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MONDAY, March 30, 2020 (HealthDay News) -- As hospitals give more and more COVID-19 patients albuterol to help them breathe, people with asthma may have a hard time getting an inhaler. The American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology (ACAAI) said some areas of the United States are experiencing shortages of albuterol inhalers, and the shortage may spread. But Dr. Michael Blaiss, executive medical director of the ACAAI, emphasized that it is "nothing to panic about." Manufacturers are trying to keep up with the unexpected surge in demand, he said. Production issues are not to blame. "No one should panic or hoard albuterol, though since you need a prescription, it's not possible to hoard like toilet paper. But don't put your albuterol asthma inhalers on autofill. If your...

MONDAY, March 30, 2020 (HealthDay News) -- Once infected with the new coronavirus, a 20-something has about a 1% chance of illness so severe it requires hospitalization, and that risk rises to more than 8% for people in their 50s and to nearly 19% for people over 80, a comprehensive new analysis finds. On the other hand, the death rate from COVID-19 is significantly lower than that seen in prior estimates, the new report found. Among diagnosed cases, just under 1.4% of patients will die, according to a team led by Neil Ferguson, of the Imperial College London. And when undiagnosed cases -- typically individuals with mild or no symptoms -- are added into the mix, the overall death rate from coronavirus infections drops further to 0.66%, the British researchers found. That's still...

MONDAY, March 30, 2020 (HealthDay News) -- A small study out of China bolsters the notion that transfusing the antibody-enriched blood of people who've survived COVID-19 could help patients still fighting for their lives against the disease. The study of five critically ill patients from near the initial epicenter of the novel coronavirus pandemic found that all five patients survived COVID-19 following the transfusion. If the findings are replicated in larger trials, widespread use of the treatment "could help change the course of this pandemic," wrote Drs. John Roback and Jeannette Guarner of Emory Medical Laboratories, affiliated with Emory University in Atlanta. Roback and Guarner wrote an editorial accompanying the new Chinese study, which was published online March 27 in the...

MONDAY, March 30, 2020 (HealthDay News) -- An international team has designed a computer program that predicts with up to 80% accuracy which COVID-19 patients will develop serious respiratory disease. Developed by U.S. and Chinese researchers, the artificial intelligence (AI) program has been tested at two hospitals in China with 53 patients who were diagnosed in January with COVID-19. The new tool is considered experimental and is now in testing. The aim is to help doctors make the best use of limited resources, by identifying early on which patients will likely need hospital beds and which can be sent home for self-care. In theory, it could also help direct administration of aggressive treatment even in the initial absence of severe symptoms. "Of those who have symptoms, 80% --...