Coronavirus Watch: Patients face significant likelihood of lingering symptoms
COVID-19 patients face a significant likelihood of lingering symptoms, even if they weren't sick enough to go to the hospital, according to a new report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The report comes as a growing number of "long haulers" say they can't shake symptoms ranging from fatigue to serious respiratory or neurological problems, often for months after diagnosis.
It's Saturday, and this is the Coronavirus Watch from the Paste BN Network. Here is the most significant news of the day, as of 1:15 p.m. ET:
- The U.S. is seeing the number of death records catch up to the number of new case records. A Paste BN analysis of Johns Hopkins data through late Friday shows 11 states set records for new cases while 10 states had a record number of deaths.
- The Supreme Court ruled late Friday that Nevada can impose tighter restrictions on churches than casinos while a legal dispute over its social distancing policies continues.
- A staff member for Rep. Vern Buchanan, R-Fla., died of COVID-19 in a Florida hospital, the congressman announced.
- New international college students won't be allowed to come to the U.S. this fall if their courses are only online, President Donald Trump's administration said in guidance issued Friday.
- Rhode Island is telling visitors from Massachusetts and Connecticut to stay away from its beaches, and to do this, authorities are cracking down on illegal parking.
- The entire Michigan State football team will quarantine or isolate over the next 14 days after a student-athlete and a second staff member tested positive for COVID-19.
Today's numbers: There are more than 4.1 million confirmed cases in the U.S. and more than 145,000 deaths, according to John Hopkins University data. Worldwide, cases have surpassed 15.8 million with more than 641,000 deaths. See the numbers in your area here, and check out where cases are rising here.
Do you have questions about the coronavirus? You can submit them through this form. Nile from Poulsbo, Washington, asks: Is the loss of smell and taste permanent?
Scientists have figured out how COVID-19 causes many people to lose their sense of smell. And they have good news — the loss appears to be temporary because the actual cells in the nose that detect smell aren’t harmed.
In a paper published Friday, researchers found that SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19, attacks cells that support smell-detecting neurons but not the neurons themselves. "The novel coronavirus changes the sense of smell in patients not by directly infecting neurons but by affecting the function of supporting cells," said Sandeep Robert Datta, co-author on the paper published in the journal in Science Advances.
That’s good news because it means the infection isn’t likely to permanently damage COVID-19 patients' olfactory neural circuits. Read more here.
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– Grace Hauck, Paste BN breaking news reporter, @grace_hauck