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Tapping the hive mind to fight Covid-19

QuickTake Tonight
Bloomberg

Greetings, QuickTake readers! In this edition: Spain records deadliest day yet, Prince Charles tests positive, and Australia releases recovered koalas back into the wild.

Getting social to fight Covid-19

To fight the first pandemic of the social media age, a medical hive mind has sprung into action online, helping doctors from China to Italy to the U.S. potentially outpace a virus for the first time in history. Thousands of health experts are turning to specialized Facebook groups, Twitter threads and podcasts to piece together the best Covid-19 treatments in realtime, as old-school protocols lag behind the fast-moving coronavirus.

Crowdsourced intel has already debunked the rule book, amid a medical supplies shortage and conflicting official advice, helping health workers "learn others' mistakes so people won't die," one expert said.

  • When standard respiratory illness care advised first using an oxygen mask, then a BiPap machine, then a ventilator, Facebook lectures by Italian pulmonary MDs proved ventilators should be used sooner.
  • When a California internist noticed, and studies found, that some patients got sicker after taking ibuprofen, a French health minister tweeted acetaminophen was better, convincing some to use Tylenol.
  • When Bronx doctors thought a 70-year-old's nausea and vomiting was a seasonal illness, Washington medics noted older Covid-19 patients showed similar signs, prompting a coronavirus test in N.Y.

$ignificant figures

$2 trillion. The White House and Congress sealed a stimulus deal, the biggest-ever economic relief package, that allots $250 billion in unemployment benefits and $350 billion for small business loans. It still hasn't passed.

738. Spain reported its deadliest day yet with that many virus fatalities over a 24-hour period, bringing the death toll to 3,434, making it the second-worst outbreak in Europe after Italy.

95%. In New York City, where coronavirus infections are "doubling about every three days," an overwhelming share had underlying health conditions, though half were under the age of 75.

Highly quotable

"Mild symptoms but in good health." 71-year-old Prince Charles, the heir to the British throne, tested positive for Covid-19 and is self-isolating in Scotland, his office said. His last public engagement was March 12.

"Frustration, of course." Four-time Olympic gold medalist Allison Schmitt says she has "mixed emotions" about the decision to postpone the Tokyo summer games, "but as human beings, we're able to get through that."

"We are the 2% that may die." James Davies, who has cerebral palsy, says he worries that people with disabilities are more at risk than ever due to increased isolation and extra challenges brought on by Covid-19.

This is not normal

"Can't even give it away." Gas prices in the U.S. are headed for depths not seen since the Great Depression, with retail prices at the pump expected to reach a 16-year-low of $1.49 a gallon by mid-April.

The future is now

Digital whiff. Computers could soon learn to smell, Intel says, after it built an algorithm that mimics parts of the brain's activity, including the ability to detect and identify different smells based on the nose's olfactory receptors.

What's good

Returning home. After Australia's crushing bushfires wiped out a third of New South Wales's koala population, a Kangaroo Island hospital is finally releasing back into the wild "the next generation" of moms and joeys.

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BTW: Hong Kong is tracking people under mandatory quarantine via wristbands with a QR code. But do they actually work?

Thanks for reading!
-Andrew Mach

 

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