At least 36 crew members from a Norwegian cruise ship have tested positive for COVID-19, according to Hurtigruten, the company that owns the ship. Several passengers have also tested positive in what the cruise line describes as an “outbreak” onboard the MS Roald Amundsen.Four patients were admitted to a hospital in the northern Norwegian city of Tromso where the ship is now docked.
More than 9,000 people in the country have tested positive for the coronavirus, according to Johns Hopkins University. Hurtigruten had previously canceled dozens of other expeditions because of the pandemic, and has now suspended all cruises aboard the Amundsen and two other vessels.
NIH Launches Clinical Trial To Test Antibody Treatment in Hospitalized COVID-19 Patients
Patients admitted with COVID-19 at select hospitals may now volunteer to enroll in a clinical trial to test the safety and efficacy of a potential new treatment for the disease. The Phase 3 randomized, controlled trial is known as ACTIV-3, and as a “master protocol,” it is designed to expand to test multiple different kinds of monoclonal antibody treatments. It also can enroll additional volunteers in the middle of the trial, if a specific investigational treatment shows promise.
The new study is one of four ongoing or planned trials in the National Institutes of Health’s. Accelerating COVID-19 Therapeutic Interventions and Vaccines (ACTIV) program, a public-private partnership to speed development of the most promising treatments and vaccine candidates. It also is receiving support through Operation Warp Speed(link is external), the U.S. government’s multi-agency effort to develop, manufacture and distribute medical countermeasures to fight COVID-19.
Who Says COVID-19 Diagnosis Had Tripled in Last Five Months Among Youths
An analysis by the WHO of 6 million infections between Feb. 24 and July 12 found that the share of people aged 15-24 years rose to 15% from 4.5%.Apart from the United States which leads a global tally with 4.8 million total cases, European countries including Spain, Germany and France, and Asian countries such as Japan, have said that many of the newly infected are young people.
“Younger people tend to be less vigilant about masking and social distancing,” Neysa Ernst, nurse manager at Johns Hopkins Hospital’s biocontainment unit in Baltimore, Maryland told Reuters in an email.“Travel increases your chances of getting and spreading COVID-19,” she said, adding young people are more likely to go to work in the community, to a beach or the pub, or to buy groceries.