Prognosis: Breakthrough

As Covid-19 infects more and more people, doctors around are learning that the coronavirus doesn’t just attack the lungs. The virus can cause kidney failure; send the body’s immune system into high gear; and lead to a range of clotting-related disorders. Jason Gale reports on how much more we have yet to learn about what the virus does to the body.

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After months of sheltering in place, some people have begun looking for ways to get around some of the more onerous social distancing guidelines. That’s especially true as the weather warms up in the U.S. Bloomberg reporter Kristen V. Brown collected listener questions around social distancing etiquette, and brought them to an expert to clear up the confusion. If you have any more quarantine questions, give us a call at 646 324 3490. We may even play your voicemail on a future show.

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Last week, a five-year-old boy in New York died from Covid-19-related complications. Dozens of other children are becoming sick with a similar cluster of symptoms that mirror a rare condition called Kawasaki disease. The accepted wisdom had been that children could transmit the virus, but not get sick from it. The new illness is throwing that assumption into question. Jason Gale talked to the world’s leading expert on Kawasaki disease to help unpack what is going on.

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Last week, researchers at the Los Alamos National Laboratory released alarming news: At least one variant of the virus that causes Covid-19 had significantly mutated to become more contagious. If true, this would have major implications. A new variant could, for example, hamper efforts to develop a vaccine or mean that people who’ve already had Covid-19 might face a greater risk of getting it again. But critics said the data didn’t support such a big claim. Kristen V. Brown discusses what it really means that the virus is changing.

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Antibody tests are suddenly everywhere. These tests are designed to determine whether someone contracted the virus in the past. They help policy makers understand how the virus spreads, and whether measures to contain the virus are working.

Federal regulators relaxed guidelines to make it easier for companies to produce the tests, but this has allowed for a flood of unreliable--and sometimes fraudulent--tests to be offered to consumers. Now, Kristen V. Brown reports, the government is trying to control the mess.

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Dozens of research teams across the world are racing to deliver a vaccine for the coronavirus. Developing, testing and bringing a vaccine to market is a process that usually takes years, even decades. But that process is being ramped up to warp speed as the virus ravages the globe. A small group of volunteers is already receiving an experimental vaccine. Jason Gale spoke to one of them, and gives us a peek inside the fast-moving world of coronavirus vaccine development.

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Doctor Richard Besser was the acting director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in 2009, when the H1N1 Swine flu pandemic broke out. The physician-turned-epidemiologist now runs the Robert Wood Johnson foundation with a mission to improve health equality. Reporter Riley Griffin spoke to him about what happens to the most vulnerable communities as states begin to relax social distancing rules; and the danger that we'll never have a vaccine.

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Health-care workers are under threat from more than just the coronavirus itself: The mental health effects of the work are grave. Doctors and nurses fighting Covid-19 are watching patients die at rates rarely seen in civilian medicine; and they’re delivering the news to family members who aren’t allowed inside the hospital for fear of spreading the disease. Hospitals are trying to treat the minds and hearts of the healers by offering counseling, crisis hotlines and therapy dogs. Emma Court discusses the scars the pandemic is leaving on hospital workers, and what the health care system can do about it.

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Scientists are facing unparalleled pressure to provide information about the coronavirus as quickly as possible. And when every day brings forth new data, what was clear one day may be confusing the next. Guidance has shifted rapidly about the benefits of wearing masks, how the virus spreads, and even the efficacy of promising new drugs like Remdesivir. Science doesn't usually move this fast. Michelle Fay Cortez and Robert Langreth report on what happens when the slow and steady process of research, peer review, and the traditional publication process hits warp speed?

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As Covid-19 spreads, doctors are learning more about why some patients get very sick, and why others only get mildly ill. Some of the people most at risk for severe illness have underlying conditions that affect their lungs. Older people are also at a higher risk. But certain factors, when combined with age, create a powder keg for the effects of the disease. Both smoking and obesity are conditions that can lead to fatal results in Covid-19 patients. Bloomberg Senior Editor Jason Gale explains how these conditions have made the coronavirus more lethal in some countries.

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