What awaits, post-Covid? Some suggest it will be a whole new world

Today is the day for the National Pharmaceutical Congress Spring 2020 Webinar: "After This Rude Interruption: What the Life Sciences Will Look Like After the Covid Crisis", 11 a.m. to noon (EDT.) Panel discussion of thought-leaders from the Canadian Life Sciences and physician communities to discuss and determine the way forward. Faculty includes: Wendy Adams, Galderma Canada; Peter Brenders, Kontollo Health (lead panellist); Dr. Wayne P. Gulliver, Memorial University of Newfoundland & Labrador; Robin Hunter, Malinckrodt; Richard Lajoie, Bausch Health; Mitch Shannon, Chronicle Companies (host.) Registration is free but strictly limited to 100 delegates. (Overflow viewing will be live-streamed to YouTube.) We hope you have already registered, and we look forward to seeing you in the webinar! Register now at http://tiny.cc/NPC-Spring

May 20, 2020 -- Good morning, everyone. It's John Evans here, flattening your Wednesday curves. Many regions of the world, including my home province of Ontario, have started the early steps of loosening commerce and social contact restrictions. These decisions are coming as a result of healthcare systems and epidemiologic tracking have reached a point where they are better able to keep the spread of Covid-19 to controllable levels. However, when we can step out of our homes as shelter-in-place restrictions ease, we may find the door may have opened into a very different world than we were expecting -- like stepping through the Wardrobe into Narnia.

The travel industry has been one of the hardest hit by Covid-19. Borders are closed, planes are grounded, and cruise ships idle in ports. But as a report from Global News explains, these are not systems that can just be turned off for several months and turned back on again casually. Smaller airlines have shut down entirely, and larger ones have mothballed their older planes. Added security against infectious disease is being added at airports and other transportation hubs, and will likely change the travel experience as much as the security changes after the terrorist actions on Sept. 11, 2001, did. There also appears to be an overall wariness in the public mind that has emerged regarding international travel.

Business too will likely stay on the teleconferencing course this virus has forced on us. Major tech giants are banking on it, with both Facebook and Google launching products to compete with the now-ubiquitous Zoom meetings. Facebook has Messenger Rooms, while Google has made its Meet video conferencing service, previously available as part of premium business packages, free for anyone.

Tomorrow is looking brighter than yesterday, but we may be basking under a different sun when we get there.


COVID CHRONICLE 05/20/2020

• Individuals who are pregnant and breastfeeding have been excluded from clinical trials of remdesivir as a treatment for Covid-19, notes a paper in Breastfeeding Medicine. As a result, there is no safety data in this population for guiding clinical decisions.  
• An artificial intelligence (AI) system that analyzes computed tomography chest x-ray scans was able to accurately diagnose Covid-19 in 17 of 25 cases where human radiologists had evaluated the patients as Covid-19-negative. The authors of the research, published in Nature Medicine, hope their work will help to provide a rapid, accurate alternative or support to reverse transcriptase-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR) testing. 
• While limitations remain on antibody tests for Covid-19, an international group of infectious disease and public health experts write in Science Immunology that this type of serological testing is valuable for informing decisions about public health and relaxing social distancing interventions.
• Findings from a small French/Swiss study suggest that a combination of immune globulin therapy and steroid treatment can restore heart function in children with COVID-related multi-system inflammatory syndrome. The study was published online ahead of print in Circulation (May 17, 2020)

STORIES CHRONICLE IS WORKING ON TODAY

My colleague Dhiren Mahiban is has written on a recommendation from the Canadian Society of Allergy and Clinical Immunology that first-generation antihistamines, such as diphenhydramine (sold in some regions under the brand name Benadryl), be reclassified by Health Canada as behind-the-counter medications. The article is due to be in an upcoming issue of Pediatric Chronicle.


RIGHT NOW WE ARE LISTENING TO...

Voice actor Rob Paulsen's TEDx talk. Allan Ryan's post yesterday on voice acting encouraged me to check out this video by the man who voiced many great characters I loved in my youth. In this video, he shares his thoughts on creating characters, and how those characters helped him through his struggle with throat cancer.

LATER WE ARE WATCHING...

The Most Unknown on Netflix. A friend on Facebook turned me on to this documentary. In it, nine scientists travel around the world, exploring some of the most interesting, unanswered questions in each other's specialties. Questions such as: How did life begin? What is time? What is consciousness? How much do we really know? I am really looking forward to this one.


TONIGHT WE ARE COOKING...
Nothing fancy tonight. I am just going to prepare some frozen mushroom and fried onion perogies, and steam some vegetables. Today will have been busy with the National Pharmaceutical Congress Spring 2020 Webinar, and I just want to fill up on some comfort food and relax.

THE WEEK AHEAD

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That's it. Stay in touch, stay safe. Chronicle's Kylie Rebernik will pick things up tomorrow.