In this special episode, Daniel Griffin answers listener questions on COVID-19 vaccines, vaccine misinformation, long COVID, masking and distancing, school safety, and much more.
Moriah and Joseph join the nearly complete TWiV team to discuss their work on genetic variation and adaptability in herpes simplex virus, and how rotavirus infection disrupts intracellular calcium homeostasis. Live streamed during the 2021 annual meeting of the American Society for Virology.
In COVID-19 clinical update #72, Daniel Griffin covers long term symptoms in children, outcomes for MIS-C, recent guidance from the American Academy of Pediatrics, a large well traced outbreak of delta variant, low dose mRNA vaccination generates durable T cell memory and antibodies, protective immunity in recovered patients, assessment of BinaxNOW, no effect of oral azithromycin, post-discharge symptoms in Nigeria, and therapeutics for low and middle income countries.
On this episode, broadening of immune responses to SARS-CoV-2 after mRNA vaccine booster to ChAdOx1 nCoV-19, five-fold underestimation of the number of cases in the US during the first six months of the pandemic, and a monoclonal antibody that broadly neutralizes many different sarbecoviruses.
The Team with Invincible Values discusses whether dogs or cats passively carry SARS-CoV-2 on hair and foot pads, maternal to fetal transfer of antibodies in infected or vaccinated pregnant women, and evidence that retroviruses infected cetaceans before and after they moved into the oceans.
In COVID-19 clinical update #71, Daniel Griffin reviews updated school and child care guidance from CDC, transmission in schools, accuracy of lateral flow assays, update to J&J/Janssen vaccine EUA to include GBS, interim immunogenicity of Ad.26.CoV2.s, effectiveness of mRNA vaccines to prevent hospitalization, Bamlanivimab plus Etesevimab for mild or moderate disease, and a meta-analysis of ivermectin results.
TWiV reviews evidence that COVID-19 mRNA vaccination of both uninfected and previously infected persons elicits cross-variant neutralizing antibodies, and directed evolution of a bacterial protein to form a virus-like capsid that specifically packages its encoding mRNA.
In COVID-19 clinical update #70, Daniel Griffin discusses efficacy of portable air cleaners, vaccine induced serum neutralizing antibodies against variants, prevention and attenuation of disease with mRNA vaccines, ivermectin to prevent hospitalization, IL-6 antagonists and mortality, and impact of vaccination on long COVID.
Ron Fouchier explains why increased transmission of SARS-CoV-2-variants has not been demonstrated, and their ability to displace ancestral variants is due to greater fitness, much like influenza virus antigenic variation leads to better fitness and replacement of previously circulating variants.
TWiV reviews an analysis of animal sales from Wuhan wet markets before the COVID-19 pandemic, control of dengue by release of Wolbachia-infected mosquitoes, and fatal dengue acquired in Florida.