Inside STAT: Doctors race to understand what Covid-19 means for people with HIV

LARRY PIKE, WHO HAS HAD HIV FOR 22 YEARS AND WAS DIAGNOSED WITH COVID-19, OUTSIDE HIS APARTMENT IN SEATTLE. (COURTESY LARRY PIKE)

A question that infectious disease doctors have been getting from their patients with HIV is what that infection means for their chances of getting Covid-19 — and many have not had answers. That was the case with Seattle-area physician Adrienne Shapiro. “When patients ask what is happening with people with HIV and Covid, I’ve had to be honest and say I just don’t know,” Shapiro tells STAT contributor Usha Lee McFarling, adding, “We as clinicians have been flying blind in this pandemic.” Now, in an effort to provide answers, Shapiro and a colleague at the University of California, San Diego, have launched a nationwide study that relies on a preexisting network of patients with HIV to examine how Covid-19 is affecting this population. Read more here.