September 30 coronavirus news

Team doctors have traced an outbreak of Covid-19 on the Notre Dame football team to two specific events, including a pregame meal, head coach Brian Kelly said Tuesday.

The University of Notre Dame announced Monday that 18 players had tested positive for the virus. Kelly told ESPN the team doctors are the ones who traced the infection to their game against South Florida 10 days ago.

Ahead of the September 19 blowout win, the team congregated for a pregame meal, and during the game, one player was treated for dehydration after throwing up on the sideline. That player later tested positive for coronavirus, according to Kelly.

"Throughout our entire time together, we had not had one meal where we sat down together. Everything was grab and go," Kelly told said.

Stemming from their recent testing results, Notre Dame said Monday that 25 football players were in isolation with 14 others in quarantine.

"Shifting sands": After the sideline incident in the South Florida game, Kelly disclosed the challenges of containing the virus.

"We have to think about giving antigen tests on the sidelines for stuff that we never thought of," he said. "That's the kind of shifting sands in this whole thing, learning in-game what do you do, what don't you do."

The positive tests forced the Fighting Irish to postpone last Saturday's game against Wake Forest University. The team's next game is scheduled for October 10 against Florida State University at home in South Bend, Indiana.

Biotechnology company Regeneron released some early results of tests using its antibody cocktail in coronavirus patients Tuesday, and said it seemed to reduce levels of the virus and improve symptoms in patients.

The greatest improvements were seen in patients who hadn't already mounted a natural response to the infection, the company said.

The results only involve 275 patients of the 1,000 they have enrolled in this particular trial, but appear "very promising," Dr. Jeanne Marrazzo, the director of the division of infectious diseases at University of Alabama at Birmingham, told CNN.

The treatment also showed positive trends at reducing medical visits for the patients, none of whom were sick enough to be hospitalized at the start of the trial, the company said. The numbers in this early release of information were small and the data has not been peer reviewed yet. Only topline data was available in a news release from the company.

A company spokesperson said the data validates the treatment as a therapeutic substitute for a natural response to the virus.

Marrazzo said what stood out to her is that the study characterized patients by their immune responses prior to treatment and determined who did and did not benefit.

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Americans over 30 have been drinking more during the coronavirus pandemic compared to this time last year, and there could be consequences to their physical and mental health, researchers reported Tuesday.

Overall frequency of alcohol consumption increased by about 14% from 2019, the researchers reported in the journal JAMA Network Open. That increase averages out to about one additional drinking day per month by 75% of adults.

RAND Corporation sociologist Michael Pollard and colleagues analyzed a nationally representative sample of 1,540 people ages 30 to 80. The participants completed a survey about their drinking habits between April 29 and June 9 of 2019 and then again between May 28 and June 16 of 2020.

The volunteers reported they drank alcohol on more days every week. They also reported increases in the number of drinks they had; the number of heavy drinking days; and the number of alcohol related problems over the last 30 days between 2019 and 2020.

Frequency of drinking increased by 17% among women, 19% among people aged 30 to 59 and by 10% among White people.

Heavy drinking among women increased by 41% -- about one additional day of heavy drinking for one in every five women. Nearly one in 10 women, or 39%, reported an increase in alcohol-related problems, the researchers found.

The researchers say it's important to watch for whether the increases in alcohol consumption persist over the pandemic, and whether there will be physical and mental health consequences as a result.

India's Vice President M. Venkaiah Naidu has tested positive for Covid-19, according to a tweet posted on his official Twitter account.

The tweet went on to say that Naidu is asymptomatic and in good health after undergoing a routine Covid-19 test on Tuesday morning. He has been advised to quarantine at home.

His wife, Usha Naidu, tested negative and is in self-isolation.