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Tribune News Service logoPregnant women with coronavirus infection can pass it to their babies, study finds
A study of 33 pregnant women in China who were infected with the new coronavirus found that three of them gave birth to babies with COVID-19.

All three infants survived after receiving treatment for their symptoms, doctors reported Thursday in the medical journal JAMA Pediatrics.

One of those infants was delivered by cesarean section nearly nine weeks before its due date because the mother was suffering from pneumonia caused by COVID-19. That baby’s health problems were primarily due to being born prematurely, not because it was infected with the coronavirus known as SARS-CoV-2, the authors wrote.

“The clinical symptoms from 33 neonates with or at risk of COVID-19 were mild and outcomes were favorable,” wrote the authors, who were from two children’s hospitals in Wuhan and one in Shanghai.

The innovative mask uses Halyard H600 two-ply spun polypropylene that cannot be penetrated by water, bacteria or particles. It blocks 99.9% of particulates, making the masks about 4% more effective at blocking particulate material than the N95 masks, according to Bruce Spiess, M.D., a professor of anesthesiology in the UF College of Medicine, who made that calculation based on the manufacturer’s specifications.

The Halyard material, which comes in 4-by-4-foot sheets, is typically discarded after surgical instrument trays are unwrapped and before coming into contact with patients. About 10 masks can be made from one sheet, and an estimated 500 to 1,000 sheets are likely available from UF Health hospitals every day, according to Spiess.

“This material is otherwise thrown out, so by taking it, cutting it and making masks out of it, we’ve repurposed it,” said Spiess, who came up with the idea.

UF Health hospital administrators and infection control experts have given him approval to proceed with the project. UF Health officials noted the masks, which are not certified as an N95 mask and are not intended to replace the N95, will give the health care system future capacity if there is a critical shortage of N95 masks.

"I don't believe you need 40,000 or 30,000 ventilators. You know, you go to major hospitals, sometimes they have 2 ventilators." -- Trump suggests Cuomo is exaggerating about the medical gear he needs to keep people alive

Here's where this thing is headed -- Trump is going to blame blue state officials for coronavirus deaths in their states while trying to restore a sense of normalcy in the red and purple states he views as key to his reelection hopes.