Brigham and Women's reported this afternoon that 19 staffers and 9 patients have now tested positive for Covid-19 in a cluster related to two units, and that 600 additional people are now awaiting testing.
The hospital says all of the cases have been in people connected to its Braunwald Tower 16A and 14CD units. Read more.
NBC Boston reports on a cluster of Covid-19 cases among 19 patients and staffers in two medical/surgical units, with another 420 people awaiting test results.
WBZ reports on the lawsuit by the family of Justin Root, fatallly shot in Chestnut Hill after threatening police with what turned out to be a fake gun outside Brigham and Women's Hospital. A valet was injured by a bullet shot at Root by an officer.
Complete complaint (3M PDF).
WBUR reports on efforts by Black residents at Mass. General, Brigham and Women's and Boston Medical Center to boost both minority employment and do more about health disparities between white and minority patients.
Starting this week, some people going in for Covid-19 testing in New York City will be asked to have two swabs stuck up their noses, one a traditional plastic stick tipped with cotton or nylon, the other also a plastic stick, but one that ends in a corkscrew design rather than having something absorbent attached to it, and designed by researchers at Harvard's Wyss Institute, based at Brigham and Women's Hospital. Read more.
The Harvard Gazette interviews Paul Biddinger, medical director for emergency preparedness at Partners Healthcare, which owns both Massachusetts General and Brigham and Women's hospitals, who says that while the volume of patients continues to increase, we may no longer be heading toward a hospital collapse of the sort seen in Italy: Read more.
WBZ reports the booth, based on a design from South Korea, lets clinicians examine and test people with Covid-19 symptoms from behind a polycarbonate shield, meaning they don't have to use a new set of increasingly rare personal protective equipment for each patient.
NBC Boston reports both Brigham and Women's and Mass. General each reported more than 40 Covid-19 diagnoses among its workers, while Boston Medical Center reported 15.
Brigham and Women's Hospital and Mass. General have issued a plea to researchers who might have the instruments and components they would need to begin producing Covid-19 test kits: Read more.
Officials at Partners HealthCare - which includes MGH, Brigham and Women's and McLean Hospital - yesterday directed their large research staffs to begin shutting down their labs to keep people away from each other, and told them to expect the labs to stay shut for up to eight weeks. Researchers working on Covid-19, however, will be allowed to continue their lab work. Read more.
Shattuck Street, a narrow street behind Brigham and Women's Hospital's main building, has been shut to allow for a temporary receiving area for as many as 60 people, likely from that Marriott Long Wharf meeting held last week by Cambridge's Biogen, to be tested for possible Covid-19 infection. Read more.
Boston Police this afternoon released some preliminary information on the morning incident that ended with a Brigham and Women's Hospital valet wounded, the suspect dead, the hospital locked down and several cars damaged in a crash that shut the westbound side of Rte. 9 in Brookline. Read more.
Roads into Longwood Medical Area were shut. Photo by Kristin Johnson.
UPDATE: Valet now in critical condition.
A shooting on Fenwood Road outside a Brigham and Women's building shortly after 9 a.m. resulted in a chase that ended with a car crash outside the Star Market on Rte. 9 in Newton and a suspect taken away in critical condition. Read more.
Two days after prosecutors unsealed the case against a Chinese researcher they charge tried to sneak 21 vials of biological samples from Beth Israel out of the country, Brigham and Women's Hospital is warning all of its doctors and researchers not to make the same mistake. Read more
A roving UHub photographer spotted staffers at Brigham and Women's Hospital this morning testing a chemical decontamination tent in preparation for Monday's race.
Boston Children's Hospital is suing a Saudi prince it says has reneged on a commitment to pay for the care of a baby with a rare disease that can only be treated with an incredibly expensive drug. Read more.
The Boston Fire Department reports firefighters responded to 30 Shattuck St. - the Thorn Research Building at Brigham and Women's Hospital - this afternoon for "a small chemical solvent spill" on the 10th floor.
As a precaution, the 9th, 10th and 11th floors were evacuated. There were no injuries, the department reports.
UPDATE, 8:50 a.m. Partners reports the EPIC system is back up.
Patrick McMahon reports from a Mass. General waiting room that the Partners computer network was down.
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