IowaBio wants to provide our members useful information during the COVID-19 pandemic. This newsletter compiles information on state, federal and industry action to combat the virus and its impacts.
If your company is helping respond to COVID-19, IowaBio wants to know about it. Please, send any information about what your biotechnology company or organization is doing to help, to Jessica Hyland at Jessica@iowabio.org.
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Past IowaBio COVID-19 Update newsletters are now available at www.iowabio.org/COVID19 and can be found under the Industry News tab on the IowaBio website.
Iowa Update
Iowa Statistics
Currently, IDPH has reported on the state’s coronavirus dashboard, 203,021 Iowans have tested positive, up 4,380 from our update yesterday morning, with a total of 1,144,660 tested. 25 additional deaths were reported since our last update, bringing the total to 2,127 deaths. Now 114,291 Iowans have recovered. The overall positivity rate is 17.7% and the total 14 day rolling average positivity rate is 21.6%. The latest on hospitalizations, including how many patients have been admitted in the last 24 hours can be found here. There are currently 1,447 hospitalized patients.
School district statistics including positivity rates by county can be found here. According to guidance issued by the Iowa Department of Education, schools may petition to go to hybrid or online learning with less than 50 percent in-person instruction when the per county percentage positivity rates are above 15 percent in a county on average over the past 14 days (rolling average) AND 10% absenteeism among students is expected for in-person learning. School district waiver requests and whether they are granted or denied are listed here.
Currently 93 (of 99) counties are above a 15 percent positivity rate over the past 14 days. Because there are a high number of counties to report, this newsletter will no longer list them individually. Click here to search county data for today.
Governor’s Press Conference
Yesterday at her press conference, Governor Reynolds said Iowa has seen an increase of 22,000 cases over the last seven days with a statewide positivity rate of 17.5 percent. This is a decrease from the seven days prior which was 38,000 cases and an average positivity rate of 28 percent. They are seeing some signs of stabilization but there is a whole lot of work to do to bring down numbers. Yesterday they saw a decrease in hospitalization rates, but one day is far from a downward trend, she said.
The majority of those hospitalized continue to be older Iowans, with 74 percent of all hospital patients with COVID-19 are 60 or older. Iowans need to be mindful around the holidays of how their behavior affects others, even with small gatherings, she said.
An additional 20 long term care facility outbreaks were reported yesterday. An outbreak is considered 3 or more cases. That brings the total number to 114. The number of new cases over the last 14 days will now be reported for long-term care facilities on the coronavirus hub. The state is working to assist long term care facilities in a host of ways, and helping with emergency staffing plans and testing needs. In order to move off of outbreak status, a facility must go 28 days without a positive case.
The Governor announced $14 million dollars in CARES funding will be distributed to long term care facilities to support the increased costs of testing and staffing.
Dr. Caitlin Pedati, State Epidemiologist talked about what to do if a family member tests positive. Case investigation happens when an individual tests positive. They reach to people to ask questions, to understand the people and who the virus is affecting. That helps them better understand the virus. They try and understand what activities they participated in that could have put them at risk of contracting the virus. When they’ve identified a person who is a case, the person should stay home for a ten-day period from beginning of symptoms or day of a positive test, if you don’t have symptoms. In the course of conversations, they ask who they’ve been around. They are focusing on high risk situations including households. They want to do what they can to protect those who are at higher risk. Quarantine is for healthy people who have been exposed to COVID-19. They ask those who are exposed to the virus to quarantine for 14 days to limit the spread of the virus from one person to another.
Even if you don’t fit into either category, those in isolation or quarantine, there are still things you can do to help stop the spread, including social distancing, hand washing, and wearing masks. Please, help your public health professionals to share the message about how to stay healthy, the Governor asked.
Since March, you’ve heard countless times about the things that you can do to reduce the risks of spreading COVID-19. Though you may have grown tired of hearing it, it’s more important that we blanket the state with these messages, she said.
Governor Reynolds introduced a new public awareness campaign aimed at encouraging Iowans to step up and stop the spread of COVID-19. View the message here.
