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More coronavirus testing supplies sought

Inslee and Pence
Washington Gov. Jay Inslee meets Vice President Mike Pence’s handshake with an “elbow bump” during a March news conference at Camp Murray, Wash. (C-Span Video)

In a strongly worded letter, Washington Gov. Jay Inslee told Vice President Mike Pence today that the state has “nowhere near” the coronavirus testing capability needed to begin initiating pandemic recovery plans.

Inslee requested federal assistance to boost that capability through a robust national testing system.

The governor said state officials have been trying to procure the supplies for 2.5 million sample collection kits — including swabs, viral transport media and reagents. “We are nowhere near that today,” he wrote.

Charissa Fotinos, deputy chief medical officer at the Washington State Health Care Authority, told journalists during a follow-up teleconference that “we should have, by early next week, 30,000 kits that can be deployed across the state.”

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UW calls a halt to use of questionable test kits

Sample collection kits
Collection kits were made by Lingen Precision Medical Products in Shanghai. (Lingen Photo via Alibaba)

The University of Washington School of Medicine has alerted Seattle-King County public health officials and other partners to stop using a donated supply of specimen collection kits for coronavirus testing, due to quality control concerns.

In response, the Washington State Department of Health issued a recall order for about 12,000 of the Chinese-made kits, which were sent to local health jurisdictions, tribal nations and its partners across the state.

Concerns were raised on April 17 after UW Medicine determined that some of the kits, which were airlifted from Shanghai a couple of weeks ago with logistical assistance from Amazon, showed signs of contamination.

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Microsoft creates Plasma Bot to fight COVID-19

Antibodies in lab
Polyclonal hyperimmune globulin treatments, also known as H-Ig, are manufactured by pooling together multiple plasma donations to concentrate antibodies. (Takeda Photo)

Microsoft is teaming up with the world’s leading plasma companies to streamline the process of developing an antibody-based therapy for COVID-19, the disease caused by coronavirus.

The Seattle-area software giant’s contribution takes the form of an app called the CoVIg-19 Plasma Bot, a self-screening tool that puts people who have recovered from COVID-19 in touch with plasma collection centers across the United States. The effort could lead to a new type of therapy for the disease, known as polyclonal hyperimmune globulin or H-Ig.

Blood plasma from survivors of other types of infectious disease is known to have a therapeutic effect, thanks to the antibodies that those survivors developed in the course of fighting off pathogens. Early indications suggest that convalescent plasma could have a beneficial effect for COVID-19 patients as well, and clinical trials are underway to confirm those results.

H-Ig takes the concept a step further by pooling multiple plasma donations, concentrating the antibodies and purifying the solution. The purification process minimizes the risk of contamination, and because the medicine is concentrated, it can be delivered in lower volumes and less time. H-Ig medications also have a longer shelf life than plasma, which allows for easier storage and shipping.

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How much longer should COVID-19 shutdowns last?

Reopening map
A color-coded map from the University of Washington’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation shows when states are projected to reach thresholds for easing social distancing restrictions. (IHME Graphic)

The University of Washington epidemiologists who set up a widely watched model projecting the future course of the coronavirus outbreak have translated those projections into suggested time frames for loosening strict shelter-at-home orders across the country.

For Washington state, that time frame is the week of May 18, which is two weeks longer than the current expiration date for Gov. Jay Inslee’s “Stay Home, Stay Healthy” order.

Based on the current projections from UW’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, four states — Montana, Vermont, West Virginia and Hawaii — could loosen their restrictions as early as the week of May 4. Other states, ranging from Massachusetts and North Dakota to Arizona, may have to wait until the week of June 8 or later.

Those projected dates could shift, of course, depending on how the institute tweaks its models, which it’s done repeatedly over the past month. And in the end, it’s up to the nation’s governors, not researchers, to determine how strict their social distancing policies are.

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Volunteers wanted for virus-tracking study

Michael Boeckh
Michael Boeckh heads the Infectious Disease Sciences Program at Seattle’s Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center. (Fred Hutch News Service Photo / Robert Hood)c

Are you at risk of getting COVID-19? You may be just the kind of person researchers at Seattle’s Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center is looking for, to help them learn how the virus spreads and whether someone who has weathered the disease can be re-infected.

The longitudinal research project, known as CovidWatch, could contribute to the development of vaccines and other methods to help the body mount a safe and effective immune response to SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.

CovidWatch joins other outbreak-fighting efforts in which Fred Hutch’s researchers play a role, including the Seattle Coronavirus Assessment Network and NextTrace.

