The University of Alabama at Birmingham and Southern Research of Birmingham will be part of an international program that will try to identify existing drugs that may be effective in treating people exposed to COVID-19.

The effort, coordinated by Scripps Research of La Jolla, California, involves ReFRAME, a large collection of drugs developed for other diseases and known to be safe for humans, UAB said today.
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An Alabama National Guard team was disinfecting at the Robert L. Howard State Veterans Home this morning as part of a mission to stop the spread of the Covid-19 virus at nursing homes around the state. 
The team, part of a special Guard task force, arrived in a white bus at the Pell City-based facility, one of four state veterans homes in Alabama. The Howard facility has 246 residents and 346 employees.
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LOCATION UPDATED — UAB will provide testing for COVID-19 in two community locations this week, offering the tests for people who cannot or don’t want to go to its downtown testing site, officials said today.

A mobile testing unit will go to Rock City at Central Park in the western area of Birmingham on Thursday from 1 to 3 p.m. and to Cathedral of the Cross in Center Point on Friday from 1 to 3 p.m. They will see people who have made appointments by calling 205-975-CV19 (2819). Participants must drive up to the mobile facility this week, but walk-up appointments are expected to start as early as next week. Read more.

In Alabama, COVID-19 is taking a significantly greater toll on black residents than on whites and the population in general, with a higher rate of disease incidence and a higher rate of fatalities as a result.

And what’s happening here reflects what’s happening all over the country, as acknowledged by a growing chorus of medical experts who are pointing out that COVID-19 is having a pronounced impact on the black community compared to the population in general.

For many people this revelation comes as a shock. Not so for Dr. Mona Fouad, director of the UAB Minority Health and Health Disparities Research Center, who has developed years of research telling her to expect this pandemic to hit black communities harder.
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CORONAVIRUS
The Rumor: Black Americans Are Not Affected as Much by the Coronavirus Pandemic.

As evidence mounts that black Americans are feeling a disproportionate weight of the coronavirus pandemic, some are unaware of an ironic rumor that has now been debunked.

That rumor held that black people were immune or more resistant to COVID-19.

Citylab.com characterized the rumor as an attempt at humor, with the March 14 headline, “Why You Should Stop Joking That Black People are Immune to Coronavirus.”

But the rumor persists. According to the newspaper The Baltimore Sun, as recently as April 14, “Baltimore officials are planning a targeted ad campaign to reach the city’s black residents in hopes of combating rumors that black people cannot get the new coronavirus, the city’s health commissioner announced Tuesday.”
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Prior to March and the COVID-19 outbreak in Alabama, Dr. Beverly Jordan’s medical practice in Enterprise did not conduct online telemedicine visits with patients.

But in a recent week, Professional Medical Associates conducted 30 remote visits with patients who either suspected they had COVID-19 or have pre-existing conditions and were trying to avoid the virus by staying home.

“This outbreak has clearly pushed telemedicine in this state,” Jordan said.
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The head of the Alabama Hospital Association says he’s confident the state’s hospitals will not go over capacity in dealing with COVID-19 patients. 
“I’m feeling optimistic that as long as we practice social distancing, we’re going to be okay as a state,” said Dr. Donald Williamson, president and CEO of the association. 
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