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HLA SNPs did not emerge as significant in the two studies to date of over 2,600 people with self-reported CFS in the UK Biobank. However, as the biobank doesn't have full sequences of HLA regions, only SNP genotyping, I don’t think it would have been able to look at all the alleles in the...

Commentary HLA alleles associated with ME/CFS. Lande, 2020 Summary Human leucocytes Antigen (HLA) proteins play an essential role in helping the immune system to recognise pathogens. This new research is easily the best study yet of HLA alleles (gene variants) in ME/CFS. It finds links between...

Good chance that will happen, possibly two of them (this is the other one, Scandinavian)

So far, China seems to be successful in getting people back to work and businesses running again, without a new epidemic flareup. Here’s a piece from the reputable Science magazine (run by the journal Science)...

The CDC (and at least one other source I’ve seen) say that diluting bleach according to the manufacturer's instructions for disinfecting can kill the Coronavirus in one minute. For Domestos, that works out at a dilation of about 25 to 1, according to the Bottle I’ve got...

Yes, it’s a modest effect size, but there is correction for multiple comparisons (how nice to see). It could be a signal related to autoimmune and/or infectious subgroups. Ron Davis is also looking at HLA genes, so there should be a replication on the way “Dr Ron Davis has won a large NIH (US...

"The Hammer and the dance" article by Tomas Pueyo is rightly getting plaudits so I thought I'd summarise the key points. The Hammer is the initial hard crackdown of strict social distancing needed to rescue countries that have lost control (also seen in Wuhan). The author argues it shouldn't...

Looks like we have DominicCummins and Patrick Vallance to thank for our current situation - at least according to this Buzzfeed report (thanks to @Andy, I think, for posting earlier) 10 Days That Changed Britain: "Heated" Debate Between Scientists Forced Boris Johnson To Act On Coronavirus...

I put my posts about the Imperial college paper out as a blog, with a bit more explanation. I know this group has moved on but it's here as a reference. The section on Yo-yo control might be of interest Until very recently, the US and UK governments were taking a relatively gentle approach to...

I am wondering what the implications of this might be. Secondary infection is possible for some people, but tends to be pretty mild. That is good for the individuals concerned but not good for the herd immunity and those people are also likely to spread the illness to those not yet exposed...

There is some great data from Italy on this. Apologies to whoever posted it earlier in the thread (tweet of a newspaper article, I think, and PDF with data - all in Italian), can't find the source now. But here are the key figures. It's all about age and health...

This is a very important thread, in my view, putting forward the idea that suppression can be better sustained if we move to a programme of massive testing (though not testing everyone). The author calls this "the Apollo challenge of our time". Basically, a massive if expansion of testing...

Could you say which episode of The Week in Virology this is from? There have been a lot of episodes this week…

Imperial college paper comment (continued from here) So mitigation, or "flattening the curve" looks like a very poor strategy. Note that is it involves having R0 >1, so the epidemic continues to build until it burns itself out. Suppression strategy Notice that this is suppression rather than...

Some thoughts on the Imperial College modelling paper I know that the findings of this paper have been discussed at length, but I thought it might be worth saying a bit more about how the model works and identifying the assumptions it makes, some which I found quite surprising. How the model...

Additional for routine testing of NHS frontline staff...

Full text of imperial paper here https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/medicine/sph/ide/gida-fellowships/Imperial-College-COVID19-NPI-modelling-16-03-2020.pdf Note that the simulation had already been published and shared with UK/US governments Summary The global impact of...

I realise I have missed about thousand posts so these points may have been covered before. However, here are some thoughts and, more importantly, a question about the best way forward. Some assumptions: 1. It is not possible to put the genie back in the bottle, it is about how best to manage...

The conference program looks pretty interesting to me. PDF of two day programme attached, and here are my personal highlights: Day One 9:45 AM a community partnership: the MRC/NIHR application — Chris Ponting reports on the huge GWAS application that includes two patient representatives...

So, live tweeting but no live streaming, with videos posted after the event.