‘Pretty unprecedented’: NYC’s blood supply dangerously low, possibly at 2-day supply
NEW YORK — The Big Apple is running out of blood. The blood bank that supplies all of New York City’s public hospitals — as well as nearly 200 private hospitals throughout the state and in parts of New Jersey — is stocked with only enough donations to last the...
FDA probes accuracy issue with Abbott’s rapid virus test
WASHINGTON — Federal health officials are alerting doctors to a potential accuracy problem with a rapid test for covid-19 used at thousands of hospitals, clinics and testing sites across the U.S., including the White House. The Food and Drug Administration said late Thursday it is investigating preliminary data suggesting Abbott...
Leaders warn that coronavirus in care facilities presents wide-reaching public health concern
As coronavirus cases in nursing and personal care homes continue to rise, a growing chorus is calling for those numbers to be recorded separately from the overall number of cases and deaths. Those cries are getting particularly loud in Pennsylvania, where one of the metrics for easing pandemic-related restrictions focuses...
Pittsburgh pediatricians say it’s too early to link Kawasaki-like disease to coronavirus
Parents and doctors around the world have expressed fears over a severe inflammatory syndrome in children that some have tied to the covid-19 pandemic. But doctors in Pittsburgh stress there is not enough information to be alarmed. The condition, called multisystem inflammatory syndrome, is comparable to Kawasaki Syndrome, a rare...
CDC alerts doctors to covid-19 linked condition in childrenVideo
The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is warning doctors about a serious rare inflammatory condition in children linked with the coronavirus. In an alert issued Thursday, the CDC called the condition multisystem inflammatory syndrome in children. The agency’s case definition includes current or recent covid-19 infection or exposure...
Restaurant owners take issue with covid-19 rules, but aren’t ready to break them
Area restaurant owners have seen their sales slashed while restricted to takeout or delivery service during the covid-19 pandemic. But several say they don’t intend to go beyond guidelines of the governor’s phased plan for restarting the economy, because of the risk of penalties and out of consideration for their...
CDC officials release edited coronavirus reopening guidanceVideo
NEW YORK — U.S. health officials on Thursday released some of their long-delayed guidance that schools, businesses and other organizations can use as states reopen from coronavirus shutdowns. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention posted six one-page “decision tool” documents that use traffic signs and other graphics to tell...
Renowned Pitt doctor becomes chair of AHN Cancer Institute
Dr. David L. Bartlett, a widely recognized cancer researcher and innovator in the use of advanced surgical therapies for abdominal cancers, has taken over as chair of the Allegheny Health Network Cancer Institute. In addition, Bartlett has opened a surgical practice at AHN’s Saint Vincent Hospital in Erie. Bartlett comes...
Cassandra Callender, forced to undergo chemo, dies at 22
HARTFORD, Conn. — Cassandra Callender, who was forced by Connecticut courts as a teenager to undergo chemotherapy for cancer, has died after a five-year battle with the disease, her mother said Thursday. She was 22. Callender, of Windsor Locks, died Tuesday at home, where she had been in hospice care...
Test used by White House still misses many covid-19 cases, NYU study says
The coronavirus test from Abbott Laboratories used at the White House to get rapid answers to whether someone is infected may miss as many as half of positive cases, according to a report from New York University. The analysis, which has yet to be confirmed, found that Abbott’s ID NOW...
UPMC Presbyterian only hospital in Western Pa. to get 1st shipment of remdesivir covid-19 med
UPMC Presbyterian hospital in Pittsburgh will be the only hospital in Western Pennsylvania to receive dosages of an antiviral medicine that is being used to treat the symptoms of patients with covid-19, the state Department of Health said Tuesday night. The health department stated it will distribute the first shipment...
Allegheny Health Network announces leadership changes at Allegheny Valley Hospital, elsewhere
A Forbes Hospital executive has been tapped to the senior leadership team at Allegheny Valley Hospital in Harrison, officials announced Tuesday. Krista Bragg, chief operations officer at Forbes, will take on the chief operations officer responsibilities at Allegheny Valley, effective immediately. In a similar expanded-role job change, Jason Roeback, chief...
