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To find an open pharmacy, RxOpen publishes information on the operating status of healthcare facilities. When this map is active, people can easily find individual pharmacy open status.
Technology leaders in the USA have been quick to offer innovative solutions during the coronavirus pandemic, such as the following:
- Amazon is distributing at-home finger-prick, coronavirus tests in the U.K., which look for antibodies to the virus to determine if someone has already been infected.
- Apple has released a COVID-19 disease website and app, which asks questions to screen for symptoms and offers information on testing.
- Facebook is providing researchers access to "aggregated and anonymized" mobility data and population density maps to inform virus forecasting models.
- Microsoft worked with the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington to create visualizations that predict the virus’s peak in each U.S. state.
The accelerating debate about the clinical benefit of treating COVID-19 disease patients with hydroxychloroquine (HCQ) became a little bit clearer with a new, small, non-peer-reviewed clinical study published on March 31, 2020.
This study’s key findings for the 62 COVID-19 patients were the body temperature recovery time and the cough remission time was significantly shortened in the HCQ treatment group. And, a larger proportion of patients with improved pneumonia in the HCQ treatment group (80.6%, 25 of 32) compared with the control group (54.8%, 17 of 32).
The significance of this limited study’s findings is that ‘among patients with COVID-19, the use of HCQ could significantly shorten recovery time and promote the absorption of pneumonia.'
The FDA has posted information regarding shortages of hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine to its drug shortages webpage due to a significant surge in demand.
The Agency is working with manufacturers to assess their supplies and is actively evaluating market demand for patients dependent on hydroxychloroquine and chloroquine for treatment of malaria, lupus and rheumatoid arthritis.
All manufacturers are ramping up production, and the agency is working with manufacturers to ensure this can happen expeditiously and safely.
The FDA granted the drugs an emergency use authorization on March 30, 2020, and allowed them to be "donated to the Strategic National Stockpile to be distributed and prescribed by doctors to hospitalized teen and adult patients with COVID-19, as appropriate when a clinical trial is not available or feasible."
As of late April 1, 2020, the US state of Georgia, Mississippi, Nevada, and Pennsylvania issued statewide orders for their respective residents to 'stay-home' during the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus outbreak. This news follows the MidAtlantic tri-state area of Maryland, Virginia and Washington DC issuing similar orders on March 30, 2020.
On April 1, 2020, the WHO reported 3 additional countries/territories/areas (Botswana, Burundi, and Sierra Leon) reported their initial cases of COVID-19 disease in the past 24 hours. This data indicates that over 200 areas have reported cases in 2020.
At a press briefing, PAHO Director Dr. Carissa Etienne stressed that countries of the Americas must act now to slow the spread of COVID-19. As of March 31, 2020, there have been 188,949 confirmed cases in the Americas and 3,561 people have lost their lives.
Dr. Etienne stated, “solidarity in our region has never had a deeper meaning than it does today. The only way out of this situation will be if everyone does his/her part while supporting others.”
The Advanced Medical Technology Association announced on April 1, 2020, that its member respiratory device companies have dramatically expanded the limits of their production capacity in responding to the coronavirus outbreak, producing on average 2,000-3,000 ventilators per week, collectively. AdvaMed companies such as Draeger, GE Healthcare, Hillrom, Medtronic, Philips, ResMed and Vyaire Medical manufacture ventilators in the treatment of COVID-19 patients.
In 2019, when tallied together, these same companies were manufacturing approximately 700 ventilators per week for domestic distribution.
In the coming weeks, company officials expect to ramp production to unprecedented levels, producing between an aggregated 5,000 and 7,000 ventilators per week in meeting the greatest needs across the USA.
Scott Whitaker, CEO of AdvaMed said in an email, “Across the board, our ventilator members have boosted production by more than 285 percent to meet the demands of this global crisis."