The biology of coronavirus COVID-19 - including research and treatments

Yes, lockdown ASAP would have been hard to fault.

What do you think about the Moderna mRNA vaccine? Isn't that a realistic hope for a vaccine in a shorter time than conventional methods?

https://pipelinereview.com/index.ph...-Coronavirus-mRNA-1273-for-Phase-1-Study.html

 

To answer my own question, with a crash course in immunology for today's homework, TWiV have a report on the fast track vaccine candidates.
http://www.virology.ws/2020/03/11/sars-cov-2-the-vaccine-landscape/

TWiVs Helen Stillwell is reporting the phase 1 preliminary vaccine test results might be in by August.

One caveat, Dr Jose Esparza (who was once at IVIC, where I briefly studied nociception before ruling myself out of post grad due to still being too ill and undiagnosed,) comments on a need to pretest the vaccine before human trials due to a potential for Antibody Dependent Enhancement of Infectivity (ADE), whereby viruses benefit from immune reactions, in this case coronavirus protein spikes are thought to bind (EDIT CORRECTION) to ACE2 receptors in the lungs, arteries, heart, kidney, and intestines but an antibody to the vaccine might bind to the virus without neutralising it and allow it to gain access to different cells due to the antibody acting as a link.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severe_acute_respiratory_syndrome_coronavirus_2
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Angiotensin-converting_enzyme_2
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antibody-dependent_enhancement

If I remember correctly Moderna have chosen the SARS-CoV-2 spike sequence as their antigen.

Wikipedia comfortingly reports ADE complications in vivo are rare, which is good, as I would hate to die a common death!

(re EDIT I am sorry but I had a bad day the first time I tried to study this and misunderstood.)

 

Merged thread on lung damage
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.sc...ona-can-be-left-gasping-for-breath-afterwards

 

https://www.google.com/amp/s/inews....ge-that-takes-15-years-to-recover-2451310?amp

 

This is significant for PWME, because if they were affected this way many wouldn't be able to do cardiovascular exercise to improve their lung capacity.

 

I hope this is the right thread to put this. It has been reported in The Age today as an important breakthrough which could help speed up finding a vaccine:

"Doctors took four blood samples before and after her recovery and identified the antibodies recruited by the body to fight the illness.

Laboratory head Katherine Kedzierska said the scientists found the woman's immune system responded to coronavirus in the similar way humans fight off influenza.

This suggests an otherwise healthy person could be expected to fight off a mild to moderate case of coronavirus in about three days.

"We found that although COVID-19 is caused by a new virus, in a previously healthy patient robust immune responses can be elicited and associated with clinical recovery," she said.

"What we found was that three days after the patient was admitted, we saw large populations of several immune cells, which are often a tell-tale sign of recovery during seasonal influenza infection, so we predicted that the patient would recover in three days, which is exactly what happened."

The findings, which were published in the Nature Medicine Journal on Tuesday, are the first time a broad immune responses to COVID-19 has been reported globally."

https://www.theage.com.au/national/...ghts-in-vax-breakthrough-20200316-p54ap7.html

ETA - I found the article from Nature Medicine:
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0819-2

 

https://www.evolutamente.it/covid-1...Hh2iuoY1VRgYwArdMNPg1qSHGB3QhW7YhbQBwfLYhdykw

 

Merged thread

Article continues here : https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/926682

 

Oh dear. But I guess even a stopped clock can be right sometimes? I don't care about the author's credentials, only about the quality of the science in this particular article. Which might be dubious, I don't know.

 

To clarify after merge - this is responding to the post about the article on feral-oral transmission.

What does that mean?

 

Probably that they found virus rna but don't know if live virus exists in that medium - or if it's there coz the body killed it and is disposing of it.

But I'm just guessing.

 

Not sure if this has been posted yet, there is new data showing that being infected once leads to immunity according to this study in rhesus macaques.

"Taken together, our results indicated that the primary SARS-CoV-2 infection could protect from subsequent exposures, which have the reference of prognosis of the disease and vital implications for vaccine design."

This was mentioned in today's press conference by our CDC as well as by one of our leading experts (Christian Drosten), so I think there is reason to be hopeful.

 

https://theguardian.com/world/2020/mar/18/japanese-flu-drug-clearly-effective-in-treating-coronavirus-says-china

favipiravir

 

Regarding HIV meds/Kaletra, new study says

"In hospitalized adult patients with severe Covid-19, no benefit was observed with lopinavir–ritonavir treatment beyond standard care."

 

Here's a piece from Le Devoir in Montreal on the testing of a 'vaccine' in Seattle, and Quebec's own desire to get a vaccine going. Document is in French. But most of your read French, from what I understand. https://www.ledevoir.com/societe/science/575279/essais-cliniques-en-accelere

 

Yes that seems a bizarre statement surely that would make it a virus that wouldn't cause symptoms in us?

So why did this suddenly change if that is true?