Gov. Andrew Cuomo: New York has seen 100 children with illness linked to coronavirus
Amber Dean had recovered from a mild bout of the coronavirus and her family of five had just ended their home quarantine when her oldest son, 9-year-old Bobby, fell ill. “At first it was nothing major, it seemed like a tummy bug, like he ate something that didn’t agree with...
New coronavirus test is imperfect step toward mass screening
WASHINGTON — A new type of coronavirus test offers a cheaper, quicker way to screen for infections, moving the U.S. toward the kind of mass screening that experts say is essential to returning millions of Americans to school and work. But the first so-called antigen test — announced Saturday by...
Mobile coronavirus testing coming to Pittsburgh’s Homewood neighborhood
Allegheny Health Network said Monday it is launching a new mobile initiative to take covid-19 testing into underserved Western Pennsylvania communities. The first AHN mobile covid-19 testing site is scheduled to be open for appointments from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday and Thursday outside the Alma Illery Medical Center...
Court halts ban on mass gatherings at Kentucky churches
FRANKFORT, Ky. — A federal court halted the Kentucky governor’s temporary ban on mass gatherings from applying to in-person religious services, clearing the way for Sunday church services. U.S. District Judge Gregory F. Van Tatenhove on Friday issued a temporary restraining order enjoining Gov. Andy Beshear’s administration from enforcing the...
‘It’s gone haywire’: When COVID-19 arrived in rural America
DAWSON, Ga. — The reverend approached the makeshift pulpit and asked the Lord to help him make some sense of the scene before him: two caskets, side by side, in a small-town cemetery busier now than ever before. Rev. Willard O. Weston had already eulogized other neighbors lost to COVID-19,...
Stuck on cruise ships during pandemic, crews beg to go home
MIAMI — Carolina Vásquez lost track of days and nights, unable to see the sunlight while stuck for two weeks in a windowless cruise ship cabin as a fever took hold of her body. On the worst night of her encounter with COVID-19, the Chilean woman, a line cook on...
Rare inflammatory condition affects some children with covid-19Video
Dozens of U.S. children have been hospitalized with a serious inflammatory condition possibly linked with the coronavirus and first seen in Europe. New York authorities announced Wednesday that 64 potential cases had been reported to the state. The advisory followed an alert earlier this week about 15 cases in New...
Gov. Wolf signs order granting civil immunity to health care providers during covid-19 pandemic
Gov. Tom Wolf signed an executive order Wednesday that could shield health care workers from potential lawsuits while confronting the covid-19 pandemic. The order grants civil immunity to individual licensed, certified and registered health care workers acting in “good faith” across all types of state-defined health care facilities — among...
Many new Allegheny County coronavirus cases linked to long-term care facilities
Nearly half of recent cases of the coronavirus reported in Allegheny County are linked to long-term care facilities, Allegheny County Health Department officials said Wednesday. Between April 20 and May 5, county health department staff started investigations on 352 new cases of covid-19. Of that total, 123 people, or 35%...
Pittsburgh’s Jewish Association on Aging will hold in-person Mother’s Day visits through windows
Mother’s Day visits amid coronavirus restrictions at nursing and personal care homes will be possible at the Jewish Association on Aging facilities in Pittsburgh. There’s no hugging, though. The in-person Mother’s Day visits at Charles Morris Nursing and Rehabilitation Center, Weinberg Terrace and Weinberg Village will be held through plexiglass...
Pittsburgh HIV/AIDS advocate August Pusateri dies
August “Buzz” Pusateri played an integral role in the Pitt Men’s Study, a confidential research study of the natural history of HIV and AIDS. Not only did he believe in the importance of recruiting volunteers to help further research, he was one of the project’s first volunteers. Twice a year,...
The second virus wave: How bad will it be as lockdowns ease?Video
ROME — From the marbled halls of Italy to the wheat fields of Kansas, health authorities are increasingly warning that the question isn’t whether a second wave of coronavirus infections and deaths will hit, but when — and how badly. In India, which partly relaxed its lockdown this week, health...
Allegheny Health Network resumes elective surgeries, increases
in-person appointments
Allegheny Health Network this week resumed elective surgeries and appointments at all of its medical facilities in response to the region’s decline in new coronavirus cases. The health care provider said it is “returning to a more normalized schedule and protocols for medical appointments and non-emergent surgical procedures after six...
