WHO did not issue a diktat saying that post-mortems shouldn't be performed on people who died from COVID-19. COVID-19 is caused by a virus called SARS-CoV-2, not bacteria. According to WHO, COVID-19 is an infectious disease caused by the most recently discovered novel coronavirus. Also, one study published in the journal Nature says that blood clots, large and small, are some rare symptoms of COVID-19. This is a Fake news and WHO and the government clarified that “Coronavirus is a virus and there is no specific medicinal cure available yet.” 

The Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement began online when the co-founder Alicia Garzia shared the hashtag ‘#BlackLivesMatter’ following the murder of a young black boy named Trayvon Martin in 2013. The BLM movement has relied on the social capital of platforms, such as Twitter and Facebook, to spread its message. Today, the BLM movement, following the tragic murder of George Floyd, is now a global human rights movement, with protests taking place daily in all 50 states of America, as well as in over 20 countries worldwide.

In the past few weeks, countless witness accounts of police racism have gathered on social media in the form of videos and images. The circulation of such evidence has gathered tremendous support on sites such as Instagram and Twitter, with each share bringing in hundreds of views every hour. This level of engagement, the scale of the movement, and its impact through mainstream media outlets is large, which is especially important with regards to the impression of protests that the public has since been gathering.

Moreover small businesses owned by black people are getting more support that also improves their financial conditions.

APR 03

  

2020

(WASHINGTON, April 3, 2020) — A case study of a patient in Wuhan, China, suggests that the immunosuppressant tocilizumab may be an effective COVID-19 treatment for very ill patients who also have multiple myeloma and other blood cancers.

The report, published in Blood Advances, also suggests that blood cancer patients may have atypical COVID-19 symptoms.

The patient, a 60-year-old male who had been diagnosed with multiple myeloma in 2015 and was on maintenance therapy, was hospitalized in February for chest tightness and shortness of breath. Although he did not show symptoms of cough or fever, he tested positive for COVID-19 and his illness was classified as severe.

Treatment with antiviral and corticosteroid therapies did not fully resolve his symptoms. On the second day in the hospital, a chest CT scan showed that the patient had ground glass opacities in his lungs, which are a characteristic of pneumonia. His levels of interleukin-6 (IL-6), a pro-inflammatory cytokine, were high. After one intravenous administration of tocilizumab, the patient’s IL-6 levels decreased. Three days after tocilizumab treatment, his chest tightness had resolved; 10 days later, his CT scan had cleared and he was discharged from the hospital.

“Our patients with hematologic malignancies are immunosuppressed, which may put them at higher risk for novel coronavirus infection. What are the characteristics of COVID-19 in patients with blood cancers? What is the optimal treatment approach? Everything is unknown, and that was the motivation for this study,” said Changcheng Zheng, MD, of the University of Science and Technology of China and the study’s lead author.

Tocilizumab is commonly used to treat cytokine release syndrome, a systemic inflammatory response that occurs in response to treatment with certain types of immunotherapies. Dr. Zheng and his team suggest the agent may treat COVID-19 by addressing the acute severe inflammatory response, or “cytokine storm,” that the virus triggers. However, they emphasize the need for more research into the potential mechanisms of action.

Dr. Zheng also suggests that because the patient had chest tightness and shortage of breath without other COVID-19 symptoms, specifically cough and fever, clinical symptoms of the virus may not be typical in patients who have hematologic malignancies.

The research team hopes this case study may offer insights and stimulate more research. “Tocilizumab was effective in the treatment of COVID-19 in this patient with multiple myeloma, but further prospective and randomized clinical trials are needed to verify the findings,” said Dr. Zheng.

In March 2020, the FDA approved a randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled phase III clinical trial to evaluate the safety and efficacy of intravenous tocilizumab for the treatment of adult patients with COVID-19.

Blood Advances, is a peer-reviewed, online only, open access journal of the American Society of Hematology (ASH), the world’s largest professional society concerned with the causes and treatment of blood disorders.

Blood Advances® is a registered trademark of the American Society of Hematology.

Fake WhatsApp message about free internet for students (Photo Credits: PIB)

New Delhi, October 6: A post which claims the government is providing free internet to students is going viral on messaging app WhatsApp. The viral post, which also carries a link, claims 10GB internet data is being provided to every student in the country by the government so that they can study and appear for exams. Since the post is widely circulated, the government issued a clarification, calling it fake. Rs 3000 Being Deposited in Bank Accounts by Centre Under Pradhan Mantri Mandhan Yojana? PIB Fact Check Calls It Fake News.

The viral WhatsApp post read: "Due to Corona Virus Schools and colleges have been closed and because of this, the education of students has been affected, so government is providing Free Laptops to all the students. So that students can complete their education and also give exams with the help of internet and online classes (sic)." PIB Fact Check, a dedicated portal which counters misinformation about government's policies and schemes, termed it a fake message. Tax Imposed on School Textbooks by Centre? PIB Fact Check Terms Viral Reports Fake News.

PIB Fact Check tweeted: "It is claimed in a #WhatsApp message that government is providing free internet to all the students so that they can give online exams and complete their education amid #COVID19 pandemic. This claim is #Fake. No such decision has been taken by government (sic)." The fake message is old and has resurfaced on social media platforms.

Nowadays, fake news and misinformation go viral as many people blindly trust what they find on social media platforms and forward it to others. LatestLY advises its readers not to believe anything or everything that you receive on WhatsApp or see on Facebook and Twitter. Always verify news or information before sharing them with others.

~Kaaviya Bhasin