Past News

Especially given how quickly we are trying to develop a COVID-19 vaccine, it’s a good sign that the AstraZeneca trial paused to investigate an unexplained illness, commented Susan Ellenberg, PhD.

Susan Ellenberg, PhD, comments on the state of COVID-19 vaccine development: She hopes people are reassured by the AstraZeneca trial's pause for safety and says it's unlikely that we’ll have a vaccine this fall.

New COVID-19 infections were about 30 percent lower in counties where the highest number of people stopped going in to their offices for work, found research led by Joshua Baker, MD, MSCE.

When we’re offered a COVID-19 vaccine, we should ask: Does it protect people, without causing major toxicities or health problems? If so—and after the FDA and its expert committees review— “I will certainly be in line to get one," Susan Ellenberg, PhD, commented on the radio show Ask an Expert.

For tuberculosis patients who are also HIV-positive, mortality risk is up to four times higher. Gregory Bisson, MD, MSCE, comments on how we can dramatically improve their chances.

For a useful COVID-19 analogy, look to the time before antilock brakes, says Michael Levy, PhD. “You had to slam on the brakes, ease up a little and apply the brakes again—and eventually the car would stop.”

Some of COVID-19's scientific challenges resemble those faced in the past—with HIV, SARS, H1N1 and Ebola—while others are new. Susan Ellenberg, PhD, unpacks what we need to know about clinical trials during the current pandemic. Read the perspective piece in Clinical Trials.

Seeing groups hanging out together at concerts, bars and parties with few masks in sight, “It’s not surprising that people are spreading the virus,” Ebbing Lautenbach, MD, MPH, MSCE, told Philadelphia’s NBC10.

The pandemic presents an opportunity to rethink the way we do clinical research, write Stephen Kimmel, MD, MSCE, and collaborators.

M. Kit Delgado, MD, MS, comments on the safety of ride sharing services during the COVID-19 crisis.

Jordana Cohen, MD, MSCE, and co-investigator Julio Chirinos, MD, launched an international, multisite study to find out more about how ACE inhibitors and ARBS affect COVID-19. They are cautious about the drugs’ effects until they finish their research.

Peter Reese, MD, MSCE, and co-authors outline strategies to help save financially vulnerable safety-net hospitals that are on the front lines of the COVID-19 pandemic and at the risk of bankruptcy.

Health officials need good reporting to “understand the relationship between the epidemic that we can’t see, and the data that we can see,” commented Michael Levy, PhD.

To reopen schools safely amidst the continuing pandemic, group Philadelphia school students into small, closed “pods” that meet outdoors as much as possible, recommend Michael Z. Levy, PhD, and Penn colleague Alison Buttenheim, PhD, MBA.

On Philadelphia local television, Michael Levy, PhD, elaborated on the difficulties of mixing data from COVID-19 genetic tests and antibody tests.

An update to data from a team that includes Jing Huang, PhD, and Gregory Tasian, MD, MsC, MSCE, shows that a cautious, incremental reopening strategy can help mitigate risk for a second wave. But some areas that have too quickly relaxed social distancing face high risk for resurgence. 

Per Michael Levy, PhD, a contrast between the rates in a high-income zip code and, say, Chester City would be glaring.

Michael Z. Levy, PhD, commented in Spanish on regional station Telemundo 62 about COVID-19 in the Philadelphia area. His message: “The first wave hit us hard; we weren't ready. Now we can prepare and get our balance for the next one.”

With COVID19 testing not available for all, “there’s no way to calculate your risk right now between households,” comments Michael Levy, PhD.

The US and France have seen far fewer transplantations w/the advent of COVID-19, found a team including Peter Reese, MD, MSCE. Among the many reasons: An organ donor takes up an ICU bed and a ventilator.

Susan Ellenberg, PhD, commented today on ABC’s Good Morning America about good clinical trial practice: As we race toward a COVID-19 vaccine, she feels we should not cut corners.  

COVID-19 clinical trials to develop treatments will get answers faster if people collaborate, Susan Ellenberg, PhD, commented.  “As some treatments show evidence of benefit, we will be moving to studies of drug combinations, and these trials will require larger sample sizes — meaning, in most cases, multicenter trials.”