“It’s more important now than ever to reach as many Iowans as possible with information about what they can do to stop the spread of the virus,” said Gov. Reynolds. “If everyone does their part, we’ll get life back to normal and keep our businesses open, our kids in school, our hospitals stable and our essential workforce healthy.”
Several notable Iowans join Governor Reynolds in communicating the informational and motivational message in the campaign’s television spots, including:
Tom Vilsack, former Governor of Iowa and U.S. Secretary of Agriculture;
Dan Gable, legendary Iowa wrestling coach, Olympic gold medalist, and recent recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom;
Carson King, Carson King Foundation;
Suresh Gunasekaran, CEO, University of Iowa Hospitals & Clinics; and
Katie Witt, a Test Iowa nurse.
The state was able to leverage special programs and pricing for government and non-profit organizations to deliver its public awareness message through Iowa’s newspapers, radio and television stations. The campaign totals approximately $440,000 and will be funded through Iowa’s CARES Act allocation.
The state worked with the Iowa Newspaper Association (INA) to place ads in its more than 250 member newspapers and online publications across the state, and extended the campaign’s reach to include Spanish and specialty publications. Newspaper ads started earlier this month and will run through the end of the year.
The state also leveraged the Iowa Broadcasters Association’s (IBA) Public Education Partnerships Program for broadcasting educational messages statewide. Television and radio spots will be available to more than 200 IBA member stations through mid-March.
Test Iowa Update
All Test Iowa sites will be open for normal testing next week Monday through Wednesday except for the Council Bluffs site which will close at 2pm Wednesday. All Test Iowa sites will be closed on Thanksgiving Day, but all sites will reopen on Friday November 27 for normal hours from 8-4pm.
Washington, D.C.
The CDC is strongly urging Americans to stay home and avoid traveling for the Thanksgiving holiday. They've offered some tips for mitigating risks at Thanksgiving here.
Reps. Doug Lamborn (R-CO), Ed Perlmutter (D-CO), and Dan Newhouse (R-WA), and Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA) have all tested positive for COVID-19 since Tuesday.
The FDA issued an EUA for the first COVID-19 diagnostic test for self-testing at home and that provides rapid results. The Lucira COVID-19 All-In-One Test Kit is a molecular, single use test that is intended to detect SARS-CoV-2 (the virus that causes COVID-19).
The FDA also issued an EUA for a combination coronavirus treatment consisting of Gilead's remdesivir and Eli Lilly's previously approved rheumatoid arthritis drug baricitinib, for the treatment of suspected or laboratory confirmed COVID-19 in hospitalized adults and pediatric patients two years of age or older with severe cases. The decision to provide emergency use was based on a trial sponsored by the NIH's National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases that enrolled more than 1,000 patients and showed the two drugs decreased the odds of death when compared only taking remdesivir.
The FDA published a new “FDA Insight” podcast titled “Personal Protective Equipment and COVID-19External Link Disclaimer.” On this week’s episode, Dr. Anand Shah, Deputy Commissioner for Medical and Scientific Affairs, welcomes Dr. Suzanne Schwartz, director of the FDA’s Office of Strategic Partnerships and Technology Innovation at the Center for Devices and Radiological Health, for a discussion on PPE and its critical role in helping to reduce the spread of COVID-19.
The most recent COVID-19 Science Update from the CDC is here.
The CDC has published and updated a significant number of COVID-19 materials and resources on their dashboard. To point to just a few:
The CDC held a press telebriefing yesterday and the transcript is available here.
The FDA will host a virtual Town Hall for SARS-CoV-2 test developers. The purpose of this Town Hall is to help answer technical questions about the development and validation of tests for SARS-CoV-2. The Town Halls will take place:
Dec. 2, 12:15 PM
Dec. 9, 12:15 PM
Dec. 16, 12:15 PM
CMS is airing the first episode in a series of short podcasts for frontline nursing home staff. The series, “CMS Beyond the Policy: Nursing Home Series for Frontline Clinicians and Staff," is designed to reinforce training and infection control practices in nursing homes to help combat the spread of COVID-19.
