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Dear Patients,
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We are doing well; the key is to not get over-confident.
Remember the movie Catch Me If You Can? A great movie
to rewatch. Overconfident Frank gets caught -- here
is the trailer. So, the lesson, of course, is
let's not get careless. We need to hang on a little longer
to get the benefit of our hard work. So, let's be slow and
deliberate, patient and smart. Stay home!
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The numbers:
US:
759,786 cases 40,683 deaths 5.35% fatality
rate (up)
Maryland: 13,684 cases
516 deaths 3.8% fatality rate
(up)
This model predicted Maryland's
peak resource use was on April 18, The model was last
updated on April 17.
Governor Hogan has given guidance that relaxing of
mitigation requires a decrease in hospitalizations,
intubations and death rate.
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Diagnostics and Therapeutics:
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Last week, I told you about the Stanford study that
looked at the prevalence of COVID-19 infection in
Santa Clara, CA. Remember that COVID-19 infection
causes asymptomatic or mild disease in 80% of
infected people. Stanford concluded, based on
antibody testing (3,200 people tested), the
calculated mortality rate is between 0.12% and 0.2%.
If the prevalence is actually that high, contact
tracing would be virtually impossible.
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I believe that once we learn the true prevalence of
this infection, it will form the basis of how we
make decisions going forward. NY says they will
aggressively be doing antibody screening.
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Here is an interesting
report about an old antibiotic class that
may have some anti-viral activity - Tetracycline.
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There are over 140 different drugs-compounds and
biologics that are being studied. The most
successful to date is Remdesivir.
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There is still no clear-cut evidence to determine
the success or failure of Hydroxychloroquine.
On a musical note:
This guy has confidence - Bruno
Mars Uptown
Funk
On a lighter note:
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Harry A. Oken, M.D.
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Office: 410-910-7500, Fax: 410-910-2310 |
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Cell: 443-324-0823 |
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Adjunct Professor of Medicine |
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University of Maryland School of Medicine |
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