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NewsColony Illinois coronavirus contact tracing, COVID-19 testing concerns cause challenges for pandemic tracking CHICAGO (WLS) — Scientists leading the fight against the global pandemic say rapidly detecting and tracing COVID-19 infections is the only way to isolate infected people from those who are healthy or vulnerable. The I-Team is investigating a slow testing ramp-up in Illinois while the virus spreads unchecked, leaving sick people waiting for answers. ILLINOIS COVID-19 TESTING FACED SLOW START, LAGGING RESULTS “This is real. People are dying,” said Barbara Chalmers. “It was like a battle. It was really like a battle,” she continued, telling the I-Team about her how she says she fought for her life in March. She says she was feverish and unable to sleep or eat right for weeks, all the while waiting for results of a drive-thru COVID-19 test at Roseland Community Hospital. “I just wanted the test results back to find out exactly what had happened and the waiting was just, ju...

NewsColony Pharmacy experts urge caution against use of antimalarial drugs to cure COVID-19 Reviewed by Emily Henderson, B.Sc. Apr 30 2020 Pharmacy experts at the University of Huddersfield are urging caution over claims that widely-available antimalarial drugs could be a “magic bullet” to prevent and cure COVID-19. And the medicines can – if used rashly – have serious side effects. Although there have been some encouraging signs from small-scale preliminary trials of the drugs chloroquine (CQ) and hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) when administered to coronavirus patients, the results are preliminary and should be treated with care, argue Dr Syed Shahzad Hasan and Dr Hamid Merchant. They are co-authors – in collaboration with a pharmacist from Malaysia, Chia Siang Kow, of the International Medical University in Kuala Lumpur – of a new article in the British Journal of Pharmacy . It is freely available for all to read online. The authors chart the excitement in press and social media ove...

NewsColony Ministers warn lockdown could stay for MONTHS until new cases drop to the hundreds Ministers have warned lockdown may need to remain in place for months until the number of new cases falls below 1,000 per day after Professor Chris Whitty raised the spectre of a second peak far worse than the first.  The total number of new coronavirus deaths in all settings was 674 on Thursday, down from 765 the previous day, but there was a leap in the number of new cases to 6,032 from 4,076 on the day before.  Although this was in part down to increased testing, ministers say they want daily infections down to the hundreds before any easing of the lockdown, The Daily Telegraph reported. Britain has not been down in the hundreds since March 23.  In his first Downing Street briefing since leaving intensive care, Boris Johnson said he would outline a ‘menu of options’ next week for how the UK could roll off the peak which he said we had past. He claimed that efforts t...