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UW ramps up for ‘fantastic’ COVID-19 antibody test

Blood test in lab
Greg Pepper, manager of the UW Medicine Virology Lab, works on a diagnostic blood test designed to detect COVID-19 antibodies. (UW Medicine Photo)

The University of Washington School of Medicine’s Virology Lab is reporting encouraging results from trial runs of a new test from Abbott Laboratories that detects the antibodies created by people who have had COVID-19, whether they knew they had it or not.

“This is a really fantastic test,” Keith Jerome, who leads UW Medicine’s virology program, told reporters today. He said UW’s lab could process 4,000 samples per day starting next week, and conceivably ramp up to 14,000 samples per day within a couple of weeks.

The test will be made available through health care providers, in medical clinics or perhaps through workplaces. It analyzes blood that’s drawn from patients, and looks for the telltale antibodies that a body’s immune system creates to defend against the coronavirus known as SARS-CoV-2.

Epidemiologists say knowing who has had the virus will be key to tracking the true spread of COVID-19, and giving assurances to people who are returning to school and work — particularly in front-line jobs ranging from first responders and health care workers to grocery store clerks.

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How testing and tracing put down a pandemic

An artist’s conception shows microscopic coronavirus particles. (CDC Illustration)

Checking back to see who’s been in contact with newly identified patients with an infectious disease is a standard technique for containing an epidemic, but experts argue that it’s particularly important for the coronavirus pandemic.

Trevor Bedford, an epidemiologist at Seattle’s Fred Hutchinson Cancer Research Center, explains why — and lays out a relatively straightforward system for doing contact tracing in combination with testing — in a Twitter thread spun out today.

“We need a huge push to increase the speed and scale of contact tracing, but this doesn’t necessarily require ‘digital’ solutions,” Bedford writes.

The solution suggested by Bedford and his colleagues in the NextTrace effort makes use of mobile device data, but as a supplement to the traditional phone-based and in-phone interviews used in contact tracing.

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Gates Foundation CEO addresses pandemic politics

Mark Suzman
Gates Foundation CEO Mark Suzman speaks at a World Economic Forum session. (WEF via YouTube)

Seattle’s Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation is in the public health spotlight, thanks to its efforts to head off just the sort of global pandemic we’re now experiencing — but not all the exposure it’s getting is healthy.

In some corners of the online world, the Gates Foundation is painted as a villain, stoking fears and pushing a global vaccination agenda for the sake of “Big Pharma.” Anti-vaccine activists link Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates with the World Health Organization and infectious-disease expert Anthony Fauci — and not in a good way.

The conspiracy theories have always been there, but Gates Foundation CEO Mark Suzman acknowledges that they’re getting added traction now, thanks in part to the COVID-19 crisis.

“We’re aware that there’s allegations made in social media and other [channels] about nefarious schemes the foundation is alleged to be part of,” Suzman told GeekWire today, in connection with an announcement that the foundation is allocating $150 million more to fighting the pandemic.

“All I can say is, one, we’re completely transparent about who we are and what we do,” he said. “We are able to talk about any and every investment and grant we make. We’re very transparent about our mission, our values, and we really have nothing to hide.”

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We’re ‘on the cusp’ in coronavirus outbreak

Downtown Seattle
A plaza in front of one of Amazon’s newest towers in downtown Seattle is empty, due to restrictions on mobility that have been put in place to counter the COVID-19 epidemic. (GeekWire Photo / Kurt Schlosser)

An updated analysis of COVID-19 case data and Facebook mobility data suggests that Seattle and King County are “on the cusp” between wider spread of the epidemic and a gradual fade-out of new cases.

Researchers from the Bellevue, Wash.-based Institute for Disease Modeling said the decline in the rate of growth in new cases is a testament to the efficacy of Washington state’s “Stay Home, Stay Healthy” restrictions. But they also said it’s still too early to relax those restrictions.

“If distancing measures are relaxed without other mitigation strategies in place, we can expect a quick rebound in the case count and the burden on the hospitals, and the deaths,” Mike Famulare, principal research scientist at the institute, said today during a teleconference with journalists.

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Scientists hint at two years of social distancing

Coronavirus particles
A transmission electron microscope image shows the SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, emerging from the surface of cells cultured in the lab. (National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases-Rocky Mountain Laboratories, NIH)

Based on simulations of the coronavirus outbreak’s future course, Harvard scientists say prolonged or intermittent social distancing may be necessary into 2022 — but they stress that research into how long immunity to the virus lasts will be urgently needed to refine their projections.

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