Ahead of the holidays, CMS is urging nursing home staff, residents, and visitors to follow established guidelines for visitation and adherence to the core principles of infection prevention. These guidelines include remaining six feet apart from individuals, wearing a face covering, and limiting the number of visitors in the nursing home at any one time.
On Tuesday, CMS publicly recognized the 1,092 nursing homes at which 50 percent or more of their staff have completed CMS training designed to help staff combat the spread of COVID-19 in nursing homes. CMS applauds these facilities for taking this critical step to equip their staff with the latest information regarding infection control, vaccine distribution, and other topics. The Agency urges remaining home to take advantage of these resources.
HHS launched a pilot program with five states to use portable, cartridge-based COVID-19 molecular test kits that provide rapid results. The pilot program will assess how to best integrate diagnostic technology developed by Cue Health, Inc., into strategies for disease surveillance and infection control in institutions such as nursing homes. Florida, Louisiana, Texas, New Jersey, and Alaska are the five states involved in the trial.
NIAID is hosting a virtual workshop on Post-Acute Sequelae of COVID-19 on Dec. 3 and 4 to summarize existing knowledge on post-acute manifestations of COVID-19 and to identify key knowledge gaps. The first day will include an overview of the current challenges, talks on clinical observations (both US and international), and some insights from the patient's perspective. Day one will then switch to pathogenic features of coronaviruses as well as host immunological responses, and will end with a series of talks on post-acute sequelae of COVID-19 as reported to date in various focus areas. The second day will start with a talk on the intersection of social determinants of health and race/ethnicity on post-acute COVID-19 sequelae and the charge to the breakout groups, who will dive deeper to identify key knowledge gaps regarding the sequelae in various focus areas.
NIH Director Dr. Francis Collins has posted a new NIH Director's Blog titled, "Mini-Lungs in a Lab Dish Mimic Early COVID-19 Infection." You can read it here.
Updates from the States
Out of the cases under investigation detected by U.S. surveillance, there are 11,465,722 total cases and 249,670 deaths.The CDC data closes out the day before reporting.
Infectious disease experts estimate that more than 3 million people in the U.S. are infected with the coronavirus, the equivalent of about 1 percent of the population. New COVID-19 cases in the U.S. have increased nearly 40 percent compared to last week.
Twenty-five percent of the nation's hospitals have more than 80 percent of their intensive care unit beds filled. Nineteen states hit a record number of COVID-19 hospitalizations on Tuesday. Nearly 80,000 people are hospitalized across the U.S. – about 20,000 more than during peaks in April and July.
Daily fatalities have risen by 76 percent in the last month, averaging more than 1,200 each day. The CDC predicts that between 276,000 and 298,000 Americans will be dead from COVID-19 by Dec. 12.
A snapshot of the situation across the country – infections in Massachusetts are eight times what they were on Labor Day and hospitalizations have quadrupled. Only 6 percent of Oklahoma's ICU beds remain available. In Illinois, COVID-19 is now the third leading cause of death behind heart disease and cancer.
New Mexico and Rhode Island have been chosen by Pfizer as two of four states in a pilot vaccine delivery program.
On Wednesday, Mayor Bill de Blasio announced New York City public schools are closing and returning to remote learning for all 1.1 million students because of rising coronavirus infection rates.
In Texas, Utah, Michigan, Georgia, Indiana, among other states, some districts are temporarily closing schools that already opened, often because of pandemic-caused staffing shortages.
Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear (D) became the first governor to announce a statewide school closure, saying that all public and private schools must close Nov. 23 and that all public universities must do the same. Middle and high schools are staying closed until Jan. 4, and only elementary schools in areas without soaring infections will be allowed to reopen Dec. 7.
Gov. Beshear also announced several new mitigation measures. Beginning Friday, restaurants and bars must close indoor dining and indoor venues, including event spaces and theaters, will be limited to 25 people per room. Indoor social gatherings are limited to groups from no more than two different households, with a maximum of eight people per gathering.
Pennsylvania will require out-of-state travelers to test negative for the coronavirus before arrival, health officials announced Tuesday, and masks are now required indoors wherever people from different households are gathered — even if they are physically distant.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) issued a new stay-at-home order Thursday. Starting Saturday, counties labeled as having widespread risk of viral spread will be under a nightly curfew for four weeks. From 10 PM to 4 AM, nonessential activities and gatherings with members outside of the household are banned.
Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) on Wednesday announced a “four-week dial back” to stop the spread of COVID-19. Beginning Saturday at midnight, mixed-household in-person social gatherings are prohibited; bars and restaurants can only offer take-out and delivery service; gyms, fitness studios, entertainment venues, event spaces, and similar establishments will need to close; and adult and youth sports are paused. The restrictions will remain in place until Dec. 18.
Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine (R) on Tuesday announced a nightly curfew which starts at 10 PM Thursday and will run nightly until 5 AM for three weeks.
Rhode Island Gov. Gina Raimondo (D) announced a two-week “pause” starting on Nov. 30. New measures will close all bar areas, fitness centers, recreational venues, and many offices and limit indoor socializing to members of the same household.
As of Thursday, Maine hospitals were at 97 percent capacity due to rising COVID-19 cases.
Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves (R) extended a mask mandate to seven additional countries. There are now 22 counties that require mask-wearing.
Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly (D) issued an EO on Wednesday which requires Kansans to wear face coverings inside public spaces or in situations where physical distancing of six feet cannot be maintained.
Colorado Gov. Jared Polis (D) announced new coronavirus restrictions Tuesday aimed — at least temporarily — at preventing about half of Colorado’s counties from being forced into lockdown. For counties considered at the “red level,” indoor dining must close, gyms can operate at 10 percent capacity, businesses can offer takeout and delivery service and outdoor dining to single household groups, and bars remain closed.
Gov. Polis also announced he is working with the state’s health departments to provide additional federal resources to assist school districts to safely return to in-person learning, including funding for outdoor classrooms, testing, and additional PPE.
Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan (R) on Tuesday issued an EO that requires bars and restaurants to close at 10 PM for indoor service and reduces capacity allowed in retail stores, religious facilities, fitness centers, personal service facilities, and bowling alleys to 50 percent. The rules take effect at 5 PM on Friday.
Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker (D) announced additional COVID-19 resurgence mitigations will take effect in every region across the state. Tier 3 mitigations build on the Resurgence Mitigation Plan released in July to suppress the spread of the virus and prevent hospitals from becoming overrun.
New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu (R) issued a statewide mask mandate that will go into effect Friday.
Hawaii Gov. David Ige (D) issued a COVID-19 emergency proclamation that extends and clarifies the statewide mask mandate that has been in place since April 25. The proclamation directs businesses to refuse entrance or service to anyone who fails to wear a face covering.
Delaware Gov. John Carney (D) announced that indoor gatherings in homes are capped at no more than 10 people, outdoor public gatherings are limited to 50 people, and restaurants must operate at no more than 30 percent of fire capacity indoors, with allowances for additional outdoor seating.
Gov. Carney also announced that Delaware youth sports organizations, teams, and venues are now prohibited from hosting or participating in tournaments with out-of-state teams.
New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy (D) signed an EO lowering indoor and outdoor gathering limits. The indoor gathering limit will decrease from 25 to 10 people and the outdoor gathering limit will decrease from 500 people to 150 people.
North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper (D) announced a new COVID-19 County Alert System to pinpoint counties with the highest levels of viral spread and offer specific recommendations to reduce infections. The map will be updated every four weeks.
Kentucky’s Department for Public Health will mobilize strike teams to hard-hit long-term care facilities, and the Kentucky National Guard will mobilize 10 non-clinical support teams.
A bipartisan group of seven governors co-authored a Washington Post opinion piece urging people to stay home over Thanksgiving.
Useful state data:
Use Johns Hopkins University’s COVID-19 U.S. map as a resource for media, policymakers, and communities to view a collection of critical public health data in one online destination and better understand and track the COVID-19 pandemic in populations both large and small across the country.
NASHP has developed a COVID-19 State Action Center which serves as a state-level policy dashboard. Governing is also keeping a running tally of coronavirus news and impacts at the intersection of the health and economic crises in the states and localities.
This site from the Kaiser Family Foundation provides state-level information on cases/deaths, social distancing measures, health policy actions, and more.
