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In response to continued respirator shortages, the US FDA issued a new Emergency Use Authorization for non-NIOSH-approved respirators made in China, on April 3, 2020.
This FDA announcement authorizes disposable respirators manufactured in China that meet certain criteria, including additional validation, and review by FDA, to confirm the respirator’s authenticity.
According to the NYT on April 4, 2020, nearly 40,000 people have traveled to and from China since the US announced extensive travel advisories in late January 2020. The US administration officials said they received significant pushback about imposing the travel restrictions even when they did.
At the time, the WHO was not recommending travel restrictions and some scientists questioned whether curtailing travel would do any good.
The bulk of the travelers, who were of multiple nationalities, arrived at airports in Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, Chicago, Seattle, Newark, and Detroit. These airports do offer enhanced screening of China-arriving passengers.
Thousands of them flew directly from Wuhan, China, the center of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus outbreak, reported the NYT.
To clarify the ongoing health risks, the US CDC issued a Level 3 Travel Alert on March 27th, recommending Americans avoid all nonessential international travel.
The final scheduled US State Department charter flight returned almost 1,900 people to the USA and helped commercial carriers return 1,500 more. 'We’re proud to see 3,400 travelers home,' said Secretary of State Pompeo's Twitter post.
According to local media reporting on April 3, 2020, England is considering an “immunity passport,” which would allow patients who have recovered from COVID-19 disease and produced antibodies to return to normal life.
An immunity passport is a certificate declaring that someone is no longer at risk of contracting coronavirus because they have already had it. It would exempt holders from restrictions on activity imposed to contain the spread of the virus.
Given that the virus can be asymptomatic, a test is required to show whether coronavirus antibodies are present in the blood of the individual. A positive test would indicate that they have already had the virus and therefore would be likely to have some degree of immunity. It would also mean that they were not infectious to others.
Antibody tests can already be purchased on the Internet, and vary widely in reliability. So far, the best results are 90% sensitive to COVID-19 and 90% specific.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advised all Americans, even those who appear to be healthy, to cover their face with a mask or a scarf when they leave home to help slow the spread of the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus in the USA.
CDC announced on March 3, 2020, it now knows from recent studies that a significant portion of individuals with coronavirus lack symptoms (“asymptomatic”) and that even those who eventually develop symptoms (“pre-symptomatic”) can transmit the virus to others before showing symptoms.
This means that the virus can spread between people interacting in close proximity—for example, speaking, coughing, or sneezing—even if those people are not exhibiting symptoms.
In China, bats are traditional symbols of good luck and happiness. Unfortunately, the suggestion that coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) may have originated in bats is putting them in a disfavorable position, says a March 27, 2020 study.
As the WHO stated in a February 2020 report, “Bats appear to be the reservoir of COVID-19 virus.”
As Chinese researcher, Huabin Zhao, Department of Ecology, Hubei Key Laboratory of Cell Homeostasis, College of Life Sciences, Wuhan University, pointed out in Science, “COVID-19 was linked to horseshoe bats, which do not hibernate in cities in China.”
And, by 2019, horseshoe bats were no longer sold in the wet markets, according to this study.
"They are used in biomedical research."
