Covid-19: What about the doctors?

The status of 7,000 foreign doctors chosen to begin medical residencies in American teaching hospitals — hospitals that will desperately need their help to cope with Covid-19 — is in doubt because the State Department has temporarily stopped issuing the visas most of them would need to enter the country, STAT’s Helen Branswell reports, citing a group that sponsors international medical graduates.

More developments:

• When might experimental drugs to treat Covid-19 be ready? STAT's Matthew Herper has the forecast.
• Health workers are flagging the loss of one’s sense of smell as a potential new symptom of Covid-19 — but they caution the evidence is preliminary, STAT's Erin Brodwin reports.
• The scope of the clinical trial delays and suspensions is hard to quantify, but consider this snapshot: Biotech and pharma companies are currently running more than 120 Phase 3 clinical trials with top-line data readouts expected before the end of the year, STAT’s Adam Feuerstein notes. 
• As we come together to fight today's Covid-19 crisis, we must also look ahead to the next one and make sure we have new antibiotics in place to fight the bacterial infections that follow viral ones, Julie Gerberding writes in STAT First Opinion.