This series of maps shows how states are responding to COVID-19, and this tracker, created and maintained by MultiState Associates, has an up-to-date list of executive orders and various travel restrictions.
International Affairs
Here is the most recent edition of the WHO's Weekly Epidemiological Update and here is the most recent edition of the WHO's Weekly Operational Update.
The U.S. government will extend a ban on non-essential travel at land borders with Canada and Mexico until Dec. 21.
A panel of experts from the WHO said Thursday that the coronavirus drug remdesivir should not be used for hospitalized patients because there is no evidence that it reduces deaths or the need for ventilators (which is a split from the U.S. FDA, per the above announcement).
The WHO said Thursday that new daily infection rates in Europe were falling for the first time in months across the region.
France, which announced a second lockdown on Oct. 28, has seen its seven-day average for new daily cases fall from more than 54,000 on Nov. 7 to 28,500 on Wednesday. Spain, Belgium, Switzerland, and the Czech Republic are among the countries that have also seen decreases.
Hospitals across Europe remain packed. Some intensive care units in Switzerland are at full capacity, while in France, intensive care wards have been at over 95 percent capacity for 10 days.
More than 29,000 people in Europe died last week of COVID-19, equaling one person about every 17 seconds.
Africa is experiencing a concerning uptick in confirmed COVID-19 cases and has now passed the two million mark, the WHO said Thursday. The true number of COVID-19 infections across Africa is feared to be much higher, as testing and health care access remain challenges in many areas.
Daily infections in Kenya have increased tenfold since September. At least four doctors died on Saturday, leading a major health union in the country to threaten a nationwide strike beginning next month.
Japan reported over 2,000 new cases on Wednesday, the first time it has crossed that threshold since the pandemic began. Tokyo on Thursday announced that it would go on red alert, the highest level of a four-tier system, as it reported over 500 new cases of COVID-19, setting a record for the second day in a row. The change in alert is a largely symbolic measure meant to remind people to exercise heightened caution to prevent the spread of COVID-19; Japanese authorities do not have the legal powers to enforce lockdowns or restrictions on business operations.
South Korea entered new COVID-19 restrictions Thursday. Public gatherings of 100 people or more are banned, religious services and sporting events are limited to 30 percent capacity, and high-risk facilities including clubs and karaoke bars must widen distance among guests.
Austria entered new lockdown measures Tuesday to curb the spread of COVID-19. Under the stricter measures, which will remain in place through Dec. 6, people are only allowed to leave their homes to buy groceries, to go to work if their jobs are deemed essential, to exercise outside, to go to the doctor, or to help people who need assistance.
Pubs, restaurants, and other hospitality establishments will remain closed until mid-December in Northern Ireland.
First minister Nicola Sturgeon announced that areas of west and central Scotland would be moved from tier 3 to tier 4 on Friday for three weeks, meaning non-essential shops, hospitality businesses, gyms, and beauty salons must close.
The lower house of the Czech parliament has voted to allow the government to extend a state of emergency until Dec. 12 as the Czech Republic struggles with one of Europe’s worst outbreaks.
Azerbaijan has extended coronavirus lockdown restrictions until Dec. 28 after a further rise in the number of infections.
The Danish Health Ministry announced Thursday that a mutated strain of the novel coronavirus that led to the authorized killing of roughly 2.85 million farmed minks is likely to have been rendered extinct.
Ireland’s department of health has recommended a cull of mink to stop the risk of the mink mutation spreading to Ireland.
In Australia, the government in Victoria has closed its border with South Australia as the latter state wrestles with an outbreak of the virus. South Australia did not record any new cases on Thursday but has gone into a six-day lockdown to contain an outbreak of 22 cases in the capital, Adelaide.
The Pacific nation of Samoa has recorded its first ever case of COVID-19. Prime Minister Tuilaepa Sailele Malielegaoi said a sailor who had returned from New Zealand on a repatriation flight tested positive in a quarantine facility.
Global Cases: 57,011,978 Total Deaths: 1,362,424
Lifestyle, Science, and Economy
China’s Sinopharm said nearly a million people have received shots of its experimental coronavirus vaccines under emergency use protocols, even as their safety and efficacy have yet to be confirmed in Phase 3 trials. Sinopharm has several COVID-19 vaccine candidates in late-stage trials.
