COVID-19 News from Around the Web

Among detected cases of COVID-19 in the United States, 1.3% of patients will die from the illness, according to a new calculation. But that rate could increase if current precautions and health care capacities change, the study's author said. The 1.3% rate calculation is based on cumulative deaths and detected cases across the United States, but it does not account for undetected cases, where a person is infected but shows few or no symptoms, according to researcher Anirban Basu. If those cases were added into the equation, the overall death rate might drop closer to 1%, Basu said. He directs the department of pharmacy at the University of Washington in Seattle. Basu stressed that the current estimates apply "under the assumption that the current supply [as of April 20] of health care services, including hospital beds, ventilators, and access to health care providers, would continue in the future." Declines in the availability of health care services could increase COVID-19 death rates. Most crucially, social distancing and other preventive measures will help keep the U.S. COVID-19 death rate down, Basu said. Accordingly, recent White House COVID-19 Taskforce projections of 100,000 to 200,000 deaths this year from COVID-19 are made with assumptions about the effectiveness of measures that are currently in place, he said. Many states are already moving to relax restrictions on "shelter in place" rules, with businesses, beaches and parks reopening.

There's been much speculation about whether vitamin D might prevent or help survival with COVID-19, and two new studies appear to underscore the link. In the first study -- published in the journal Aging Clinical and Experimental Research -- British researchers found that COVID-19 infections and deaths were higher in countries where people had low vitamin D levels, such as Italy and Spain, compared to northern European countries where average vitamin D levels were higher. The researchers explained that people in southern Europe may have darker pigmentation, which reduces vitamin D synthesis, while people in northern European countries consume more cod liver oil and vitamin D supplements. The second study appeared in the online journal medRxiv, but has not been peer-reviewed. In it, a team from Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., analyzed data from 10 countries, including the United States. Led by postdoctoral researcher Ali Daneshkhah, the study's conclusion was the same: Low vitamin D levels were linked to a hyperactive immune system. The so-called "sunshine vitamin" bolsters immunity and prevents an overactive immune response, the Northwestern researchers said, adding that their finding could explain several mysteries, including why kids are unlikely to die from COVID-19.

The U.S. government on Friday is poised to report the worst set of jobs numbers since record-keeping began in 1948, a snapshot of the devastating damage the coronavirus outbreak has inflicted on the economy. The unemployment rate for April could reach 16% or more, according to economists surveyed by the data provider FactSet. Twenty-one million jobs may have been lost. If so, it would mean that nearly all the job growth in the 11 years since the Great Recession ended had vanished in one month. Even those numbers won’t fully capture the scope of the damage the coronavirus has inflicted on jobs and incomes.

Hydroxychloroquine, a decades-old malaria drug touted by President Donald Trump, didn’t appear to help hospitalized patients with Covid-19, according to a new observational study published Thursday in the New England Journal of Medicine. The study, funded by the National Institutes of Health and conducted by researchers at New York-Presbyterian Hospital and Columbia University Irving Medical Center in New York City, looked at 1,376 consecutive patients who showed up at the emergency room with symptoms of coronavirus. Nearly 60%, or 811 of the patients, received the drug within 48 hours and were found, on average, to be more severely ill than those who didn’t receive the drug, the researchers said. They said the study’s findings didn’t find any potential benefit or harm from the drug, adding a rigorous, randomized clinical trial is needed.

Chinese scientists have detected coronavirus in the semen of infected men but further research will be needed to determine whether the virus can be sexually transmitted. … Researchers at the Shangqiu Municipal Hospital in China's Henan Province conducted a study to determine whether the virus was present in semen. They tested the semen of 38 coronavirus patients aged 15 to their 50s. Genetic material from the coronavirus was found in the semen of six patients -- four of whom were at the "acute stage of infection" and two of whom were "recovering."

A member of the US Navy who serves as one of President Donald Trump's personal valets has tested positive for coronavirus, CNN learned Thursday, raising concerns about the President's possible exposure to the virus. The valets are members of an elite military unit dedicated to the White House and often work very close to the President and first family. Trump was upset when he was informed Wednesday that the valet had tested positive, a source told CNN, and the President was subsequently tested again by the White House physician.