Twitter can be useful for something else than politics. #MSCovid 19

Hello all,

I'm just attending an online event on MS and the Covid virus. The above twitter handle is a good one for those active on Twitter. A brief review of some of the tweets renders me less nervous. It appears a number of MS patients have become infected with the virus on a variety of medications. The amazing thing is how connected we are world-wide, including obtaining information from places like Italy and Spain which are hot spots of Covid. In Italy they are talking about a group of MS patients (about 50); 48 had mild disease with only one patient requiring more aggressive care. All this information, of course, is not a substitute for good communication. Each patient is an individual, so we will need to make case by case decisions. However so far the news is reassuring.

However, unanswered questions remain. Of note, I did find one patient report where Covid developed 3 weeks after Lemtrada and the patient suffered only mild symptoms for a week. Another patient was on Gilenya in New Zealand and remained on the drug, again recovering over a week. For those interested in reading a more detailed discussion regarding Covid and MS, I highly recommend Bart's MS Blog. They have created a specific Covid microsite (whatever that is?). https://sites.google.com/giovannoni.net/clinicspeak-dmt/covid-19-ms?authuser=0