Ebbing Lautenbach, MD, MPH, MSCE, commented on sudden second-week decline in some patients with COVID-19. Two and a half months into the pandemic, it’s well documented, “but we’re still not sure why it happens,” he said.

Jing Huang, PhD, commented that in Lehigh County, PA, a previously high rate of COVID-19 transmission appeared to drop—perhaps because, as suggested by cell phone data, residents began more effectively social distancing. But comparisons between cities, said Michael Levy, PhD, are difficult, given the lack of comparable rigorous data.

Before we relax social distancing, we need a better picture of how many people are really infected with COVID-19. Otherwise, the rate “drop” states have been told should signal them to reopen isn’t real, Jennifer Pinto-Martin, PhD, MPH, told ABC News. 

M. Kit Delgado, MD, MS, and others at Penn Medicine are giving us a heartfelt view from the front lines of COVID-19.

Across the United States, black Americans are dying from COVID-19 at disproportionately higher rates than their white counterparts. If the data from other large cities hold true in Philadelphia — where 41 percent of residents are African American — the emerging recognition of disparities demands our immediate attention, write Karen Glanz, PhD, MPH, and Carmen E. Guerra, MD, MSCE.

It is possible for recovered patients to transmit COVID-19 through contact, like touching a surface, cautions Ebbing Lautenbach, MD, MPH, MSCE. “The same things that you were doing before — meticulous hand hygiene, decontamination of environmental surfaces, not shaking hands, sneezing into your elbow — those are all good pieces of advice.”

The path to vaccines and treatments during epidemics such as COVID-19: Hoping to avoid mistakes made during the Ebola outbreak in West Africa, Susan Ellenberg, PhD, and coauthors of the WHO’s R&D Blueprint group call for a new clinical trials “core protocol.”

We believe that as many as one million Americans who fall victiem to COVID-19 will need the support of ventilators — five times the number we have, writes critical care physician Meghan Brooks Lane-Fall, MD, MSHP, FCCM. However, there are at least three steps we can take to give everyone the best chance.

President Trump has argued for widespread use of some promising drugs for COVID-19: “What have you got to lose?” Patients treated with drugs that haven’t been adequately studied have plenty to lose, writes Susan Ellenberg, PhD, in Slate.

On WITF public radio, Susan Ellenberg, PhD, commented about the pressure on current clinical trials for COVID-19 therapeutics. “It’s not so different from the way it was years ago, when I was at the NIH during the early days of the AIDS epidemic,” she says.Hear the segment starting at minute 23:50.

Michael Levy, PhD, doesn’t think we can maintain our initial social distancing standards for the duration of the COVID-19 epidemic, he told the Associated Press. “The analogy of pumping car brakes on an icy road is what we should be thinking about.”

Speaking with The Atlantic, Karen Glanz, PhD, MPH, advised on exercise during the COVID-19 pandemic: It's okay to go for a walk outside, but maintain safe social distance from people you encounter.

Think in terms of months, not weeks, write medical ethicist Ezekiel Emanuel, Susan Ellenberg, PhD (biostatistics) and Michael Levy, PhD (epidemiology) in a New York Times opinion piece. We need to stop picturing that ubiquitous “flatten the curve” chart and start imagining a roller coaster.

Why are so many patients dying after lung transplants? A new study led by Jason Christie, MD, MSCE, aims to identify risk factors for chronic lung allograft dysfunction, the top cause.

Michael Levy, PhD, argues that a last-minute amendment weakens Philadelphia’s plan to stop being the nation's No.1 most bedbug infested city. Bedbugs are difficult to eliminate from homes, but they are not so difficult to control in a city, he writes. With the proper push, Philadelphia could turn around the epidemic.

"Our study showed that transplants with HCV-infected kidneys are now routinely performed at many centers, and they are functioning well at one year after transplant," said study co-leader Peter Reese, MD, MSCE.

Chronically ill people, especially, are at risk in hot weather, comments Sean Hennessy, PharmD, PhD. His team has found some protective measures: heart failure patients who take diuretics, for instance, are more likely to survive hot temperatures if they also take potassium supplements.

President Trump recently signed an executive order aimed at improving the care of kidney patients. In an interview, Nwamaka D. Eneanya, MD, MPH, commented that a goal of having 80% of patients with end-stage kidney disease use home dialysis or receive a transplant would be a monumental change.