Coronavirus COVID-19 Daily Update 3rd April 2020

This update will be published daily at 12pm GMT and aims to provide clinicians and the public with an overview of the latest data, guidelines, key publications and policy around COVID-19, with links to essential resources and information.

If you are a healthcare professional, please join the discussion on these latest COVID-19 cases on MedShr:

Please post any COVID-19 cases, images or learning points from your clinical practice on MedShr - share key knowledge and experience with a global network of doctors to help improve patient care. Include #COVID19 in your case title.

Please email COVID@medshr.net if you have any data, publications or information you would like to share.

Global Impact of COVID-19 to Date

As of 3rd April 10:00 (GMT)

Source: Johns Hopkins University & Medicine

COVID-19 Cumulative Global Cases

As of 2nd April 09:00 (GMT)

Source: World Health Organisation

COVID-19 Global Active Cases Map

As of 3rd April 10:00 GMT

Source: Johns Hopkins University & Medicine

Total UK COVID-19 Cases

As of 2nd April

NB: Public Health England has now moved to a different reporting time for UK COVID-19 fatalities, as family consent is now needed to release mortality statistics. Hence the reported figures may not actually be the deaths that have taken place over the past 24 hours, meaning caution needs to be exercised when comparing figures from one day to the next.

Source: Public Health England

COVID-19 Cumulative UK Cases

As of 2nd April

Source: Public Health England

COVID-19 Daily UK Cases

As of 2nd April

Source: Public Health England

Latest Developments

Confirmed cases of Covid-19 in Europe, Middle East and North Africa

As of 3rd April 2020

Source: The Guardian

Coronavirus case trajectories

As of 3rd April 2020

Source: informationisbeautiful

Coronavirus death trajectories

As of 3rd April 2020

Source: informationisbeautiful

Infection & Fatality Rates by Country

As of 3rd April 2020

Source: informationisbeautiful

COVID-19 Key Data

As of 31st March 2020

Source: informationisbeautiful

Italy and Spain's daily death tolls are plateauing, but in the UK and US every day brings more new deaths than the last

As of 2nd April 2020

Source: Financial Times

Spain

Spain records first fall in daily death toll

Spain Ministry of Health Website

USA

US coronavirus death toll passes 6,000 as cases near 250,000

Coronavirus situation in the US

As of 3rd April 2020

Source: Financial Times

Centers for Disease Control and Prevention website

US Coronavirus (COVID-19) website

United Kingdom

Emergency Nightingale hospital opens today as Hancock says 'money is no object'

UK vows to test 100,000 a day by end April

UK Government Advice

Latest COVID-19 Publications

Some key recent publications to be aware of:

Identifcation of a potential mechanism of acute kidney injury during the COVID-19 outbreak: a study based on single-cell transcriptome analysis

Published 31st March 2020

Acute kidney injury (AKI) is one of the important complications of COVID19, occurring in 0.5–7% of cases and in 2.9–23% of ICU patients. However, whether the AKI of COVID-19 is caused by a coronavirus-induced cytopathic effect or cytokine storm-induced systemic inflammatory response remains unclear.

This study aimed to deduce the underlying mechanism of AKI in COVID-19, by performing single-cell RNA sequencing analysis to identify candidate kidney host cells. They concluded that the cytopathic effects of SARS-CoV-2 on podocytes and proximal straight tubule cells may cause AKI in patients with COVID-19.

The ACE2 expression in human heart indicates new potential mechanism of heart injury among patients infected with SARS-CoV-2

Published 30th March 2020

Angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2), the key host cellular receptor of SARS-CoV-2, has been identified in multiple organs, but its cellular distribution in human heart is not illuminated clearly. This study investigated ACE2 expression in adult human hearts from healthy and diseased individuals, to illuminate the potential capacity of heart infection by SARS-CoV-2.

The study revealed that pericytes with high expression of ACE2 might act as the target cardiac cell of SARS-CoV-2, and that patients with heart failure showed increased ACE2 expression at both mRNA and protein levels, meaning that if infected by the virus these patients may have higher risk of critical illness. The findings of this study may explain the high rate of severe cases among COVID-19 patients with cardiovascular disease.

Author: Dr Daniel Livingstone, MedShr - Health Education England Fellow