Columbia University's Center for Infection and Immunity director Dr. Ian Lipkin recently did an interview on FOX Business Network’s "Lou Dobbs Tonight" to discuss how he's participating in blood plasma therapy trials to see how effective they can be in treating some of the most severely affected COVID-19 positive patients.
As the doctor explained, these blood plasma samples will be taken from recovered patients to see if they can prevent infection or progression of infection in trials. Little is known about the effectiveness of these samples and Lipkin mused that there may be some cases where they actually cause more harm than help. Even if effective, it will be a tedious process and a single plasma donor can help about 3-4 people. Lipkin added that the best tool to fight coronavirus is still isolation and confinement.
Toward the end of the interview, Dr. Lipkin threw a curve ball at guest host David Asman.
"I would just like to say on this show tonight that this has become very personal for me too because I have COVID as of yesterday and it is miserable," Lipkin revealed.
"I heard you cough," Asman said. "I didn't want to be a hypochondriac and say I hope you don't have it, but you do!"
"If it can hit me, it can hit everybody," Lipkin concluded.
Dr. Lipkin also served as the main medical consultant behind the movie “Contagion," which has grown in popularity over the past few weeks for obvious reasons. The 2011 Steven Soderbergh film is not available on any streaming services, but it has seen a huge spike in downloads.
There are four instances of Contagion downloads spiking between the end of January and early March. Each increase in downloads, varying from a couple of hundred to nearly 20,000, is timed to a major news event in the spread of the new disease. Prior to January 24th, Contagion was seeing a couple of hundred downloads a day. On January 25th, it jumped to over 1,500. By January 29th, when news began circulating that the new coronavirus had touched down in the United States, it was over 18,000 downloads. (The Verge)
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