and Pulmonary, Critical Care and Sleep Medicine.
Blood and other biological specimens from COVID-19 patients treated in Seattle area hospitals are helping scientists build a massive “biobank” to examine the virus’s long-term impacts on the human body and why it affects some people more severely than others.
Boston Herald: Key coronavirus model lowers death projection in U.S., Massachusetts as toll tops 100,000 nationwide
Featuring: Ali Mokdad, PhD, Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation
A key coronavirus model is lowering its predictions for the cumulative death toll both nationwide and in Massachusetts through August as the number of dead rose above 100,000 Wednesday.
The model from the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington now projects there will be 131,967 deaths from the virus across the country by August, down from a prediction of 143,357 on May 18.
Idaho Statesman: Coronavirus is deadlier, sneakier and more contagious than our last pandemic, swine flu
Featuring: Seth Cohen, MD, Allergy & Infectious Diseases
Remember the swine flu in 2009? While comparisons of today’s coronavirus pandemic to the 1918 Spanish flu outbreak probably are more fitting, the swine flu, or the H1N1 virus, gives us a more recent example of how we dealt with a global pandemic.
Neurology Today: This COVID-19 Practice: Academic Neurology and Hospital-based Practices Hit by Pay Cuts, Furloughs, and Loss of Job Benefits
Featuring: Nicholas Poolos, MD, PhD Neurology
Institutions across the country have begun to respond with cost-cutting measures to the heavy revenue losses created by the COVID-19 pandemic.
KUOW: ‘False sense of security.’ Why some doctors won’t order coronavirus antibody tests for patients
Featuring: Elisabeth Poorman, MD, General Internal Medicine
The Trump administration and other leaders around the world have proposed COVID-19 antibody tests as a stopgap solution to reopening society until a vaccine is developed. Antibody tests can detect past infections.
Puget Sound Business Journal: Patti Payne: Masks, food are lifelines for front lines
Featuring: Russell Van Gelder, MD, PhD; Tueng Shen, MD, PhD, Ophthalmology
There was a joyous celebration going on at the University of Washington’s Eye Institute at Harborview when 20,000 surgical masks, in critically short supply, were delivered there a few days ago, courtesy of Seattle couture designer and UW alum Luly Yang.
Puget Sound Business Journal: TransformativeMed kicks into overdrive to develop COVID-19 patient management software
Featuring: Chloe Bryson-Cahn, MD, Allergy & Infectious Diseases
In early March, Cusick put usual business on hold to create a tool to help health systems manage COVID-19 patients. Based in the nation’s first hotspot, TransformativeMed was in a unique position to develop the COVID-19 tool in partnership with UW Medicine.
Chemical & Engineering News: COVID-19 antibody tests are raising as many questions as they answer
Featuring: Alex Greninger, MD, PhD, Laboratory Medicine
In January, we didn’t know much about the novel coronavirus that would eventually be called SARS-CoV-2. We had just determined its genetic sequence. We were still learning about the vast array of symptoms it could cause. And we didn’t yet know how widespread, and how deadly, the disease COVID-19 would become.
Westside Seattle: UW Medicine Mobile COVID-19 Testing Site Opens May 29 at South Seattle College
Featuring: UW Medicine
UW Medicine and the Seattle Dept. of Neighborhoods are opening a mobile COVID-19 testing site at South Seattle College’s main campus in West Seattle starting May 29, 2020.
Research Update
TRT World London: President Trump’s taking hydroxychloroquine, but what about the rest of us?
Featuring: Ruanne Barnabas, MBChB, DPhil; Christine Johnston, MD
UW Medicine researchers, who are leading hydroxychloroquine studies with outpatients, say there is no evidence yet on hydroxychloroquine’s effectiveness on treating or preventing COVID-19.
Tweet of the Week
KUOW Public Radio: ‘It was bad.’ Three hours on the COVID ICU in Seattle
Featuring: Leah Silver, RN; Ashlee Davis, RN
Reports do a walk through of the COVID-19 ICU with nurses at UW Medical Center.
