Acute Kidney Injury with Covid-19; Passive Immunisation; Online GPs; face mask interactions

There are a number of complications following infection with Covid-19 that doctors are continuing to find in hospitals. One of the most significant is an acute kidney injury or AKI which can come alongside the disease and NICE has just published rapid guidance to help healthcare staff on the Covid frontline who are not kidney specialists. Inside Health’s Erika Wright has been following staff at Southampton General Hospital during the coronavirus outbreak and meets Kirsty Armstrong, Clinical Lead for Renal Services, to discuss managing kidneys and Covid.

Could injecting blood donated from a patient who has recovered from Covid 19 into someone who is ill help the recipient recover too? It’s a potentially viable treatment with a long history, known as convalescent plasma therapy, and trials of this technique against Covid are beginning around the world. We hear from Jeff Henderson, Professor of Medicine at Washington University in St Louis, on progress in the world’s largest trial of this passive immunisation against the virus in the US, and from James Gill, Honorary Clinical Lecturer at Warwick Medical School, who’s been following the latest game-changing refinement of this therapy.

Just as the rest of us have been getting better at zoom meetings and remembering to unmute ourselves when we want to speak, so have GPs who are now getting rather good at having online consultations. Will this change the way we “go to the doctor” forever or is there sometimes no substitute for face to face contact? Dr Margaret McCartney gives a GP’s insights.

As more people begin to wear face masks what kind of impact does it have on communication when a person’s mouth is covered up and it’s hard to tell whether someone is happy or cross? Claudia discusses this question with George Hu, a clinical psychologist in Shanghai where masks have now become ubiquitous, and Alexander Todorov, Professor of Psychology at Princeton University and author of the book “Face Value : The Irresistible Influence of First Impressions”. Are we more versatile in interpreting a masked person’s mood or intentions than we think?

Producer: Adrian Washbourne