Pfizer and BioNTech provided an update on the previously announced success of their COVID-19 vaccine, which they now say has 95 percent efficacy at the end of the trial. In people over 65 years of age, the efficacy remains high at 94 percent. The companies say they will be filing their application for EUA as early as today.
A study published in MMWR this week takes a look at the effectiveness of Duke University's testing and mitigation efforts on campus. Among 10,265 students who received testing 68,913 times, 84 had positive results. One half of infections were asymptomatic, and some had high viral loads. This supports the idea that identifying asymptomatic cases is critical for minimizing spread in a community like a college campus.
Another MMWR study this week highlights the need for assisted living facilities (ALFs) to increase safety measures and mitigation techniques. Among ALF residents with COVID-19 (in states with available data), 21 percent died, compared with 3 percent who died among the general population with COVID-19.
Russia has resumed the vaccination of new volunteers in its trial for the Sputnik V vaccine after a short pause.
Columbia University epidemiologist Jeffrey Shaman said his team’s model estimated that 3.6 million people are infected and shedding enough virus to infect others. According to Shaman, that’s a 34 percent week-to-week increase that followed a 36 percent increase in the previous seven-day average.
Pharmaceutical firm AstraZeneca has delivered four million vials of its coronavirus vaccine candidate to the UK government, with millions more frozen doses ready to be sent.
Johnson & Johnson's chief scientist said the drugmaker is recruiting over 1,000 people per day for the late-stage trial of its experimental COVID-19 vaccine and expects to have all the data needed to seek U.S. authorization by February or earlier. Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH) is participating in the trial and said work on vaccines is the single most important part of the ongoing COVID-19 response effort.
More than 900 staff members across the Midwest Mayo Clinic system have been diagnosed with COVID-19 over the last two weeks. Most of the infections are likely due to community spread outside of the center.
REMAP-CAP, a global trial network that has been testing different COVID-19 drugs in an adaptive fashion at 200 sites on 19 countries, announced that Actemra, the arthritis drug, had worked in their study. A data safety and monitoring board reviewed data from 303 patients and determined Actemra had a 99.75 percent chance of being better for the sickest Covid-19 patients than giving them no immune modulator at all.
On Monday, it was reported that Wreaths Across America at Arlington National Cemetery would be canceled due to safety concerns. However, that decision was reversed on Tuesday following a push from President Trump and is now slated to take place Dec. 19.
The WHO keeps a running list of COVID-19 vaccine candidates, which you can view here. STAT News also has a resource tracking COVID-19 drugs and vaccines. The New York Times has a very helpful vaccine tracker as well, which you can view here. This AVAC pipeline tracker is great, too.
The Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security has an extensive list of commercial and lab-developed tests.
Continue to look at the NIH Office of Portfolio Analysis’s (OPA) expert-curated portfolio of COVID-19 publications and preprints. The portfolio includes peer-reviewed articles from PubMed and preprints from medRxiv, bioRxiv, ChemRxiv, and arXiv. It is updated daily with the latest available data and enables users to explore and analyze the rapidly growing set of advances in COVID-19 research.
Helpful Articles/Media
Listen to KHN's "What the Health?" podcast with Dr. Tony Fauci. This episode is titled, "What Would Dr. Fauci Do?"
Here is the most recent COVIDView from CDC, a weekly summary and interpretation of key indicators that have been adapted to track the COVID-19 pandemic in the U.S.
Vaccinate Your Family had a conversation with the FDA about the vaccine approval process which you can view here.
Dr. Anthony Fauci spoke about "COVID-19: Public Health and Scientific Challenges" at the virtual 2020 American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) National Conference & Exhibition- read about it here.
MMWR Weekly COVID-19 Briefing is a weekly podcast to update readers on the latest scientific information from CDC’s COVID-19 response. In each episode, MMWR’s Editor-in-Chief, Dr. Charlotte Kent provides an overview of the latest scientific information published in MMWR. New episodes are posted every Monday. Listen to episodes here.
