COVID-19 MARCH UPDATE

Northwell Health Update on COVID- 19 (March 22, 2020)

Updates on COVID-19 in New York are given below. 

Statistics 

  • 1262 tested patients, 345 negative results, 462 positive results

  • 211 ICU patients

  • Influenza and other respiratory disease dwindle

Testing

  • To test everyone is hard irrelevant due to the disease being so widespread

  • Positive tests are expected (very little false positives results)

Patients with and without symptoms

  • Patients with symptoms should stay at home for at least 10 days, and should be monitored frequently until all symptoms (except cough) are gone

  • Patients with symptoms will have progressive hypoxia on day 5-8, causing the patient to deteriorate

  • Low risk patients (no symptoms):  If a patient is experiencing any symptoms such as fever, or shortness of breath the procedure should be postponed

Healthcare workers, therapy options

  • Sick healthcare workers need to stay at home at least a week; those exposed to COVID-19 can continue working with mask and health monitoring

  • Therapy options: chloroquine, hydroxychloroquine, resdemivir trials, IL 6 inhibitor

Masks

  • Procedure mask: worn during routine patient care

  • N95 mask: worn in exposure of COVID-19

  • N95 mask worn above procedure mask: worn during prolonged exposure with suspected patient 

  • Masking patients who are sick reduces the risk of that person spreading the virus to others.